HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



be the case, however, would be a great mistake, as anyone will find 

 who attempts to copy the design. The variety of expressions with 

 which the few elements are introduced in their assigned positions in 

 order to give balance without repetition, and with the entire absence 

 of mechanical effect, is admirable. A similar refinement of feeling 

 distinguishes the entire vase. While in itself perfectly symmetrical 

 to the eye, its lines are not mechanical, and they are not laid down 

 by any instrument of precision. The ornament in all 

 its parts betrays the same characteristic freedom. 

 Even the bands above and below the main zone, 

 although composed of the same elements, occur in 

 different numerical combinations and in contrary 

 QOOLl motion. 



Fig. 3 It would be as useless to speculate concerning the 



symbolism of all this ornament as it would be to guess 

 at the service for which the vessel was designed. We are at liberty 

 to assume that so elaborate and refined an object had a ceremonial 

 function and that its symbolism corresponds to ideas associated with 

 its use, but its interpretation is quite beyond our reach. 



What I am concerned with here, however, is not so much the inter- 

 pretation of this object with respect to its symbolism as to 

 call attention to its qualities as a work of art. These are of 

 very high order and of such character that they afford strik- 

 ing demonstration of certain relations and bring into view a 

 number of interesting facts. The artist that executed this _ 

 work was a master of design; it would indeed be difficult to 

 match it anywhere. His art, moreover, is the expression of a liberal 

 culture that must have had a wide application. It had those qualities 

 of conscious power that everywhere marks a definite stage in the 

 progress of human endeavor in the field of art. It corresponds to the 

 period of instinctive feeling. It is a phase of art that belongs to that 

 older inheritance of rugged strength and assurance 

 in which the impulse of the artist's mind is as in- 

 genuous as the work of his hand is spontaneous. It 

 is a phase that always precedes, by a very long way, 

 that period of labored affection and painful grop- 

 Fig. 5 ing that is our more recent inheritance in the field 



of art. It is so remote from our own artistic experi- 

 ence that we wonder at its appeal. 



This ancient vase from Honduras carries with it qualities that are 

 common to all treasures of antiquity wherever they may be found. 

 It adds the weight of its testimony to the abounding evidence that 



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