456 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



forward through the prolonged stages of savagery and barbarism to 

 the borderland of civilization. Due to a highly centralized religio- 

 political form of government, the people and their resources were 

 readily available in carrying out great undertakings, and rapid 

 strides in the development of institutions and arts were possible. 

 The esthetic faculty dependent largely on nonesthetic activities for its 

 manifestations was thus afforded its greatest opportunity. 



The arts of taste had their origin, as had religion, in the state of 

 savagery ; and with some very ancient peoples, as the Troglodytes of 

 western Europe, decided advance was made in both graphic and 

 plastic representation of life forms, and this quite independently, so 

 far as evidence is available, of any religious association or influence. 

 The Maya in the beginning may have passed through a correspond- 

 ing stage of nonsymbolic art, but howsoever this may be, it was not 

 until religious symbolism gave special significance to the subject mat- 

 ter of representative art, that particular advance was made toward 

 the higher esthetic expression. With this great group, as with the 

 American peoples generally, the esthetic in its higher manifestations 

 grew as a vine upon the strong stem of religious symbolism. Ee- 

 ligion furnished the conception and the energy and skill necessary 

 to its realization; it prepared the design, supervised its application 

 to the stone, and drove the chisel that carved it. It demanded re- 

 sults in form, finish, and embellishment of the highest order, for in 

 the view of their devotees the gods appreciated the beautiful as well 

 as the essential. We do not lose sight of the fact, however, that ap- 

 preciation of the qualities regarded as pleasing to the gods had its 

 origin in that which was pleasing to the man. Certain qualities of 

 form, line, color, and arrangement gave pleasure to the eye; certain 

 qualities of finish gave pleasure to the touch, and this appreciation of 

 the qualities called esthetic, was a thing of slow growth in the human 

 mind, but of great moment in the history of culture. To the 

 pleasure afforded by perfected qualities of the works themselves were 

 added always the incentive of religious fervor, the ambition to excel, 

 and the fascination of creating for creation's sake. 



The importance of the esthetic element in Maya art can hardly be 

 overestimated. It is doubtful if any people at a corresponding 

 stage of cultural evolution was more highly gifted with artistic 

 genius and appreciation and gave more attention to its application 

 to all forms of art than the Mayan race. Every plastic form and 

 every line of the dragon bear testimony to this fact. It was not 

 religion that stipulated that no straight line and no right angle 

 should appear in the image of the dragon; it was not religious re- 

 striction that provided that no curve should be the arc of a circle, 

 that every curve should be subtle, and that all outlines of glyphs and 



