The realization that the figure of speech had more to do with what could be known than the subject it addressed prompted artists and critics to abandon traditional philosophical and psychological models for understanding art. The new aesthetic incorporated the assumption that beneath art lay an internal logic that could be understood through language theory. Art was conceived as a primitive language combining visual signs and linguistic principles.
As an aesthetic, Structuralism was not concerned with form or depicted subject matter, but focused instead on the language that exists between compositional elements and the conventions of art. The idea and its context became the subject. Where the Formalists were limited to manipulating elements within a medium, there were no restrictions on the medium for the Structuralist. Structuralism freed the artist from the precious object, the originality of the product, the integrity of the medium and the quality of presence.
Without the validation of the subjective response, and without the restrictive maxims of Modernism, art could be redefined to include or exclude almost anything. Language and concept, as well as any novel gestalt, became source material. Artists would mix media and include theory and environment as elements of the work. By contrast, the Formalists had contemplated attributes inherent to the object without regard to surrounding spaces or its semiotic context. The Structuralist rejected the Formalist's concern for internal relationships. The primary object, like the blank canvas, stood for itself. There was no attempt at illusion. It presented no further signification.
The Structural aesthetic denied the connotative powers of visual imagery. Chosen images and products were intentionally lifeless and without transcendent potential. The transcendent visual encounter sought by the Modernist was purposely played down or eliminated. Structuralism separated meaning from affect. It shifted the importance from image to idea. The product communicated the idea.
In the history of art theory, Romanticism lionized the artist. Formalism focused on the object. Structuralism centered on process and systems analysis. The Structuralist sought the rules that made art. It is based on logical operations instead of straightforward intuition of perceptual gestalts. The artist turned from considerations of formal perception to approach art in self-analytic conceptual terms. Where Modernists looked at art as a medium of self-expression and formal innovation, the Structuralist utilized the object as a sign to be manipulated in the exploration of art's structural properties. Where it can be said that Formalism reduced art to formula, Structuralism diagrammed art like a sentence.
The Structuralists attempted to release art from the psychology of perception. They denounced the perceptual criteria of Modernism and relied on conceptually substantiated art statements. The viewer was expected to "follow his predetermined premise to its conclusion avoiding subjectivity." (LeWitt, quoted by Lucy R. Lippard, "10 Structuralists in 20 Paragraphs") Structural art was not intended to inspire the viewer through aesthetic perception. Rather, the work was a model for the analytic reappraisal of art.
Nonobjective imagery had always been dependent on a specific line of reasoning, but it was not until postmodern Structuralism that the artist's statement became essential to art appreciation. Prior to the conceptual movements in art, the viewer approached the art object with a working knowledge of art history and experienced an aesthetic perceptual response. Structuralism required the viewer to come to the encounter willing to study supplemental text to set the work in the context of the Structural aesthetic. The intent was to provoke aesthetic sensibilities into the realization of art as a semiotic device.
Where the Formalist's intent was to enrapture the viewer, the Structuralist challenged the established priorities of art at a theoretical level. Artists abandoned transcendent aesthetics for a system of values based on man's greatest attribute -- the contemplative intellect. Structuralists rejected what earlier movements took for granted -- that art communicates non-discursive ontological knowledge. A question of primary interest to the Formalist, 'what is the knowledge that logic cannot know?,' fell outside what Structural aesthetics acknowledged as meaningful. The artist resigned himself to exploring art's discursive significance and definable values.
R. Cronk, 2004