History of art . rges a peopleto demand from the forms of nature the education ofits spirit. II They are Greek, also, because, despite their fixedattitudes, despite the barbarous splendor that surroundsthem and stiffens them, they radiate a profound senseof harmony. They are the troubled instinct, the livingseed of a magnificent flower at the bottom of a plague-ridden pool; their fearful splendor is that of those blueor green flies incased in shining metal that breed onrotting meat. The spirit of Phidias has returned toearth and found its way to the charnel house, wherelife is blindly assertin
History of art . rges a peopleto demand from the forms of nature the education ofits spirit. II They are Greek, also, because, despite their fixedattitudes, despite the barbarous splendor that surroundsthem and stiffens them, they radiate a profound senseof harmony. They are the troubled instinct, the livingseed of a magnificent flower at the bottom of a plague-ridden pool; their fearful splendor is that of those blueor green flies incased in shining metal that breed onrotting meat. The spirit of Phidias has returned toearth and found its way to the charnel house, wherelife is blindly asserting itself anew. The w^hole gloriouslife that hung suspended in the pediments of the tem-ples, swinging from one horizon to another, seems to 216 MEDIEVAL ART have gathered itself in the depths of these Byzantineimages. Even the formation of the heads denotesatrophy; hfe wells up in the great eyes that look outinto space, into the darkness, and into the decompo-sition and the morbid fever in the soul of the Ravenna (vi Century). The Magi, mosaic, detail. (Sanf Apollinare Nuovo.) The inner spirit of the time makes its true appearanceas these strange beings look down from their walls andtry, in the prodigious fermentation that is taking placein mans consciousness, to reconcentrate the energyscattered piecemeal over all the pathways of the mindby the decadence of Hellas. The Byzantine idols haveregained the immobility of the statues which, beforethe time of Myron and Phidias, characterized the con-centration of all Hellenic effort as it prepared its con-quest of an imposing and fugitive equilibrium. But w > ^^^ ^ Cl fî ^ V t3 ^ r+ s c g, â ^ ? f*-^ ^ r^ o ^. B ç^ fC ^ s ^ g P 5 frs ^—^ o 33 rD -S B cr<3 M B o Cfl 2. o*
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectart, bookyear1921
