Francis Picabia and Formalism

Francis Picabia, 1917

According to Kit White, "Formalism refers to judging a work of art based on the elements of its visual language: form, line, color, and composition."  In my art history classes, several times I have been required to write a formal analysis of an artwork.  Doing no research on the context or cultural style of the painting, just looking at the formal elements of the work, which include, line, shape, color, composition, perspective, texture, and etc.  Francis Picabia once stated, "A free spirit takes liberties even with liberty itself."  The picture posted here is from Picabia's Dada period after World War I.  Wikipedia states that, "Many Dadaists believed that the 'reason' and 'logic' of bourgeois capitalist society had led people into war. They expressed their rejection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and embrace chaos and irrationality."  Picabia did not call this art, but anti-art.  Enjoy!