Note 439 — Chapter VI · [263]
Reading edition
“The ideal is not always the beautiful,” as Winckelmann truly says, referring to the Egyptian figures. (Histoire de l’Art chez les Anciens, liv. 4, chap. 2, trad. Fr.) It is not impossible, however, that the portraits mentioned in the text may be copies from life. Some of the rude tribes of America distorted their infants’ heads into forms quite as fantastic; and Garcilaso de la Vega speaks of a nation discovered by the Spaniards in Florida, with a formation apparently not unlike the Palenque: “Tienen cabezas increiblemente largas, y ahusadas para arriba, que las ponen así con artificio, atándoselas desde el punto, que nascen las criaturas, hasta que son de nueve ó diez años.” La Florida (Madrid, 1723), p. 190.