Formalism

A detailed Summary of Formalism

What does the word formalism mean to you? Give a brief outline of your understanding of formalism historically and technically in the visual arts. How do you use formalism in your work? Is it a major consideration, is it a tool like any other, do you perhaps not concern yourself with such analyses. Discuss.

I was yet to come across the movement of formalism prior to researching for this essay but I will discuss what is now apparent to me, in my art and summerise this movement. Not concerning myself consciously with the ideals behind formalism in art ever before I now realise that I may have already used this tool, unknowingly. "These matters are not easy to be clear about if one has, in the background of one's mind, the traditional critical distinction between "form" and "content" as a valid and necessary distinction. To experience a work of art, as in making love, is to experience a human contact: and one can say equally well, the "content" is just the "form" involved or, the "form" is just the "content" involved." At first glance I do not make any distinction between form and content, an art work is a whole in my mind when I look upon it, I feel it is necessary to take in the full impact of an artwork and it needs both these

Formalism can also be traced back to artist J.A.M. Whistler and a handful of others. He believed that painting should exist for its own sake, not to convey literary or moral ideas, and he often gave his pictures musical titles to suggest an analogy with the abstract art of music.6 "Art should be independent of all claptrap-- should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it, and that is why I insist on calling my works "arrangements'' and "harmonies"." I disagree with Whistlers idea that art shouldn't convey moral ideas because art can be used as a tool and many artworks have changed attitudes and mindsets by conveying messages to the viewer. Art shouldn't just be about the aesthetics because it can have such a large influence on society.

All three of these art works communicate in some way simply because of their form, whether I have wanted it to or not. In each, lines and colours are combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions. One may distinguish form and content, when it is convenient to do so. One may also distinguish between content and subject matter; thus Clemet Greenberg: "Subject matter as distinguished from content: in the sense that every work or art must have content, but that subject matter is something the artist does or does not have in mind when he is actually at work" The viewer uses formalism as a tool to analyse art whereas whilst I create an art work I feel it necessary to look at all the aspects and concentrate on the idea or concept that I am trying to communicate. Therefore I do not use formalism as a main tool but it does come into play after the initial theme, idea or inspiration to create an artwork is set down. These aesthetic emotions one feels are from the forms I have put forth to make the art into a visual communication, we have no other means of recognising a work of art than our feeling for it and ultimately all aesthetic judgments must be matters of personal taste.

"...Greenberg championed the avant garde movement of formal abstraction over any other approach to visual art, severely influencing both practice and patronage and endowing the critic with a power previously unknown...Greenberg has been considered an absolutist, an arch-conservative whose theoretical views could not possibly accommoda

Some common words found in the essay are:
, JAM Whistler, Greenberg Subject, Jesus Christ, Clemet Greenberg's, Clemet Greenberg, form content, subject matter, ideas form, content subject matter, distinction form content, formalism art, primary features, distinction form, content subject, aesthetic emotions, moral ideas, formalism main,

Approximate Word count = 1668
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English