History of art . these peoples, withthe celebration ofslaughter and death—as it so frequentlydid also among themost civilized peo-ples ? Our hearts beatmore regularly andmore strongly whenwe follow the Assyr-ians into their moun-tains, when they strangle lions whose iron muscles grow tense andwhose claws tear the belly of the horses. We uniteas if for a prayer around the harmonious groupson the Greek pediments which evoke the terriblemyths of Hercules, or the war of gods and man, onthe centaurs and the lapiths, or the Amazons—worksfull of murder, of the blows of falling axes and ofthe flight o
History of art . these peoples, withthe celebration ofslaughter and death—as it so frequentlydid also among themost civilized peo-ples ? Our hearts beatmore regularly andmore strongly whenwe follow the Assyr-ians into their moun-tains, when they strangle lions whose iron muscles grow tense andwhose claws tear the belly of the horses. We uniteas if for a prayer around the harmonious groupson the Greek pediments which evoke the terriblemyths of Hercules, or the war of gods and man, onthe centaurs and the lapiths, or the Amazons—worksfull of murder, of the blows of falling axes and ofthe flight of spears, where fingers clutch desperatelyat knives. The lines of soldiers on the arches of tri-umph of the Romans, the passage of the lictors, of thelegionaries, of the somber imperator with his laurels,the plod of the captives, and the sonorous step of thehorses fill us with calm and energy. We know on whatheaps of cadavers the mosques and the alcazars areraised, with what bloody mortar their stones are ce-. Mexico. Cliacmool. (Trocaoero.) 204 MEDIEVAL ART merited, and yet we love the cool of their shadow andtheir gardens. We even feel a powerful exaltationbefore the Indian monsters who drink blood and devourrotten flesh. It is because the spectacle of strength exalts our strength. It isalso because we deceive our-selves as to the meaning ofour acts and because we like theforms that are necessary to the de-velopment of our faculty of bringingabout order and of comprehending, eventhrough the composite monsters and themutilated fragments, as, through com-bat and violence, we pursue an illusoryand distant idea of harmony and offellowship. We fumble in the darknessand injure ourselves as we collide withthe walls. The gateway to the light isnever found. And so we must look for it together,or at the very least we must refrainfrom striking down those who are pas-sionately seeking it in the depths ofthe shadows. In Mexico, in Peru, theslaughter of the peoples was at everymoment s
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