the starting point for all systems of aesthetics must be the personal experience of a peculiar emotion’.
See See Formalism in the History of Art.
Formalism – of which Roger Fry is a crucial early exponent – eschews anthropological or social considerations as well as issues arising from the artist’s biography. It aspires to exclusive examination of plastic qualities in a work, and often actively denigrates content.
via Fry, Freud, and Formalism.
“y 1909 Fry had already abandoned the ‘idea of likeness to Nature, of correctness or incorrectness as a test’ – he had just discovered Cézanne”
Roger Fry’s Formalism
James T. Saw on Gestalt Theory: “he visual world is so complex that the mind has developed strategies for coping with the confusion. The mind tries to find the simplest solution to a problem.” Images with gestalt qualities here
Emmanuel Fremiet’s Gorilla Carrying Off A Woman had a massive controversy surrounding it, including references to Darwin, sexuality and more. See also
Fremiet’s Gorillas: Why Do They Carry off Women?