formalism
noun
for·mal·ism ˈfȯr-mə-ˌli-zəm 
1
: the practice or the doctrine of strict adherence to prescribed or external forms (as in religion or art)
also : an instance of this
2
: marked attention to arrangement, style, or artistic means (as in art or literature) usually with corresponding de-emphasis of content
formalist
ˈfȯr-mə-list
noun or adjective formalistic
ˌfȯr-mə-ˈli-stik
adjective 
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web The result, alas, doesn’t live up to the promise of the occasion, turning the character’s journey into fodder for a sluggish exercise in formalism. 
Jon Frosch, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2022 Alain Resnais, whose centenary is being celebrated in a retrospective at Film Forum, began his career with three features whose radical formalism remains, to this day, conceptually unsurpassed. Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2022 This is an early appeal to ideas of artistic formalism that would later triumph in abstraction. Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 14 July 2022 Albers was teaching formalism, Olson radical subjectivity, and everyone was concerned with colors, shapes, beauty and truth — all in the earnest belief that these lofty ideals would make a better world. New York Times, 7 July 2022 For us, that formalism gave another force of reality. Emiliano Granada, Variety, 21 Feb. 2022 The cinematography is a little more anonymous than the cool, blanched formalism that Dupieux usually delivers, but the editing picks up the slack. Jessica Kiang, Variety, 11 Feb. 2022 It is almost assumed that the static camera does not allow that sensitivity, as if falling into a formalism. Emiliano Granada, Variety, 21 Feb. 2022 That formalism and abstraction corrupts the rest of us. Samuel Goldman, The Week, 3 Dec. 2021 See More
Jon Frosch, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2022 Alain Resnais, whose centenary is being celebrated in a retrospective at Film Forum, began his career with three features whose radical formalism remains, to this day, conceptually unsurpassed. Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2022 This is an early appeal to ideas of artistic formalism that would later triumph in abstraction. Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 14 July 2022 Albers was teaching formalism, Olson radical subjectivity, and everyone was concerned with colors, shapes, beauty and truth — all in the earnest belief that these lofty ideals would make a better world. New York Times, 7 July 2022 For us, that formalism gave another force of reality. Emiliano Granada, Variety, 21 Feb. 2022 The cinematography is a little more anonymous than the cool, blanched formalism that Dupieux usually delivers, but the editing picks up the slack. Jessica Kiang, Variety, 11 Feb. 2022 It is almost assumed that the static camera does not allow that sensitivity, as if falling into a formalism. Emiliano Granada, Variety, 21 Feb. 2022 That formalism and abstraction corrupts the rest of us. Samuel Goldman, The Week, 3 Dec. 2021 See More Word History
First Known Use
1839, in the meaning defined at sense 1