The formalist theory of art asserts that we should focus only on the formal properties of art—the "form", not the "content".Noël Carroll, Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction, Routledge, 2012, p. 148. Those formal properties might include, for the visual arts, color, shape, and line, and, for the musical arts, rhythm and harmony. Formalists do not deny that works of art might have content, representation, or narrative--rather, they deny that those things are relevant in our appreciation or understanding of art.
