一橋大学（1981）①

A child draws a human head as a circle. This is not an attempt to reproduce the specific outline of a particular person's head but rather a general form quality of a head, of heads in general --- namely, roundness. Roundness is commonly thought of as an abstract concept. As such it can be attributed to many or all heads, but --- according to the traditional definition of abstraction --- no particular head ought to be able to represent it concretely to the eye. Yet, the child's circle is more than a mere sign that stands for an intellectual concept, in the way in which ∞ stands for infinity. It is an image, a generally accepted image of that roundness common to the shape of heads. The impossible seems achieved --- a perceptually concrete representation of the abstract.

①The child's circle is no less concrete and individual than a photograph of any of the particular heads for which it stands. But it is a representation that eliminates many of the perceptual characteristics of heads and limits itself to a form that gives the structure of roundness in a pure, clear-cut way. Thus the general quality of roundness drawn from individual heads can not only be defined by an intellectual concept, but the particular structure it designates, which is realized less clearly in the original shapes, can be presented to the eyes in a concrete, individual form in which this structure is stripped of many accidental complications. Such a purified, even though concrete, presentation of structural qualities seems to fulfill the requirements of a true abstraction.

①その子供の描いた絵は、それを示しているどんな特定の頭の写真と同じくらい具体的で個人的である。

しかし、それは頭の様々な知覚的特徴のうち、その中の多くの特徴を取り除き、それ自身を純粋でくっきりした丸さの構造を示すひとつの形に制限する表現である。