History of art . frightful visages, arrivedin the great strange islands, which were devoid of allbirds, of insects, of reptiles, and which possessed atmost a few dwarfish mammals. The Maoris had beenin the country only some three hundred years, per-haps, and it was with difficulty that they managed toorganize themselves into tribes, which numbered sometens of thousands of men, and in which the birthsbarely filled the gaps made by the massacres of prison-ers of war who were offered as a sacrifice to the notwithstanding, their soul was already escapingfrom its silence. They had built vi
History of art . frightful visages, arrivedin the great strange islands, which were devoid of allbirds, of insects, of reptiles, and which possessed atmost a few dwarfish mammals. The Maoris had beenin the country only some three hundred years, per-haps, and it was with difficulty that they managed toorganize themselves into tribes, which numbered sometens of thousands of men, and in which the birthsbarely filled the gaps made by the massacres of prison-ers of war who were offered as a sacrifice to the notwithstanding, their soul was already escapingfrom its silence. They had built villages in the centerof which the fortified Pa contained the embryo of the THE TROPICS 183 future city. Four or five communal houses sculpturedfrom top to bottom, schools, museums of tradition andlegend, temples, inclosures for sport and for assembliesin which sat the councils of administration and of decorative forms we find here are always violent,to be sure; they tell of killing, they are red with blood. Peru. Painted vases. {British Museum.) and contorted into infernal attitudes, but already theymanifest a persistent demand for balance and for archi-tectural rhythm. Must we not, therefore, see, as thedominating influence in them, the majestic landscapeswhere the activity of the Maoris took place and theeffort put forth by the people to maintain that activity.^They had passed beyond the dangerous region of thetropical zone. The perpetual spring no longer ener-vated them. Their islands, like those of Japan, ran the 184 MEDIEVAL ART gamut of climate from that of Italy to that of placed their villages beside the opal lakes set incups of lava, that are surrounded by cold springs andboiling geysers, under the shelter of immense mountains
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectart, bookyear1921
