Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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in reflecting on his analyses of Gogol and Cervantes, states, “Compositions are
made, they are developed; the author creates in them semantic knots that are
correlated, intensifying the perceptibility of the composition. New structures
emerge.” (1970; 20) This demonstrates, in part, how significant the style and
structure of a text are to the Russian formalists. Although this approach was initially
applied to literary works, it has been adapted and applied to other art forms, such as
painting, sculpture, music, and film. I prefer to use the term “formalism”, however,
as neoformalism is largely an adaptation with the intent of including other art forms.
The analytic and critical philosophy is largely intact.
Utilising the work of Kristin Thompson in Breaking the Glass Armor, (1988)
in his extensive exploration of neoformalism, Berliner states that “neoformalist
critics use a variety of methods, depending on the particular questions posed by
particular artworks.” (2010; 18) He later clarifies, “Neoformalism studies the ways
in which artworks stimulate spectators to perform mental operations.” (19) Berliner
particularly draws out, throughout the course of his text, three particular models.
Poetics is branch of neoformalist study that looks directly at the form of a
work of art, and how it is pieced together. Bordwell, tracing the concept back to
Aristotle 2 , and highlighting its applications to other media, states “The poetics of any
medium studies the finished work as the result of a process of construction – a
2 Aristotle’s Poetics (c. 335, BCE) outlines the methods for analysing the function and value of
literary and dramatic works, primarily focusing on what he terms “representation”, which appears to
function in a semiotic sense: “The things that representative artists represent are the actions of people,
and if people are represented they are necessarily either superior or inferior, better or worse, than we
are.” (1448a 2.0-2; 2013; 18) According to Aristotle, the pleasures of experiencing a work of art are
derived from understanding the representation: “That is why people like seeing images, because as
they look at them they understand and work out what each item is, for example, ‘this is so-and-so’.
Whereas if one is unacquainted with the subject, one’s pleasure will not be in the representation, but
in the technique or the colour or some other element.” (1448b 4.14-19; 20)