Formalesque
Formalesque is a name proposed in 1994 by the Australian art historian Bernard Smith for the modernist style of roughly 1890 to 1960. Smith argued that since that period is no longer "modern", the label Modernism has become misleading, and the style needs a period name in the manner of Romanesque or Arabesque - hence Formalesque, from its defining concern with form. In Smith's account the style begins with the art of Manet, Cézanne, van Gogh and Gauguin, whose work first gathered under the heading "modern", and extends to architecture and sculpture from Frank Lloyd Wright and Walter Gropius to Jacob Epstein and Constantin Brâncuși. After 1960 it yields to postmodernism and contemporary art. The coinage has remained the proposal of one influential historian rather than a widely adopted period label.
Defining characteristics
- Form and flatness foregrounded over narrative and illusionistic depth
- Natural forms simplified, fragmented, or dissolved into structure
- The picture plane treated as a surface to be organized, not a window
- Medium-specific exploration: each art probing what its own materials can do
- Abstraction emerging progressively out of representation
Key figures
- Bernard Smith (1918-2011) — Art historian who coined the term in 1994 to rename the modernist period style
- Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) — Named by Smith among the founders of the form-and-flatness style
- Constantin Brâncuși (1876-1957) — Sculptor Smith cites as extending the style beyond painting
Example works
- The Starry Night — Vincent van Gogh (1889)
- The Basket of Apples — Paul Cézanne (c. 1893)
Sources
- Formalesque - Wikipedia encyclopedia