CHAPTER XI
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.