History of art . s enthusiasm thatits bareness and also the best of its human value arelost together. There are temples stuffed with gods ofsilver and gold, whose eyes are rubies or of fire gleam in the shadows; the royal robe ofthe tigers, the iridescent plumage of tropical forests,their flowers, and the shining tails of peacocks incrustthe sheathing of metal, ivory, or enamel that coversthe pillars and the walls with emeralds, amethysts,pearls, topazes, and sapphires. It is an art of externals,and its unvarying magnificence is of a paler light thanthat of statues in a temple u
History of art . s enthusiasm thatits bareness and also the best of its human value arelost together. There are temples stuffed with gods ofsilver and gold, whose eyes are rubies or of fire gleam in the shadows; the royal robe ofthe tigers, the iridescent plumage of tropical forests,their flowers, and the shining tails of peacocks incrustthe sheathing of metal, ivory, or enamel that coversthe pillars and the walls with emeralds, amethysts,pearls, topazes, and sapphires. It is an art of externals,and its unvarying magnificence is of a paler light thanthat of statues in a temple underground. The spiritof feudal India is rather in the great rectangularcastles, bare and austere, closed in like fortresses,defended by high towers, and cuirassed with poly-chromed enamel; it is in the palaces of white marbleby the silent waters. The Occident of the Middle Ages, the Occident ofthe fortresses and the Romanesque buildings, is cer-tainly less out of place in the hierarchical India of the i INDIA 41. north than in the democratic India of the south. Inone place as in the other, the abstraction descendsfrom the dominating classes to crush the miserableclasses beneath the petrified symbol of its externalpower. But the HellenicOccident where, on thecontrary, the abstractionrose from the masses toexpress its inner powerthrough the voice of theheroes—the Hellenic Oc-cident and also the GothicOccident would moreeasily recognize the traceof their dream if theyfollowed the torrent ofideas that crossed themountains, the swamps,the virgin forests, andthe sea, to spread to thepeninsula of Indo-China,to the Dutch Indies, andto Java. The spread ofIndian ideas is witnessedin the gigantic templesthat cover Java; it is seeneven more in the for-tresses, the palaces, andthe temples absorbed little by little by the jungles of Cambodia, the home ofthe mysterious race of the Khmers. They lived in acountry less overwhelming than India, for, despite thedenseness of the forests, the und
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectart, bookyear1921
