The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (172 page)

(
c.
1427–1515).
Italian painter, the leading figure in Lombard painting until the arrival of
Leonardo da Vinci
in Milan in 1481/2. He was born and died in Brescia, but was active mainly in Milan. According to
Vasari
he obtained his training in Padua, and his robust style owed much to
Mantegna
, not least in his interest in
perspective
. His major works include frescos in S. Eustorgio, Milan, and Sta Maria del Carmine, Brescia.

 
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(1852–1931).
French painter, lithographer, and
caricaturist
. He studied under Jean-Léon
Gérôme
at the École des
Beaux-Arts
, where he was particularly interested in
Rembrandt
and
Goya
. In his work, much of it done for Paris journals, he combined the
Realist
eye of
Manet
with the mordant satire of
Daumier
, and he had the gift of expressing disposition in a few lines by a characteristic attitude or gesture. Forain was on good terms with Manet and
Degas
and exhibited in four of the
Impressionist
exhibitions between 1879 and 1886. As a painter he was uneven, sometimes influenced by Manet and Degas , sometimes adopting the restricted palette of Daumier, as in the court room scenes
Le Tribunal
(
c.
1902–3) and
Counsel and Accused
(1908), both in the Tate Gallery, London.

 
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Forbes , Stanhope
.

See
NEWLYN SCHOOL
.

 
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Ford , Edward Onslow
.

See
NEW SCULPTURE
.

 
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formalism
.

In art theory, the belief that aesthetic values are autonomous and self-sufficient and that judgements of art can be detached from other considerations, for example ethical and social ones. It has been particularly influential in the 20th cent., a reflection partly of the dominance of
abstract art
. Leading critics who have espoused a basically formalist view of art include Roger
Fry
and Clement
Greenberg
. In Communist countries, particularly during the early years of the Cold War, ‘formalism’ was used as a general term of abuse directed at the art of the West.

 
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Forum exhibition
(in full, Forum Exhibition of Modern American Painters)
.

An exhibition arranged in New York in 1916 by the critic Willard Huntington Wright with the support of the magazine
Forum
, to which he was a regular contributor. The purpose of the exhibition was to pinpoint the best of American avant-garde painting in order to convince the public that it could stand up to the European avant-garde, which had captured public interest at the
Armory Show
. Both Robert
Henri
and Alfred
Stieglitz
were on the selection committee. The exhibition consisted of about 200 pictures by seventeen artists, including
Benton
(ironically, later a vociferous enemy of modern art),
Dove
,
Macdonald-Wright
(Wright's brother),
Marin
,
Sheeler
, and
Zorach
. Anticipating that some of the work on show might be too advanced for public taste, Wright wrote in the catalogue: ‘Not one man represented in this exhibition is either a charlatan or a maniac’, and he vigorously defended abstraction.

 
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