grotesque than that a female figure should be labelled "Contemplation" or that a nude
bathing girl should be made to represent "September Morn." To-day many Chinese
are still unable to reconcile themselves to the fact that Western civilization requires
actual living "models," stripped and placed before one's eyes, to be stared at daily for
two hours at a time, before one can learn even the first essentials of painting. Of
course there are also many Westerners who are willing only to hang Whistler's "My
Mother" above their mantelpiece, and who do not dare so much as contemplate a
female figure called "Contemplation." There is still to-day a large proportion of
English and American society who apologize for French pictures in their flats by
saying that the room is rented furnished, and who do not know what to do with a
Viennese porcelain doll that some of their friends have presented them for Christmas,
They generally banish the whole topic from a conversation by calling these things
"art," and the ones who made then "crazy artists." Nevertheless, the fact remains that
orthodox Western painting is Dionysian in its origin and inspiration, and that the
Western painter seems unable to see anything without a naked, or nearly naked,
human body in it. Whereas the Chinese painter symbolizes spring by a fat and
well -shaped partridge, the Western painter symbolizes it by a dancing nymph with a
faun chasing after her. And whereas the Chinese painter can delight in the fine lines of
a cicada's wings and in the full limbs of the cricket, the grasshopper and the frog, and
the Chinese scholar can daily contemplate such pictures on his wall with continual
delight, the Western painter cannot be satisfied with anything less than Henner's
Liseuse or Madeleine.
This discovery of the human body is, to-day, one of the most potent influences of
Western civilization in China, for it changes the whole outlook of life by
changing the source of artistic inspiration. In the final analysis this must be called a
Greek influence. The Renaissance revival of learning came with the Renaissance
worship of the human body and its hearty avowal that life is beautiful. A great part of
the Chinese tradition is humanistic enough without any Greek influence, but the
proclamation that the human body is beautiful has been strangely lacking in China.
Once, however, our eyes are opened to the beauty of the human body, we are not
likely to forget it. This discovery of the human body and worship of the female form
is bound to be a most potent influence because it is linked up with one of the strongest
of human instincts, that of sex. In this sense, we may say that Apollonian ait is being replaced by Dionysian art in China, inasmuch as Chinese art is not being taught in
most of the Chinese schools, not even in most of the art schools. They are all copying
female anatomy from human models or from plaster figures of classical (Greek and
Roman) sculpture. It is useless to plead Platonic sestheticism in the worship of the
nude, for only effete artists can regard the human body with a passionless admiration,
and only effete artists will stoop to make the plea at alL The worship of the human
body is sensual, and necessarily so. Real European artists do not deny the fact, but
proclaim it. The same accusation cannot be made against Chinese art. But
whether we will it or not, the trend has set in and is not likely to be stopped.
IV, ARCHITECTURE
Nature is always beautiful, but human architecture usually is act* For unlike painting,
architecture is not even an attempt to copy nature. Architecture was originally a matter
of stones and bricks and mortar, piled together to give man shelter from wind and rain.
Its first principle was utility, and is often purely so even to this day. Hence the
unmitigated ugliness of the best modern factory buildings, school-houses, theatres,
post offices, railway stations, and rectilinear streets, whose oppressiveness accounts
for the fact that we constantly feel the need to escape to the country* For the greatest
difference between nature and these products of the human mind is the infinite
richness of nature and the extreme limitations of our ingenuity. The best human mind
cannot invent anything besides block houses, with a few conventional mouldings, a
rotunda here and a triangular gable there. The most impressive mausoleum or
memorial cannot compare with the inventiveness of the trees, even the mutilated and
disinfected trees that line the avenues of our main streets, when we remember to put
them there. Yet how nature dares! If these trees with their rough surface and irregular
shapes had been the products of a human architect, we would have consigned the
architect to an insane asylum. Nature even dares to paint the trees green. We are afraid
of irregularity. We are afraid even of colour. And we have therefore invented the word
"drab" to describe our own existence.
Why is it that, with all the fertility of the human mind, we have not succeeded in
producing anything less oppressive than terrace houses and modern pavements and
rectilinear streets, from which we have to seek perennial escape by going to summer
resorts? Utility is the answer. But utility is not art. The modern industrial age has
aggravated the situation, especially with the invention of reinforced concrete. This is a
symbol of the industrial age, and it will live as long as the modern industrial
civilization lasts* Most of the concrete buildings have forgotten, even to put on a roof,
because, we are told, the roof is useless. Some have even professed to see an inspiring
beauty in the New York skyscrapers. If so, I have not seen any. Their beauty is the
beauty of gold: they are beautiful because they suggest the power of mil lions. They
express the spirit of the industrial age.
Yet because we have to look at the houses we build for ourselves every day and have
to spend most of our days in them, and because bad architecture can cramp the style
of our living, there is a very human demand to make it beautiful. Very subtly the
houses change the face of our towns and cities. A roof is not just a roof to shelter us
from sun and rain, but something that affects our conception of a home, A door is not
just an opening to get inside, but should be the "open sesame" that leads us into the
mysteries of people's domestic lives. After all, it makes some difference whether we
knock at a drab-coloured house-door or at a vermilion-painted gate with golden hobs
on it.
The problem is how to make the bricks and mortar alive and speak the language of
beauty. How can we inform it with a spirit and make it say something to us, as
European cathedrals are informed with a spirit and speak a silent language of the
greatest beauty and sublimity to us? Let us see how the best of Chinese architecture
tried to solve this problem.
Chinese architecture seems to have developed along a line different from that of the
West. Its main tendency is to seek harmony with nature. In many cases it has
succeeded in so doing. It has succeeded because it took its inspiration from the sprig
of plum blossoms梩 ranslated first into the moving, living lines of calligraphy and
secondarily into the lines and forms of architecture. It has supplemented this by the
constant use of symbolic motives. And it has, through the prevalent superstition of
geomancy, introduced the element of pantheism, which compels regard for the
surrounding landscape. Its essential spirit is the spirit of peace and contentment, with
its best product in the private home and garden. Its spirit does not, like the Gothic
spires, aspire to heaven, but broods over the earth and is contented with its lot. While
Gothic cathedrals suggest the spirit of sublimity, Chinese temples and palaces suggest
the spirit of serenity.
Unbelievable as it seems, the influence of calligraphy comes in even in Chinese
architecture. This influence is seen in the bold use of skeleton structures, like pillars
and roofs, in the hatred of straight, dead lines, notably in the evolution of the sagging
roof, and in the general sense of form and proportion and grace and severity of
temples and palaces.
The problem of revealing or concealing skeleton structures is exactly similar to the
problem of "touch" in painting. Just as in Chinese paint ing the outlining strokes,
instead of serving merely to indicate the contour of shapes of things, acquire a bold
freedom of their own, so in Chinese architecture the pillars in walls, or rafters and
beams in roofs, instead of being hidden in shame, are frankly glorified and become
important elements in giving structural form to the buildings. In Chinese buildings the
whole structural framework is, as it were, purposefully revealed in full to us. We
simply like to see these structural lines, as indicating the basic pattern of the building,
as we like to see the rhythmic sketches of outline in painting which stand for the substance of objects for us. For that reason, the wooden framework is usually revealed
in house-walls, and the rafters and beams are left visible both inside and outside the
house.
This arises from a well-known principle in calligraphy, the principle of
"framework,** or chienchia. Among the various strokes of a character, we usually
choose a horizontal or a vertical stroke, or sometimes an enveloping square, which is
regarded as giving support to the rest, and this stroke we must make powerfully and
make longer, more obvious than the others. Having obtained support in this main
stroke, the other strokes will cluster round it or take their point of departure from it.
Even in the design of a group of buildings, there is a principle of axis> as there is an
axis in most Chinese characters* The whole city-planning of Peiping, old Peking, one
of the most beautiful cities of the world, is due very largely to an invisible axis of
several miles running north and south from the outermost front gate, right across the
Emperor's throne, to the Coal Hill central pavilion and the Drum Tower behind. This
axis is clearly visible in the character for "middle" or ckang^ %*, and in other
characters, like g ^ HE ft p *
Perhaps more important than the principle of a straight axis is the use of curves, wavy
lines, or irregular rhythmic lines to contrast with the straight lines. This is most clearly
seen in the Chinese roofs. Every Chinese temple or palace building or mansion is
based, in its essence, upon the combination or contrast of the straight vertical lines of
the pillars and the curved lines of the roof. The roof itself contains a contrast between
the straight line at the ridge and the sagging line below* This is due to our training in
calligraphy in which we are taught that when we have a straight main line, which may
be horizontal, vertical or slanting, we must contrast it with curved or soft broken lines
around it. The ridge of the roof is furthermore broken by only a few decorative
motives. Only by the contrast of these lines are the straight lines of the pillars and the
walls endurable. If one sees the best examples of Chinese temples and
dwelling-houses, one notices that the roof forms the decorative point of emphasis
rather than the pillars or the walls (which often do not exist in front)梩 he latter being
proportionately small compared with the roof itself.
ABC
THREE CHARACTERS BY CHENG HSIAOHSU, PREMIER OF
"MANCHtlRUO,"
AND FAMOUS CAULIGRAPHIST.
The origin of the famous roof- line traced to calligraphy*
The top of the characters *'A" and "B" is a component of Chinese \mting, signifying the "roof." Note the sag in the middle and the sweeping effect given by Chinese roofs.
The top of character "C" signifies "man," but resembles the upper lines of a roof. Note
also the sweeping gesture and the upward curling at the lower ends.
Note further the principle of structure involved and applied to Chinese architecture.
Note the rigid vertical line (the pillar) in "A/* contrasted with the curve in the "roof"
and with other horizontal strokes attached to it. Note in "B" the central vertical curve,
with the other strokes clustering around a point at its top and strangely balancing one
another.
The origin of the sagging roof, probably the most unique and obvious characteristic of
Chinese architecture, Has never been properly understood, Some imagine a
connection with the primitive tents of our nomadic days. And yet the reason for it is
obvious in calligraphy. No one who knows the elements of Chinese calligraphy can
fail to see the principle of gracefully sweeping lines. In Chinese calligraphy the
greatest difficulty is to bring about strength of stroke, as it is always difficult to give
strength to a perfectly straight stroke. On the other hand, a slight bent on either side
will give it immediately a feeling of tension. It is only necessary to point to the
graceful sag in the "radical" signifying a roof in Chinese characters to see that this is
no mere imagination of the author.
