Fig.9.—TEMPLE VASE (c. 1200B.C.).Fig.10.—WINE VASE (c. 1000B.C.).Fig.11—WINE VASE (c. 600B.C.).Fig.12.—INLAID VESSEL(C. 500B.C.).Fig.13.—WINE VESSEL (c. 100B.C.).Fig.14.—INLAID VASE (c. 200A.D.).In possession of C.J. Holmes.Fig.15.—VASE (c. 1450A.D.).Fig.16.—WINE VESSEL (c. 1450A.D.).Fig.17.—TEMPLE VASE (c. 1700A.D.).Figs. 9-13 and 15-17 are from originals in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington.
VI. Chinese Art
1.Painting.—Painting is the pre-eminent art of China, which can boast of a succession of great painters for at least twelve centuries. Though the Chinese have an instinctive gift for harmonious colour, their painting is above all an art ofline. It is intimately connected with writing, itself a fine art demanding the same skill and supple power in the wielding of the brush. The most typical expression of the Chinese genius in painting is the ink sketch, such as the masters of the Sung dynasty most preferred and the Japanese from the 15th century adopted for an abiding model. Utmost vigour of stroke was here combined with utmost delicacy of modulation. Rich colour and the use of gold are an integral part of the Buddhist pictures, though in the masterpieces of the religious painters a grand rhythm of linear design gives the fundamental character. Exquisite subdued colour is also found in the “flower and bird pieces” and still-life subjects of the Sung artists, and becomes more emphatic and variegated in the decorative artists of the Ming period.
Not to represent facts, but to suggest a poetic idea (often perfumed, so to speak, with reminiscence of some actual poem), has ever been the Chinese artist’s aim. “A picture is a voiceless poem” is an old saying in China, where very frequently the artist was a literary man by profession. Oriental critics lay more stress on loftiness of sentiment and tone than on technical qualities. This idealist temper helps to explain the deliberate avoidance of all emphasis on appearances of material solidity by means of chiaroscuro, &c., and the exclusive use of the light medium of water-colour. The Chinese express actual dislike for the representation of relief. Whoever compares the painting of Europe with that of Asia (and Chinese painting is the central type for the one continent, as Italian may claim to be for the other) must first understand this contrast of aim. The limitations of the Chinese are great, but these limitations save them from mistaking advances in science for advances in art, and from petty imitation of fact. Their religious painting has great affinity with the early religious art of Italy (e.g.that of Siena). But the ideas of the Renaissance, its scientific curiosity, its materialism, its glorification of human personality, are wholly missing in China. For Europe, Man is ever the hero and the foreground—hence the dominant study of the nude, and the tendency to thronged compositions, with dramatic motives of effort and conflict. The Chinese artists, weak in the plastic, weak in the architectural sense, paint mostly in a lyric mood, with a contemplative ideal. Hence the value given to space in their designs, the semi-religious passion for nature, and the supremacy of landscape. Beauty is found not only in pleasant prospects, but in wild solitudes, rain, snow and storm. The life of things is contemplated and portrayed for its own sake, not for its uses in the life of men. From this point of view the body of Chinese painting is much more modern in conception than that of Western art. Landscape was a mature and free art in China more than a thousand years ago, and her school of landscape is the loftiest yet known to the world. Nor was man ever dissociated from nature. As early as the 4th century Ku K‘ai-chih says that in painting a certain noble character he must give him a fit background of great peaks and deep ravines. Chinese painting, in sum, finely complements rather than poorly supplements that of Europe; where the latter is strong, it is weak; but in certain chosen provinces it long ago found consummate expression for thoughts and feelings scarcely yet expressed with us.
The origin of Chinese painting is lost in legend, though there is no reason to doubt its great antiquity. References in literature prove that by the 3rd centuryB.C.it was a developed art. To this period is ascribed the inventionHistory: Early periods (toA.D.618).of the hair-brush, in the use of which as an instrument both for writing and drawing the Chinese have attained marvellous skill; the usual material for the picture being woven silk, or, less often and since the 1st centuryA.D., paper. In early times wood panels were employed; and large compositions were painted on walls prepared with white lime. These mural decorations have all disappeared. History and portraiture seem to have been the prevailing subjects; a secular art corresponding to the social ideals of Confucianism. Yet long before the introduction of Buddhism (A.D.67) with its images and pictures, we find that the two great symbolic figures of the Chinese imagination, the Tiger and the Dragon—typifying the forces of Nature and the power of the Spirit—had been evolved in art; and to imaginative minds the mystic ideas of Lao Tzü and the legends of his hermit followers proved a fruitful field for artistic motives of a kind which Buddhism was still more to enrich and multiply. Early classifications rank Buddhist and Taoist subjects together as one class.
With the 2nd centuryA.D.we come to individual names of artists and to the beginnings of landscape. Ku K‘ai-chih (4th century) ranks as one of the greatest names of Chinese art. A painting by him now in the British Museum (Plate I. fig. 1) shows a maturity which has nothing tentative about it. The dignified and elegant types are rendered with a mastery of sensitive brush-line which is not surpassed in later art. Ku K‘ai-chih painted all kinds of subjects, but excelled in portraiture. During the next century the criticism of painting was formulated in six canons by Hsieh Ho. Rhythm, organic or structural beauty, is the supreme quality insisted on.
During the T‘ang dynasty the empire expanded to its utmost limits, stretching as far as the Persian Gulf. India was invaded; Buddhism, taught by numbers of Indian missionaries, became firmly established, and controlledT‘ang dynasty (A.D.618-907).the ideals and imaginations of the time. The vigorous style of a great era was impressed upon the T‘ang art, which culminated in Wu Taotzü, universally acknowledged as the greatest of all Chinese painters. It is doubtful if any of his work remains. The picture reproduced (Plate I. fig. 2) was long attributed to him, but is now thought to be of later date, like the two landscapes well known under his name in Japan. Wu Taotzü seems to have given supreme expression to the central subject of Buddhist art, the Nirvana of Buddha, who lies serenely asleep, with all creation, from saints and kings to birds and beasts, passionately bewailing him. The composition is known from Japanese copies; and it is in fact from the early religious schools of Japan that we can best conjecture the grandeur of the T‘ang style. Wu Taotzü excelled in all subjects: othermasters are best known for some particular one. Han Kan was famous for his horses, the models for succeeding generations of painters, both Chinese and Japanese. A specimen of his brush is in the British Museum; and in the same collection is a long roll which gives a glimpse of the landscape of this age. It is a copy by a great master of the Yuen dynasty, Chao Mêng-fu, from a famous painting by Wang Wei, representing scenes on the Wang Ch‘uan, the latter’s home (Plate I. fig. 3 shows a fragment). With the T‘ang age landscape matured, and two schools arose, one headed by Wang Wei, the other by Li Ssü-hsün. The style of Wang Wei, who was equally famous as a poet, had a romantic idealist character—disdainful of mere fact—which in later developments created the “literary man’s picture” of the Southern school, as opposed to the vigorous naturalism of the North.
Next come five brief dynasties, memorable less for any corporate style or tradition, than for some fine painters like Hsü Hsi, famous for his flowers, and HuangFive dynasties (A.D.907-960).Ch‘uan, a great master in a delicate style. Two pictures by him, fowls and peonies, of extraordinary beauty, are in the British Museum.
The empire, which had been broken up, was reunited, though shorn of its outer dependencies, under the house of Sung. This was an age of culture in which the freedom ofSung dynasty (A.D.960-1280).the individual was proclaimed anew; glorious in art as in poetry and philosophy; the period which for Asia stands in history as the Periclean age for Europe.
The religious paintings of Li Lung-mien, the grandest of Sung masters, if less forcible than those of T‘ang, were unsurpassed in harmonious rhythm of design and colour. But the most characteristic painting of this period is in landscape and nature-subjects. With a passion unmatched in Europe till Wordsworth’s day, the Sung artists portrayed their delight in mountains, mists, plunging torrents, the flight of the wild geese from the reed-beds, the moonlit reveries of sages in forest solitudes, the fisherman in his boat on lake or stream. To them also, steeped in the Zen philosophy of contemplation, a flowering branch was no mere subject for a decorative study, but a symbol of the infinite life of nature. A mere hint to the spectator’s imagination is often all that they rely on; proof of the singular fulness and reality of the culture of the time. The art of suggestion has never been carried farther. Such traditional subjects as “Curfew from a Distant Temple” and “The Moon over Raging Waves” indicate the poetic atmosphere of this art. Ma Yuan, Hsia Kuei and the emperor Hwei-tsung are among the greatest landscape artists of this period. They belong to the South Sung school, which loved to paint the gorges and towering rock-pinnacles of the Yangtsze. The sterner, less romantic scenery of the Hwang-Ho inspired the Northern school, of which Kuo Hsi and Li Ch‘eng were famous among many others. Muh Ki was one of the greatest masters of the ink sketch; Chao Tan Lin was famed for his tigers; Li Ti for his flowers as for his landscapes; Mao I for still-life: to name a few among a host.
The religious paintings of Li Lung-mien, the grandest of Sung masters, if less forcible than those of T‘ang, were unsurpassed in harmonious rhythm of design and colour. But the most characteristic painting of this period is in landscape and nature-subjects. With a passion unmatched in Europe till Wordsworth’s day, the Sung artists portrayed their delight in mountains, mists, plunging torrents, the flight of the wild geese from the reed-beds, the moonlit reveries of sages in forest solitudes, the fisherman in his boat on lake or stream. To them also, steeped in the Zen philosophy of contemplation, a flowering branch was no mere subject for a decorative study, but a symbol of the infinite life of nature. A mere hint to the spectator’s imagination is often all that they rely on; proof of the singular fulness and reality of the culture of the time. The art of suggestion has never been carried farther. Such traditional subjects as “Curfew from a Distant Temple” and “The Moon over Raging Waves” indicate the poetic atmosphere of this art. Ma Yuan, Hsia Kuei and the emperor Hwei-tsung are among the greatest landscape artists of this period. They belong to the South Sung school, which loved to paint the gorges and towering rock-pinnacles of the Yangtsze. The sterner, less romantic scenery of the Hwang-Ho inspired the Northern school, of which Kuo Hsi and Li Ch‘eng were famous among many others. Muh Ki was one of the greatest masters of the ink sketch; Chao Tan Lin was famed for his tigers; Li Ti for his flowers as for his landscapes; Mao I for still-life: to name a few among a host.
The Mongol dynasty continues in art the Sung tradition. Chao Mêng-fu, the greatest master of his time, belongs to both periods, and ranks with the highest names in Chinese painting. A landscape by him, copied from WangYuen dynasty (A.D.1280-1368).Wei, has been already mentioned as in the British Museum, which also has two specimens of Yen Hui, a painter less known in his own country than in Japan. He painted especially figures of Taoist legend. The portrait by Ch‘ien Shun-chü (Plate I. fig. 5) is a fine example of purity of line and lovely colour, reminding us of Greek art.
The simplicity of motive and directness of execution which had been the strength of the Sung art gradually gave way during the Ming era to complicated conceptions and elaborate effects. The high glow of life faded; the lyrical temperMing dynasty (A.D.1368-1644).and impassioned work of the Sung time were replaced by love of ornament and elegance. In this respect Kiu Ying is typical of the period, with his richly coloured scenes from court life (Plate I. fig. 6). None the less, there were a number of painters who still upheld the grander style of earlier ages. The greatest of these was Lin Liang (Plate I. fig. 7), whose brush work, if somewhat coarser, is as powerful as that of the Sung masters. But though individual painters of the first rank preserved the Ming age from absolute decline, it cannot be said that any new development of importance took place in a vitalizing direction.
The present dynasty prolongs the history of Ming art. The literary school of the South became more prominent, sending out offshoots in Japan. There has been no movementTsing dynasty (fromA.D.1644).of national life to be reflected in art, though a great body of admirable painting has been produced, down to the present day. The four landscape masters known as the “four Wangs,” Yün Shou-p‘ing and Wu Li are pre-eminent names.
Sources and Authorities.—While the designs on porcelain, screens, &c., have long been admired in the West, the paintings of which these are merely reproductions have been utterly ignored. Ignorance has gained authority with time, till the very existence of a great school of Chinese painting has been denied. Materials for study are scanty. Fires, wars and the recent armed ravages of Western civilization have left but little. The profound indifference of the Chinese to European admiration has prevented their collections from being known. The Japanese, always enthusiastic students and collectors of the continental art, claim (whether justly or not, is hard to ascertain) that the finest specimens are now in their country. Many of these are reproduced in the invaluable Tokyo publications, theKokka, Mr Tajima’sSelect Relics, &c., with Japanese criticisms in English. Of actual paintings the British Museum possesses a fair number, and the Louvre a few, of real importance. Copies and forgeries abound.See H.A. Giles,Introduction to the History of Chinese Pictorial Art(1905); F. Hirth,Scraps from a Collector’s Note-Book(1905), (supplements Giles’s work and especially valuable for the art of the Ch‘ing dynasty); S.W. Bushell,Chinese Art, vol. ii. (1906); K. Okakura,Ideals of the East(1903); M. Paléologue,L‘Art chinois(1887); W. Anderson,Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Paintings(1886); Sei-ichi Taki, “Chinese Landscape Painting,”The Kokka, Nos. 191, &c. (1906);Chinesische Malereien aus der Sammlung Hirth(Catalogue of an exhibition held at Dresden) (1897); W. von Seidlitz, article inKunstchronik(1896-1897), No. 16.
Sources and Authorities.—While the designs on porcelain, screens, &c., have long been admired in the West, the paintings of which these are merely reproductions have been utterly ignored. Ignorance has gained authority with time, till the very existence of a great school of Chinese painting has been denied. Materials for study are scanty. Fires, wars and the recent armed ravages of Western civilization have left but little. The profound indifference of the Chinese to European admiration has prevented their collections from being known. The Japanese, always enthusiastic students and collectors of the continental art, claim (whether justly or not, is hard to ascertain) that the finest specimens are now in their country. Many of these are reproduced in the invaluable Tokyo publications, theKokka, Mr Tajima’sSelect Relics, &c., with Japanese criticisms in English. Of actual paintings the British Museum possesses a fair number, and the Louvre a few, of real importance. Copies and forgeries abound.
See H.A. Giles,Introduction to the History of Chinese Pictorial Art(1905); F. Hirth,Scraps from a Collector’s Note-Book(1905), (supplements Giles’s work and especially valuable for the art of the Ch‘ing dynasty); S.W. Bushell,Chinese Art, vol. ii. (1906); K. Okakura,Ideals of the East(1903); M. Paléologue,L‘Art chinois(1887); W. Anderson,Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Paintings(1886); Sei-ichi Taki, “Chinese Landscape Painting,”The Kokka, Nos. 191, &c. (1906);Chinesische Malereien aus der Sammlung Hirth(Catalogue of an exhibition held at Dresden) (1897); W. von Seidlitz, article inKunstchronik(1896-1897), No. 16.
2.Engraving.—According to native historians, the art of printing from wooden blocks was invented in China in the 6th centuryA.D., when it was employed for the publication of texts. The earliest evidence we have for the existence of woodcuts made to reproduce pictures or drawings is a passage in a work by Chang Yen-yüan, from which it appears that these were not made before the beginning of the T‘ang dynasty, under which that author lived. The method employed was to cut the design with a knife on the plank of the wood, in the manner followed by European artists till the end of the 18th century, when engraving with a burin on boxwood ousted the older process. The Japanese borrowed the art from China; and in Japan a whole school of artists arose who worked specially for the woodcutters and adapted their designs to the limitations of the material employed. In China the art has remained merely reproductive, and its history is therefore of less interest.Printing in colourswas known to the Chinese in the 17th century, and probably earlier. In the British Museum is a set of prints brought from the East by Kaempfer in 1693, in which eight colours and elaborategauffrageare used. Some fine albums of colour prints have been issued in China, but nothing equal in beauty to the prints produced in Japan by the co-operation of woodcutter and designer.Engraving on copperwas introduced to China by the Jesuits, and some well-known sets of prints illustrating campaigns in Mongolia were made in the 18th century. But the method has never proved congenial to the artists of the Far East.
See Sir R.K. Douglas,Guide to the Chinese and Japanese Illustrated Books(British Museum, 1887); W. Anderson,Japanese Wood Engraving(1895).
See Sir R.K. Douglas,Guide to the Chinese and Japanese Illustrated Books(British Museum, 1887); W. Anderson,Japanese Wood Engraving(1895).
3.Architecture.—In architecture the Chinese genius has found but limited and uncongenial expression. A nation of painters has built picturesquely, but this picturesqueness has fought against the attainment of the finest architectural qualities. There has been little development; the arch, for instance, though known to the Chinese from very early times, has been scarcely used as a principle of design, and the cupola has been undiscovered or ignored; and though foreign architectural ideas were introduced under the influence of the Buddhist and Mahommedan religions, these were more or less assimilated and subdued to the dominant Chinese design. Ruins scarcely exist and no building earlier than the 11th centuryA.D.is known; but we know from records that the forms of architecture stillprevalent imitate in essentials those of the 4th and 5th centuriesB.C.and doubtless represent an immemorial tradition.
The grand characteristic of Chinese architecture is the pre-eminent importance of the roof. Thet‘ingis the commonest model of building. The roof is the main feature; in fact thet‘ingconsists of this roof, massive and immense, with recurved edges, and the numerous short columns on which the roof rests. The columns are of wood, the straight stems of thenanmubeing specially used for this purpose. The walls are not supports, but merely fill in, with stone or brickwork, the spaces between the columns. The scheme of construction is thus curiously like that of the modern American steel-framed building, though the external form may be derived from the tent of primitive nomads. The roof, being the preponderant feature, is that on which the art of the architect has been concentrated. A double or a triple roof may be devised; the ridges and eaves may be decorated with dragons and other fantastic animals, and the eaves underlaid with carved and lacquered woodwork; the roof itself is often covered with glazed tiles of brilliant hue. In spite of efforts, sometimes desperate, to give variety and individual character by ornament and detail, the general impression is one of poverty of design. “Chinese buildings are usually one-storeyed and are developed horizontally as they are increased in size or number. The principle which determines the plan of projection is that of symmetry” (Bushell). All important buildings must face the south, and this uniform orientation increases the general architectural monotony produced by a preponderance of horizontal lines.
A special characteristic of Chinese architecture is thepai-lou, an archway erected only by special authority, usually to commemorate famous persons. Thepai-louis commonly made of wood with a tiled roof, but sometimes is built entirely of stone, as is the gateway at the avenue of the Ming tombs. A magnificent example of thepai-louis that on the avenue leading to Wo Fo Ssü, the temple of the Sleeping Buddha, near Peking. This is built of marble and glazed terra-cotta. Thepai-lou, like the Japanesetorii, derives its origin from thetoranof Indianstupas. Lofty towers calledt‘ai, usually square and of stone, seem to have been a common type of important building in early times. They are described in old books as erected by the ancient kings and used for various purposes. The towers of the Great Wall are of the same character, and are made of stone, with arched doors and windows. Stone, though plentiful in most provinces of the empire, has been singularly little used by the Chinese, who prefer wood or brick. M. Paléologue attributes this preference of light and destructible materials to the national indifference of the Chinese to posterity and the future, their enthusiasm being wholly devoted to their ancestors and the past.
Temples are designed on the generalt‘ingmodel. The Temple of Heaven is the most imposing of the Confucian temples, conspicuous with its covering of deep-blue tiles and its triple roof. Near this is the great Altar of Heaven, consisting of three circular terraces with marble balustrades. Buddhist temples are built on the general plan of secular residences, and consist of a series of rectangular courts with the principal building in the centre, the lesser at the sides. Lama temples differ little from these except in the interior decorations and symbolism. Mahommedan mosques are far simpler and severer in internal arrangement, but outwardly these also are in the Chinese style.
Thepagoda(Chinesetaa), the type of Chinese architecture most familiar to the West, probably owes its peculiar form to Buddhist influence. In the pagoda alone may be found some trace of a religious imagination such as in Europe made Gothic architecture so full and splendid an expression of the aspiring spirit. The most famous pagoda was the Porcelain Tower of Nanking, destroyed by the T‘aip‘ing rebels in 1854. This was covered with slabs of faience coated with coloured glazes. The ordinary pagoda is built of brick on a stone foundation; it is octagonal with thirteen storeys.
No Chinese buildings show more beauty than some of the graceful stone bridges for which the neighbourhood of Peking has been famous for centuries.
See M. Paléologue,L’Art chinois(1887): S.W. Bushell,Chinese Art, vol. i. (1904); J. Fergusson,History of Architecture; Professor Chûta Itô, articles inThe Kokka, Nos. 197, 198.(L.B.)
See M. Paléologue,L’Art chinois(1887): S.W. Bushell,Chinese Art, vol. i. (1904); J. Fergusson,History of Architecture; Professor Chûta Itô, articles inThe Kokka, Nos. 197, 198.
(L.B.)
4.Sculpture.—Except in the casting and decoration of bronze vessels the Chinese have not obtained distinction as sculptors. They have practised sculpture in stone from an early period, but the incised reliefs of the 2nd centuryB.C., a number of which are figured in Professor E. Chavannes’s standard work,81while they display a certain spirit, lack the true plastic sense, and though the power of the Chinese draughtsmen increased rapidly under the T‘ang and Sung dynasties, their work in stone showed no parallel progress. The feeling for solidity, which in Japan was a natural growth, was always somewhat exotic in China. With the impulse given to the arts by Buddhism a school of sculpture arose. The pilgrim Fa Hsien records sculpture of distinctive Chinese type in the 5th century. But Indian models dominated the art. Colossal Buddhas of stone were typical of the T‘ang era. Little, however, remains of these earlier times, and such true sculpture in stone, wood or ivory as we know dates from the 14th and succeeding centuries. The well-known sculptures on the arch at Chu Yung Kuan (A.D.1345) are Hindu in style, though not without elements of breadth and strength, which seem to promise a greater development than actually took place. The colossal figures guarding the approach to the Ming tombs (15th century) show that the national taste rapidly became conventional and petrified so far as monumental sculpture was concerned, though occasional examples of devotional or portrait sculpture on a smaller scale in wood and ivory are found, which in power, grace, sincerity and restraint can rank with the work of more gifted nations. Such pieces, however, are extremely rare, and at South Kensington the ivory “Kwanyin and Child” (274. 1898) is a solitary example. As a rule the Chinese sculptor valued his art in proportion to the technical difficulties it conquered. He thus either preferred intractable materials like jade or rock-crystal, or, if he wrought in wood, horn or ivory, sought to make his work curious or intricate rather than beautiful. There is, nevertheless, beauty of a kind in Chinese bowls of jade, and there is dignity in some of the pieces of rock-crystal, but the bulk of the carving done in wood, horn and ivory does not deserve a moment’s serious thought from the aesthetic point of view. The few fine specimens may be referred to the earlier part of the Ming dynasty when Chinese art in general was sincere and simple. After the middle of the 15th century there set in the taste for profuse ornament which injured all subsequent Chinese work, and wholly ruined Chinese sculpture.
Bronzes.—In Chinese bronzes we have a more consistent and exceptional form of plastic art, which can be traced continuously for some three thousand years. These bronzes take the form of ritual or honorific vessels, and the archaic shapes used in the service of the prehistoric religion of the country are repeated and copied with slight changes in decoration or detail to the present day.
The oldest extant specimens, chiefly derived from the sack of the Summer Palace at Peking, may be referred to the Shang and Chow dynasties (1766-255B.C.). These ancient pieces have a certain savage monumental grandeur of design, are usually covered with a rich and thick patina of red, green and brown, and are decorated with simple patterns—scrolls, zigzag lines and a form of what is known as the Greek key-pattern symbolizing respectively waves, mountains and storm clouds. The animal forms used are those of thetao-tieh(glutton), a fabulous monster (possibly a conventionalized tiger) representing the powers of the earth, the serpent and the bull. These two last in later pieces combine to form the dragon, representing the power of the air. In the Chow dynasty libation vessels were also made in the form of a deer, a ram or a rhinoceros. These characteristics are shown in figures 9-17, Plate II. Fig. 9 is a temple vessel of a shape still in use, but which must date from before 1000B.C.With this massive piece may be contrastedthe flower-like wine vase shown in fig. 10, a favourite shape which is the prototype of some of the most graceful forms of Chinese porcelain and Japanese bronze. Its date is about 1000B.C.The large wine vase shown in fig. 11 is some 400 years later. On the body appears the head of the tao-tieh, on the handles are superbly modelled serpents. The technique, which in the previous pieces was somewhat rude, has now become perfect, yet the menacing majestic feeling remains. We see it no less clearly in fig. 12, a marvellous vessel richly inlaid with gold and silver and covered with an emerald-green patina. It may date from about 500B.C., and indicates that even in this remote epoch the Chinese were not only daring and powerful artists but also master-craftsmen in metal.
It is indeed at this period that the art reaches its climax. The monumental grandeur of the Shang specimens is often allied to clumsiness; the later work, if more elaborate, is always less powerful. Nevertheless, it is to a later period that ninety-nine out of a hundred Chinese bronzes must be referred, and the great majority belong either to the Han and succeeding dynasties (220B.C.-A.D.400), or to the Renaissance of the arts which culminated under the Ming dynasty a thousand years later.
The characteristics of the first of these periods is the free use of small solid figures of animals as decoration—the phoenix, the elephant, the frog, the ox, the tortoise, and occasionally men; shapes grow less austere and less significant, as a comparison between figures 11 and 13 will indicate; then towards the end of the 2nd centuryA.D.the influence of Buddhism is felt in the general tendency towards suavity of form (fig. 14). This vase is most delicately though sparingly inlaid with silver and a few touches of gold. Some small pieces, very richly and delicately inlaid and covered with a magnificent emerald-green patina, belonging to this period, form a connecting link between the inlaid work of the Chow dynasty and that of the Sung and Ming dynasties. The mirrors with Graeco-Bactrian designs, a conclusive proof of the external influences brought to bear upon Chinese art, are also attributed to the Han epoch.
The troubled period betweenA.D.400 andA.D.960, in spite of the interval of activity under the T‘ang dynasty, produced, it would seem, but few bronzes, and those few were of no distinct or noteworthy style. Under the Sung dynasty the arts revived, and to this time some of the most splendid specimens of inlaid work belong—pieces of workmanship and taste no less perfect than that of the Japanese, in which the gold and silver of the earlier work are occasionally reinforced with malachite and lapis-lazuli. The coming of Kublai Khan and the Yuen dynasty (1280-1367) once more brought the East into contact with the West, and to this time we may assign certain fine pieces of Persian form such as pilgrim bottles. The vessels bearing Arabic inscriptions belong to the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), with which the modern history of Chinese art begins.The work done while the Ming dynasty was still young provides the student of Chinese art with many problems, and in one or two cases even the South Kensington authorities assign to pre-Christian times pieces that are clearly of Ming workmanship. The tendency of the period was eclectic and archaistic. The products of earlier days were reproduced with perfect technical command of materials, and with admirable taste; it is indeed by an excess of these qualities that archaistic Ming work may be distinguished from the true archaic. In fig. 15 we see how the Ming bronze worker took an earlier Buddhistic form of vase and gave it a new grace that amounted almost to artifice. A parallel might be found among the products of the so-calledart nouveauof to-day, in which old designs are revived with just that added suavity or profusion of curvature that robs them of character. Fig. 16 again might be mistaken almost for a piece of the Chow dynasty, were not the grandeur of its form modified by just so much harmony in the curvature of the body and neck, and by just so much finish in the details as to rob the design of the old majestic vigour and to mark it as the splendid effort of an age of culture, and not the natural product of a period of strength.It is, however, in the inlaid pieces that the difference tells most clearly. Here we find the monstrous forms of the Shang and Chow dynasties revived by men who appreciated their spirit but could not help making the revival an excuse for the display of their own superior skill. The monstrous vases and incense-burners of the past thus appear once more, but are now decorated with a delicate embroidery of inlay, are polished and finished to perfection, but lose therewith just the rudeness of edge and outline which made the older work so gravely significant. At times even some grandly planned vessel will appear with such a festoon of pretty tracery wreathed about it that the incongruity is little short of ridiculous, and we recognize we have passed the turning-point to decline.Decline indeed came rapidly, and to the latter part of the Ming epoch we must assign those countless bronzes where dragons and flowers and the stock symbols of happiness, good luck and longevity sprawl together in interminable convolutions. When once we reach this stage of contortion, of elaborate pierced and relief work, we come to the place in history of Chinese bronzes where serious study may cease, except in so far as the study of the symbols themselves throws light upon the history of Chinese procelain (seeCeramics). One class of bronze alone needs a word of notice, namely, the profusely decorated pieces which have a Tibetan origin, and are obviously no older than the end of the Ming period. Of these fig. 17 will serve as a specimen, and a comparison with fig. 9 will show how the softer rounded forms and jewelled festoons of Hindu-Greek taste enervated the grand primitive force of the earlier age, and that neither the added delicacy of texture and substance nor the vastly increased dexterity of workmanship can compensate for the vanished majesty.
The troubled period betweenA.D.400 andA.D.960, in spite of the interval of activity under the T‘ang dynasty, produced, it would seem, but few bronzes, and those few were of no distinct or noteworthy style. Under the Sung dynasty the arts revived, and to this time some of the most splendid specimens of inlaid work belong—pieces of workmanship and taste no less perfect than that of the Japanese, in which the gold and silver of the earlier work are occasionally reinforced with malachite and lapis-lazuli. The coming of Kublai Khan and the Yuen dynasty (1280-1367) once more brought the East into contact with the West, and to this time we may assign certain fine pieces of Persian form such as pilgrim bottles. The vessels bearing Arabic inscriptions belong to the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), with which the modern history of Chinese art begins.
The work done while the Ming dynasty was still young provides the student of Chinese art with many problems, and in one or two cases even the South Kensington authorities assign to pre-Christian times pieces that are clearly of Ming workmanship. The tendency of the period was eclectic and archaistic. The products of earlier days were reproduced with perfect technical command of materials, and with admirable taste; it is indeed by an excess of these qualities that archaistic Ming work may be distinguished from the true archaic. In fig. 15 we see how the Ming bronze worker took an earlier Buddhistic form of vase and gave it a new grace that amounted almost to artifice. A parallel might be found among the products of the so-calledart nouveauof to-day, in which old designs are revived with just that added suavity or profusion of curvature that robs them of character. Fig. 16 again might be mistaken almost for a piece of the Chow dynasty, were not the grandeur of its form modified by just so much harmony in the curvature of the body and neck, and by just so much finish in the details as to rob the design of the old majestic vigour and to mark it as the splendid effort of an age of culture, and not the natural product of a period of strength.
It is, however, in the inlaid pieces that the difference tells most clearly. Here we find the monstrous forms of the Shang and Chow dynasties revived by men who appreciated their spirit but could not help making the revival an excuse for the display of their own superior skill. The monstrous vases and incense-burners of the past thus appear once more, but are now decorated with a delicate embroidery of inlay, are polished and finished to perfection, but lose therewith just the rudeness of edge and outline which made the older work so gravely significant. At times even some grandly planned vessel will appear with such a festoon of pretty tracery wreathed about it that the incongruity is little short of ridiculous, and we recognize we have passed the turning-point to decline.
Decline indeed came rapidly, and to the latter part of the Ming epoch we must assign those countless bronzes where dragons and flowers and the stock symbols of happiness, good luck and longevity sprawl together in interminable convolutions. When once we reach this stage of contortion, of elaborate pierced and relief work, we come to the place in history of Chinese bronzes where serious study may cease, except in so far as the study of the symbols themselves throws light upon the history of Chinese procelain (seeCeramics). One class of bronze alone needs a word of notice, namely, the profusely decorated pieces which have a Tibetan origin, and are obviously no older than the end of the Ming period. Of these fig. 17 will serve as a specimen, and a comparison with fig. 9 will show how the softer rounded forms and jewelled festoons of Hindu-Greek taste enervated the grand primitive force of the earlier age, and that neither the added delicacy of texture and substance nor the vastly increased dexterity of workmanship can compensate for the vanished majesty.
(C. J. H.)
VII. The Chinese Language
Colloquial.—In treating of Chinese, it will be found convenient to distinguish, broadly, the spoken from the written language and to deal with each separately. This is a distinction which would be out of place if we had to do with any European, or indeed most Oriental languages. Writing, in its origin, is merely a symbolic representation of speech. But in Chinese, as we shall see, for reasons connected with the peculiar nature ot the script, the two soon began to move along independent and largely divergent lines. This division, moreover, will enable us to employ different methods of inquiry more suited to each. With regard to the colloquial, it is hardly possible to do more than consider it in the form or forms in which it exists at the present day throughout the empire of China. Although Chinese, like other living languages, must have undergone gradual changes in the past, so little can be stated with certainty about these changes that an accurate survey of its evolution is quite out of the question. Obviously a different method is required when we come to the written characters. The familiar line, “Litera scripta manet, volat irrevocabile verbum,” is truer perhaps of Chinese than of any other tongue. We have hardly any clue as to how Chinese was spoken or pronounced in any given district 2000 years ago, although there are written remains dating from long before that time; and in order to gain an insight into the structure of the characters now existing, it is necessary to trace their origin and development.
Beginning with the colloquial, then, and taking a linguistic survey of China, we find not one spoken language but a number of dialects, all clearly of a common stock, yet differing from one another as widely as the various RomanceThe dialects.languages in southern Europe—say, French, Italian and Spanish. Most of these dialects are found fringing the coast-line of China, and penetrating but a comparatively short way into the interior. Starting from the province of Kwang-tung in the south, where the Cantonese and farther inland the Hakka dialects are spoken, and proceeding northwards, we pass in succession the following dialects: Swatow, Amoy—these two may almost be regarded as one—Foochow, Wenchow and Ningpo. Farther north we come into the range of the great dialect popularly known as Mandarin (Kuan huaor “official language”), which sweeps round behind the narrow strip of coast occupied by the various dialects above-mentioned, and dominates a hinterland constituting nearly four-fifths of China proper. Mandarin, of which the dialect of Peking, the capital since 1421, is now the standard form, comprises a considerable number of sub-dialects, some of them so closely allied that the speakers of one are wholly intelligible to the speakers of another, while others (e.g.the vernaculars of Yangchow, Hankow or Mid-China and Ssŭ-ch‘uan) may almost be considered as separate dialects. Among all these, Cantonese is supposed to approximate most nearly to the primitive language of antiquity, whereas Pekingese perhaps has receded farthest from it. But although philologically and historically speaking Cantonese and certain other dialects may be of greater interest, for all practical purposes Mandarin, in the widest sense of the term, is by far the most important. Not only can it claim to be the native speech of the majority of Chinamen, but it is the recognized vehicle of oral communication between all Chinese officials, even in cases where they come from the same part of the country and speak the samepatois. Forthese reasons, all examples of phraseology in this article will be given in Pekingese.
So far, stress has been laid chiefly on the dissimilarity of the dialects. On the other hand, it must be remembered that they proceed from the same parent stem, are spoken by members of the same race, and are united by the bond of writing which is the common possession of all, and cannot be regarded as derived from one more than from another. They also share alike in the two most salient features of Chinese as a whole: (1) they are all monosyllabic, that is, each individual word consists of only one syllable; and (2) they are strikingly poor in vocables, or separate sounds for the conveyance of speech. The number of these vocables varies from between 800 and 900 in Cantonese to no more than 420 in the vernacular of Peking. This scanty number, however, is eked out by interposing an aspirate between certain initial consonants and the vowel, so that for instancep‘uis distinguished frompu. The latter is pronounced with little or no emission of breath, the “p” approximating the farther north one goes (e.g.at Niuchwang) more closely to a “b.” The aspiratedp‘uis pronounced more like our interjection “Pooh!” To the Chinese ear, the difference between the two is very marked. It will be found, as a rule, that an Englishman imparts a slight aspirate to his p’s, t’s, k’s and ch’s, and therefore has greater difficulty with the unaspirated words in Chinese. The aspirates are better learned by the ear than by the eye, but in one way or another it is essential that they be mastered by any one who wishes to make himself intelligible to the native.
The influence of the Mongolian population, assisted by the progress of time, has slowly but surely diminished the number of vocables in Pekingese. Thus the initialstsandk, when followed by the voweli(with its continental value) have gradually become softer and more assimilated to each other, and are now all pronouncedch. Again, all consonantal endings intandk, such as survive in Cantonese and other dialects, have entirely disappeared from Pekingese, andnandngare the only final consonants remaining. Vowel sounds, on the other hand, have been proportionately developed, such compounds asao, ia, iao, iu, ie, uaoccurring with especial frequency. (It must be understood, of course, that the above are only equivalents, not in all cases very exact, for the sounds of a non-alphabetic language.)
An immediate consequence of this paucity of vocables is that one and the same sound has to do duty for different words. Reckoning the number of words that an educated man would want to use in conversation at something over four thousand, it is obvious that there will be an average of ten meanings to each sound employed. Some sounds may have fewer meanings attached to them, but others will have many more. Thus the following represent only a fraction of the total number of words pronouncedshih(something like the “shi” in shirt):“history,”“to employ,”“a corpse,”“a market,”“an army,”“a lion,”“to rely on,”“to wait on,”“poetry,”“time,”“to know,”“to bestow,”“to be,”“solid,”“to lose,”“to proclaim,”“to look at,”“ten,”“to pick up,”“stone,”“generation,”“to eat,”“a house,”“a clan,”“beginning,”“to let go,”“to test,”“affair,”“power,”“officer,”“to swear,”“to pass away,”“to happen.” It would be manifestly impossible to speak without ambiguity, or indeed to make oneself intelligible at all, unless there were some means of supplementing this deficiency of sounds. As a matter of fact, several devices are employed through the combination of which confusion is avoided. One of these devices is the coupling of words in pairs in order to express a single idea. There is a wordkowhich means “elder brother.” But in speaking, the soundkoalone would not always be easily understood in this sense. One must either reduplicate it and sayko-ko, or prefix(ta, “great”) and sayta-ko. Simple reduplication is mostly confined to family appellations and such adverbial phrases asman-man, “slowly.” But there is a much larger class of pairs, in which each of the two components has the same meaning. Examples are:k‘ung-p‘a, “to be afraid,”kao-su, “to tell,”shu-mu, “tree,”p‘i-fu, “skin,”man-ying, “full,”ku-tu, “solitary.” Sometimes the two parts are not exactly synonymous, but together make up the sense required. Thus ini-shang, “clothes,”idenotes more particularly clothes worn on the upper part of the body, andshangthose on the lower part.fêng-huangis the name of a fabulous bird,fêngbeing the male, andkuangthe female. In another very large class of expressions, the first word serves to limit and determine the special meaning of the second:“milk-skin,” “cream”;“fire-leg,” “ham”;“lamp-cage,” “lantern”;“sea-waist,” “strait.” There are, besides, a number of phrases which are harder to classify. Thus,humeans “tiger.” But in any case where ambiguity might arise,lao-hu, “old tiger,” is used instead of the monosyllable.(anotherhu) is “fox,” andli, an animal belonging to the smaller cat tribe. Together,hu-li, they form the usual term for fox.chih taois literally “to know the way,” but has come to be used simply for the verb “to know.” These pairs or two-word phrases are of such frequent occurrence, that the Chinese spoken language might almost be described as bi-syllabic. Something similar is seen in the extensive use of suffixes or enclitics, attached to many of the commonest nouns.nüis the word for “girl,” but in speechnü-tzŭornü-‘rhis the form used.andboth mean child, and must originally have been diminutives. A fairly close parallel is afforded by the German suffixchen, as inMädchen. The suffix, it may be remarked, belongs especially to the Peking vernacular. Then, the use of so-called numeratives will often give some sort of clue as to the class of objects in which a substantive may be found. When in pidgin English we speak of “one piecee man” or “three piecee dollar,” the wordpieceeis simply a Chinese numerative in English dress. Even in ordinary English, people do not say “four cattle” but “fourheadof cattle.” But in Chinese the use of numeratives is quite a distinctive feature of the language. The commonest of them,ko, can be used indifferently in connexion with almost any class of things, animal, vegetable or mineral. But there are other numeratives—at least 20 or 30 in everyday use—which are strictly reserved for limited classes of things with specific attributes.mei, for instance, is the numerative of circular objects such as coins and rings;k‘oof small globular objects—pearls, grains of rice, &c.;k‘ouclassifies things which have a mouth—bags, boxes and so forth;chienis used of all kinds of affairs;changof chairs and sheets of paper;chih(literally half a pair) is the numerative for various animals, parts of the body, articles of clothing and ships;pafor things which are grasped by a handle, such as fans and knives.
This by no means exhausts the list of devices by which the difficulties of a monosyllabic language are successfully overcome. Mention need only be made, however, of the system of “tones,” which, as the most curious and important of all, has been kept for the last.
The tones may be defined as regular modulations of the voice by means of which different inflections can be imparted to the same sound. They may be compared with the half-involuntary modulations which express emotionalThe tones.feeling in our words. To the foreign ear, a Chinese sentence spoken slowly with the tones clearly brought out has a certain sing-song effect. If we speak of the tones as a “device” adopted in order to increase the number of vocables, this must be understood rather as a convenient way of explaining their practical function than as a scientific account of their origin. It is absurd to suppose the tones were deliberately invented in order to fit each written character with a separate sound. A tone may be said to be as much an integral part of the word to which it belongs as the sound itself; like the sound, too, it is not fixed once and for all, but is in a constant, though very gradual, state of evolution. This fact is proved by the great differences ofintonation in the dialects. Theoretically, four tones have been distinguished—the even, the rising, the sinking and the entering—each of which falls again into an upper and a lower series. But only the Cantonese dialect possesses all these eight varieties of tone (to which a ninth has been added), while Pekingese, with which we are especially concerned here, has no more than four: the even upper, the even lower, the rising and the sinking. The history of the tones has yet to be written, but it appears that down to the 3rd centuryB.C.the only tones distinguished were the“even,”“rising” and“entering.” Between that date and the 4th centuryA.D.thesinking tone was developed. In the 11th century the even tone was divided into upper and lower, and a little later the entering tone finally disappeared from Pekingese. The following monosyllabic dialogue gives a very fair idea of the quality of the four Pekingese tones—1st tone: Dead (spoken in a raised monotone, with slightly plaintive inflection);2nd tone: Dead? (simple query);3rd tone: Dead? (an incredulous query long drawn out);4th tone: Dead! (a sharp and decisive answer). The native learns the tones unconsciously and by ear alone. For centuries their existence was unsuspected, the first systematic classification of them being associated with the name of Shên Yo, a scholar who livedA.D.441-513. The Emperor Wu Ti was inclined to be sceptical, and one day said to him: “Come, tell me, what are these famous four tones?” “They arewhatever your Majesty pleases to make them,” replied Shên Yo, skilfully selecting for his answer four words which illustrated, and in the usual order, the four tones in question. Although no native is ever taught the tones separately, they are none the less present in the words he utters, and must be acquired consciously or unconsciously by any European who wishes to be understood. It is a mistake, however, to imagine that every single word in a sentence must necessarily be given its full tonic force. Quite a number of words, such as the enclitics mentioned above, are not intonated at all. In others the degree of emphasis depends partly on the tone itself, partly on its position in the sentence. In Pekingese the 3rd tone (which is really the second in the ordinary series, the 1st being subdivided into upper and lower) is particularly important, and next to it in this respect comes the 2nd (that is, the lower even, or 2nd division of the 1st). It may be said, roughly, that any speaker whose second and third tones are correct will at any rate be understood, even if the 1st and 4th are slurred over.
It is chiefly, however, on its marvellous script and the rich treasures of its literature that the Chinese language depends for its unique fascination and charm. If we take a page of printed Chinese or carefully written manuscriptThe characters.and compare it with a page, say, of Arabic or Sanskrit, the Chinese is seen at once to possess a marked characteristic of its own. It consists of a number of wholly independent units, each of which would fit into a small square, and is called a character. These characters are arranged in columns, beginning on the right-hand side of the page and running from top to bottom. They arewords, inasmuch as they stand for articulate sounds expressing root-ideas, but they are unlike our words in that they are not composed of alphabetical elements or letters. Clearly, if each character were a distinct and arbitrarily constructed symbol, only those gifted with exceptional powers of memory could ever hope to read or write with fluency. This, however, is far from being the case. If we go to work synthetically and first see how the language is built up, it will soon appear that most Chinese characters are susceptible of some kind of analysis. We may accept as substantially true the account of native writers who tell us that means of communication other than oral began with the use of knotted cords, similar to thequippusof ancient Mexico and Peru, and that these were displaced later on by the practice of notching or scoring rude marks on wood, bamboo and stone. It is beyond question that the first four numerals, as written with simple horizontal strokes, date from this early period. Notching, however, carries us but a little way on the road to a system of writing, which in China, as elsewhere, must have sprung originally from pictures. In Chinese writing, especially, the indications of such an origin are unmistakable, a few characters, indeed, even inPictorial characters.their present form, being perfectly recognizable as pictures of objects pure and simple. Thus, for “sun” the ancient Chinese drew a circle with a dot in it:, now modified into; for “moon”, now; for “God” they drew the anthropomorphic figure, which in its modern form appears as; for “mountains”, now; for “child”, now; for “fish”, now; for “mouth” a round hole, now; for “hand”, now; for “well”, now written without the dot. Hence we see that while the origin of all writing is pictographic, in Chinese alone of living languages certain pictures have survived, and still denote what they had denoted in the beginning. In the script of other countries they were gradually transformed into hieroglyphic symbols, after which they either disappeared altogether or became further conventionalized into the letters of an alphabet. These picture-characters, then, accumulated little by little, until they comprised all the common objects which could be easily and rapidly delineated—sun, moon, stars, various animals, certain parts of the body, tree, grass and so forth, to the number of two or three hundred. The next step was to a few compound pictograms which would naturally suggest themselves to primitive man:the sun just above the horizon = “dawn”;trees side by side = “a forest”;a mouth with something solid coming out of it = “the tongue”;a mouth with vapor or breath coming out of it = “words.”
But a purely pictographic script has its limitations. The more complex natural objects hardly come within its scope; still less the whole body of abstract ideas. While writing was still in its infancy, it must have occurred to the ChineseSuggestive compounds.to join together two or more pictorial characters in order that their association might suggest to the mind some third thing or idea. “Sun” and “moon” combined in this way make the character, which means “bright”; woman and child make“good”; “fields” and “strength” (that is, labour in the fields) produce the character“male”; two “men” on “earth”signifies “to sit”—before chairs were known; the “sun” seen through “trees”designates the east;has been explained as (1) a “pig” under a “roof,” the Chinese idea, common to the Irish peasant, of home, and also (2) as “several persons” under “a roof,” in the same sense; a “woman” under a “roof” makes the character“peace”; “words” and “tongue”naturally suggest “speech”; two hands (, in the old form) indicate friendship; “woman” and “birth”= “born of a woman,” means “clan-name,” showing that the ancient Chinese traced through the mother and not through the father. Interesting and ingenious as many of these combinations are, it is clear that their number, too, must in any practical system of writing be severely limited. Hence it is not surprising that this class of characters, correctly called ideograms, as representing ideas and not objects, should be a comparatively small one. Up to this point there seemed to be but little chance of the written language reaching a free field for expansion. It had run so far on lines sharply distinct from those of ordinary speech. There was nothing in the characterper sewhich gave the slightest clue to the sound of the word it represented. Each character, therefore, had to be learned and recognized by a separate effort of memory.Phonetic characters.The first step in a new, and, as it ultimately proved, the right direction, was the borrowing of a character already in use to represent another word identical in sound, though different in meaning. Owing to the scarcity of vocables noted above, there might be as many as ten different words in common use, each pronouncedfang. Out of those ten only one, we will suppose, had a character assigned to it—namely“square” (originally said to be apicture of two boats joined together). But among the other nine wasfang, meaning “street” or “locality,” in such common use that it became necessary to have some means of writing it. Instead of inventing an altogether new character, as they might have done, the Chinese took“square” and used it also in the sense of “locality.” This was a simple expedient, no doubt, but one that, applied on a large scale, could not but lead to confusion. The corresponding difficulty which presented itself in speech was overcome, as we saw, by many devices, one of which consisted in prefixing to the word in question another which served to determine its special meaning. A native does not sayfangsimply when he wishes to speak of a place, butli-fang“earth-place.” Exactly the same device was now adopted in writing the character. Tofang“square” was added another part meaning “earth,” in order to show that thefangin question had to do with location on the earth’s surface. The whole character thus appeared as. Once this phonetic principle had been introduced, all was smooth sailing, and writing progressed by leaps and bounds. Nothing was easier now than to provide signs for the other words pronouncedfang. “A room” wasdoor-fang; “to spin” wassilk-fang; “fragrant” washerbs-fang; “to inquire” waswords-fang; “an embankment,” and hence “to guard against,” wasmound-fang; “to hinder” waswoman-fang. This last example may seem a little strange until we remember that man must have played the principal part in the development of writing, and that from the masculine point of view there is something essentially obstructive and unmanageable in woman’s nature. It may be remarked, by the way, that the element “woman” is often the determinative in characters that stand for unamiable qualities,e.g.“jealous,”“treacherous,”“false” and“uncanny.” This class of characters, which constitutes at least nine-tenths of the language, has received the convenient name ofphonograms. It must be added that the formation of the phonogram or phonetic compound did not always proceed along such simple lines as in the examples given above, where both parts are pictorial characters, one the “phonetic,” representing the sound, and the other, commonly known as the “radical,” giving a clue to the sense. In the first place, most of the phonetics now existing are not simple pictograms, but themselves more or less complex characters made up in a variety of ways. On analysing, for instance, the wordhsün, “to withdraw,” we find it is composed of the phoneticcombined with the radical, an abbreviated form of“to walk.” Butsunmeans “grandson,” and is itself a suggestive compound made up of the two characters“a son” and“connect.” The former character is a simple pictogram, but the latter is again resolvable into the two elements“a down stroke to the left” and“a strand of silk,” which is here understood to be the radical and appears in its ancient form as, a picture of cocoons spun by the silkworm. Again, the sound is in most cases given by no means exactly by the so-called phonetic, a fact chiefly due to the pronunciation having undergone changes which the written character was incapable of recording. Thus, we have just seen that the phonetic ofis nothsünbutsun. There are extreme cases in which a phonetic provides hardly any clue at all as to the sound of its derivatives. The character, for example, which by itself is pronouncedch‘ien, appears in combination as the modern phonetic ofk‘an,juan,yinandch‘ui; though in the last instance it was not originally the phonetic but the radical of a character which was analysed asch‘ien, “to emit breath” from“the mouth,” the whole character being a suggestive compound rather than an illustration of radical and phonetic combined. In general, however, it may be said that the “final” or rhyme is pretty accurately indicated, while in not a few cases the phonetic does give the exact sound for all its derivatives. Thus, the characters in which the elemententers are pronouncedchien, ch‘ien, hsienandlien; butand its derivatives are alli. A considerable number of phonetics are nearly or entirely obsolete as separate characters, although their family of derivatives may be a very large one., for instance, is never seen by itself, yet, andare among the most important characters in the language. Objections have been raised in some quarters to this account of the phonetic development of Chinese. It is argued that the primitives and sub-primitives, whereby is meant any character which is capable of entering into combination with another, have really had some influence on the meaning, and do not merely possess a phonetic value. But insufficient evidence has hitherto been advanced in support of this view.
The whole body of Chinese characters, then, may conveniently be divided up, for philological purposes, into pictograms, ideograms and phonograms. The first are pictures of objects, the second are composite symbols standing for abstract ideas, the third are compound characters of which the more important element simply represents a spoken sound. Of course, in a strict sense, even the first two classes do not directly represent either objects or ideas, but rather stand for sounds by which these objects and ideas have previously been expressed. It may, in fact, be said that Chinese characters are “nothing but a number of more or less ingenious devices for suggesting spoken words to a reader.” This definition exposes the inaccuracy of the popular notion that Chinese is a language of ideographs, a mistake which even the compilers of theOxford English Dictionaryhave not avoided. Considering that all the earliest characters are pictorial, and that the vast majority of the remainder are constructed on phonetic principles, it is absurd to speak of Chinese characters as “symbolizing the idea of a thing, without expressing the name of it.”
The Chinese themselves have always been diligent students of their written language, and at a very early date (probably many centuriesB.C.) evolved a sixfold classification of characters,The “Six Scripts.”the so-calledliu shu, very inaccurately translated by the Six Scripts, which may be briefly noticed:—
1.chih shih, indicative or self-explanatory characters. This is a very small class, including only the simplest numerals and a few others such as“above” and“below.”
2.hsiang hsing, pictographic characters.
3.hsing shêngorhsieh shêng, phonetic compounds.
4.hui i, suggestive compounds based on a natural association of ideas. To this class alone can the term “ideographs” be properly applied.
5.chuan chu. The meaning of the name has been much disputed, some saying that it means “turned round”;e.g.mu“eye” is now written. Others understand it as comprising a few groups of characters nearly related in sense, each character consisting of an element common to the group, together with a specific and detachable part;e.g., and, all of which have the meaning “old.” This class may be ignored altogether, seeing that it is concerned not with the origin of characters but only with peculiarities in their use.
6.chia chieh, borrowed characters, as explained above, that is, characters adopted for different words simply because of the identity of sound.
The order of this native classification is not to be taken as in any sense chronological. Roughly, it may be said that the development of writing followed the course previously traced—that is, beginning with indicative signs, and going on with pictograms and ideograms, until finally the discovery of the phonetic principle did away with all necessity for other devices in enlarging the written language. But we have no direct evidence that this was so. There can be little doubt that phonetic compounds made their appearance at a very early date, probably prior to the invention of a large number of suggestive compounds, and perhaps even before the whole existing stock of pictograms had been fashioned. It is significant that numerous words of daily occurrence, which must have had a place in the earlieststages of human thought, are expressed by phonetic characters. We can be fairly certain, at any rate, that the period of “borrowed characters” did not last very long, though it is thought that traces of it are to be seen in the habit of writing several characters, especially those for certain plants and animals, indifferently with or without their radicals. Thus“a tadpole” is frequently written, without the part meaning “insect” or “reptile.”