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 viscious- 
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. W e have already observed 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:}:, 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 
* Quatremfere de Quincy, sur I’ldeal dans TArt da 
Dessin, Archives litteraries, 1805, No. 21, p. 300 and 310^ 
t See vol. xiii, p. 349. 
X Qiiatremere de Quincy, page 303 — 307. 
