In General
In the past I have claimed to intensionally avoid verbal description of my photography out of fear for crushing my eye's wordless recognition of a scene that would otherwise resonate to my unconscious mind.
I'm not so sure I've ever achieved such a zen state of left-hemisphere quietude, but that's the course that brought me to Formalism. By one description:
"Formalism is a critical and creative position which holds that an artwork's value lies in the relationships it establishes between different compositional elements such as color, line, and texture, which ought to be considered apart from all notions of subject-matter or context."
Or from Maurice Denis:
“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 colours arranged in a certain order.”
My poles and wires and windows and electric panels aren't so much 'created' as a painter would do as collected, though I think there's a similar impulse.
—A
"Formalism in Modern Art Definition Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. 2026. TheArtStory.orgContent compiled and written by Rebecca SeiferleEdited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Greg ThomasAvailable from: https://www.theartstory.org/definition/formalism/First published on 01 Sep 2012. Updated and modified regularly[Accessed 28 Jan 2026]
I'm not so sure I've ever achieved such a zen state of left-hemisphere quietude, but that's the course that brought me to Formalism. By one description:
"Formalism is a critical and creative position which holds that an artwork's value lies in the relationships it establishes between different compositional elements such as color, line, and texture, which ought to be considered apart from all notions of subject-matter or context."
Or from Maurice Denis:
“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 colours arranged in a certain order.”
My poles and wires and windows and electric panels aren't so much 'created' as a painter would do as collected, though I think there's a similar impulse.
—A
"Formalism in Modern Art Definition Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. 2026. TheArtStory.orgContent compiled and written by Rebecca SeiferleEdited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Greg ThomasAvailable from: https://www.theartstory.org/definition/formalism/First published on 01 Sep 2012. Updated and modified regularly[Accessed 28 Jan 2026]
all images and text copyright Aaron Dougherty