Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/734

* CHINESE ART. 638 CHINESE ART. and their novelty to Europeans, have led to a hasty assumption that Chinese architecture takes its lorms and its desij;ii mainly I nun orijjinal timber building. Of this, however, there is no evideiiei"; bricks are known to have been used in great abundance in China at an ei)uch long before the commencement of our era, and skill in han- dling granite and stratified stone is traditional, 'ood nmst have been common, from an antiquity comparable to that of the buildings of Chaldca. As to the general plan of buildings, it is evi- dent that from the beginning until the present time the Chinese idea of a residence has been nearly that which the peoples of the Mediter- ranean held during the years of classical an- tiquity ; and that the Chinese palace and temple ^lave been what those of the Mediterranean world were until the time came for competition between towns and Stiites in the way of more striking and more permanent structures. A Chinaman's house, if he is a rich man, is a group of small one- story buildings interspersed with gardens, all within a bounding wall. Precisely the same tendency is visible in the temples of China, the 'pagodas' or tower-like structures of whatever form being decorative and symbolical accessories, like the church-steeple in a village of low wooden houses in America, In such low buildings the roof is, of course, the most visible and striking feature, and the fact that the forms of this roof interested the builders and became the dominat- ing element in their design, even in the towers, is in no way surprising. We sec this in full glory in .la])an tiown to an epoch now scarcely closed, (See .TArAXKSE Art,) The construction is unlike that of Europe, inasmuch as it ignores diagonal bracing and substitutes for it a step- like series of vertical struts and horizontal ties. Thus, if we have to carry a f)air of sloping rafters, these rafters are, in Kurope, secured at the top of the wall and again where the two rafters meet at the ridge; but the Chinaman sup- ports each rafter at four, live, or six points in its length, and thus jirevents it from having any tendency to push sidewise. The purlins, or long horizontal pieces which carry the light outer rafters and the roof-covering, are supported in Euro])e by the main rafters of the truss (see Roof), but in the East on the successive steps resulting from the square-framed structure. The seientitic construction of Europe is so entirely identified with the triangle (see Roof; Truss) that we can hardly imagine wooden arcliHecture which ignores it; and yet such buildings in China and Japan have been found to last a thousand years in perfect condition. The monumental gateways of China have al- ways been admired by Europeans. Tl-e term pai-loo is applied to these, although some writers use that term for such a gateway when having several divisions, and pai-lon;/ when there is but one opening or passage. The pai-loo on the road leading to the tomb of the Ming emperors is of marble and has five openings; another, at the entrance of the Chun-Tsiang-Cha. has three round arches, and the one called the Porcelain Oate has three pointed arches — all the.se being in Peking, There is a great pai-loo of granite in the city of Ning-po. and several in the southern provinces are elaborately worked in marble. These gate- ways are frequently set up as memorials, ap- proved by the sovereign as deserved by one of his subjects. Although public buildings are very commonly devoid of great massiveness and of that kind of dignity which comes of ponderous and enduring struc.ture, this is replaced very largely by elab- orate surface decoration. For this purixise the une(]ua!ed skill of the Chinese in all finins of ceramic art, their great power as decorative sculptors in wood and stone, and the knowledge and t^iste they show in painting in iiermanent colors by a method which we call roughly 'lac- (piering* — though in reality lac does not enter into it — give their permanent decoration great value. Wooden screens and partitions, veran- das and garden houses, receive exquisite adorn- ment in modeled and colored patterns, the use of textile fabrics and enameled tiles. Pai.nting. The art of painting, in a large and complete sense, is known to have existed in very early times. It is evident from history and legend that the artistic painting of the epoch already al- Uided to as that of the Han Dynasty was descrip- tive, emblematic, decorative in a large way as well as in minute refinement, and the subject of great admiration and care among the learned of the country. The stories about the early paint- ers bear a curious resemblance to the stories about the Greek painters of the g'cat epoch. We have the paintings of a somewhat later time in great abundance, and their relation to the earlier ones is known to be close. Native and Japanese engravings and woodcuts jircserve for tis the compositions of Chinese pictures of the Eighth (Jentur' a.d., and ])rints from these are not in- accessiiile. The same extraordinary power of ex- pressing with a few lines the inii)orlant artistic facts of a landscape, of a Hying bird or of a group of (lowers, and the same inadequate draw- ing of the human form and of the higher orders of quadrviiieds that have become familiar to us in more recent - Japanese art, are noticeable in these ancient works. Change and the develo]nnent of one style from another are as familiar in the far East as in Euro])e, aiul as easily noted l)y those who make a special study of them ; but to the observer who is accustomed to European art alone the modifications are not very noticeable. All fine art is based upon a series of conventions; and to many Europeans who have grown familiar with the conventions of Eastern art these seem even less fixed and absolute and are accepted more readily than those of Europe. Thus the erroneous idea that "the Chinese don't under- stand |)erspective" is based upon an assumption that the perspective of European painting is actually correct. In like manner the absence of cast shadows in Chinese paintings gives a false idea of the art to those persons who are tinaware of the like avoidance of shadows in Eurojican art. There are none in book-illumination, none in the painted miniatures from the Eighth to the Fif- teenth Century, and none in glass painting even of the richest and mo.st elaborate sort. Modern nmral paintings are often so composed in form and color as to avoid the appearance of shadow, Scirr.PTUHE. Sculpture, in China, is identified with movable pieces, of decorative effect, more than with architectural enrichment or w'ith close representation of nature. Wood-carving and elabo- rately wrought modeling in clay, which is after- wards fired, and the surfaces painted and glazed, are carried to a refinement unknown in Europe. The carving of hard stones, like jadt' and rock crystal, and soft stones like opaque, veined talc