342 



AISJ" ANALYSIS OF THE 



River natives — or even, as in the first mentioned human-figure-series, from Asia and 

 Europe. We have in every instance simply placed the objects in the order they 

 appear to make fiDr themselves, indifferent to the localities in which the objects have 

 been fiaund. In many instances, as with Central American design, the sequence of 

 the outlines are promptly confirmed by our knowledge of chronology. In others this 

 chronology has not been made out. With such we leave the forms to speak for 

 themselves. We certainly ai'e not anxious to establish any theory, and have pur- 

 posely placed all material which would appear to point to any definite lines of migra- 

 tion in the form of cpieries. 



As may be readily seen the entire study is fraught with difficulty. ParticiTlarly 

 is this the case in the field of Central American design. Fancy is here continually 

 dulling the ear of judgment ; and the student, as he turns the pages of the Kings- 

 borough volumes, is more often tempted to weave little fictions about the gaudy 

 " grotesques " before him, than remain content to be guided by the truth that so 

 evidently underlies them. We have endeavored to keep free from all weakness of 

 this kind, and to leave to others the interpretation of the grinning skeletons, the 

 priestly sacrifices, the murderous assaults, the mysterious pot-boilings, that so plenti- 

 fully bestrew the Codices. 



A difficulty of another kind is met with in the variants of art- forms of older and 

 more cultured races than the American. The higher the art and more concrete the 

 style the less satisfactory becomes the interpretation of vai'iants. Cardinal Wiseman* 

 has justly said: "Great caution should be used in judging characteristic form from 

 works belonging to the higher department of art. 'No nation long possesses the art 

 of representation, without forming to itself an ideal, abstractive type ; and the 

 caution to be used should necessarily be doubled, whei'e the art and their types are 

 borrowed." The fact that scarcely a single art-form in the entire range of Indo- 

 Germanic art — nay even within that larger area of Mesopotamia and Egypt — can be 

 quoted, which does not exhibit in its history the traces of mutual influence, is some- 

 times sufficient to cast a doubt upon the arrangement of form in a supposed succes- 

 sion, even when the chi onicles of the nations yielding them have been fixed. 



Let us, for example, suppose that a cylinder has been found at Babylon, which 

 is determined to belong to the late Babylonian empire. Now the Assyrian influence 

 upon the art of this empire is conceded, and we should seek for the source of the 

 conventionalisms u])on the cylinder to their associated variants among the 

 alabasters of Khorsabad or Nimroud. Could we stop here the search would be easy. 

 But we are informed by Rawlinson that Assyria itself is a northei"n branch of the 



* Science and T?eve<aled Tlelig'oii, I, 331. 



