29 September 1994
On Formalism and its Kinds
As the title says, the lecture approached the different varieties of formalism. On the one hand Wollheim opposes analytical formalism and normative formalism. Normative formalism is what dictates how paintings should look, whereas analytical formalism tells us what paintings essentially have to be; in other words, it tells us that the essence of painting lies in its form.
But what is the form of painting? Some thinkers maintain that the form of painting cannot be identified with the vocabulary in which the painting in question has been described. Others have suggested that form is identified with the process of creation, so that through it the form of the painting can be extracted.
On this point Wollheim introduces a new distinction between manifest formalism and latent formalism.
Manifest formalism considers that the form of the painting lies on its surface. One way of extracting the form could be to cover the painting with glass and trace its contours on that glass. Those contours would give us the form.
Latent formalism, however, considers that the form of the painting is its essential aspect. Latent formalism likens painting to language and suggests that the form of the painting is to be found in the syntax, which determines the structure of the painting.
In the lecture Wollheim suggested a less purist way of looking at painting, emphasising the insuperable difficulties between manifest formalism and latent formalism.
