CHINESE ARCHITECTURE
Among the many ways a nation has of expressing its thoughts and of
showing its individuality, none is more valuable to mankind in general
than its art.
Perhaps it can be said that every civilised nation has contributed to
the common stock of art, and certainly China has done her share. The
porcelain which is called after her name testifies to her pre-eminence
in ceramic art, and should make Westerns cautious in expressing their
contempt for a race which is generally acknowledged to be the
originator of this industry. I will not attempt to express an opinion
about the mysteries of this art, except to regret that the name of the
country should be so attached to this product of her skill as
constantly to cause confusion. When my friend Archdeacon Moule
published his interesting book on "New China and Old," a lady wrote to
him to say that she did not care for new china, but as she was a
collector of old china, she would much like to read his book.
China has contributed to other forms of art as well. Her embroideries
and her lacquer work are well known; her ivory carving and silver work
have found a place in every collection. Her art, as we {138} might
expect from a race which has been under artificial conditions of
civilisation for many years, is distinctly artificial. In it you can
see the spirit of a race who for many centuries have been taught to
control themselves and to avoid the natural expression of their
feelings. If it is artificial in form, it is pleasing in colour and
superb in workmanship. There are few who will not agree that every
effort should be made to preserve these arts from being injured by a
false admiration of Western models. The only possible exception being
modern embroideries, which might be considerably improved if more
harmonious colours were blended together.
China excels in another art, though her excellence is not admitted
either by the foreign resident or even by the native student. In
certain forms of architecture she is unequalled. Yet when the
Westerner comes to China he glories in bringing with him Western
architecture, indifferent as to whether it is suited to the climatic
conditions or is in itself beautiful. Take, for instance, the English
churches of China. Could any form of architecture be less suited to a
country like China, where the sun is frequently oppressively hot, than
Gothic architecture? The large windows, the pointed arch, and the
weak, open, high-pitched roof may be suitable in a country like ours
which has little sunlight, and where a wet drifting snow will often
force an entrance into the best-designed roof; but in a country like
China, where the sun is the chief difficulty, some construction {139}
should be preferred which renders a heavy and heat-proof roof possible.
If antipathy to the Chinese necessitated a Western type of building,
Italian or even Romanesque architecture might be selected, and a
building with a massive roof supported on solid arches might resist the
rays of the sun. But why not accept the Chinese architecture as
eminently fitted for the climate?
If Christianity is to be assimilated by China and become part of their
national existence, the buildings in which it is proclaimed should be
essentially national. The intention of the Christian should be written
clearly on the face of every landscape where the new and beautiful
Chinese building rises up for the religion which is, as we maintain, as
essentially fitted for the Chinese as it is for the English. We do not
worship in a Roman basilica, but in the buildings that the northern
architects have devised as suitable, both for Christian worship and for
our climate. The new Chinese churches need not be replicas of the
Chinese temples; the object of the building is different, therefore the
building should differ, but there are many other forms in which it is
possible for the architect to express in Chinese architecture the
eternal truths of Christianity.
Again, why are all the schools and colleges erected on Western
patterns. The Chinese are used to and prefer their own architecture,
and from a sanitary point of view I hardly think it is inferior. The
average Westerner in China has but one idea, and {140} that is that the
Chinese must become like a Western nation or must remain untouched by
Western civilisation. He absolutely refuses the suggestion that the
architecture of China can be altered to suit modern conditions.
It is said that the thoughts of all nations are written in their
architecture; that you can see the nobility of the Middle Ages in the
Gothic cathedral, or the fulness of the thought of the Renaissance in
the Palladian facade; certainly on the modern Chinese town the story of
their change of thought is being rapidly written, perhaps with truth,
but certainly not with beauty. The Western man absolutely despising
all things Chinese refuses to erect any building which preserves even a
detail of the national architecture; the Westernising Chinaman in
faithful imitation erects Western buildings, but with this difference;
whereas the buildings of the Western have some beauty--for instance,
the cathedral at Shanghai is a noble building and the Pe-T'ang at
Peking would not disgrace an Italian town, even the bankers' palaces at
Hankow are not unworthy dwellings for merchant princes--the Chinese
imitations of these Western buildings have but little beauty to commend
them, and as far as I could understand they are really less serviceable
than a true Chinese building.
No European resident in China will ever allow that Chinese buildings
are either beautiful or useful, and if any one suggests that a Western
house shall {141} be built in the Chinese style the suggestion is
scouted as absurd; yet the British Legation at Peking is an old Chinese
palace, and no one who has seen it ever doubts that it is one of the
most beautiful buildings in the whole of China, and if this building
has been found fitting for His Majesty's Representative, surely some
such building might serve for others of less high station.
As to the spiritual ideals in Chinese architecture, who can doubt them
when they look at some of the pagodas that the reverence of Buddhism
has produced. These pagodas tell in every line of a nation that would
reach up above mere utilitarianism to higher thoughts. The uselessness
of the pagoda which so often annoys the practical Englishman is one of
its chief merits. It stands there in all its beauty pleading with
mankind for a love of beauty for its own sake and a belief in a
beautiful spirit world. The whole of Buddhist thought is intimately
connected with the love of beauty. When a Chinese gentleman was asked
if the Chinese had any love of beauty, he said: "You will notice that
their temples are always built in beautiful spots, so that they who
worship in them should satisfy their love of beauty."
Even if the pagoda is merely regarded as a thing to bring luck to a
town, it still merits admiration, for there must be something fine in a
race that believes a beautiful thing can bring the blessing of the
heavenly bodies on the earth. No one can {142} study the details of
any of these pagodas without being confident that those who erected
them had as their main object the erection of a beautiful building.
Or again, take the Temple of Heaven. Is there any monument in the
whole world that has more feeling of beauty about it? The white altar
lying uncovered testifies to the fundamental faith of the Chinese that
there is a God in heaven who dwelleth not in temples made with hands,
while the detail of the carving, though showing a certain sameness, yet
indicates their belief that God must love beauty. To see the white
Altar of Heaven together with the blue-roofed Temple beyond on some
sunny day when the flowers are blooming and the dark green of the pine
grove is in strong contrast with the light green of the spring herbage,
is one of those visions of beauty which make a man dream and dream
again of the noble future that may be before a race which has its
holiest places in such lovely surroundings.
As most of the readers of this book may never have seen a Chinese
building, perhaps it should be described. The architecture of the
Chinese differs from that of the West in almost every detail. A
Chinese town is a town without chimneys, and yet the absence of those
chimneys which Renaissance architects made such a feature of domestic
architecture is never missed, for Chinese roofs are curved and
decorated with quaint figures; they are often {143} coloured, bright
yellow if the building is an imperial building, or bright blue or blue
and green with yellow lines, as taste may direct. Common houses have
not such ornate roofs, but I am speaking of the houses which have some
claim to architectural excellence. This great roof is carried directly
on pillars, so that it is possible to have a Chinese house without
walls, and these wall-less houses are most suitable to a country where
the summer is hot. The massive character of the roof prevents the heat
of the sun penetrating, and the absence of walls allows of a free
current of air; if there are walls they are generally wooden screens
filled in with paper, and the effect in some old Chinese houses is very
lovely.
For winter weather these houses seem cold to us, but the Chinese have
always believed in the open-air policy. They never heat their houses;
they rely either on warm clothing or on a flue-heated bed at night; and
as they are as a race very subject to consumption, probably this policy
is one which is best suited to their constitutions. At any rate it
seems strange that while we in England are advocating open-air schools,
open-air cures, and sleeping with the window open, in China Western
influence should be destroying the admiration for a splendid form of
architecture, the characteristic of which was that while it was of
great beauty, it also shielded the inmates from the intense heat of
summer and gave them ample fresh air.
When some Chinese literati were questioned {144} about this
architecture they freely confessed that they preferred their native
buildings, but they seemed to think that a Western school could not be
efficient unless it was held in a Western building. Missionaries and
others being questioned on this point maintained that Western houses
were in the end the cheapest, but the Chinese would not allow this.
They said that a Chinese house would cost far more than a Western house
if it were beautifully adorned with carving, but if it was built simply
it would work out at less cost.
Chinese architecture is obviously a construction which lends itself to
the use of iron. A Chinese building with iron substituted for wood
would look as well, for they always paint their wood; this ought to be
a very cheap form of construction in a land which is going to produce
iron at a very low rate. The truth is that it is neither a question of
cost nor of efficiency which makes the Chinese architecture despised;
it is part of the great movement which expresses itself in stone and
brick--a movement which is tending to bring the Eastern countries into
misery--a movement which is planting in the East all that is
commonplace, all that is hideous in the West, and that is destroying
all that is beautiful in the East both in thought and colour and form.
It is the counterpart of the movement which is destroying the faith of
the Eastern nations and is only substituting the materialism which has
degraded the West.
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RELIGIONS OF CHINA AND THE MISSIONARY