RISE AND PROGRESS 



we dared to imagine, with some intelligent 

 writers, that in the picture* of the Mexicans we 

 behold the early paintings of the Greeks, the 

 character of their first groupings might soon be 

 drawn ; but though deim-barbarous both, it ap- 

 pear* to us that the genius of the two nations 

 were essentially different. We are told, indeed, 

 that Cortes and his companions viewed with ad- 

 r.iir.itioii cotton stuffs so fine and of such delicate 

 e as to resemble silk ; pictures of animals, 

 trees, and other natural objects, formed with 

 feathers of different colours, disposed and mingled 

 with such skill and elegance as to rival the works 

 of the pencil in truth and beauty of imitation : 

 nay, farther, that some painters in the train of 

 the Mexican chiefs, set up their easels, and 

 delineated, upon white cotton cloths, figures of 

 the ships, the horses, the artillery, the soldiers, 

 and whatever else attracted their notice as singu- 

 lar, and even attempted to express the evolutions 

 of war ; the rushing of armed horsemen, and the 

 smoke, and sound, and effect of the artillery. 

 But neither in the carvings nor paintings of the 

 Mexicans is poetry or science present : in this 

 those rude efforts of the two nations differ ; 

 something of the presence of divinity was visible 

 in the sentiment of the unshapeliest work of 

 Greece : in the best works of the Mexicans there 

 is not even the dawn of sentiment ; they trusted 

 for effect to rich colours and the variety of the 

 materials. Tune and inquiry have confirmed the 

 sentence of the historian, that though the Mexi- 

 cans with much skill and ingenuity represented 

 men, animals, and other objects, by such a 

 disposition of various coloured feathers, as pro- 

 duced the effect of light and shade, yet the best 

 efforts of their art are uncouth representations of 

 common objects, or very coarse images of the 

 human and some other forms, destitute of all 

 grace and propriety. In their grotesque compo- 

 sitions there is more of the Egyptian than of the 

 Grecian : the latter never appeared without 

 poetry and feeling, and we must reject as fabulous 

 or fanciful all the points of resemblance perceived 

 by the ingenious and the curious. 



It is perhaps a safer way to describe the 

 paintings of Greece by a reference to the efforts 

 of sculpture, in what is called flat relief ; a species 

 of production which partakes of the nature of 

 both, without sharing in the high qualities of 

 either. We are the more inclined to do this 

 from observing that the descriptions given by 

 Pliny and Pausanias, of the pictures of Greece, 

 show a close similarity both in character and 

 subject with not a little of the sculpture which 

 has survived. We are not without suspicion 

 too, that the pictures were generally without 



landscape or scenic backgrounds ; nay, some 

 have gone so far as to assert that the divine 

 painters of Greece had not discovered the art of 

 uniting their separate figures and groups into 

 one grand and harmonious action. The resem- 

 blance to sculpture was therefore the closer ; and 

 perhaps we are describing the copy in marble of 

 an ancient picture, when we relate the impressions 

 which some of the still existing groups and 

 reliefs make on our minds. On a sarcophagus, 

 now before us, and lately discovered by Sir 

 Pulteney Malcolm, in Crete, there is sculptured, 

 in low relief, one of those scenes on which poets 

 laid out their fancy, and painters lavished their 

 colours. The subject is the triumphant return of 

 Bacchus from India ; what this had to do with 

 death and the grave let the learned explain. A 

 naked youth, stooping under a wine skin, accom- 

 panied by a musician, leads the procession ; an 

 elephant follows, with three girls on its back, 

 playing on the double pipe and cymbals ; Silenus, 

 sufficiently intoxicated, is borne after by two 

 youths, who seem not unconscious of the weight, 

 while a satyr follows, striking a tambourine, and 

 actually leaping into the air with delight. A 

 male and female centaur succeed ; they are side 

 by side ; " one seems woman to the waist and 

 fair, but ending foul," the other has his brows 

 bound by vine leaves, and seems in a passion 

 which his female comrade strives to soothe away 

 by throwing her arm around his neck ; the empty 

 cup depending from her fingers intimates that 

 wine has something to do with the wrath which 

 agitates him. This is more fully intimated by the 

 action of the closing group : Bacchus appears all 

 youth and beauty, grave rather than joyous, in a 

 splendid car, on a pannel of which a youth and 

 satyr are contending ; the left hand of the god 

 supports a trophy, while the right hand protects a 

 trembling faun, his companion in the car, at whom 

 the exasperated centaur seems about to throw a 

 wine-flagon : the fear of the one and the surly 

 wrath of the other are well expressed. Two 

 men, on one end of the sarcophagus, seem dis- 

 puting about a child which they are bearing away 

 in a basket ; while on the other end two cupids 

 are engaged in the task of putting a tipsy satyr 

 to bed ; a blanket is suspended between two 

 trees ; the urchins have their friend on their 

 shoulders, and are striving on tiptoe to heave him 

 up, while a quiet smile is playing over his brows 

 and in the corners of his mouth at their fruitless 

 endeavours. All this seems more akin to luxu- 

 rious painting than to the simple gravity of 

 sculpture. 



This sarcophagus seems of great antiquity, 

 The subject sculptured upon it was not peculiar 



