Few terms have lasted as long as “form”; it has been
in existence since the Romans. And few terms are as
international: the Latin forma has been accepted in
many modern languages, in Italian, Spanish, Polish, and
Russian without change, in others with slight alteration
(in French forme, in English “form,” and in German
Form).
However, the ambiguity of the term is as great as
its persistence. From the outset the Latin forma re-
placed two Greek words: morphē and eidos; the first
applied primarily to visible forms, the second to con-
ceptual forms. This double heritage contributed con-
siderably to the diversity of meanings of “form.”
The many opposites of form (content, matter, ele-
ment, subject matter, and others) reveal its numerous
meanings. If content is taken as the opposite, then form
means external appearance or style; if matter is the
opposite, then form is regarded as shape; if element
is considered opposite, then form is tantamount to the
disposition or arrangement of parts.
The history of aesthetics reveals at least five different
meanings of form, all of them important for a proper
understanding of art.
(1) First, form is equivalent to the disposition, ar-
rangement, or order of parts, which will be called form
A. In this case the opposites to form are elements,
components, or parts which form A unites or welds
into a whole. The form of a portico is the arrangement
of its columns; the form of a melody is the order of
sounds.
(2) When the term form is applied to what is directly
given to the senses, we shall call it form B. Its opposite
then is content. In this sense, the sound of words in
poetry is its form, and their meaning its content.
These two meanings, form A and form B, are at times
confusingly identified, but this should be avoided. Form
A is an abstraction; a work of art is never just a disposi-
tion but consists of parts in a certain arrangement of
order. Form B, on the other hand, is by definition
concrete, “given to the senses.” Of course, we can
combine forms A and B by using the term “form” to
refer to the order (form A) of what is directly perceived
(form B), form to the second power, as it were.
(3) Form may mean the boundary or contour of an
object. Let us call it form C. Its opposite and correlate
is matter or substance. In this sense, frequently used
in everyday speech, form is similar to, but by no means
identical with, form B: colors and contours perceived
together belong to form B, but contour alone pertains
to form C.
The above three ideas of form (A, B, and C) are
the creations of aesthetics itself. On the other hand,
the remaining two concepts of form arose within gen-
eral philosophy and then passed into aesthetics.
(4) One of them—we shall call it form D—was
invented by Aristotle. Here form means the conceptual
essence of an object; another Aristotelian name for this
form is “entelechy.” The opposites and correlates of
form D are the accidental features of objects. Most
modern aestheticians dispense with this idea of form,
but his has not always been so. In the history of aes-
thetics, form D is as old as form A and even older
than the ideas of B and C.
(5) The fifth meaning, which we shall call form E,
was used by Kant. For him and his followers it meant
a contribution of the mind to the perceived object. The
opposite and correlate of the Kantian form consists in
what is not produced and introduced by the mind but
is given to it from without through experience.
Each of these five forms has a different history, which
will be presented here as they occur in aesthetics and
the theory of art. The five forms appear historically
not only under the name “form” but also under many
different synonyms, e.g., figura and species in Latin,
or shape and figure in English.
We are concerned here not only with the history
of the concept but also with the history of theories
of form, including not only the question of when and
in what meaning form appeared in theories of art, but
also when and in which meanings it was regarded as
an essential factor of art.
