OLD MEXICO

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22201, 18 September 1937, Page 18

OLD MEXICO

Battlefield of the Gotls. Aspects of Mexican History. Art, and Exploration. By Pal Kclemen. Allen and Umvin. 212 pp. (10/6 net.) Only when the reader has closed this book will he realise how far in time and distance he has been conveyed by Mr Kclemen. Only then will he perceive how erudite is his guide, learned in pictorial and carven art, in archaeology, in history, and in that knowledge of human beings which is the quality of a few humane and observant scholars. Many an authority has made a name by using no more than a third of the knowledge or discoveries that are set • forth in "Battlefield of the Gods." And they are set forth with agreeable simplicity and warm interest. Mr Kclemen can describe a dance-hall in contemporary New Orleans with the zest and vigour he devotes to a monumental pre-Cortesian building. Not the dry bones of history but the living makers of history, past and present, are his study. The works of man are wonderful, but not so wonderful as man's motives and ambitions. The Mexican sculptor carving a St. Christopher, lithe and young and eager, Diego Rivera painting the polemical frescoes that have begun to startle Europe, Prescott, half-blind and chained to his remote desk, writing the history of Mexico, unknown hordes creating architectural masses as strange as the Pyramids, a Franciscan monk struggling by gentleness and, when that would not serve, cruelty to make Mexicans love his God—thesp are Mr Kelomen's interest, and .-is absorbing as Cortes, Pizarro, and Montezuma, and as memorable as the temples of Chichen Itza. If the writer has preferences, they are for the Mayan character and for sculpture. All these creations and creatures, to-day still shrouded with romance and mystery, are significantly recorded and "described. The writer of the preface defines the book as essays which picture "the reactions of an art-historian to the kaleidoscopic life of Mexico in its past and in its present." This is true. The essays are all good and the illustrations superb. One, a photograph of sculpture in wood representing San Juan de Dios, is startling in its power.