The Life of Forms

The book by the classic of French and American art history traditions, Henri Focillon (1881–1943), titled "The Life of Forms" (1934) is the quintessence of his theory of form. Artistic form is presented to Focillon not as a concept or an idea, but as a living metamorphosis in space, matter, consciousness, and time, and constitutes "the meanings arising from it itself." Continuing the ideas of German formalists (Wölfflin, Hildebrand) and inspired by Bergsonian vitalism, the author examines the life of artistic forms in a triple cycle: experiments (trials), "classical" balance (which is sometimes replaced by refinement), and "baroque" decay. This formal life, in Focillon's opinion, "generates new conditions for the historical, social, and moral life" of man. Such an approach also allows us to free the concepts of style, materials, and techniques in art from their often inherent inertia and to see their active, creative, or destructive potential.