Abstract
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.
