In painting, formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape, texture, and other perceptual aspects rather than content, meaning, or the historical and social context.
The historical origin of the modern form of the question of aesthetic formalism is usually dated to Immanuel Kant and the writing of his third Critique where Kant states: "Every form of the objects of sense is either figure (Gestalt) or play (Spiel).
The charm (Reiz) of colors... may be added, but the delineations (Zeichnung) in the... composition (Komposition)... constitute the proper object of the pure judgment of taste.
In the parts of the Critique of Judgment in which form is emphasized as the essential aspect of beauty, Kant is consistently a pure formalist.
These descriptions, which may include subjective vocabulary, are always accompanied by illustrations, so that there can be no doubt about what exists objectively".