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(2009) Thinking art, Dordrecht, Springer.
We have so far discussed two influential philosophical theories of art that, in addition to having a long-standing tradition in the history of philosophy, are deeply rooted in the public and popular debate about art. As a rule, daily discussions about art are still centered on the aspects of representation and self-expression, despite the turbulent development of modern art in the twentieth century and growing doubts about the usefulness of both these concepts. In modern art, and more specifically in modernism, the role of formal experiment is of overriding importance. One need only think of Cubism, Fauvism and numerous other movements in painting. Technical experimentation also caused a modernistic breakthrough in music, particularly through the work of Arnold Schönberg and his discovery of so-called dodecaphony, or the 12-tone system. Because of its great emphasis on form and technique, modernism is often characterized as formalistic. What should we understand by the term "formalism"? To answer this question, it would be wise to begin by highlighting an essential difference between formalism and the two previous theories. We have seen that, from a very specific point of view, the mimesis and the expression theories, however different they may look at face value, share an essential feature. They both imitate something outside the realm of art itself and consequently they are judged by external or extrinsic standards. While imitation theories compare works of art with a sensorially perceptible reality, expression theories assess them exclusively based on emotional and/or moral criteria, or an original Idea, an original "intuition" or "imagination" in the artist's mind. In both cases, the artwork, and even art in general, is not considered on its own merits, but invariably tested according to extra-artistic, external, extrinsic criteria. In the eyes of a formalist, such criteria completely miss the point when it comes to judging works of art.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-5638-3_4
Full citation:
van den Braembussche, A. (2009). Formalism, in Thinking art, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 61-86.
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