DOI article:
Marius De Zayas, The Evolution of Form—Introduction [with an introduction by the editors]
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31248#0071
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of character, and may influence conduct. Character is formed in part of a
stratification of unconscious ideas.”
“When ideas have undergone this slow elaboration their power is con-
siderable, because reason ceases to have any hold on them. The enthusiast
who is dominated by an idea, religious or other, is inaccessible to reasoning,
however intelligent he may be.”*
This stratification, this complete absorption of one idea of Form, was
necessary in order that Form should pass from one state to a superior one.
It was not until all the resources, all the manifestations and all the expressions
of the old Form were exhausted, that a new fundamental idea was brought
into it. All the powerful influence of a well developed civilization has always
been necessary to make Form evolve. We may say that of all the elements
which compose civilization, Form is the last to evolve.
That is what seems to have happened with Form in its highest state; the
realistic one, which, on account of its deductive requisite, brought forth
individualism.
“While social art binds the individual man ever more firmly and inti-
mately with the social whole, individual art frees man by developing his
individuality from the bonds of social connection.”f
Individualism then, by necessity, had to create originality; it had to
search by means of an auto-analysis the new in expression and the new in
representation. It happened then, that Form, being in its realistic manifesta-
tion a finite thing, man not being able to alter its structure to suit the ex-
pression of his idea, either had to limit the expression of his individualism to
the limitations of realistic form, adapting it to attitudes or to points of view,
or to bring the element of the infinite into Form, with resources strange to it,
creating a cosmic and metaphysical Art, which attempted to represent the
irrepresentable and to limit the incommensurable.
It was individualism that gradually introduced Science into Art, under-
taking the impossible task of seeking the explanation of the inner substance
which creates the forces manifested in Art; a metaphysical problem, which
like all metaphysical problems, has no possible solution. Individualism,
attempting to express itself through realistic form, found itself speculating
with an idea which had been practically exhausted, for it did not aim to
express the abstract significance of Form, but the idea substantiated in it; it
tried to represent moods instead of emotions, conscious states of mind instead
of feelings. As “unaided internal perception of things can no more suffice
to build up a science of mind than unaided perception of things can
suffice to build up a science of things,” $ individualism, in the plastic
arts, could not get out of itself without the aid of Science a science of
Art. Instead it called to its aid the resources of the other manifesta-
tions of Art, abandoning Form as its fundamental principle, substituting
for it the abstract expression of feeling, like those produced by music,
*Gustave Le Bon. “The Psychology of Peoples/
tE. Grosse. Op. cit.
^Herbert Spencer. Op. cit.
47
stratification of unconscious ideas.”
“When ideas have undergone this slow elaboration their power is con-
siderable, because reason ceases to have any hold on them. The enthusiast
who is dominated by an idea, religious or other, is inaccessible to reasoning,
however intelligent he may be.”*
This stratification, this complete absorption of one idea of Form, was
necessary in order that Form should pass from one state to a superior one.
It was not until all the resources, all the manifestations and all the expressions
of the old Form were exhausted, that a new fundamental idea was brought
into it. All the powerful influence of a well developed civilization has always
been necessary to make Form evolve. We may say that of all the elements
which compose civilization, Form is the last to evolve.
That is what seems to have happened with Form in its highest state; the
realistic one, which, on account of its deductive requisite, brought forth
individualism.
“While social art binds the individual man ever more firmly and inti-
mately with the social whole, individual art frees man by developing his
individuality from the bonds of social connection.”f
Individualism then, by necessity, had to create originality; it had to
search by means of an auto-analysis the new in expression and the new in
representation. It happened then, that Form, being in its realistic manifesta-
tion a finite thing, man not being able to alter its structure to suit the ex-
pression of his idea, either had to limit the expression of his individualism to
the limitations of realistic form, adapting it to attitudes or to points of view,
or to bring the element of the infinite into Form, with resources strange to it,
creating a cosmic and metaphysical Art, which attempted to represent the
irrepresentable and to limit the incommensurable.
It was individualism that gradually introduced Science into Art, under-
taking the impossible task of seeking the explanation of the inner substance
which creates the forces manifested in Art; a metaphysical problem, which
like all metaphysical problems, has no possible solution. Individualism,
attempting to express itself through realistic form, found itself speculating
with an idea which had been practically exhausted, for it did not aim to
express the abstract significance of Form, but the idea substantiated in it; it
tried to represent moods instead of emotions, conscious states of mind instead
of feelings. As “unaided internal perception of things can no more suffice
to build up a science of mind than unaided perception of things can
suffice to build up a science of things,” $ individualism, in the plastic
arts, could not get out of itself without the aid of Science a science of
Art. Instead it called to its aid the resources of the other manifesta-
tions of Art, abandoning Form as its fundamental principle, substituting
for it the abstract expression of feeling, like those produced by music,
*Gustave Le Bon. “The Psychology of Peoples/
tE. Grosse. Op. cit.
^Herbert Spencer. Op. cit.
47
