form - In
its widest sense, total structure;
a synthesis of all the
visible aspects of that structure and of the manner in which they
are united to create its distinctive character. The form of a
work is what enables us to perceive it.
"Always lines, never forms! But where
do they find these lines in Nature? For my part I see
only forms that are lit up and forms that are not. There is only
light and shadow."
Francisco Goya (1746-1828), Spanish painter. From a conversation,
quoted by L. Matheron, Goya, Paris, 1858.
"The first things to study are form
and values. For me, these are the things that are the basics
of what is serious in art. Color and finish put charm in one's
work."
Jean Baptiste Corot (1796-1875), French painter. Keith Roberts,
Corot, 1965.
"Form ever follows function."
Louis Henry Sullivan (1856-1924), U.S. architect. "The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered," in Lippincott's Magazine (March 1896). References to this statement often shorten it to a simpler version: "Form follows function."
"It matters not whether the form
is personal, national stylistic, whether or not it stands within
the contemporary mainstream, whether it is related to a few or
to many other forms, or whether it is unique or not, etc., etc.;
but hte most important point in the questionof form is whether
or not it springs from inner necessity."
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Russian painter, "Uber die
Formfrage," Almanach der blaue Reiter, 1912.
"If the significance (spirit) of
form is lacking, creative art can be nothing of or for the soul.
Only where this significance is the aura of form does the spirit
enter into man-made things. Art."
Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959), American architect, The Living
City, 1958.
"We don't even learn form through
the eyes; we learn it through the sense of touch."
John Sloan (1871-1951), American painter of the Ashcan School,
The Gist of Art, 1941.
"Cézanne is the Christopher
Columbus of a new continent of form."
Clive Bell (1881-1964), British art critic. Art.
". . . [F]rom the foint of view of
art there are not concrete or abstract forms, but only forms
which are more or less convincing lies. That those lies are necessary
to our mental selves is beyond any doubt, as it is through them
that we form our aesthetic point of view of life."
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist, The Arts, 1923.
"My aim is for ripeness of form.
I want to make my forms so full, so juicey that one could add
nothing more to them."
Henri Laurens (1885-1954), French sculptor, in an article by
Y. Taillandier in Amis de l'Art, Number 1, June 26, 1951.
"Sculpture must have a feeling for
organic form, a certain pathos and warmth. Organic forms, though
they may be symmetrical in their main disposition, in their reaction
to environment, growth and gravity, lose their perfect symmetry."
Henry Moore (1898-1987), English sculptor, The Sculptor's
Aims, 1966.
"Art doesn't transform. It just plain
forms."
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-), American Pop Art painter.
form - In
its widest sense, total structure;
a synthesis of all the
visible aspects of that structure and of the manner in which they
are united to create its distinctive character. The form of a
work is what enables us to perceive it.
