DOI article:
Marius De Zayas, Caricature: Absolute and Relative
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31335#0030
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III. Those that have a beginning and have no end; belonging to individuals
who acquire the knowledge of the general progress but arrive at no conclu-
sion.
IV. Those that have a beginning and an end, belonging to individuals
who acquire knowledge and arrive at a conclusion.
V. The individuals whom we might call inerts or statics, because they
do not move with the general progress, have, naturally, no trajectory.
I find, then, that caricature, as the representation of the individual self
and his relation to the whole, is, when represented by the material expressions,
very limited and misrepresentative. It is inconsequent with the philosophy
of the causes efficientes, and entirely consequent with the philosophy of the
causes finales; a philosophy which, to be right, would prove the non-existence
of universal progress.
The habits, customs, vices, and virtues of man are so limited and common
to all, that in the material idea of caricatures I found myself repeating ad
nauseam the same fundamental ideas with variations that represented only
the morphology of the individual. The idea of man, in relation to the meaning
of his own life, to humanity and to the universal principle, opens a broader
and more significant field to caricature.
With this fundamental idea as a basis for psychological analysis, I have
found, that man in relation to his own life and to mankind, forms a third
psychological entity, which is not an arithmetical addition, but a chemical
combination. The reciprocal influences between two human beings and
between man and mankind and between man and the universe, is not equal to
the addition of the specific psychological value of each of these elements,
but to a combination which constitutes a third definite psychological or meta-
physical entity.
As representation is only a matter of equivalents, we have, in order to
represent man in all his characteristics, to represent all his entities. The old
art permitted and, even more, imposed the representation of feelings and
emotions through concrete form. Modern art permits the representation of
feelings and ideas through material equivalents—abstract form. Between
the two, I believe the second one the nearest to psychological representation.
Accordingly my new procedure in caricature is inspired by the psychological
reason of the existence of the art of the primitive races, which tried to repre-
sent what they thought to be supernatural elements, existing outside of the
individual, elements, however, which science has proved to be natural and
which exist within the individual.
The technique of my procedure consists in representing: (i) The spirit
of man by algebraic formulas; (2) His material self by geometrical equivalents;
(3) and his initial force by trajectories, within the rectangle that encloses
the plastic expression and represents life.
20
who acquire the knowledge of the general progress but arrive at no conclu-
sion.
IV. Those that have a beginning and an end, belonging to individuals
who acquire knowledge and arrive at a conclusion.
V. The individuals whom we might call inerts or statics, because they
do not move with the general progress, have, naturally, no trajectory.
I find, then, that caricature, as the representation of the individual self
and his relation to the whole, is, when represented by the material expressions,
very limited and misrepresentative. It is inconsequent with the philosophy
of the causes efficientes, and entirely consequent with the philosophy of the
causes finales; a philosophy which, to be right, would prove the non-existence
of universal progress.
The habits, customs, vices, and virtues of man are so limited and common
to all, that in the material idea of caricatures I found myself repeating ad
nauseam the same fundamental ideas with variations that represented only
the morphology of the individual. The idea of man, in relation to the meaning
of his own life, to humanity and to the universal principle, opens a broader
and more significant field to caricature.
With this fundamental idea as a basis for psychological analysis, I have
found, that man in relation to his own life and to mankind, forms a third
psychological entity, which is not an arithmetical addition, but a chemical
combination. The reciprocal influences between two human beings and
between man and mankind and between man and the universe, is not equal to
the addition of the specific psychological value of each of these elements,
but to a combination which constitutes a third definite psychological or meta-
physical entity.
As representation is only a matter of equivalents, we have, in order to
represent man in all his characteristics, to represent all his entities. The old
art permitted and, even more, imposed the representation of feelings and
emotions through concrete form. Modern art permits the representation of
feelings and ideas through material equivalents—abstract form. Between
the two, I believe the second one the nearest to psychological representation.
Accordingly my new procedure in caricature is inspired by the psychological
reason of the existence of the art of the primitive races, which tried to repre-
sent what they thought to be supernatural elements, existing outside of the
individual, elements, however, which science has proved to be natural and
which exist within the individual.
The technique of my procedure consists in representing: (i) The spirit
of man by algebraic formulas; (2) His material self by geometrical equivalents;
(3) and his initial force by trajectories, within the rectangle that encloses
the plastic expression and represents life.
20
