History of art . of nature, an intimate and continuous co-herence, in which the serenity of the heart fixes itself,becomes immobile, and demonstrates to itself its certi-tude and necessity. But beneath the great need forunity and calmness,fetishism and magic patiently assert their I rights. The placingof the edifice, the in-variably unevennumber of roofs su-perimposed on oneanother and turnedup at the corners—a memory of Mongoltents—the little bellsjingling at the slight-est breeze, the mon-sters of terra cottaon the openworkcornices, the moralmaxims paintedeverywhere, thescrolls of gildedwood
History of art . of nature, an intimate and continuous co-herence, in which the serenity of the heart fixes itself,becomes immobile, and demonstrates to itself its certi-tude and necessity. But beneath the great need forunity and calmness,fetishism and magic patiently assert their I rights. The placingof the edifice, the in-variably unevennumber of roofs su-perimposed on oneanother and turnedup at the corners—a memory of Mongoltents—the little bellsjingling at the slight-est breeze, the mon-sters of terra cottaon the openworkcornices, the moralmaxims paintedeverywhere, thescrolls of gildedwood, the wholemass of thorn bushes,arrises, crests, brist-ling and clawlikeforms—everythingshows how con-stantly the Chinese were concerned with attractingthe genii of wind and water to the edifice and tothe neighboring houses, or of keeping them observe a similar idea in the great artificial parks,where all the accidents of the earths surface, moun-tains, rocks, brooks, cascades, forests, and thickets. Tang Art (viii Century). Tombof Chouen-Ling. Ram.{Ed. Chavannes Mission.) 74 MEDIAEVAL ART are imitated to the point of mania. It is as if theChinese who, outside of the cities, never change the orig-inal aspect of their native soil, were expressing the re-spect it inspires in them by bringing it down to thescale of human luxury. The Chinese people is moresubmissive than religious, more respectful than enthu-siastic. It is not that it lacks gods or that it does notbelieve them to be real. Those men who called them-selves the disciples of the profound Lâo-Tsze, the Tao-ists, introduced among the Chinese as many divinities,perhaps, as are born and die every day on the soil ofIndia. Moreover, all those beliefs that are interpretedonly by the practices of popular superstition grind oneagainst another and interpenetrate, so that in the sameindividual we almost always find them existing sideby side. In reality, whether he is a Buddhist, a Taoist,a Moslem, or a Christian, t
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectart, bookyear1921
