678 CHINESE ARCHITECTURE. 



elevation of the plan, and the architect devotes every attention to the 

 decoration of the roof by the addition of antefixal ornainents, and 

 by covering it with glazed tiles of l)rilliant color, so as to concen- 

 trate the eye upon it. The dragons and phenixes posed on the crest 

 of the roof, the grotesque animals perched in lines upon the eaves, 

 and the yellow, green, and blue tiles which cover it are never chosen 

 at random, but after strict sumptuary laws, so that they may denote 

 the rank of the owner of a liouse or indicate the imperial foundation 

 of a temple. 



The great weight of the roof necessitates the multiple employ- 

 ment of the column, which is assigned a function of the first im- 

 portance. The colinims are made of wood; the shaft is generally 

 cylindrical, occasional!}^ polyhedral, never channeled ; the capital 

 is only a kind of consol, squared at the ends or shaped into dragons' 

 heads; the pedestal is a square block of stone chiseled at the top 

 into a circular base on wdiich the shaft is posed. The pedestal, ac- 

 cording to rule, ought not to be higher than the width of the column, 

 and the shaft not more than ten times longer than its diameter. 

 Large trunks of the Persea nanmu from the Province of Ssuchuan 

 are floated down the Yangtze Eiver to be brought to Peking to l)e 

 used as columns for the palaces and large temples. 



The nanmu is the tallest and straightest of Chinese trees, the 

 grain improves by age, and the wood gradually acquires a dead- 

 leaf brown tint, while it preserves its aromatic qualities, so that the 

 superb columns of the sacrificial temple of the Emperor Yung Lo 

 (pi. i), which date from the early part of the fifteenth century, 

 still exhale a vague perfume. The pillars are brightened with ver- 

 milion and gold, but it is the roof which still attracts most attention, 

 in the interior as well as outside, the beams being often gorgeously 

 inlaid with colors and the intervening ceiling geometrically divided 

 into sunken i)anels w^orked in relief and lacquered with dragons or 

 some other appropriate designs. 



The stability of the structure depends upon the wooden framework ; 

 the walls, which are filled in afterwards with blocks of stone or brick- 

 work, are not intended to figure as supports; the space, in fact, is 

 often occupied entirely by doors and windows, carved with elegant 

 tracery, of the most flimsy character. A Chinese fabric so far is curi- 

 ously analogous to a modern American building of the newest type, 

 with its skeleton framework of steel filled in with dummy walls. 



The Chinese seem to have a feeling of the innate poverty of their 

 architectural designs and strive to break the ])]ain lines with a pro- 

 fusion of decorative details. The ridge i)oles and corners of the 

 sagging roofs are covered with finial dragons and long rows of fan- 

 tastic animals, arranged after a symbolism known only to the initi- 

 ated, the eaves are inulerlaid with elaborately carved woodwoik 



