Attention to form in art reaches back into antiquity, and can be found in the ideas of Plato and Aristotle. Its presence can be traced throughout the centuries, and it has been important in shaping the discipline of aesthetics. Formalism as a distinct approach to art began to emerge in the 19th and 20th centuries. This was encouraged in part by Romantics, who sought to locate the essence of art, in order that art might be set apart from other, more practical and utilitarian modes of communication; and also by Symbolists and Post-Impressionists, who emphasised the power of form to convey the artist's intention, over and above subject matter.

The most influential exponent of formalism in 20th century art criticism was the American writer Clement Greenberg, who is best known for his support of Abstract Expressionism. Although his rival, Harold Rosenberg, initially advanced a more popular interpretation of the mid-century style - one that attended to the process of creation, and to subject matter - ultimately, Greenberg's interpretation gained more supporters since it provided the most persuasive account of the development of abstract art. Greenberg is a typical formalist in that he believed that the treatment of form in Abstract Expressionism was the root of its quality; the artist he supported above all, Jackson Pollock, was judged to be great because of his success in manipulating form. Critics who were influenced by Greenberg's formalism include Michael Fried and Rosalind Krauss.

Although Clement Greenberg came to enjoy considerable pre-eminence as a critic, attacks on his approach began to increase in the 1960s. Indeed, he had always had detractors, even among those he celebrated: artists such as Mark Rothko argued that content was vital to their art, and remained opposed to attempts to detach it from form. His rivalry with critic Harold Rosenberg throughout the 1950s also continued to generate debate. In the 1960s, however, Greenberg faced new attacks. The art historian Leo Steinberg wrote an influential essay entitled "Other Criteria," which questioned some of Greenberg's judgements, and argued that there had to be other means of accounting for art other than by reference to the criteria of form. And, art itself began to threaten Greenberg's theories: artists such as Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol made subject matter unavoidable in discussion of their art.