From the Formalist perspective, art exists to be beautiful, or as their mantra neatly sums up: “art for art’s sake.” What was considered beautiful was a matter of contention for art theorists and philosophers just as what was considered good art was debated by critics. But no matter whether a piece of art was considered beautiful or worthwhile or not, all formalists held in common the same idea that when creating art, form was the most important aspect and all other influences- emotion, an artist’s life, politics, etc, were inconsequential to the value of a piece. This is in direct conflict with the movement which came before it- expressionism, and those that came after it- post-modernism, structuralism, post-structuralism, and post-colonialism. These recent movements are not just manifested in the art world, but as a conceptual movement that encompasses other parts of culture as well. In this way, postmodernism embraces the politics and ideologies of the eras in which its artists practice, expanding into new forms of art and new ideas (or rejections) of the idea of beauty.
Looking at so many contradictory art movements which attempt to define the motivating concept behind art, I can’t help but wonder what art is for in the first place. Clearly, creating art is a very personal process. Each person probably has very different reasons for creating their art. Perhaps it is trying to lump people across time periods and art genres together which creates all of these conflicting movements. If we didn’t attempt to define what type of art a piece was, perhaps critics and art historians would have less to argue about. But these definitions create very organized ways in which to think about art, and as a very organized person, I can get behind that notion. Still, it seems very presumptuous for art historians and aestheticians to place artists in categories without really knowing everything the artist felt when making their art.
The other motivating concept behind art is beauty. Formalism and post-modernism have polar opposite ideas of the importance of beauty when creating art. Formalism says that beauty is central to art, while post-modernism rejects the idea that beauty dictates art. I tend to agree with the post-modernists, that sometimes beauty is contradictory to the message an artist is trying to convey, therefore making an ‘ugly’ piece of work more moving. In this way, when we find meaning in something that would otherwise be disregarded as ‘ugly,’ don’t we then also find beauty in that art? I wonder what the formalists and post-modernists would have to say about that.