Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/585

 CHAP. III. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 481 but can scarcely be considered as an object of dignified architecture. It is not so much on its forms that Chinese architecture depends as on its colours, and those in the roofs of the palaces in Pekin covered with yellow glazed tiles a colour restricted to royal structures have an exceptional magnificence, as also the ultramarine blue tiles of the Temple of Heaven. There is also a great variety of colour in the crested ridges and the terminations of the covering tiles, which goes far to redeem the exaggeration of their curved eaves the columns are usually painted red, the friezes and openwork green. Blue marks the floors and stronger lines, and gilding is used profusely every- where. Whether this would improve a finer or more solid style of art may admit of doubt; but it is certainly remarkably pleasing in China, and singularly appropriate to the architecture we have been describing; and grouped as these buildings usually are around garden courts, filled with the gayest flowers, and adorned with rock-work and fountains more fantastic than the buildings themselves, the fancy may easily be charmed with the result, though taste forbids us to approve of the details. Occasionally, however, the Chinese attempted something more monumental, but without much success. Where glass is not available of sufficient size and in sufficient quantities to glaze the windows, there is a difficulty in so arranging them that the room shall not be utterly dark when the shutters are closed, and that the rain shall not penetrate when they are open. In wooden construction these difficulties are much more easily avoided ; deep projecting eaves, and light screens, open at the top, obviate most of them : at least, so the Chinese always thought, and they, consequently, have had very little practice in the construction of solid architecture. It is singular therefore that in the Buddhist temple in the Summer Palace near Pekin (Woodcut No. 494 and Plate LVIII.) they should have been able to produce a structure which is remarkable for its elegance and good design. Their most successful efforts in this direction, however, were when they combined a solid basement of masonry with a light superstructure of wood, as in the Winter Palace at Pekin (Woodcut No. 506). In this instance the height and solidity of the basement give sufficient dignity to the mass, and the light superstructure is an appropriate termination upwards. This last illustration is interesting, because it enables us to realise to a certain extent what may have been the general effect of the palaces of Nineveh and Khorsabad in the days of their splendour. Like this palace, they were raised on a solid basement crowned with battlements, the superstructure, however, VOL. II. 2 H