2025/07/29 by Keating, Patrick
#Audiovisual criticism #Form #Gestalt psychology #Rudolf Arnheim
paper · doi:10.34632/jsta.2025.17822
Over the course of a long career, Rudolf Arnheim applied the principles of gestalt psychology to the study of art. One of his signature techniques was the use of schematic diagrams to illustrate the underlying structure of paintings and other artworks. Although Arnheim wrote extensively about cinema, he never applied his schematic diagrams to film examples. The audiovisual essay The Hidden Logic of Film Art addresses this gap, using animated diagrams to illustrate the underlying structure of a scene from Barry Lyndon (1975). This commentary situates The Hidden Logic of Film Art within a larger history of audiovisual criticism, where schematic diagrams have long been used to explain the nuances of film form.