Bataille's definition posits the formlessness of the world as implying its intrinsic worthlessness as well as the unredeemable futility of our thinking about it. He uses the notion of "form" in an abstract, philosophical sense which is at best obliquely related to the notion of visual form –– but his evocative visual metaphors resonate strongly with a certain strand in the art of Dada and Surrealism which is exemplified in works by Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Raoul Ubac, and Jacques-André Boiffard.