Chapter I: Introductory

CHRONOLOGY.

Period of Hea B.C. 2100 Woo Wong period of Chow 1100 Confucius died 477 Chy hoang-ty built Great Wall 240 Han dynasty 201 Hoty, seventeenth king; Buddhism introduced A.D. 90 Tsin dynasty 260 Wootae dynasty; China divided into two kingdoms 416 China reunited, capital Honan 585 Tang dynasty 897 Northern China conquered by Mongols 1234 Kublai Khan 1281 Ming dynasty; Mongol expelled 1366 Manchow Tartar dynasty; now on the throne 1644

It is extremely difficult, in the present state of our knowledge, to write anything, either conclusive or satisfactory, about the architecture of China. This may arise partly from the incuriousness of travellers, and partly because there really are no buildings in the country worthy of the people or their civilization. Till very recently, the latter would have appeared to be the true cause of our ignorance; but lately the photographic camera has penetrated even within the walls of the imperial city of Pekin, and has brought away impressions which go some way to modify this opinion. Unfortunately, the camera has not been accompanied by the measuring-tape or the notebook, and our information is therefore, in some respects, vague; but it seems certain that there are buildings worthy of more attention than has hitherto been bestowed upon them. Even these, however, are not such as we might expect to find among a people whose history and whose civilization seems so exact a counterpart of that of Egypt. In both countries we have the same long succession of dynasties with dates, extending through 3000 or 4000 years, interrupted only by shepherd invasions which in both countries lasted about five centuries, when the words of Manetho are as literally applicable to the Taeping rebellion as they are to the overthrow of the Hyksos by the uprising of the native Egyptian races. During all this long period the same patriarchal form of government prevailed in both countries--the king being not only the head of the secular government, but the chief priest of the people. Both people early attained a certain stage of civilization, and maintained it without change or progress during the whole period of their existence. The syllabic symbols of the Chinese are the exact counterpart of the hieroglyphic writing of the Egyptians, as clumsy and as unlike that of any other contemporary nation, and as symbolic of their exclusive segregation from the rest of mankind. In both countries there was always the same calm contemplation of death, the same desire for an honourable funeral and a splendid tomb, and the same reverence for the dead. In these and fifty other particulars, the manners and customs of the two peoples seem identical, and the perfect parallelism only breaks down when we come to speak of their buildings. There are no tombs in China to be compared with the Pyramids, and no temples that approach those of Thebes in dimensions or in splendour.

If the Chinese were as closely allied to the Tartar or Mongolian tribes on their north-eastern frontier as is generally supposed, this difference could not have existed. It may therefore be, as has been suspected, that the true Chinese are more closely allied to the Polynesian races, especially on the sea-board, which is the only part of the country we are really acquainted with. When the inner country has been more carefully examined, it is probable that we may see cause to modify our opinion as to the architectural character of the Chinese people.

This will be especially the case if, as is highly probable, the so-called Indo-Chinese inhabitants of Cambodia are very much more closely allied in blood to the Chinese than they are to any of the races inhabiting India; since, by the erection of the buildings described in the last division of this work, the Cambodians have nobly vindicated their title to be considered as one of the great building races of the world. Considering the short time of their existence and the limited area they occupied, they may in fact lay claim to having surpassed even the Egyptians in this respect.

It will be strange if in Honan and Quang-si we do not eventually find the links which will confirm the connexion of the two races of Cambodia and China, and explain what at present can only be regarded as one of the unsolved problems of architectural history.

A little well-directed industry on the spot would very soon clear all this doubt away. Meanwhile there are other minor causes which may have contributed to the absence of monumental buildings in China, and which it may be as well to allude to before proceeding further. In the first place, the Chinese never had either a dominant priesthood or a hereditary nobility. The absence of the former class is a very important consideration, because, in all countries where architecture has been carried to anything like perfection, it is to sacred art that it has owed its highest inspiration, and sacred art is never so strongly developed as under the influence of a powerful and splendid hierarchy. Again, religious and sectarian zeal is often a strong stimulus to sacred architecture, and this is entirely wanting in this remarkable people. Though the Chinese are bigoted to a greater extent than we can well conceive in all political matters, they are more tolerant than any other nation we know of in all that concerns religion. At the present moment three great religious sects divide the empire nearly equally between them. For though Buddhism is the religion of the reigning family, and perhaps numbers more followers than either of the other two, still the followers of the doctrines of Confucius--the contemporary and rival of Sakya Sinha--are a more purely Chinese sect than the other, and hold an equal place in public estimation; while, at the present time, the sect of Laou Tse, or the Doctors of Reason, is more fashionable, and certainly more progressive, than the others.[655] Christianity, too, might at one time have encroached largely on either of these, and become a very prevalent religion in this tolerant empire, had the Jesuits and Dominicans understood that the condition of religious tolerance here is a total abstinence from interference in political matters. This, however, the Roman Catholic priesthood never could be brought to understand; hence their expulsion from the realm, and the proscription of their faith, which otherwise would not only have been tolerated like all others, but bid fair to find more extensive favour than any. Such toleration is highly laudable in one point of view; but the want of fervour and energy from which it arises is fatal to any great exertions for the honour of religion.

In the same manner the want of an hereditary nobility, and indeed of any strong family pride, is equally unfavourable to domestic architecture of a durable description. At a man’s death his property is generally divided equally among his children. Consequently the wealthiest men do not build residences calculated to last longer than their own lives. The royal palaces are merely somewhat larger and more splendid than those of the mandarins, but the same in character, and erected with the same ends.

There is no country where property has hitherto been considered so secure as China. Private feuds and private wars were till lately unknown; foreign invasion was practically impossible, and little dreaded. Hence they have none of those fortalices, or fortified mansions, which by their mass and solidity give such a marked character to a certain class of domestic edifices in the western world. Equality, peace, and toleration, are blessings whose value it would be difficult to overestimate; but on the dead though pleasing level where they exist, it is in vain to look for the rugged sublimity of the mountain, or the terrific grandeur of the storm. The Chinese have chosen the humbler path of life, and with singular success. There is not perhaps a more industrious or, till the late wars, happier people on the face of the globe; but they are at the same time singularly deficient in every element of greatness, either political or artistic.

Notwithstanding all this, it certainly is curious to find the oldest civilized people now existing on the face of the globe almost wholly without monuments to record the past, or any desire to convey to posterity a worthy idea of their present greatness. It is no less remarkable to find the most populous of nations, a nation in which millions are always seeking employment, never thinking of any of those higher modes of expression which would serve as a means of multiplying occupation, and which elevate while feeding the masses; and still more startling to find wealth, such as the Chinese possess, never invested in self-glorification, by individuals erecting for themselves monuments which shall astonish their contemporaries, and hand down their names to posterity.

From these causes it may be that Chinese architecture is not worthy of much attention. In one respect, however, it is instructive, since the Chinese are the only people who now employ polychromy as an essential part of their architecture: indeed, with them, colour is far more essential than form; and certainly the result is so far pleasing and satisfactory, that for the lower grades of art it is hardly doubtful that it should always be so. For the higher grades, however, it is hardly less certain that colour, though most valuable as an accessary, is incapable of that lofty power of expression which form conveys to the human mind.