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126 The adoption of ideographic/symbolic representations that characterize national virtues is one of the oldest of human conventions. A flag and seal synthesize what a nation is or believes itself to be. The colors of a flag symbolize the true virtues of a race: noble valor, honor, purity, hope. The characteristics represented on national seals are more ambiguous virtues. Boldness and even ferocity are proclaimed on almost all national seals: the British and Spanish lions, the Chinese dragon, the Ecuadorian condor, the heraldic eagles of so many countries. All of those bloody images, made in gold and inlays on fields of polychrome silks, are nothing but ancestral vestiges of a time when fearful displays augmented natural aggression and strength. Destruction is also a common motif on national seals, represented by rifles and cannons, swords and lances. The flag is thus more spiritual, more Christian, than the seal. Our seal has more of a truly national character than those of many other countries. It was forged on the anvil of History with the divine hammer of Fable and the sacred fire of Art. It is at once creative and true, it exists within Beauty and Truth. A beautiful dragon meanders on the Chinese flag, but this dragon has never existed. The lions of Iberia and Great Britain are exotic animals in those countries; they were born in the jungles of Africa and the deserts of Asia. The unicorn of the British arms was invented by some poet or artistking . In contrast, the eagle on our seal is indigenous, not imported. It inhabits the seal legitimately. Those American aesthetes who felt and thought about beauty before the Conquest arrived saw the majestic circling of this imperial bird or saw it perched epically on some spiny bush. From there, they invited 26 The National Seal 127 T h e N a t i o n a l S e a l that majestic vision to live in their art and in their history, to inhabit the skies of their myths. On our ancient seal, the eagle does not only represent strength and ferocity but also nobility and just power. It is the triumph of what raises itself on high, of the divine, of Good (the eagle) in its eternal struggle against Evil (the serpent). Unfortunately, more recent representations of our seal have lacked a completely national character. Until the arrival of the Conquest, the eagle and the serpent appeared on jewelry, codices, headdresses, standards, and mural reliefs with the sumptuous originality that characterized pre-Hispanic art. Since then, the seal has transformed into something that looks like a piece of theatre decoration . The eagles on the flags that are sent to us from overseas are not even degraded Napoleonic or Roman eagles but, even worse, mutants painted in detestable colors. Those painted on metal plates that are used by our military have the words “made in Germany”1 stamped on them. This sad degradation of our national seal can be attributed to changes and neglect that it suffered in the centuries that came after the Conquest. During the empire of Charles V, and later during that of Maximilian of Hapsburg, eagles stylized in the Austrian fashion were introduced to Mexico. It is notable that this exotic art form traveled to even the last savage corners of Tepic and Jalisco. The Huichol Indians who live there today still decorate their wool and cotton cloth with a two-headed eagle,2 albeit adapted stylistically to aboriginal tastes. The seal was not a common image during the Colonial period. In the few exceptions when the eagle appears—as an artistic remnant or as a sporadic reappearance—it looks more like a sparrow hawk of Castile than like an Imperial eagle.3 The insurgents were glorious and venerable men, but their age was not one of aesthetic flowering, much less so in the case of the national seal. If one looks at the national seals made during this period, it is difficult to say if the bird that so spasmodically flaps its wings is an eagle, a vulture, or a fighting cock. And let us not think that the “aesthetic patriotism” of today has been purified of these older influences. If one examines the eagles printed on official documents, printed on the bills of the bank, or stamped on coins, one sees that they are not beautiful realist works, or conventionalist, or stylized . . . not even cubist. They are not works of art at all but industrial...

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