Formative Years
Arnheim was born in Berlin, where his father, Georg Arnheim, owned a small piano factory. Despite the expectation that he should become a businessman, he enrolled at the University of Berlin in 1923. There, he majored in psychology and philosophy, with secondary emphases in the histories of art and music. It was there (in makeshift research facilities in the abandoned Imperial Palace) that he studied with the Gestalt psychologists, including Max Wertheimer (his Doktorvater), Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Lewin. His doctoral dissertation, which he completed in 1928, was a study of expression in human faces and handwriting.
Read more about this topic: Rudolf Arnheim
Famous quotes related to formative years:
“The social forces that operate on a family during the daughter’s formative years continue to shape her experience. Thus the families, schools, and jobs that involve poor women are likely to be very hierarchically arranged, demanding conformity, passivity, and obedience—all unsupportive of continued intellectual growth.”
—Mary Field Belenky (20th century)