391. Pavilion in the Summer Palace, Pekin. (From a Photograph by Beato.)
392. Pavilion in the Summer Palace, Pekin. (From a Photograph by Beato.)
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 have consequently so little practice, that when they tried solid architecture in a palace they could only produce such a pavilion as that figured in Woodcut No. 392, which, though characteristic of the style, cannot be praised either for the elegance of its form or the appropriateness of its ornamentation.
Perhaps their most successful efforts in this direction were when they combined a solid basement of masonry with a light superstructure of wood, as in the Winter Palace at Pekin ([Woodcut No. 393]). 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.
393. View in the Winter Palace, Pekin. (From a Photograph.)