著者

二宮 望

出版者

美学会

雑誌

美学 (ISSN:05200962)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.72, no.2, pp.24-35, 2021 (Released:2023-04-27)

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Ernst Kris and Ernst Hans Gombrich started to research on caricatures in the 1930s and attempted to accomplish the unfinished project. This paper examines the potential of their caricature study in terms not only of the theoretical exploration but also of the curatorial praxis. In 1936 Kris organized an exhibition featuring drawings of Honoré Daumier at the Albertina in Wien with Gombrich’s support. This event suggested their intention to intervene in “the dark times”, which seemed to come closer to the absurd world that Daumier sketched about half a century ago. The two art historians focused on political performativity in their articles on caricatures. The discussion splits into two directions: contextualizing it in the art history and psychological analysis of its mechanism. On the one hand, Kris and Gombrich located caricature in the series of image-magic, with which people confuse an effigy with a real person. On the other hand, it is revealed from the psychoanalytical perspective how caricature gives beholders a comical impression. Kris applied Sigmund Freud’s argument on wit to the visual persuasion of caricature. Finally, this paper concludes that caricature is a technique that converts politically sublime energy into an aesthetical benefit.