Formalism

is the study of art by analyzing and comparing form and style—the way objects are made and their purely visual aspects.

Art that is determined solely by sensory or physical properties—so long as the physical properties in question are not relations to other things and other times

Extreme formalists who think "that all works of art are purely formal works—where a work is purely formal if all its aesthetic properties are formal aesthetic properties"

anti-formalist thinkers as those who "think that no works of art have formal aesthetic properties."

moderate formalism, where its principle exponents defend the principle "that all the aesthetic properties of works of art in a select class are formal, and second, that although many works of art outside that class have nonformal aesthetic properties, many of those works also have important formal aesthetic properties that must not be ignored