Gestalt Theory in the Art of Chinese Cut-Paper - An Old Form with a New Perspective

“Gestalt Theory in Chinese Cut-Paper” uses Gestalt theory to analyze cut-paper to prove that human beings share visual perception despite cultural differences. In the 1920s, German Gestalt psychologists developed Gestalt visual principles to explain how human being’s brain organizes visual patterns. Gestalt principles occur widely in Chinese cut-paper, a folk art with a thousand years of history, even though Chinese folk artists knew nothing of Gestalt theory. That proves human beings possess many of the same visual perceptions and use the same visual principles to create art. This research project excited me because Gestalt visual principles with a reliable psychological basis provide the fundamental theory of cross-cultural visual communication. This bilingual book was published in 2008 in China and won Print magazine’s Regional Design Annual 2009 Excellence Award. The project was sponsored by a Lilly Research Fellowship.