Formalism Quotes

“The form of a work of art has a meaning of its own and the contemplation of the form in and for itself gives rise in some people to a special emotion.”

“One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.”

“The representative element in a work of art may or may not be harmful; always it is irrelevant.”

“What quality is shared by all objects that provoke our aesthetic emotions? Only one answer seems possible—significant form.”

“For, to appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing but a sense of form and colour and a knowledge of three-dimensional space.”

“Significant form is the one quality common to all works of visual art.”

“If a work of art is an expression of emotion, the emotion expressed is an emotion felt for pure form.”

“By the nature of a formal system, there can be no objection to the introduction of arbitrarily complex and involved rules of procedure, provided only that they are perfectly explicit.”

“Formalism is music that people don't understand at first hearing.”

“No one who has a real understanding of the art of painting attaches any importance to what we call the subject of a picture — what is represented.”

“The meaning of a work of art is its form.”

“I don't have anything to say in any picture. My only interest in photography is to see what something looks like as a photograph. I have no stories to tell.”