Source: Principles of Gestalt Psychology, 1935, p. 208-9
“The second factor, equally important, is that of good continuation and good shape. The things which we see have a better shape, are bounded by better contours, than the holes which we might see but do not. Therefore, when in exceptional circumstances these conditions are reversed, we see the hole and not the things, as the shape of a gap between two projecting rocks with sharp profiles, which may look like a face, an animal, or some other object, while the shape of the rock disappears.”
Source: Principles of Gestalt Psychology, 1935, p. 209
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Kurt Koffka 12
German psychologist 1886–1941Related quotes
as cited in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 221: Remark in the 'Artists' Session' at Studio 35, 1950.
1950s

(describing Marx’s view), p. 21.
Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971)

Black Elk Speaks (1961)
Context: Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), III Six books on Light and Shade

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 270.

“These shapes are all out of someone's mind. That's important to see.”
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 8
Context: These shapes are all out of someone's mind. That's important to see. The steel? Hell, even the steel is out of someone's mind. There's no steel in nature. Anyone from the Bronze Age could have told you that. All nature has is a potential for steel. There's nothing else there. But what's "potential"? That's also in someone's mind!