idea, Rose noted, was somewhat similar to, but "more universal" than, the Cosmic Race theory of Mexican academic José Vasconcelos. Literary contribution Literary style and principles Eugen Relgis blended a critique of capitalism, advocacy of internationalism and modern art interest with all his main contributions to literature. In his essays and "all too cerebral" novels, George Călinescu argues, Eugen Relgis was "obsessed with humanitarianism" and self-help techniques. With his 1934 piece for Șantier, Relgis divided the experience and nature of art into a primordial, collective, form and a newer, individualist one: in the past, Relgis noted, creativity was consumed into creating vast anonymous works ("the pyramid, the temple, the cathedral"), often demanding "the silent and tenacious effort of successive generations." Presently, he thought, the combat against the "imperative of Profit" and "vulgar materialism" justified the "ethical and aesthetic individualism". Relgis' essay described industrial society in harsh terms, as directed by "the bloody gods" of "Capitalism and War", and cautioned that the advocacy of anonymity in modern art could lead to kitsch ("serialized production, without the significance it used to carry in bygone days"). Elsewhere, however, Relgis also argued that books needed to have a formative value, and that literature, unlike journalism, "needs to be the expression of length and depth." Some of Relgis' preferences were shaped from his time at Fronda. Its art manifestos, described by Paul Cernat as "virtually illegible", announced radical ideals, such as art for art's sake through Neronian destruction: Qualis artifex pereo. Leon Baconsky, a historian of Romanian Symbolism, notes that all Frondistes were at the time enthusiastic followers of French literary theorist Remy de Gourmont, to whom Cernat adds philosopher Henri Bergson and Epicurean thinker Jean-Marie Guyau (both of them dedicated "prolix-metaphoric commentary" in the review's pages). In matters of poetics, the group declared its deep admiration for the loose Symbolism of Tudor Arghezi (whose poems were amply reviewed by all three Fronda issues) and, to a lesser extent, Ion Minulescu—according to Baconsky, Fronda was the first-ever voice in literary criticism to comment on Arghezi's work as an integral phenomenon. The cause of pacifism infused Relgis' work as a writer: a contemporary, the literary critic Pompiliu Păltânea, believed that, with his contribution to Romanian literature, Relgis was part of a diverse anti-war "ideological" group of writers (alongside Felix Aderca, Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voinești, Barbu Lăzăreanu and some others). According to Călinescu, Relgis' literary ideal became "the