CHAPTER XVI

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CHINESE AND JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE.

The architecture of China does not possess what we might call a serious character. Founded mainly on Buddhistic elements, as far as the more important efforts of their temple architecture is concerned, the only original development that marks the Chinese structural design is the pagoda tower—in itself really a Buddhistic idea—but the Chinese have the credit of carrying it further in their Taas or Pagodas by placing story upon story until sometimes a great height was attained; as, for example, in the great porcelain tower at Nankin, which is 200 feet in height, consists of nine stories, and is 40 feet in diameter at the base. Each story diminishes in size, and the concave roof of every lower story is in front of the receding one above. Varnished pillars, resting on a deep stone basement, support the verandah-like roof of the lowest story, and a fence of gilded trellis-work surrounds the lower half of the pillars. The eaves of the roofs curl upwards and end in points from which bells are suspended. Carved dragons peer out from under the rafters, and the whole building, inside and out, as well as the roof tiles, is faced with white porcelain slabs or tiles fastened to the inner brick structure; some parts—the roofs especially—are painted in alternating bands of green, yellow, and red.

The greater part of the Chinese houses are wooden constructions, and have movable walls of various materials, which slide in framework. The walls do not support the roof, which is, as a rule, supported on posts, independent of them.

In the gateways to the Confucian temples some attempts at architectural construction are seen, where a column would have a proper capital and a base, and a lintel or arched opening would appear. These Pae-lus or triumphal gates have the usual fantastic curled roofs so peculiar to Chinese architecture (Fig. 330).

[Illustration: Fig. 330.—Gateway of the Temple of Confucius, Shanghai.]

The genius of the Chinese as great builders and engineers is expressed better in their works of public utility, as in their finely-constructed bridges, their canals, and more particularly in the Great Wall, built to protect their country from the incursions of the Northern hordes, and which is a monument at the same time to their native love of exclusiveness from surrounding nations.

The Great Wall was built about B.C. 200, is 1,400 miles long, 15 to 30 feet in height, 25 feet thick at the base, and slopes upwards to 20 feet in width at the top. It has bastions or towers of defence at intervals, which are 40 feet square at the base, and the wall is carried over hills and mountains regardless of all obstacles. Their country is a network of canals, some of which are 700 miles in length.

Notwithstanding all this, they are no further advanced in architecture than they were two thousand years ago, or, indeed, in hardly any of the arts. At the same time the Chinese are remarkably skilled in porcelain manufacture, silk weaving, embroidery, colour printing, ivory and jade carving, enamelling, metal-working, casting, and decorative painting. Their ornament is very conventional and rich in colouring, but their ornamental forms are limited, and their decoration so full of repetition that it becomes very monotonous when judged by a European standard.

The architecture of Japan differs very slightly from that of China, as it is either an offshoot from the older civilisation of China, or has been derived from the same sources, through the Buddhist religion. Some changes have occurred in the architecture of Japan in recent years owing to the more extended use of stone in their buildings, which has been brought about by their interchange of ideas with Western nations.

Their Buddhist temples are similar to the Chinese, with their curious turned-up roofs, but the Shinto temples are usually covered with roofs that have great projecting eaves, which do not turn up at the angles. The porches or gateways (Torii) to the temples are built in stone, but in imitation of their earlier wooden construction; they are of the pillar-and-beam order, and recall somewhat the construction, on a smaller scale, of the “torans” or gateways of the Sanchi Tope in India (Fig. 325).

The Japanese carve their wooden rafters, beams, posts, lintels, and stringcourses very skilfully, with conventional ornament, dragons, and grotesque animals. The better class of Japanese dwellings are usually of two stories; the lower story has a verandah, and the upper one is recessed back, and is smaller than the lower, which produces a pleasing effect. Their walls are, like the Chinese, more or less movable

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Japanese ornament and industrial art (which will be treated in another place) is more virile, has more variety, and is more artistic in execution, though governed less by architectural arrangement, than the art of the Chinese. The Japanese are, however, every day becoming more impregnated with Western ideas, and, as a consequence, their wonderful artistic feeling and native refinement of design, execution, and colouring are in a fair way of losing those seductive qualities that hitherto have characterized the artistic productions of these interesting people.

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