Formalism

Formalism is an approach to the study and evaluation of art based solely on the analysis of its form—that is, the way a work is made and how it looks: composition, line, colour, texture, space and the relationship of parts. For a formalist, the artistic value of a work lies in its visual, formal qualities rather than in subject matter, narrative, historical context or social message. Formalism played a major role in the formation of modernist criticism and in the theoretical justification of abstract art, since formal analysis makes it possible to discuss works that lack recognisable imagery. Significant contributions to formalist thinking were made by the British critics Roger Fry and Clive Bell, who proposed the notion of significant form. In the mid-twentieth century the most influential advocate of formalism was the American critic Clement Greenberg, who championed the idea of the purity of each art form and interpreted the history of modernism as the progressive purification of painting toward its purely optical, flat properties. Formalism was later sharply criticised by contextual and social approaches, yet it remains a basic tool for describing and analysing the visual language of art.