Concept
Formalism (art)
Overview
In art history, formalism is the study of art by analyzing and comparing form and style. Its discussion also includes the way objects are made and their purely visual or material aspects. In painting, formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape, texture, and other perceptual aspects rather than content, meaning, or the historical and social context. At its extreme, formalism in art history posits that everything necessary to comprehending a work of art is contained within the work of art. The context of the work, including the reason for its creation, the historical background, and the life of the artist, that is, its conceptual aspect is considered to be external to the artistic medium itself, and therefore of secondary importance.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
That these methods, however indispensable and brilliantly successful in their own province, are unserviceable for philosophical cognition, is self-evident. They have pre-suppositions; and their style of cognition is that of understanding, proceeding under the canon of formal identity. In Spinoza, who was especially addicted to the use of the geometrical method, we are at once struck by its characteristic formalism…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
States what Formalism is; names Formalism several times.
And since this harmony of the object with the faculties of the subject is contingent, it brings about the representation of its purposiveness in respect of the cognitive faculties of the subject.
Immanuel Kant, Kant's Critique of Judgement
States what Formalism is; the author is tied to Formalism in the knowledge graph.
On the one hand we _observe_ the science of art, merely so to speak, from an external point of view busying itself with actual works of art, cataloguing them in a history of art, drawing up a sort of commentary upon extant works, or propounding theories which are intended to supply the general points of view for artistic criticism no less than artistic production. On the other hand we find science wholly giving…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1
Close in meaning to Formalism; the term itself is not named.
Related ideas
- Analysis
- Immanuel Kant
- Art history
- Critique of Judgment
- Art
- Formalism (philosophy)
- Style (visual arts)
- Nick Zangwill
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Aesthetics.