NEGERPLASTIK CARL EINSTEIN LE SOURCES DE L’ART PREMIER

ETHNOFLORENCE

INDIAN AND HIMALAYAN

FOLK AND TRIBAL ARTS

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L’AVENTURE DES ARTS PREMIERS

L’évolution d’un regard

LE SOURCES

https://ethnoflorence.wordpress.com/category/arts-premiers-le-sources/

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IV

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EN ROUTE VERS LE LOUVRE

Enquête des Arts lointains: Seront-ils admis au Louvre?

Felix Feneon

1920  

“Lorsque le musée du Louvre recevrà l’art nègre, il y trouvera non son complément, mais son principe”

 Lucie Cousturier, peintre et escrivain, 1920

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Enquête des Arts lointains: Seront-ils admis au Louvre? Felix Feneon 1920

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ALFRED STIEGLITZ

Galerie

291

1916

TEXT BY

M.DE ZAYAS

“Modern art is not individualistic and esoteric and even less an expression of a spontaneus generation.” 

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ON

Alfred Stieglitz galerie 291 M. De Zayas 1916 Arte Negra

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ROGER FRY

SCULPTURE NEGRE

VISION AND DESIGN

1920

Ce qui distingue pour Fyes la sculpture africaine de la tradition occidentale est sa  “complete plastic freedom,” 

et la possibilité de créer “forms in three dimensions”  SEE MORE ON

ROGER FRY NEGRO SCULPTURE VISION AND DESIGN 1920

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CARL EINSTEIN

NEGERPLASTIK

1915

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Negerplastik

est

l’un des premier lien entre l’art nègre et le mouvements de l’art moderne.

Negerplastik is one of the first links between ‘Negro art’ and the modern art movements. / Negerplastik è uno dei primi legami tra l’arte negra e i movimenti artistici moderni in Occidente. 

L’auteur fut le premier à présenter la sculpture traditionnelle africaine en termes esthétiques, par opposition à  le artefacts ethnographique, postulant une façon de voir l’espace :   “plastiches Sehen” qui aborde les problèmes du cubisme. 

The Author was the first to present ‘traditional African sculpture’ in aesthetic terms, as opposed to ethnographic artifacts, postulating a way of seeing space: “plastiches Sehen” which addresses the issues of Cubism. / L’autore è stato il primo a presentare la scultura tradizionale africana in termini estetici, in contrapposizione ai manufatti etnografici, postulando un modo di vedere lo spazio: “plastiches Sehen” che affronta i temi del cubismo.

 Ce n’est pas une histoire de la sculpture africaine car elle ignore les peuples qui ont fait des sculptures.

It is not a history of African sculpture because it ignores the peoples who made sculptures. / Non è una storia della scultura africana perché ignora i popoli che le hanno prodotte . 

Einstein adhéré à la théorie que la sculpture “parlé” directement au spectateur et ne nécessitent donc pas informations de fond.

Einstein adhered to the theory that the sculpture “spoke” directly to the viewer and therefore did not require background information. / Einstein aderì alla teoria secondo cui la scultura “parlava” direttamente allo spettatore e quindi non richiedeva informazioni di base.

Method Notes

Translation

from the original German language text by Ethnoflorence

There is hardly any art that Europeans approach so suspiciously, like the African. First of all, here he is inclined to the fact at all “Art” to deny and expresses the distance that exists between these buildings and the continental attitude opens up through a contempt which created a downright negative terminology.

This distance and the prejudices that follow from this make any aesthetic assessment difficult, yes, prevent them entirely; for such a thing sets in first To be approximated ahead.

The Negro, however, is considered to be that from the start inferior part, which is to be worked on ruthlessly, and what it offers is condemned a priori as a shortcoming.

One interpreted carelessly quite vague evolutionary hypotheses on him rightly; he had to the one give themselves up to give up a misconception of primitivity, others again so convincingly cleaned wrong phrases on the helpless object on, like peoples of eternal primeval times and so on.

One hoped something like that in the Negro to grasp from the beginning, a state that never emerges from the beginning.

Not least of all, many opinions are based on the African one People based on such prejudices that are in favor of a comfortable Theory were prepared.

The European claims in his judgments there is a presupposition about the negroes, namely that of an unconditional one, downright fantastic superiority.

In fact, our disregard for the Negro is just one thing Not knowing about him, which only wrongly incriminates him.

Perhaps the following emerges from the plates: the Negro is not one undeveloped human being; there was a significant African culture going on fundamentally; today’s negro corresponds to a possible “antique” perhaps like the Fellache to the ancient Egyptian.

Some problems in modern art gave rise to a less frivolous one Penetration into the art of African peoples; -as always caused Here, too, a current art event that a corresponding history is formed: in its midst, the art of the African peoples rose.

What previously seemed pointless won in the recent endeavors of the visual artist importance; one guessed that it was hardly defined anywhere Problems of space and a special way of creating art in this
Unity, like the negroes. It turned out; that so far Judgments made about the ‘Negro and his art were more likely to refer to the Calibrating than the object.

The new relationship soon corresponded to one new passion; Negro art was collected as art; passionate that is: in legitimate activity one imagined from the old materials newly interpreted object.

The brief presentation of African art will reflect the experiences Not to be allowed to withdraw from newer art, especially what is historically active always follow the. immediate present is. However, these relationships are supposed to only later developed to work on an object pause and not be disturbed by comparisons.

The knowledge of African art is on the whole small and indefinite; apart from a few Benin works, nothing is dated; several types of works of art are determined by the location, but believe
I am not allowed to benefit from this.

The peoples migrated and pushed themselves into Africa; besides, one must assume that here too, as elsewhere, the tribes fought for the fetishes and the victorious Tribe the gods of the inferior appropriated themselves to their powers and to partake of their protection.

Stir completely different pieces often from one area; several explanations can occur here, without being able to decide which one would be justified; man in this case can assume that it concerns earlier and later Art, or two styles coexisted at the same time, or an art form be imported.

In any case, neither historical nor geographical Knowledge does not allow even the most modest for the time being Art determination.

The objection is obvious, one should get out of a stükritischen Forcing a historical marriage to build and from the simple advance to the compound.

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Give in to the indulgence, the simple and the first are possibly identical; too gladly sneaked
one that the premise and the method of thinking also begin and the nature of what happened during each beginning, under which I however, I understand an individual and relative beginning – because
nothing else can actually be determined – it is highly complex, since man would like to express a lot, even too much, in detail.

That is why the attempt to say something about African plastic seems rather hopeless. Especially since a majority still demands proof that it is art at all.

So one must be afraid of being referred to the description of external facts, which never gives anything else, such as that a loincloth is just a loincloth, which at no point goes over to a general conclusion as to which overall area all these loincloths and bulging lips belong to.

(Arts to be viewed as a means of anthropological or ethnographic insights, seems dubious to me, since the artistic representation says little about the facts to which such scientific knowledge is bound.)

Nevertheless, one will start from the fact and not an assumed surrogate. I think the fact is more certain than any knowledge of an ethnographic, etc. kind of thing: the African sculptures! One will switch off the representational or the objects of the surrounding associations and analyze these formations as structures. An attempt will be made to see whether the formal concept of the sculptures results in the overall idea of ​​a form that is homogeneous to those of art forms. One thing, however, is absolutely to be obeyed, one thing to be avoided: one adheres to intuition and proceeds within its specific laws; but nowhere does one attribute the structure of the intuition or the discovered creative
own consideration: refrain from interpolating comfortable evolutions and do not equate the thought process with the creative artistic process; abandon the prejudice that mental processes can simply be given the opposite sign, and that thinking about art simply contrasts art creation; rather, that is a generally different process that transcends form and its world in order to classify the work of art with general events.

Describing the sculptures as a formal structure does, however considerably more than an object; the objective enumeration transcends the given structure in that it is not used as a structure but as a guide to some practice that is not on its level. The analysis of forms, on the other hand, remains in what is immediately given; for only some forms are to be assumed; However, these serve more to grasp than individual things, since as forms they simultaneously reveal ways of seeing and the laws of perception, that is to say, forcing us to a knowledge that remains in the sphere of the given. If a formal analysis becomes possible, which refers to and circles around certain peculiar units of creation and seeing, then it is implicitly proven that the given structures are art.

Perhaps one might object, a tendency to generalize and a superior Will secretly dictated such a conclusion. This is wrong; for the individual form encloses the valid elements of perception, indeed it represents them, since these can only be presented as form.

The individual case, on the other hand, does not affect the peculiarity of the term, rather the two relate to one another in a dualistic manner.

Precisely the essential correspondence between general outlook and reality make up the work of art. One should also consider: the creation of art is just as “arbitrary” as the necessary inclination to link the individual forms of perception into laws; for in both cases organization was sought and achieved.

The picturesque

The European’s usual lack of understanding of African art corresponds to its stylistic power: it represents a significant case of plastic vision.

It can be said that the sculpture of the continental is strongly thwarted by painterly surrogates. In Hüdebrand’s “Problem of Form” we have the ideal balance between the painterly and the plastic; an art as striking as French sculpture seems to endeavor to dissolve the plastic right up to Eodin used to see must be described as a painterly apprehension of the cubic; for here the three-dimensional is summed up in a few planes that suppress the cubic; one emphasizes the parts closest to the observer and arranges them into surfaces, while one sees the parts behind as an incidental modulation of the front surface, which is dynamically weakened.

The objective motifs placed in front are emphasized. In other cases, the cubic was replaced by a concrete equivalent of the way, or the decisive factor, the direct expression, escaped with a drawn or modeled movement of form the third dimension.

Even attempts at perspective impaired three-dimensional vision.

So it is easy to understand that since the Renaissance the necessary, specific boundaries between free sculpture and relief sank ever deeper, and the painterly excitement, only playing around a material cubic (mass), overgrown any three-dimensional form structure.

It was easy to see from this that painters, and not sculptors, raised crucial questions about the three-dimensional. It is immediately clear that with such formal tendencies our art had to pass a complete mixing of the painterly and the plastic (baroque) and that such a process could only end with a complete defeat of the plastic, which, in order to at least avoid the excitement To preserve the condition of the maker and to transfer it to the beholder, had to be entirely impressionistic and picturesque.

The three-dimensional was felt away; the personal handwriting predominated.

This history of form was necessarily committed to a spiritual event. Art conventions appeared like paradoxes; Agreement was a creator who was as heightened as possible, and accordingly, a creator who was as excited as possible Spectator; the dynamics of the individual processes predominated; they were valid, and people insisted on them with particular emphasis.

The decision was made in preludes and aftermaths, the work melted more and more into a conductor of psychological excitement; the individually flowing, the cause and the effect were fixed.

These sculptures were more like confessions of a genetics than objectified forms, more like lightning-like contact between two individuals; The drama of the judgment on works of art was often given greater importance than the latter itself. Every concise canon of form and sight had to be resolved.

An ever stronger development of plasticity was sought, a multiple duplication of funds. The realistically polished legend of the “sampled” model was unable to counteract the actual non-plasticity; rather, it confirmed the lack of a thorough and uniform conception of the space.

Such behavior destroys the distance to things and evaluates only the functional meaning that is preserved in them for the individual is.

This type of art means the potential accumulation of the greatest possible functional effect.

Yes, we saw that this potential moment, the spectator, was made virtual and visible in some recent experiments.

Few styles that appeared in Europe differed from this, in particular the Omani-Byzantine: however, its oriental origin has been proven and the fairly rapid transformation to movement (Gothic) is well known.

The viewer was woven into the sculpture, it became its no longer separable function (e.g. perspective sculpture); he combined himself in the predominantly psychological reevaluation of the person of the manufacturer, if he did not contradict this.

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side panels.

The plastic was the subject of conversation between two people.

One that is directed in this way
The sculptor must be interested above all in determining the effect and the beholder in advance; In order to anticipate and test the effect, it was obvious to him to transform himself into the viewer (futuristic sculpture) and the sculptures must be seen as a description of the effect.

The soul-temporal moment completely outweighed the spatial determination. In order to achieve the goal of labor, albeit often unconscious, an identity was established between the observer and the maker; because only in this way was unrestricted work possible.

It describes this fact that the effect on the beholder is mostly viewed as a reversal of the creative process, even if it is characterized as not very intense. The sculptor submitted to the majority of mental processes and transformed himself into an observer. While working, he always kept a distance that corresponded to the future beholder and modeled the effect; He shifted the emphasis to the visual activity of the former and modeled in touches so that the viewer could create the actual form. The construction of space was sacrificed to a secondary, indeed alien, means, namely material movement; the premise of all plastic that
cubic Eaum, was forgotten. A few years ago we experienced the redetermining crisis in France.

Through a tremendous effort of consciousness one recognized the irrelevant questionability of the procedure.

Some painters decreed to refrain from mechanically sliding handicraft with sufficient strength; detached from the usual means, they investigated the elements of the perception of what it produced and determined.

The results of this important effort are well known.

At the same time it was necessary to discover Negerjjjlastik and recognize that it had cultivated pure plastic forms in isolation.

The efforts of these painters are usually referred to as abstraction, although it cannot be denied that only a tremendous criticism of the erroneous descriptions could one approach a direct conception of space.

This, however, is essential and clearly separates stimulant sculpture from such art which orientated itself on it and gained its consciousness; what appears here as abstraction is there immediately given nature. Negro sculpture will prove to be the strongest realism in the formal sense. Today’s artist not only acts for the pure form, he still feels it as an opposition to his prehistory and interweaves the all-too-active in his striving; his necessary criticism reinforces the analytical.

Religion and african art

The art of the governor is primarily determined by religion.

The sculptures are revered as with any ancient people.

The maker works his work as the deity or its keeper, that is, he from the beginning has a distance from the work that is God or him holds on.

His work is distant adoration and thus the work a priori something independent, more powerful than the maker; especially since the latter works his entire intensity into the work and thus, as the weaker one, sacrifices himself to it.

His work must be called religious service.

The work as deity is free and detached from everything; workers like adorant are at an immeasurable distance from him.

That will never mix with human events and if so, then as the mighty and again distanced.

The transcendence of the work is conditioned and presupposed in the religious.

It is created in adoration, in a horror before God, and the same is its effect. Maker and worshiper are a priori soul, that is essentially identical; the effect does not lie in the work of art, but in its presupposed, undisputed godliness.

The artist will not be presumptuous, an effect competing with God
to strive for; this is certainly given and predetermined.

The work of art as an effort to create an effect is pointless here, especially since the idols are often adored in the dark.

The artist creates a work that is independent, transcendent and remains unwoven.

This transcendence corresponds to a spatial perception that excludes any function of the beholder; a completely exhausted, total and unfragmentary space must be given and guaranteed.

The seclusion of the space does not mean abstraction here, but is an immediate sensation.

The unity is only guaranteed when the cubic is achieved completely, to which nothing can be added.

The activity of the spectator is out of the question.

(If it is a question of religious painting, then this will be entirely limited to the picture surface so that the same thing can be achieved. Such painting cannot be approached from the decorative or ornamental point of view; these are secondary consequences.)

I said the three-dimensional must be perfect and undiminished be accomplished, the view is religiously predetermined and is strengthened by the religious canon.

With this determination of looking, a style is achieved that is not subject to any arbitrariness of the individual, but is canonically determined and can only be changed through religious upheavals.

The observer often adores the pictures in the dark, is completely claimed by God in prayer and completely surrendered to him, so that he will hardly have any influence on the nature of the work of art, indeed he will pay attention to it.

The situation remains the same when a king or chief is portrayed; yes, even in the image of the common man, something divine is looked at, yes, worshiped; here, too, this determines the work.

Individual models and portraits do not find any in such art Space, at most as a secular secondary art that can hardly evade religious art practice or contrasts as a less important area, little respected.

The work is set up as a type of adored violence.

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It signifies the negro sculptures that they show a strong independence of the parts; this is also due to religion.

These are not oriented by the beholder, but by themselves; the parts are felt from the narrow mass, not at a weakening distance; thus they and their limits will be strengthened.

It is also noticeable that most of these works have no plinth
and similar display ingredients, which might be surprising since the
Statues are extremely decorative in our sense of the word. However, the god is never presented in any other way than as independent meadow, not in need of help.

He is not lacking pious, adoring hands when he comes from
Adorants is carried along.

Such an art will seldom reify the metaphysical, there it is taken for granted.

It will have to show itself completely in the complete form and concentrate in it amazingly intensely; that is, the form is developed to the utmost coherence.

A strong realism of the formal will emerge; for only in this way do the forces become active which do not come to form in an abstract or reactive polemical way, but are directly form.

(The metaphysical of today’s artists still betrays the previous criticism of the painterly and is included in the representation as a representational and formal essence, which confused the unconditionality of religion and art, their strictly delimited correlativity, into a destructive blending.)

In formal realism, which is not understood as imitative naturalism, transcendence is given; for imitation is impossible; when should a god imitate whom he submits.

A consistent realism of the transcendent form results.

The work of art will not be seen as an arbitrary and artificial creation, but rather as a mythical reality that surpasses the natural in strength.

The work of art is real because of its closed form; since it is self-sufficient and extremely powerful, the feeling of distance will compel a tremendously intense art.

While the European work of art is subject to emotional, even formal interpretation, insofar as the viewer is called to an active optical function, the Negro work of art is clearly determined for more than formal reasons, namely also religious ones.

It doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t symbolize; it is the god who preserves his closed mythical reality, into which he includes the adorant and also transforms him into a mythical one and abolishes his human existence.

Formal and religious unity correspond; formal and religious realism as well. The European work of art became a metaphor for the effect that challenges the viewer to casual freedom.

The religious work of art is categorical and has a
concise being that excludes any restriction.

In order to develop a delimited existence of the work of art, every temporal function must be switched off; that is, bypassing the work of art, touching it must be prevented. God has no genetics; this contradicts its valid existence.

A representation had to be found that would immediately express itself in solid material without any modules that could be betrayed by an impious, personally impairing hand.

The perception of space exhibited by such a work of art must completely absorb the cubic space and express it in a unified manner; Perspective or the usual frontality are forbidden here, they would be impious.

The work of art must give the entire equation of space; for it is timeless only when it excludes any temporal interpretation that is based on conceptions of direction.

It absorbs time by integrating what we experience as movement into its form.

Cubic view of space

It denotes every conceptual discussion, no matter how much it is attached to perception that it becomes independent and, for the sake of its specific structure, does not express all the divergences of the art scene.

First of all, the formal nature of the perception on which African sculpture is based must be examined. We can now completely disregard the metaphysical correlate, since we have identified it as a self-evident contributing factor and know that a detached form must be inferred from the religious.

Thus the task of a formal clarification of the point of view, which in this art expresses itself, posed.

The mistake, the art of the negroes We will avoid to disgrace an unconscious memory of any European art form, since African art stands before us as a delineated area for formal reasons.
The negro sculpture represents a clear fixation of the unmixed three-dimensional vision.

Büdhauerei appears to the naive, whose task it is to
to give the three-dimensional as the absolutely self-evident, since it works with a mass that is determined as such according to three dimensions. This task turns out to be difficult, even at first almost unsolvable, when it is considered that not something spatial, but rather the three-dimensional should be expressed as form.

An almost indescribable excitement takes hold of the ponder; this three-dimensional, which cannot be grasped at a glance, should not be construed as a vague visual suggestion, but rather as a closed, actual expression. European solutions, which, when tested on African plastics, tend to turn out to be ways out, are familiar to the eyes, convince mechanically and through habit. Frontality, diverse views, transitional model and three-dimensional silhouette are the main features
the usual means.

The frontality almost betrays the viewer about the cubic and increases all power to one side. She arranges the representational front parts according to a point of view and gives them a certain plasticity.

The simplest naturalistic view is selected, the side closest to the viewer which habitually orientates him most objectively and psychologically. The other, subordinate views suggest, rhythmically interrupted, the sensation that corresponds to the notions of movement of the three-dimensional.

The abrupt movements, mainly linked by the object, result in an imagination of spatial belonging that is formally not justified.

The same happens to him in the silhouette, which is created by perspective
Truks possibly supported, hinting at the cubic. More precisely, it is borrowed from drawing, which is never a plastic element.

In all of these cases one finds a painterly or a graphic one
Procedure; the depth is suggested, but seldom formed directly as a form. These procedures are based on the prejudice that the cubic is more or less guaranteed by the material mass, an inner excitement that circumscribes it, or a one-sided form instruction is sufficient for the cubic to exist as form.

These methods try to suggest and signify the plastic rather than arriving at a consequence. However, this is hardly possible in this way, since the cubic is represented here as mass and not directly as form.

However, mass is not identical to form; for that cannot actually be perceived in one; Psycho-logical acts of movement are always linked to these processes, which dissolve the form into something genetic and destroy it completely.

The difficult thing begins to fix the third dimension in a single optical act of representation and to see it as a totality; that it is contained in an integration.

But what is cubic is form.

It is clear that this must be grasped at once, but not as an objective suggestion; what is an act of movement must be fixed to be unconditional.

The three-dimensionally situated parts must be at the same time
be represented, that is, the dispersed space must be integrated into a field of vision.

Every three-dimensional point on a mass is infinitely interpretable;
Even this seems to hold insoluble difficulties against an unambiguous determination and makes any totality appear impossible; Even the continuity of his relationships only makes it difficult to hope for a certain solution, however flattering one may be, in the gradual, slowly guided function of suggesting to the viewer a uniformly determined impression; no rhythmic arrangement, no graphic relationship, no matter how richly reproduced the movement may be, can deceive us that the cubic is not here
is collected directly and in one to form.

The Negro seems to have given a pure and valid solution to this problem.

At first he found a paradox for us, a formal dimension.
The idea of ​​the cubic as form – only with this it has it
to create plastic and with no material mass – immediately shows that it must first be determined what constitutes it; these are the parts that cannot be seen at the same time; they must be collected with the visible in a total form that determines the beholder in a visual act and corresponds to a fixed three-dimensional view so that the
otherwise irrationally cubic would turn out to be visibly formed.

The optical naturalism of Western art is not an imitation of external nature; nature, which is passively imitated here, is the point of view of the beholder.

This is how one understands the genetic, the uncommonly elative, ours
attached to most art. This adapted to the viewer (frontality, distant image) and more and more the creation of the final optical form was entrusted to an actively involved viewer.
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Form is an equation, like our imagination; this equation works well artistically if it is understood unconditionally and without any relation to the foreign.

For form is called that perfect identity of perception
and individual realizations, which in their structure coincide and do not behave like concepts and individual cases. The view
probably includes several cases of realization, but possesses
no higher quality reality than this. It is thus evident that art represents a special case of unconditional intensity and that quality must be produced in it undiminished.

The task of the sculpture is to form an equation in which the naturalistic sensations of movement and thus the mass are completely absorbed, and their successive differences are converted into a formal order.

This equivalent has to be total in order for the work of art not to
is perceived more as an equation of differently directed human tendencies, rather as an unconditional, self-contained thing.

The dimensions of the usual tree are counted three times, where
the third, a dimension of movement, only counted but not counted
their type has been checked. Since the work of art is simply the kind
develops, this last dimension experiences a dichotomy. Movement is a continuum that encircles the space and walks.

Since the visual arts are fixed, this uniform is shared, namely conceived in opposite directions and thus contains two Completely different directions, which can be found in the infinite space of the mathematician, e.g. B. remain pretty insignificant.

The direction of depth and the forward tendency are completely separate ways of creating space in sculpture; they are not differentiated linearly, rather first-class differences in form, if they are not merged impressionistically, that is again under the influence of naturalistic ideas of movement.

From this knowledge it emerges that plastic is discontinuous in a certain sense, especially since contrasts cannot be dispensed with as a fundamental means to create the space entirely.

The cubic should not be disguised as a secondary suggestive model and thus not introduced as a materialized relationship, rather it should be brought out as the actual.

The viewer of a sculpture easily believes that his impression is settled
from seeing and, on the other hand, representing the deeper parts together; such an effect would have nothing to do with art because of its ambiguity.

We emphasized that plastic is not a matter of the naturalistic
Mass, but only the formal clarification. So it is a matter of representing the invisible parts in their formal function, as form, the cubic, the depth quotient, as I would like to call it, on the visible parts as form; but only as a form, without mixing the representational, the mass.

The parts must therefore not be represented materially and pictorially, rather in such a way that the form, which makes them three-dimensional and which is naturalistic in the act of movement, is fixed in one and simultaneously visible.

That means that each part must be plastically independent and deformed in such a way that it absorbs the depth, in that the idea of ​​how it would appear from the opposite side is worked into the frontal, but three-dimensionally functional one.

So every part is a result of the formal imagination,
which creates the space as a totality and complete identity of the individual optical and perception, and rejects the surrogating way out, which weakens the space to the mass. Such a sculpture is strongly centered on one side, since it now gives the cubic as a total, as an eesultante undisguised, while the frontality only sums up the front surface.

This integration of the plastic must generate functional centers,
according to what it is ordered; From these cubic “points centrales” a necessary, strong division arises, which can be described as a strong independence of the parts. This is understandable, because the naturalistic mass does not play a role, the famous compact uninterrupted mass of early works of art is irrelevant; moreover, the figure is not grasped here as an effect, but in its immediate being-space
Hands of the worker; the body is functional in and of itself
recorded. Often one criticizes the so-called negro sculptures
Proportional error; One understands that the optical discontinuity of space is translated into clarification of form, into an order which, since it is a question of plasticity, parts that are valued differently according to their plastic expression.

Their size is not the decisive factor, rather the cubic expression they have been granted, which they are supposed to represent ruthlessly.

There is, however, one thing that the Negro disdains, to which the Europeans lead his compromise, the modöle interpolated into an elementary; for there is one thing that this purely plastic process requires, the decisive division.

The sides are, as it were, subordinate functions, since the form must be triggered in a concentrated and intense manner in order to be form; for the cubic is represented as a result and expression independently of the mass.

And only this is permissible; for art as something qualitative is a question of intensity; the cubic must be in subordination
the views present themselves as tectonized intensity.

The concept of the monumental is to be touched upon here. This view probably belongs to times which, lacking any intuition, measured their work in terms of size.

Since art has to deal with the intense, monumentality is no longer a size. There is still other things to be cleared away here.

One will never be allowed to approach these plastic orders with linear interpolations; here we see a vision weakened by conceptual memories, nothing else. But one will understand the undistorted realism of the Negro when one learns to see by looking how the limited space of the work of art can be fixed directly.

The depth function is not expressed by dimensions, but by the calibration result of the welded, and not
objectively added, spatial contrasts that can never be viewed uniformly in the crowd’s imagination of movement; for the cubic does not rest in the individual, differently situated parts, but rather in their cubic eesultante, always conceived as one, which has nothing to do with it Has to create mass or geometric line.

This represents the cubic being as an inenetic, unconditional result, since the movement is absorbed.

After examining the plastic concentration, they are
Consequences easy to explain. Often one objected to the negro sculptures that they were disproportionate, while others wanted to read from them the anatomical structure of the various tribes. Both are done; for the organic has no special meaning in art, since it only indicates the real possibility of movement. By equating thinking about art with creating art, albeit reversed in time, one constructed with abrupt terms, as if art somehow started from the model and abstracted from it. It makes sense that the prerequisite for such a process would already be art;
One will never be allowed to leave the plane of one’s subject in an investigation, otherwise one speaks of a lot, but not of the subject in front of him.

Both abstract and organic are criteria that are alien to art (either conceptual or naturalistic) and thus entirely extraterritorial.

So may one also think of vitalistic or mechanical
Refrain from explaining what art forms are concerned with.

Wide feet are not wide because they carry, but the back sometimes expands downwards or a contrasting equilibrium to the pelvis is sought.

Because the form is neither bound to the organic nor to the mass
is (the so-called organic here and there requires the base as a geometric and compact contrast), most negro sculptures do without the base; once it is present, it is vividly accentuated by points and immediately.

But back to the question of proportions. These depend on how much of the decisive depth quotient, by which I mean the plastic result. Depth should be expressed. The relationships between the parts depend only on the degree of their cubic function.

Important parts require a corresponding cubic result. This is also how one understands the so-called tortuous ones Joints or limbs of negro sculptures; this rolled winding shows visibly and in a concentrated manner what exactly defines the cubic form of two otherwise abrupt alignment contrasts; Areas that are otherwise only anticipated become active and functional in a collective, uniform expression, thus form and absolutely necessary for the representation of the immediately cubic.

The other sides have to be subordinated to these integrated forms in a seldom standardization, but they did not remain unprocessed, suggestive material; they became formally active.

On the other hand, the depth becomes visible as a totality. This form,
which is identical with a uniform view is expressed in constants and contrasts.

But these are no longer infinitely interpretable, but the twofold direction of depth, the movement forward and backward at the back, is bound in a cubic expression.

Every cubic point can be interpreted in two directions; here it is included and fixed in the cubic addition, and therefore contains both depth contrasts in itself and not as an interpolated relationship.

With IsTeger sculpture, as with some so-called primitive art, it may be striking that some statues are extraordinarily long and slender; at the same time the cubic results are not overly emphasized.

Perhaps an irrepressible will is expressed here in the slim form of embracing the cubic barely too naked.

These thin, compressed, simple forms are believed to have nothing to do with the surrounding space.

I don’t want to add much to the group.

She visibly confirms the opinion that has been put forward that the cubic is not through the mass
but the form is expressed; because otherwise it would be like any other
openwork plastic a paradox and absurdity.

The group represents the extreme case of what I would like to call plastic action at a distance; Two parts of a group behave more closely than two distant parts of a figure.

Their togetherness is expressed in a subordination to a plastic integration, provided that there is not simply a contrasting or adding repetition of the formal theme.

The contrasting one has the temptation to reverse the calibration values, and thus also the sense of plastic orientation.

The line-up, on the other hand, shows the variation of a plastic system in one field of vision.

Both are completely covered because there is a uniform system.

Mask and related things

A people for whom art, religious matters and customs are directly effective,
is ruled and circumvented by the powers that make them visible in themselves.

To tattoo means to make one’s body the means and goal of a perception.

The negro sacrifices his body and enhances it; his body is visibly surrendered to the general and this acquires a tangible form in it.

It denotes a despotic, unconditionally ruling one Religion and humanity, when man and woman are the individual Making the body general by tattooing; Indeed also an increased power of eroticism. What kind of consciousness does it mean to understand one’s own body as an unfinished work that one immediately changes?

Over and above the naturalistic body, the tattooist intensifies the form sketched by nature and the body drawing reaches its height when the natural form is negated and one imagined
it surpasses.

In this case the body means at most the canvas
and the clay; yes he comes to an obstacle, which is the strongest
Must provoke design.

Tattooing presupposes an immediate awareness of oneself and accordingly an at least as strong an objectively practiced form. Here, too, we find what I call distance –
feeling of objectively creating a tremendous talent.

The tattoo is only part of the objectifying doing that
To influence the entire body, to consciously produce it, and not only in the direct expression of movement, e.g. dance or the fixed like the hairstyle. The negro determines his type so strongly that he changes him. He intervenes everywhere to authentically sign the printout. Understandably, the person who feels like a cat, river and weather changes; he is this and carries out the conclusions on the body that is too unambiguous.

The psychologizing and at the same time theatrical Europeans understand this feeling best on the mask.

Humans always change something, but they try to maintain a certain continuity, their identity.

The Europeans in particular turned this feeling into an almost hypertrophic cult; the negro who is less preoccupied with the subjective ego and honors the objective powers, if he is to assert himself alongside them, he must transform himself into them, precisely when he is celebrating them most intensely.

With the transformation he sets the balance to the destructive
Adoration on; he prays to the god, he dances ecstatically with the trunk and through the mask he transforms himself into the trunk and the god this metamorphosis gives him the most powerful understanding of the objective; he incarnates this in himself and he himself is this objective in which everything individual is destroyed.

Therefore: the mask only makes sense if it is inhuman, impersonal; that is, constructive, free from the experience of the individual; possible that he honors the mask as a deity if he does not wear it.

I would like to call the mask the fixed ecstasy, perhaps also the means always ready to work tremendously into ecstasy, in that the face of the adored violence or of the animal is fixed there.

It may come as a surprise that religiously oriented arts in particular often cling to the human figure. This seems obvious to me, since mythical existence is already an agreement regardless of form.

The god is already invented and indestructible,
as he is wise. It would almost contradict this formally so decided sense of art to exhaust oneself on material content and not devote all the forces of form – the existence of God – to adoring. Because only the art form corresponds to the being of the gods.

Perhaps the adorant wants to chain the god to man when he depicts him as such and thus enchants him in his piety; for no one is as egoist as the prayer who gives everything to God, but unconsciously makes him a man.

The peculiar rigid expression that is formed on the faces must also be explained here.

This rigidity means nothing other than the ultimate intensity of expression, freed from any psychological arising;
at the same time, above all, it enables a clear structure.

I gave a series of masks that descend from the tectonic to something inhuman, so that the diverse series of mental faculties of this people may be exposed.

Here and there it seems almost insoluble what type of expression this is
Kegerkartwerk depict, whether the frightened or the terrifying.

Here we hold fine evidence of the equivocal indifference of psychological expression.

Experience has shown that the physiognomic expressions of opposite sensations coincide.

The animal masks shake me when the negro hits the face of the Tiers assumes that he would otherwise kill.

The god is also in the killed animal, and perhaps the feeling of a self-sacrifice can be heard when he pays for the killed creature in putting on the animal mask and approaches the god in it; sees in her the violence that is greater than him: his tribe.

Perhaps that he escapes the real thing for the slain animal if he transforms into it.

Between the human and animal mask stands the one who holds on to the transformation.

Here we are touching on mixed forms, which in spite of the fantastic
or grotesque content that show the classic African equilibrium.

It is the religious that is visible in its overstrain
World that creates an intermediate world is no longer sufficient; and in the
The grotesque disproportion between the gods and the creature looms large.

I linger briefly on stylistic explanations of the negro mask. We saw how the African condenses the plastic forces into visible results.

Even in the masks, the force of the cubic look speaks
which makes the surfaces collide, which amalgamates the whole meaning of the front face in a few plastic forms and develops the minor three-dimensional adjustment factors in their results.

PHOTO CREDIT OF

http://www.archive. org

http://archive.org/details/negerplastik00einsuoft

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Last Updating 11.10.2021