Formalism
January 26th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
In general, the term formalism describes the critical position that the most important aspect of a work of art is its form, that is, the way it is made and its purely visual aspects, rather than its narrative, content or its relationship to the visible world. In painting, a formalist critic would focus exclusively on the qualities of color, brushwork,form,line and composition. Formalism as a critical stance came into being in response to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in which unprecedented emphasis was placed on the purely visual aspects of the work. In 1890 the Post-Impressionist painter Maurice Denise wrote, ‘Remember, that a picture, before it is a picture of a battle horse, a nude woman, or some story, is essentially a flat surface covered in colors arranged in a certain order.’ Denis emphasised that aesthetic pleasure was to be found in the painting itself, not its subject. Writer Clive Bell formulated the notion of ‘significant form’, that form itself can convey feeling. All these led to Abstract art, an art of pure form.
– The Tate guide to Modern art terms
We must create(1922)
January 15th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Excerpts from Huidobro’s Manifestes(1925) which provoked thoughts in me today, over a cup of yoghurt with honey cashews
Vicente Huidobro was a cosmopolitan Chilean poet, exponent of the artistic movement of Creacionismo, which held that artists of any stripe should ‘create’ rather than ‘imitate’, that is to say invent or ‘add to the facts of the world’.
We must create. That is the sign of our times.
Inventing is making things that are parallel in space, meet in time or vice versa, so that they present a new fact in their conjunction.
The totality of the diverse new facts united by a single spirit constitutes the created work. If they are not united by a single spirit, the result will be an impure work with an amorphous look, resulting from a fantasy with no laws.
The study of art throughout history shows us clearly this tendency of imitation to move towards creation in all human productions.
In art the power of the creator interests us more than that of the observer, and besides the former contains in itself the second, to a higher degree.
