Relativistic aesthetics have had a major impact on the development of art research- and practice-based doctoral programmes in the arts. This paper explores research capabilities of arts practice for more propositional knowledge based on more formalist aesthetic qualities in artefacts, as opposed to more relativistic and non-formalist aesthetic qualities. It does so by tracing notions of formal aesthetics from Kant’s natural sublime to Aristotle’s notion of mimesis and catharsis in a number of research works. The examples show how formal aesthetics qualities in the results of art practice are able to demonstrate universal knowledge such as foundational principles, through consideration of a more formal logic in the artwork itself. Together, these works suggest a more formal research agenda based on the capabilities of artistic practices where formal knowledge proposed is rather relative – an aim that has purposiveness but without having purpose, as in Kant’s natural sublime, rather than having a wider social or historic context. Here, non-formalist aesthetic quality of art practice points rather to the applied qualities of a work: that is, to the range of possible applications of the formal aesthetic qualities.