History of art . in toward death, and as the men whohad hollowed out the mountains under her eyes hadtaught her to bring outof chaos the architec-tured form on whichthe light and shadepaint the spirit of life,she was able to giveto the funeral chantwhich she sang for athousand years, fromthe seventh to the six-teenth century, a pleni-tude and a gravity ofaccent that had beenforgotten since thedays of Egypt. Thereis a heavy, categoricalstrain to it as of a set-tled thing — like thefinal conclusion of anintelligence that hasturned round itself ina complete circle with -out discovering a singlefi
History of art . in toward death, and as the men whohad hollowed out the mountains under her eyes hadtaught her to bring outof chaos the architec-tured form on whichthe light and shadepaint the spirit of life,she was able to giveto the funeral chantwhich she sang for athousand years, fromthe seventh to the six-teenth century, a pleni-tude and a gravity ofaccent that had beenforgotten since thedays of Egypt. Thereis a heavy, categoricalstrain to it as of a set-tled thing — like thefinal conclusion of anintelligence that hasturned round itself ina complete circle with -out discovering a singlefissure through whichdoubt could enter. Certainly, we do notfind in the funerarystatues of China that Sung Art (960-1260). Water lilies,secret illumination {Charles Vignier Collection.) which mounts from the depths of the Egyptian colossuses to unite, on theplane of their undulating surfaces, the mind of manwith the light. The Chinese people, as the masters oftheir soil and their culture, never suffered enough to. 86 MEDIEVAL ART seek inner liberty and the consolation for living in aconstant hope of death. They looked on death withplacidity, with no more of fear than of desire. Butthe fact that they did not lose sight of death gave toChinese positivism a formidable importance. Medi-tating on death causes one to see essential things. Theanecdote, in which one loses oneself when one is con-cerned with the adventures of life, leaves the mindforever. The things that interest and hold the majorityof men cease to fetter the mind, which realizes that itpasses like the daylight between two flutters of aneyelid, and that in the light of this flash it must seizethe absolute. And because it perceives nothing be-yond life its hymn to death gathers up and confidesto the future everything that is immortal in life. Funerary sculpture increased in grandeur as thepower of China increased, and decreased when Chinesepower began to wane. From the time of the Tangtombs to that of the Ming tombs, fr
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectart, bookyear1921
