Lesson 57

Form and Content

“…in art, the form is always more than form.” Milan Kundra

As a student in 1967 I was told that “if you look after the form the content will look after itself!”

This was a time when formalism ruled.

Being perverse I thought at the time  that, equally, if you look after the content the form will look after itself! Which is a much more radical idea.

In reality nothing looks after itself.

Still, in 1967 I enjoyed going against the grain and turning my tutors pronouncements on their heads.

Rules in art are fluid.

“Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.” Claude Debussy

“Form and content are relative and subjective areas of thought, what is form in one aspect is content in another.” Carlos Fluentes.

Lesson 57

Take an art maxim and do the opposite.

As an example see Lesson 49 Boy Revolutionary re Gainsborough’s Blue Boy as a snub to Reynolds’ simple dictates on aerial perspective.