Immanuel Kant's eighteenth-century theory of aesthetic response serves as the philosophical underpinning of formalism. Over the context two centuries aestheticians, art critics, and theorists fueled formalism's development and sustainability. Kant's theory is based on aesthetic judgment, how people respond to works of art, how they interpret art, and how they judge it based on nothing but the work itself. Kant believed that when people view artwork without any personal or outside influence or context they make the same determination about the work.