The Collaborative International Dictionary
Formalist \Form"al*ist\, n. [Cf. F. formaliste.] One overattentive to forms, or too much confined to them; esp., one who rests in external religious forms, or observes strictly the outward forms of worship, without possessing the life and spirit of religion.
As far a formalist from wisdom sits,
In judging eyes, as libertines from wits.
--Young.
Wiktionary
a. Of or pertaining to formalism; formalistic n. 1 An overly formal person, especially one who adheres to current forms; a stickler 2 An advocate of formalism
Usage examples of "formalist".
Murray has the quixotic ability to disregard the banal surface of television and, with all the innocence of a formalist semiotician, to discover a cornucopia of aesthetic information in its organization.
Thee that I am not as other men are, spiritually proud, formalists, hypocrites, or even as this Pharisee.
A first-class journal does not really suffer because two or three formalists or two or three bigots among its thousands of subscribers give it up for six weeks in a pet of ill-temper--and then take it on again.
In the Hill-top Novels, I hope to reverse all that--to say my say in my own way, representing the world as it appears to me, not as editors and formalists would like me to represent it.