GREEK AND CHINESE ART IDEALS 17 



and ideal. Greek art is statuesque and heroic, the perfection 

 and apotheosis of the human. The architecture is funda- 

 mentally a larger form of sculpture — the shell of man. In 

 what manner the sculptured figures visualised the Gods of 

 Greece, so the form of their temples symbolised the attri- 

 butes of their powerful mythological conceptions. It puts 

 rather a strain on the imagination to bring the temples of 

 China into apposition with those of Greece except in their 

 mental aspect. The spirit of intellectual repose and space 

 in the Confucian mortuary temples, such as that of Wonglo 

 at the Ming tombs near Peking, is comparable with the 

 Greek idea; but the cruder symbolism of the Buddhist 

 temples seems distinctly inferior to the Greek conception; 

 except as regards the Chan or Contemplative school of 

 Buddhism, which has its precise parallel in some of the 

 temples and sacred groves of Greece. 



As regards permanence the ancient art of Greece has the 

 advantage over China in the greater use of stone in sculp- 

 ture and architecture, But in bronze relics of the past, 

 China compares well with ancient Greece and differentiates 

 their art ideals. In Grecian bronze the human figure is 

 again the chosen model : in Chinese bronze the human figure 

 when chosen is usually debased, but the rest of nature is 

 drawn from for decorative modelling. This is shown in the 

 sacrificial vessels which were made at the very period of the 

 golden age of greek art in the fifth century B.C. It was only 

 in the degenerate period of Greek art that it became grotes- 

 que : but the depiction of the grotesque has ever been a 

 failing of the Chinese. Greek art may be said to be purer 

 but less imaginative and varied than that of China. 



The figures depicted on the Greek vases tell the same 

 story as their sculpture — a pursuit of the human ideal in 

 actual life or in legend, mostly showing variations of the 

 stories of their heroes and their gods, as an inspiration to a 

 more perfect life. Aristotle said (Poet, XXV, 1461, 6.12) 

 'Even if it is impossible that men should be such as Xeuxis 

 painted them, yet it is better that he should, paint them so ; 

 for the example ought to excel that for which it is an 

 example.' 



The Evolution of Chinese Art. 



Okakura in his "Ideals of the East" touches on the 

 existence of a common early Asiatic art the influence of 

 which may be traced in Hellas, the West of Ireland, Etruria, 

 Phoenicia, Egypt, India and China, Hellas may be regarded 



