Ian Verstegen is Associate Director of Visual Studies at University of Pennsylvania. Trained in Italian Renaissance art history, he also writes on art theory and historiography. He is the author of Arnheim, Gestalt and Art: A Psychological Theory (2004) and Arnheim, Gestalt and Media: An Ontological Theory (2018).

• Series Editor’s PrefacePreface by Richard WoodfieldIntroduction: ‘In the Beginning was the Eye, not the Word’The Challenge and the Pay-offThe PlayersThe CorpusGestalt Theory: Basis of the Viennese MethodDoing Vienna School Art HistoryPart I: Theory and Methodology1. The Crisis of the Sciences, Art History and the Vienna SchoolGestalt PsychologyHolism and PoliticsSedlmayr’s Turn Towards Iconology 2. The Basics of StrukturforschungHamburg IconologyTwo Sciences of Art Mental Set (Einstellung) Embedded Behaviour Reflexivity and Progress 3. Struktur, History and Determinism Genius Social Gestalten – Alfred VierkandtHistorical Chains Historical Compulsion Part II: Case Studies4. Hans Sedlmayr’s Borromini The BookSedlmayr’s Method Gebilde – Borromini’s Works Architektur – Borromini’s Theory Dokument – Borromini’s Character 5. Otto Pächt and ‘National’ Constants in Late Gothic Painting Design Principles: Technical and Aesthetic SpaceDesign Principles: Surface and PatternThe Netherlandish Design PrincipleThe Dutch Design PrincipleThe French Design PrincipleSchapiro’s Critique Reconstituting Art Historical ConstantsWhither Zeitgeist? 6. Johannes Wilde on Michelangelo: The Image in SpaceWilde and his Historical Method Function, Parts and Wholes An Erudite Chapel? Gestalt, Parts and Wholes 7. Otto Demus, Byzantine Art and the Spatial IconTowards Byzantine Mosaic Decoration The Icon in SpaceBeyond Byzantine Mosaic Decoration? Non-Western Art and Gestalt RestructuringConclusion: The Vienna School Today

Verstegen shows that art historians owe much to the affiliates of the new Vienna School because they made a conscious effort to analyze form rather than privilege subject matter, an idea that became central to scholarship informed by the work of Erwin Panofsky and other iconologists. Recommended.