Orc Hoard

A Conversation With ChatGPT

These conversations with the machine are very amusing for some reason. I like to assume a naive position and see what it comes up with.

Human: 

When did European intellectuals and artists start talking about "form" in painting? Was it Ruskin?

ChatGPT:

Great question! The serious discussion of form in painting—meaning the arrangement of shapes, lines, colours, and composition as an expressive element distinct from subject matter—emerged gradually over centuries. But European intellectuals and artists began explicitly focusing on form as a concept in the 18th and 19th centuries.

John Ruskin (1819–1900) wasn't the first to talk about form, and interestingly, he was somewhat resistant to the idea of valuing form over content. Ruskin was deeply moralistic in his aesthetics; for him, truth to nature and moral meaning were primary. He admired craftsmanship, detail, and faithful representation more than formal abstraction.

The modern discussion of form — form as an independent expressive quality — really takes shape in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some key figures before and around Ruskin who influenced thinking about form include:

Earlier Influences:

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768): Wrote about the "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur" in Greek sculpture, emphasizing style and form in classical art.

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804): In Critique of Judgment, he argued that beauty lies in the "form of purposiveness"—not in the object's purpose, but in its formal properties.

19th Century Developments:

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863): In his journals, he explored how color and composition (formal elements) express feeling.

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867): His art criticism recognized modern life and form in painting, such as in his writings on Delacroix and Manet.

Formalism as we know it today began to emerge with theorists like Alois Riegl and Heinrich Wölfflin (late 19th/early 20th century), who argued for analyzing purely formal qualities, such as line, mass, and composition.

Wölfflin (1864–1945):

His Principles of Art History (1915) contrasted linear vs. painterly, plane vs. recession, and so on—this was a major step in talking about "form" as an autonomous aesthetic category.

In Short:

Ruskin was part of the conversation, but more focused on content and morality. The idea of form as a central focus came into full intellectual maturity with thinkers like Wölfflin, and with the rise of modernism, where formal experimentation became a major preoccupation in art.

 Want to dive into any of these thinkers more deeply?

Human:

 So the artists I chatted with seemed to be referring to some sort of inner achievement, different from Plato, and also not just external shapes and composition. Almost a spiritual achievement. Do you know this idea?

ChatGPT:

Ah, yes! You're tapping into a really rich, complex thread in art history and theory — where form isn't just about external appearance or structure, but about an inner necessity or spiritual essence made visible through artistic means. It's a deeper, almost mystical conception of form as the manifestation of an inner life or truth.

This idea really blossoms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially among artists and thinkers who saw art as a kind of spiritual or transcendent practice. Here's where that comes from and who embodies it:

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1. Form as Spiritual Achievement

For many modernist artists, form wasn’t just an arrangement of visual elements—it was a vehicle to express spiritual truths, inner necessity, or universal principles.

The creation of form was seen as an inner act, a way of revealing the invisible through the visible.

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2. Kandinsky and "Inner Necessity"

Wassily Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911) is key here. He argued that true form arises from an artist’s inner need, not from copying nature or following external rules.

Kandinsky saw abstract form, color, and composition as capable of directly expressing spiritual realities—something almost akin to music:

"Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings."

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3. Paul Cézanne’s "Realization"

Cézanne often spoke about "realizing" forms—giving them a structural integrity that wasn’t just about sight, but about an inner truth of the object. He wasn’t just painting apples; he was finding their essential form, their being.

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4. Henri Bergson’s Influence

Philosophers like Henri Bergson (especially his ideas of intuition and élan vital) influenced artists to think of form as something that unfolds from within, like life itself, rather than being imposed from the outside.

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5. Plato vs. Modern Form

Unlike Plato’s Forms (perfect, immutable, abstract ideas), these artists were exploring form as a living process, an act of becoming, not a static ideal.

It wasn’t about representing the ideal; it was about manifesting an inner vision, often tied to personal or universal spiritual experience.

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6. Other Figures & Movements

Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg (De Stijl) saw abstraction and formal purity as expressions of universal harmony and spiritual order.

Kazimir Malevich and Suprematism treated abstract geometric form as a route to pure feeling and non-objective reality.

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In Short:

What you’re hearing from those artists echoes this modernist spiritual formalism. It's not about external shapes, or even about composition in a decorative sense. It's about form as the outward crystallization of an inner, often spiritual, achievement or necessity.

If you’re curious, we could dig into Kandinsky’s writings or Bergson’s ideas—they get right to the heart of this.

What kind of art were these artists making or talking about? Abstract? Figurative but distilled?

Human: 

My art friends were referring to all art, landscape, abstraction, figurative, collage and so on.

ChatGPT:

That makes complete sense—and honestly, it’s a beautiful idea they’re tapping into.

The notion that serious and meaningful art, no matter the genre or medium—whether it's landscape, abstraction, figure painting, or collage—requires the artist to achieve something inner first, to reach a state of authenticity or depth, is central to much of modern and even pre-modern thought about art. It cuts across styles and schools.

What they're describing sounds like a universal artistic attitude, where the form is the visible trace of a deeper spiritual, emotional, or intellectual realization. In that view, form isn't just about technique or style—it's the outward embodiment of an inner achievement by the artist. And any form (whether a Cézanne apple, a Mondrian grid, or a fragment in a collage) can carry that weight if it’s been "earned" through that process.

Some threads that align with this idea:

1. The Artist's Inner Life Shapes Form

The inner development of the artist—whether spiritual, emotional, or intellectual—manifests in their work, no matter the subject or medium.

Kandinsky wrote that without this inner necessity, form becomes empty decoration, no matter how skillful.

 "An empty form is not better than a beautiful shell of a mollusk that no longer lives."

2. Serious Art as a Spiritual Discipline

Artists like Cézanne worked landscapes over and over because it wasn’t just about representing the mountain—it was about achieving a state of perception and being that allowed him to realize it properly.

In that sense, form is like a trace of a spiritual exercise, a record of the artist’s inner struggle and insight.

3. The Medium Doesn’t Matter—The Depth Does

Whether an artist is working with landscape or collage, figuration or abstraction, the seriousness comes from their approach, not the genre.

It's why Picasso could say, "Art is a lie that makes us realize truth." The form—no matter how abstracted or representational—becomes a vehicle for truth if it’s rooted in authentic inner experience.

4. Formalism vs. Formal Achievement

What they’re describing isn’t formalism in the cold, analytical sense, but form as a revelation — as the result of having gone somewhere deep and meaningful.

It's as if the form emerges because the artist has discovered or confronted something essential, whether it’s spiritual, emotional, or intellectual.

Who Else Thinks Like This?

-Rainer Maria Rilke (in his Letters to a Young Poet) tells artists they must "go inside yourself" and create from deep necessity.

-Paul Klee said, "Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible." Again, it’s about making manifest that which is inside, invisible, or spiritual.

-Barnett Newman said, “We are creating images whose reality is self-evident…we are freeing ourselves of the impediments of memory, association, nostalgia, legend, myth…”

In Short:

What they’re saying reflects a deeply held belief across art history: that serious form arises from inner achievement, regardless of genre. It’s about an integrity and authenticity that shines through how an artist makes a thing, not just what they make.