62 



glyphic paintings preserved in the archives of the 

 viceroyalty at Mexico, where, since the conquest, 

 and especially since the year 1540, an evident 

 improvement in the art of drawing- is perceived. 

 I saw, in the Boturini collection, clothes of cotton, 

 and rolls of agave paper, on which were repre- 

 sented, by very correct outlines, bishops on the 

 backs of mules, Spanish lancemen on horseback, 

 oxen yoked to a plough, vessels arriving at Vera 

 Cruz, and a number of other objects unknown 

 to the Mexicans before the arrival of Cortez. 

 These paintings were made not by Europeans, 

 but by Indians and Mestizoes. On looking over 

 the hieroglyphic manuscripts of different pe- 

 riods, we observe the progress of the arts to- 

 ward perfection. The stunted figures become 

 more proportionate. The limbs separate them- 

 selves from the trunk ; the eye in profile is no 

 longer seen as if it were in the front ; horses, 

 which in the Azteck paintings resembled Mexi- 

 can stags, assume gradually their real form. 

 The figures are no longer grouped as if in proces- 

 sion ; their relations to each other are multiplied ; 

 we see them in action ; and the symbolic paint- 

 ing, which sketches or recals events, rather than 

 expresses them, is insensibly transformed into 

 an animated painting, which employs only a few 

 phonetic hieroglyphics*, to indicate the names of 



* See vol. xiii, page 159. 



