Rudolf Arnheim (German: [ˈaʁnhaɪ̯m]; July 15, 1904 – June 9, 2007) was a German-born writer, art and film theorist, and perceptual psychologist.

He learned Gestalt psychology from studying under Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler at the University of Berlin and applied it to art.

In The Power of the Center, Arnheim addressed the interaction of art and architecture on concentric and grid spatial patterns.

He argued that form and content are indivisible, and that the patterns created by artists reveal the nature of human experience.

[2] Rudolf ended up spending more time at the university, and when he was at the factory he was distracting the employees with his inquisitions about the mechanics of the piano, so his father agreed to let him focus entirely on his education.

[1][2] Rudolf was interested in psychology as long as he could remember, with his specific memory of buying some of the first editions of Sigmund Freud's books when he was fifteen or sixteen.

[3] The Psychological Institute of Berlin University was located on two floors of the Imperial Palace, so Arnheim worked in makeshift laboratories decorated with paintings of angels and other artwork.

[2] For Arnheim's dissertation, Max Wertheimer asked him to study human facial expressions and handwriting and how they corresponded.

[3] Considering the timing of this essay, and the fact that in 1933 the sale of his book Film as Art was no longer permitted due to the Nazis, some of Arnheim's friends advised him that he should leave the country and so, in August 1933,[1][3] he moved to Rome.

[2] When World War II broke out, he moved to London, and he worked as a wartime translator for the British Broadcasting Corporation.

[2] In 1951, Arnheim was awarded another Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship so that he could take a leave from teaching and he wrote Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye.

[4] Although Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye took fifteen months to complete, he felt that he essentially wrote it in one long sitting.

[2] He argues that form and content are indivisible, and that the patterns created by artists reveal the nature of human experience.

He believed that artwork is visual thinking and a means of expression, not just putting shapes and colors together that look appealing.