This sentence was used in Chapter 4 of The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, and I had to wonder, does this contradict anything that was discussed in Chapter 2 about caricatures in animation?
The short answer is no.
The long answer is that Walt Disney is absolutely right. Caricatures have a base in realism. You cannot create a caricature unless you have something to work off of. They can't normally be pulled out of thin air! Take for instance, a duck. We all know what a duck looks like, feathers, webbed feet, beaks, go "quack" etc. Now let us look at Donald Duck over here on the right, a character by Walt Disney.
He does have a lot of duck-like qualities, right? But these qualities are, as I previously mentioned, grounded on the existing real ducks we usually see in life and pictures. However, the real life duck isn't the only inspiration for this character. Human anatomy is also a big player in this character. Ducks don't normally have fingers, or flexible bills that allow to create a smile and audible english words. Ducks also don't wear sailor suits, unless you own a pretty tame duck that allows you to dress it up.
I wouldn't say there was much conflict between Chapters 2 and 4, mainly because both share the same base of following from real examples, and from their they strive down their own individual paths that can possibly contradict if principles from both chapters were mixed in one animation, but if an animator followed one path, they shouldn't find many roadblocks.
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