So my understanding of formalism is that the philosophy is based on the form of the piece. Meaning that its aesthetic value is based solely on its composition and its craftsmanship rather than any emotional or content-driven argument. In visual art this creates pieces with little to no storyline and creates paintings like this one by Mondrian:
As you can see this painting has no emotional content, it is simply a depiction of form (mainly the artistic qualities of line and color). While you might say that this is boring and pointless and uninteresting (I tend to think so), try applying formalist ideas to a more romantic piece. Think of the Mona Lisa:
If Da Vinci hadn't had some sense of formalism, this painting would have absolutely no power at all. It would be sloppy, poorly painted, and uninteresting to look at. Formalism is what keeps "great art" great. Ironically formalist painters rely too heavily on a formalist aesthetic and simply paint lines, boxes, etc. ruining their potential greatness.Formalism is necessary. It has always existed and is at the heart of great art of any kind (be it painting, poetry, film, etc.). My qualms with formalism come with extreme formalism that discredits anything that isn't purely based on technical mastery. To make truly great art one needs to be technical but they must also have pure artistic genius (usually enhanced by technical mastery).
In my opinion formalism isn't all bad (to anyone that has studied with professor Oakley, I would label him as a strongly formalist musician but his choirs sing beautiful music). I do think that extreme formalism is detrimental to art, but aspects of the formalist aesthetic are quite necessary for art. What do you guys think?
-Allijah
P.S. The views discussed in this blog post are my own and do not express the opinions of Da Vinci or Mondrian :-P
Maybe we should or could separate composition from craft (and its cousin, technical mastery. And we might could distinguish formalism from abstraction (i.e., Modrian) to find a safer place for Leonardo.
ReplyDeleteI think craft can quite happily coexist with a Romantic (expressive) aesthetic, depending on how we define that. The emphasis on powerful feeling removed from any transitive context (powerful feeling about something), though, puts us on the road toward formalist aestethics and their value hierarchy. We are also flirting with the whole "art replaces relgion" narrative at this point as well.
But do we have to oppose formalism to beauty, as you do above in your reference to Professor Oakley. Maybe he and I should debate! (He'd kill me, I think; but it would be fun anyway.)
And what is this "pure artistic genius" stuff? I think its the adverb that really gets me going.
Dr. Grant...
ReplyDeleteLet's see. I do see a flaw in my assertion that beauty and formalism are opposite. I do think, though, that formalism (although this may not be its intention) stifles the beautiful possibilities or art. This may be because I think that beauty comes from more than simple craftsmanship and without emotion, art cannot be beautiful. I may still me misunderstanding your point but I think I'm closer to it.
Pure artistic genius is the unexplainable ability that certain people have. Talent that is coded into their genetics that doesn't seem universal. The August Rush's of the world (I know its a fictional movie but it proves my point). Pure means that the artistic genius is innate. They can achieve brilliance without necessarily working themselves to the bone to perfect their craft. They are, in layman's terms (I bet I spelled that wrong), a natural.
(Formal) beauty may not be "true" art without emotion, but emotion without form, without discipline, is something worse -- melodrama, schlock, sentimentalism.
ReplyDeleteCertainly talent is unevenly distributed throughout the population, which means that some people have great (artistic -- or other) talent in comparison to the population at large. This is the Salieri v. Mozart story -- though both men were tremendously talented in comparison to the rest of the population. But the problem, for me, is when we begin to think of this talent differential in terms of more than cognitive ability and motor skills. When we get supernatural about it, we are in different territory.