Gaetano Kanizsa ( he, גאטאנו קאניזסא; 18 August 1913 – 13 March 1993) was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

and artist of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and Slovenian Catholic descent who last served as a founder of the Institute of Psychology of Trieste.

Biography

Gaetano Kanizsa was born on 18 August 1913 in

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

to a

Hungarian-Jewish The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived i ...

father from

Nagybecskerek Zrenjanin ( sr-Cyrl, Зрењанин, ; hu, Nagybecskerek; ro, Becicherecu Mare; sk, Zreňanin; german: Großbetschkerek) is a city and the administrative center of the Central Banat District in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbi ...

and a Slovene Catholic mother from

Bovec Bovec ( or ; , german: Flitsch, fur, Plèz) is a town in the Littoral region in northwestern Slovenia, close to the border with Italy. It is the central settlement of the Municipality of Bovec. Geography Bovec is located from the capital Ljublj ...

. His surname is analogous to the Hungarian town Kanizsa (now

Nagykanizsa Nagykanizsa (; hr, Velika Kaniža/Velika Kanjiža, or just ''Kaniža/Kanjiža''; german: Großkirchen, Groß-Kanizsa; it, Canissa; sl, Velika Kaniža; tr, Kanije), known colloquially as Kanizsa, is a medium-sized city in Zala County in southw ...

) He attended the classic lyceum and got the

laurea In Italy, the ''laurea'' is the main post-secondary academic degree. The name originally referred literally to the laurel wreath, since ancient times a sign of honor and now worn by Italian students right after their official graduation ceremony ...

(post-secondary academic degree) at the

University of Padova The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from B ...

in 1938, writing a thesis about

eidetic memory Eidetic memory ( ; more commonly called photographic memory or total recall) is the ability to recall an image from memory with high precision—at least for a brief period of time—after seeing it only onceThe terms ''eidetic memory'' and ''pho ...

. In 1947 he became a teaching assistant in the University of Florence. In 1953 he returned to Trieste with the role of full Professor at the

University of Trieste The University of Trieste ( it, Università degli Studi di Trieste, or UniTS) is a public research university in Trieste in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region in northeast Italy. The university consists of 10 departments, boasts a wide and almos ...

, which he held for 30 years. He retired from academic life in 1988 and continued research until 1993, the year of his death.

Psychology

A dominant figure in Italian psychology, Kanizsa became famous in the 70s, after having published an article about

illusory contours Illusory contours or subjective contours are visual illusions that evoke the perception of an edge without a luminance or color change across that edge. Illusory brightness and depth ordering often accompany illusory contours. Friedrich Schumann i ...

(''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

'', 1976) and the book ''Organization in Vision'' (1979). A figure in which three illusory contours form a triangle is known as a ''Kanizsa triangle''. To his scientific interest, Kanizsa added his painting activity.

Bibliography

* ''Organization in Vision: Essays on Gestalt Perception'', Praeger Publishers, 1979, ** ''Grammatica del vedere. Saggi su percezione e Gestalt'', Il Mulino,

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

, 1997 * ''Percezione, linguaggio, pensiero (Perception, speech, thought)'' by Gaetano Kanizsa, Paolo Legrenzi, M. Sonino, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1983 * ''Vedere e pensare (Seeing and thinking)'', Il Mulino, Bologna, 1991

External links

* Some of Kanizsa's paintings on https://web.archive.org/web/20080326194224/http://www.psico.univ.trieste.it/kanizsa/catalogo/catalogo.php3 {{DEFAULTSORT:Kanizsa, Gaetano 20th-century Italian Jews Italian Roman Catholics Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism Gestalt psychologists Italian psychologists Hungarian scientists Italian people of Hungarian descent Italian people of Slovene descent 1993 deaths 1913 births 20th-century psychologists