Formalism
Formalism is a way someone approaches interpreting a piece of art. Under formalism the viewer of the art assumes that everything they need to know about that particular piece of art is already represented by the piece. No outside knowledge is needed to fully take in the piece of art and appreciate its meaning. You shouldn’t have to know anything about the artist, where the art was created, and what was used to create it to get the full meaning. Formalism is believed to date back to just before WWII and potentially emerged from Russia.
Post-Modernism
Post-modernism appears to be a direct theological reactionary stance to modernism, in which the main foundation is that everything is relative. How a person could interpret a work of art is really only relative to their social constructs. How old are they? Where were they born? What is their race/gender/religion? Meaning – there isn’t one true interpretation of a work of art. Post-modern thought/critiques arose around the late 1800s, and had a resurgence in the mid-1900s.
Realism
Realism in the artistic sense means to represent and interpret the form as specifically and as truly as possible – without the artist adding any extra adornments of their own, which would change the true meaning of the work. Realism began in France in the mid-1800s as a direct revolt again romanticism, in which the artist injected his own sense of fancy into the works, regardless if it was needed for interpretation. Most artistic works falling into the realism category depict humans doing everyday things, such as working, cleaning, and being around others.
Expressionism
Is a way of approaching creating a work of art where the artist skews the realistic quality of the work in order to evoke a specific emotion or reaction if the viewer of the art. Expressionism was a hip/innovative new style that came about before WWI.
Formalism vs. Post-Modernism
These two schools of thought are in direct competition with each other. Formalism interprets that the artist has included everything the viewer needs to know to interpret the work. But Post-Modernism constructs that each person has a different social construct, so they will interpret the work differently. Therefore, an artist could not include every possible social construct in his work – making it pretty impossible to say that you are both a formalist and a post-modernist. Or perhaps in a very trippy far-out way someone could be both…haven’t figured out how yet of course.
Formalism vs. Realism
I think Formalism and Realism could be a very successful couple if they dated. Formalism is assuming that everything the viewer needs to know is included in the work, and Realism ‘keeps it real’, so really the artist isn’t injecting his own agenda into the piece. I think a Formalist would have an easy time interpreting a Realist piece of art.
Formalism vs. Expressionism
Yikes…I don’t think Formalism and Expressionism would really get along. In order to understand an Expressionist piece of art, a viewer would probably want to know something about the artist’s background, where it was painted, and what the artist wanted to invoke in the viewer. That flies in the face of a Formalist thought process.
Post-Modernism vs. Realism
I’m not entirely sure how these two would relate. I think a Post-Modernist could interpret a Realist painting, but a Post-Modernist would state that a Realist piece of art isn’t truly real, because every viewer would have a different interpretation based on their background and social constructs.
Post-Modernism vs. Expressionism
A Post-Modernist would argue that although an Expressionist artist would want to send the viewer a clear interpretation of their work by skewing the realist nature of such work, this would never be entirely possible because each viewer would be applying his own social constructs and biases to the work in order to interpret.
Realism vs. Expressionism
These two basically go together like oil and water. They appear to be exact opposites. Realism living in the realm where the artist should not add any personal social constructs to direct the interpretation, while Expressionist artists are expected to change the realist aspects of the art in order to evoke a specific emotion and reaction.