Subject Matter and Form

Abstract

This paper does not deal with all aspects of the fundamental antithesis indicated in the title. In the first place, by “art” I mean the fine arts only, more particularly the representational arts, and chiefly painting. The phrase “fundamental antithesis” indicates a second major restriction. “Subject-matter” and “form” are not here considered as two complementary terms distinguished only for purposes of philosophical analysis. My purpose is rather to contrast those works of art and views on art which emphasize subject-matter as at least one matter of primary interest, with others which emphasize form almost to the exclusion of matter. This implies a third restriction, and it is that my concern is with the meaning of the problem of subject-matter and form to our time. To the people of the Middle Ages or even of the Renaissance and the Baroque period, it would have seemed more or less absurd to speak of actual contrasts between subject-matter and form. What we still call representational art was then natura...