43 



and tongues of Germanic origin, leads us to re- 

 call to mind a great number of ideas in a single 

 word, has no doubt facilitated those uncouth 

 creations of mythology and the imitative arts. 



The people, faithful to their primitive habits, 

 whatever be the degree of their intellectual cul- 

 ture, pursue, for ages, the path they have once 

 traced. An intelligent writer* has remarked, 

 speaking of the solemn simplicity of the Egyp- 

 tian hieroglyphics, " that these hieroglyphics of- 

 fered rather an absence, than a viciousness of 

 imitation." It is on the contrary this vilcious- 

 ness of imitation, this taste for the minutest de- 

 tails, this repetition of the most ordinary forms,, 

 that characterize the historical paintings of the 

 Mexicans. We have already observed *f, that we 

 ought not to confound representations, in which 

 almost every thing is individualized, with mere 

 hieroglyphics, adapted to represent abstract ideas. 

 If from these the Greeks borrowed the ideal 

 style % y the Mexican people found, in the frequent 

 employment of historical and astrological paint- 

 ings, and in their respect for forms generally 

 uncouth, and always incorrect, insuperable ob- 

 stacles to the progress of the imitative arts. In 



* Quatremere de Quincy, sur 1' Ideal dans l'Art da 

 Dessin, Archives litteraries, 1805, No. 21, p. 300 and 310, 

 f See vol. xiii, p. 349. 

 1 Quatremere de Quincy, page 303 — 307. 



