History of art . 97 have been dulled by the weight of the noxious exhala-tions, the eye blurred by bloody mists, so that thevarious styles of building were fused, as the mostbizarre fancies of theocratic pride were imposed on thearchitects. Primi-tive India, northernEurope, Asia, andAmerica were min-gled, even as theirmythologies hadbeen mingled, anddisfigured, in thefierce soul of the oldMexican can expressthe burning restless-ness of the soul ofthese peoples, whoknew astronomy;who had divided theepic of humanityinto four sublimeages — the suns ofwater, air, fire, andearth—wh
History of art . 97 have been dulled by the weight of the noxious exhala-tions, the eye blurred by bloody mists, so that thevarious styles of building were fused, as the mostbizarre fancies of theocratic pride were imposed on thearchitects. Primi-tive India, northernEurope, Asia, andAmerica were min-gled, even as theirmythologies hadbeen mingled, anddisfigured, in thefierce soul of the oldMexican can expressthe burning restless-ness of the soul ofthese peoples, whoknew astronomy;who had divided theepic of humanityinto four sublimeages — the suns ofwater, air, fire, andearth—which repre-sent the struggleagainst the deluge,the cold, lava, andhunger; w^ho sangthe loves of the vol-canoes; who adored the sun, the profound father oflife, from the tops of the terraces, but who thoughtit necessary that the walls of the temples which theyraised to him be always bathed in human blood, thatit should rot on the burning earth, and that at thesummit of the temples a Stone of Hearts should offer. The goddess of death. {Museum of the City of Mexico.) 198 MEDIiEVAL ART to the eagles the viscera of the human beings who weresacrificed.^ For Teoyaomiqui, goddess of death, for Huitzilo-poctH, god of carnage, for Tlaloc, god of water, offorests, of storms, the god who regulated the warmtorrents that streamed from the sky for six months,and for Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent that wasalready adored by the Toltecs^—^from whom themasters of Tenochtitlan received art, the cult of thesun, and the thirst for blood—for all these gods newcadavers were necessary. To consecrate the templesof Huitzilopoctli at Tenochtitlan, eighty thousandprisoners had their throats cut. The bread offered insacrifice was kneaded with the blood of children andvirgins. Their hearts were torn out and lifted up tothe god, the pools of blood that spurted from thesevered arteries were carefully spread over the imageof the god so that it should disappear under a mantleof smoking clots at the end
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectart, bookyear1921
