The German word for ‘configuration’, ‘pattern’, and ‘whole’ which has passed into English because English lacks a precise equivalent. Its use in critical theory originates with Gestalt psychology developed by Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Köhler, which explored the psychology of perception and argued that the operational principle of perception is holistic (i.e. we see the outline of the whole first and fill in the details in stages). Gestalt theory passed easily into art theory, where it was used by the influential art historian Ernst Gombrich to create a dialectic between figure and ground.