FORMALISM • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Formalism

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/fˈɔrməlˌɪzəm/ Listen

Formalism

noun

The doctrine that formal structure rather than content is what should be represented.

(philosophy) the philosophical theory that formal (logical or mathematical) statements have no meaning but that its symbols (regarded as physical entities) exhibit a form that has useful applications.

The practice of scrupulous adherence to prescribed or external forms.

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"Formalism" Quotes from Famous Books

... to effect the revolution of which his genius was capable. It was left for other men to accomplish, namely, for Correggio and Titian. These two painters were the first who relieved the foregrounds of their landscape from the grotesque, quaint, and crowded formalism of the early painters; and gave a close approximation to the forms of nature in all things; retaining, however, thus much of the old system, that the distances were for the most part painted in deep ultramarine blue, the foregrounds in rich green and ...

— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin

... allegorical features which had long been traditional in the pastoral likewise suited the topical and occasional nature of the masque. The connexion, however, with the stricter forms at least, was never very close, the tendency on the part of the pastoral to confine itself to a mere external formalism being even more noticeable here than in the case ...

— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... place and its degree. The life of the spirit languishes if it is not fed. But except these things issue in the practical service of Christ in daily life they are worse than futile. They degenerate either into formalism and hypocrisy, or into spiritual self- indulgence. "Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." "By their fruits ye shall know them." And the "fruits" of Christian living are to be discovered, not in the hours spent in devotion, but in the ...

— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... master, Martin Tromp, is regarded as the father of the line ahead formation for battle, but he undoubtedly taught de Ruyter its limitations as well as its advantages, and there is no trace of the stupid formalism of the Duke of York's regulations in de Ruyter's ...

— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... Religious formalism, in whatever form of worship, always takes on a forced and morose manner. Pharisees of every age disfigure their faces that no one may be unaware of their godliness. Francis not merely could not endure these grimaces of false piety, he actually counted mirth and joy in the ...

— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

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