In
art theoryThe History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...
,
formalism is the concept that a
workA work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...
's
artistic valueArtistic merit is a term that is used in relation to cultural products when referring to the judgment of their perceived quality or value as works of art....
is entirely determined by its form--the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content. In visual art, formalism is a concept that posits that everything necessary to comprehending a work of art is contained within the work of art. The context for the work, including the reason for its creation, the historical background, and the life of the artist, is considered to be of secondary importance. Formalism is an approach to understanding art.
History of formalism
The concept of formalism can be traced as far back as
PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, who argued that '
eidosPlato's theory of Forms or theory of Ideas asserts that non-material abstract forms , and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. When used in this sense, the word form is often capitalized...
' (or shape) of a thing included our perceptions of the thing, as well as those sensory aspects of a thing which the human mind can take in. Plato argued that eidos included elements of
representationRepresentation is the use of signs that stand in for and take the place of something else. It is through representation that people organize the world and reality through the act of naming its elements...
and
imitationMimesis , from μιμεῖσθαι , "to imitate," from μῖμος , "imitator, actor") is a critical and philosophical term that carries a wide range of meanings, which include imitation, representation, mimicry, imitatio, receptivity, nonsensuous similarity, the act of resembling, the act of expression, and the...
, since the thing itself could not be replicated. Subsequently, Plato believed that eidos inherently was deceptive.
In 1890, the
Post-impressionistPost-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
painter
Maurice DenisMaurice Denis was a French painter and writer, and a member of the Symbolist and Les Nabis movements. His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art.-Childhood and education:...
wrote in his article 'Definition of Neo-Traditionism' that a painting was 'essentially a flat surface covered in colours arranged in a certain order.' Denis argued that the painting or sculpture or drawing itself, not the subject of the artistic work, gave pleasure to the mind.
Denis' emphasis on the form of a work led the
BloomsburyThe Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set was a group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury throughout the 20th century. This English collective of friends and relatives lived, worked or studied near Bloomsbury in London during the first half...
writer
Clive BellArthur Clive Heward Bell was an English Art critic, associated with formalism and the Bloomsbury Group.- Origins :Clive Bell was born in East Shefford, Berkshire, in 1881...
to write in his 1914 book,
Art, that there was a distinction between a thing's actual form and its 'significant form.' For Bell, recognition of a work of art as representational of a thing was less important than capturing the 'significant form', or true inner nature, of a thing. Bell pushed for an art that used the techniques of an artistic medium to capture the essence of a thing (its 'significant form') rather than its mere outward appearance.
Throughout the rest of the early part of the 20th Century, European
structuralistsStructuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
continued to argue that 'real' art was expressive only of a thing's ontological,
metaphysicalMetaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
or
essential natureIn philosophy, essentialism is the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. Therefore all things can be precisely defined or described...
. But European art critics soon began using the word 'structure' to indicate a new concept of art. By the 1930s and 1940s, structuralists reasoned that the mental processes and social preconceptions an individual brings to art are more important than the essential, or 'ideal', nature of the thing. Knowledge is created only through socialization and thought, they said, and a thing can only be known as it is filtered through these mental processes. Soon, the word 'form' was used interchangeably with the word 'structure'.
In 1940, the American art critic
Clement GreenbergClement Greenberg was an American essayist known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century...
, in an influential piece in
Partisan ReviewPartisan Review was an American political and literary quarterly published from 1934 to 2003, though it suspended publication between October 1936 and December 1937.-Overview:...
, argued that the value of art was located in its form, which is inseparable from its content. In a talk given by Clement Greenberg at Western Michigan University, January 18, 1983, he addressed the topic of 'formalism' directly.
Formalism was originally the name of a Russian art and literary movement before the First World War. And then it became used by the Bolsheviks (Communists is a dirty word) for any kind of art that was for its own sake. It became a dirty word like "art for art's sake," which is a valid notion. Sometime in the '50's the word formalism came up again in the mouths and at the pens of people I dare to call middlebrow. And then, it's true, I was made responsible for it, though I wasn't the only one, and by one of these easy inferences that plague human thought, it was held that I advocated a certain way of painting. Now, I haven't written a word in favor of a certain kind of painting that hasn't been made yet. You only write about art that's already been made. My prejudice, as Professor Link says, is towards representational painting, and it's the only kind I can do, but I had to accept the fact that the major painting of our time, and the major sculpture too, after a while, was abstract, because you can't choose what to like and what not to like. I say major because the difference between major and minor is very important. It became very important for this country in the '40s when the Abstract Expressionists finally decided they could compete with the French and stop being in tutelage. But my rhetoric wasn't very careful, otherwise I couldn't have been misunderstood to the extent I have been. I recognize that and I don't put the blame entirely on the people who misunderstood me. Though I still say I haven't written a word that gives you reason to think that I'm for abstract art, as such, as against other kinds of art. I wrote a piece called "Modernist Painting" that got taken as a program when it was only a description, and I was thought to believe in things that I was describing [as a program]. Again, it was the fault of my rhetoric. I was in favor of "pure" art in spite of the fact that I put quotation marks around "pure" or "purity" whenever I used them, because I don't believe there's any such thing as pure art. It was an illusion. It was a necessary illusion, apparently, for modernist artists and it helped produce some great art and some great poetry. A necessary illusion for Mallarmé, say, and for Valery, and maybe even for Ezra Pound. It was a necessary illusion for Picasso and for Cézanne. There is no such thing as pure art, or pure poetry, or pure music. Anyhow I don't believe there is such a thing. But I made the mistake of contenting myself with quotation marks and not saying "look, I don't believe this as a program, I'm simply describing." And so people assumed that was my program. I'd been describing what I thought had happened under modernism, and nothing more and nothing less. It was also inferred that I had said there was some necessity working in this although I said nothing to that effect. But I blame myself. I should have been more careful.
Formalism today
The concept of formalism in art continued to evolve through the 20th century. Some art critics argue for a return to the Platonic definition for Form as a collection of elements which falsely represent the thing itself and which are mediated by art and mental processes. A second view argues that representational elements must be somewhat intelligible, but must still aim to capture the object's 'Form'. A third view argues for a diale-discursive ontological knowledge. Instead, structuralists focused on how the creation of art communicate the idea behind the art. Whereas formalists manipulated elements within a medium, structuralists purposely mixed media and included context as an element of the artistic work. Whereas formalism's focus was the aesthetic experience, structuralists played down response in favor of communication.
Structuralism's focus on the 'grammar' of art reaches as far back as the work of
Marcel DuchampMarcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
. In many ways, structuralism draws on the tools of formalism without adopting the theory behind them.
See also
- Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
- Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
- Josef Albers
Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....
- Structuralism
Structuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
- Constructivism
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
- Modular constructivism
Modular constructivism is a style of sculpture that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s and was associated especially with Erwin Hauer and Norman Carlberg...
- Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
- Color field painting
- Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
- Lyrical Abstraction
Lyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
- Post-modernism
- Geometric abstraction
- Op Art
Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
- Elements of art
The Elements of Art are a commonly used group of aspects of a work of art used in teaching and analysis, in combination with the Principles of Art.-Space:...
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