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#0072
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entering into more complex speculations and pure psychological analysis.
Then Art came back to Form. Not, however, to the naturalistic form of
which Photography gives a perfect representation. But it came back to
the form as expressed by the uncivilized peoples, introducing these forms in
their scientific significance, reasoning them out, applying the discoveries
of their effects, not the laws themselves that forced their creation, to the same
forms that were used before in a realistic manner. It was not the assimilation
of the motive which created those forms that Art brought into its latest mani-
festation, but merely new canons, new theories, new schools, drawn from their
structures.
It is my object in this book to demonstrate the normal and therefore logical
sequence of the evolution of Form, in its broad aspects, giving an illustrative
demonstration of the facts of its evolution, tracing it, point by point, not from
its primary cause, but from its primitive manifestation, showing its geograph-
ical distribution and evolution, marking the distinctions and relations between
the forms of primitive production and the forms of primitive Art, a problem to
which the ethnologists have so far found no satisfactory solution.
My book will not be the literary production of an emotional lover of
beauty, but simply an investigation and analysis; furthering, as completely as
I shall be capable of doing, the development of the following conclusions:
I. —The evolution of Form from the primitive races to the higher ones,
is a perfect sequence, going from one state to another by groups of perfectly
defined character and by slow processes.
II. —The fundamental ideas of a civilization have always influenced the
fundamental idea of Form, and the latter always changes as the former changes.
III. —The representation of Form expresses the state of the intellectual
development of each race, and it can be seen that to the same intellectual state,
identical conception of Form corresponds, irrespective of the country and of
the surroundings.
IV. —Thethree states of the evolution ofForm are found perfectly marked,
and correspond to the three great groups of the human family: the Black,
the Yellow and the White. These three groups are: A. The Imaginative, in the
negro group; B. The Fantastic, in the yellow group, a group which we consider
as one of transition; C. The Realistic, in the white group.
V. —The linking of human thought is well demonstrated by the evolution
of Form. Man has proceeded in regard to form, as in regard to everything,
from the simple to the complex; from simple geometrical expressions, result of
an inductive procedure, to the complexity of the realistic form, product of a
deductive procedure.
VI. —Form has not evolved through isolated manifestations, but through
groups. Each civilization has its peculiar manifestation of Form.
VII. —Art, going back for the representation of emotion to primitive
Form, seems to have exhausted and, we dare to say, completed the essential
manifestation of Form.
Marius De Zayas.
48
Then Art came back to Form. Not, however, to the naturalistic form of
which Photography gives a perfect representation. But it came back to
the form as expressed by the uncivilized peoples, introducing these forms in
their scientific significance, reasoning them out, applying the discoveries
of their effects, not the laws themselves that forced their creation, to the same
forms that were used before in a realistic manner. It was not the assimilation
of the motive which created those forms that Art brought into its latest mani-
festation, but merely new canons, new theories, new schools, drawn from their
structures.
It is my object in this book to demonstrate the normal and therefore logical
sequence of the evolution of Form, in its broad aspects, giving an illustrative
demonstration of the facts of its evolution, tracing it, point by point, not from
its primary cause, but from its primitive manifestation, showing its geograph-
ical distribution and evolution, marking the distinctions and relations between
the forms of primitive production and the forms of primitive Art, a problem to
which the ethnologists have so far found no satisfactory solution.
My book will not be the literary production of an emotional lover of
beauty, but simply an investigation and analysis; furthering, as completely as
I shall be capable of doing, the development of the following conclusions:
I. —The evolution of Form from the primitive races to the higher ones,
is a perfect sequence, going from one state to another by groups of perfectly
defined character and by slow processes.
II. —The fundamental ideas of a civilization have always influenced the
fundamental idea of Form, and the latter always changes as the former changes.
III. —The representation of Form expresses the state of the intellectual
development of each race, and it can be seen that to the same intellectual state,
identical conception of Form corresponds, irrespective of the country and of
the surroundings.
IV. —Thethree states of the evolution ofForm are found perfectly marked,
and correspond to the three great groups of the human family: the Black,
the Yellow and the White. These three groups are: A. The Imaginative, in the
negro group; B. The Fantastic, in the yellow group, a group which we consider
as one of transition; C. The Realistic, in the white group.
V. —The linking of human thought is well demonstrated by the evolution
of Form. Man has proceeded in regard to form, as in regard to everything,
from the simple to the complex; from simple geometrical expressions, result of
an inductive procedure, to the complexity of the realistic form, product of a
deductive procedure.
VI. —Form has not evolved through isolated manifestations, but through
groups. Each civilization has its peculiar manifestation of Form.
VII. —Art, going back for the representation of emotion to primitive
Form, seems to have exhausted and, we dare to say, completed the essential
manifestation of Form.
Marius De Zayas.
48
