On Formalism and Pictorial Organization

Abstract

This essay is constructed around two very broad distinctions within Formalism. The two distinctions are independent of one another, and therefore they give us a cross-classification. They give us four kinds of Formalism. The first distinction, which I shall explain now, is between Normative Formalism and Analytic Formalism. The second distinction, which I shall introduce later on, is between Manifest Formalism and Latent Formalism. The terms that I use to express this latter distinction, manifest versus latent, I borrow from Freud, but no psychoanalytic overtones cling to the distinction itself. One advantage of introducing this second distinction is that it allows us to bring together, and to think simultaneously about, two strands of pictorial theory that are often held apart.