DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.67683#0618
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHINA
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
In studying Chinese art we are dealing with a people whose
native conservatism has preserved their fundamental traditions
for more than four thousand years — a unique case in the history
of civilizations. To be sure, foreign influences have entered China
and become powerful, but eventually they have been absorbed
or assimilated by the truly Chinese thought and action.
China is vast both in population and in geographic extent, a
land of probably more than four hundred million people, with
an area, including Tibet, Chinese Turkestan, Mongolia, and
Manchuria, of more than twice the size of the United States,
though China proper includes a little less than half this area.
The fertile eastern plains are traversed by two great river systems
that have their rise in the mountains of the west. The Hoang-ho,
or Yellow River, with swift current brings down great quantities
of silt that is still building up the alluvial plains, now providing
rich agricultural lands, now destroying farms and people with
its floods and erratic change of course. The Yangtze-kiang, or
Blue River, through its navigability serves as the great artery
of commerce. As one would expect in so large a country, there
is great variety of climate, vegetation, language, and custom.
North China, centering about Peking, has a cool, dry climate
and many stretches of plain; south China, centering at Canton,
is moist and tropical, and the mountains near by afford a summer
refuge from the enervating heat. To the west and north are vast
areas of desert plateau. Agriculture forms the economic basis
of life; even in the mountainous regions small patches of tillable
land are intensively cultivated. The natural resources are enor-
mous — mines of gold and other metal, quarries, “jade moun-
tains,” and formerly great forests, now destroyed.
The old civilization centered in the valley of the Hoang-ho in
the Shensi province, and comprised perhaps one-fifth of present
China. The people, when not at war, were primarily agricultural,
and for this reason interested in the powers of nature — the sky,
42.8
CHINA
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
In studying Chinese art we are dealing with a people whose
native conservatism has preserved their fundamental traditions
for more than four thousand years — a unique case in the history
of civilizations. To be sure, foreign influences have entered China
and become powerful, but eventually they have been absorbed
or assimilated by the truly Chinese thought and action.
China is vast both in population and in geographic extent, a
land of probably more than four hundred million people, with
an area, including Tibet, Chinese Turkestan, Mongolia, and
Manchuria, of more than twice the size of the United States,
though China proper includes a little less than half this area.
The fertile eastern plains are traversed by two great river systems
that have their rise in the mountains of the west. The Hoang-ho,
or Yellow River, with swift current brings down great quantities
of silt that is still building up the alluvial plains, now providing
rich agricultural lands, now destroying farms and people with
its floods and erratic change of course. The Yangtze-kiang, or
Blue River, through its navigability serves as the great artery
of commerce. As one would expect in so large a country, there
is great variety of climate, vegetation, language, and custom.
North China, centering about Peking, has a cool, dry climate
and many stretches of plain; south China, centering at Canton,
is moist and tropical, and the mountains near by afford a summer
refuge from the enervating heat. To the west and north are vast
areas of desert plateau. Agriculture forms the economic basis
of life; even in the mountainous regions small patches of tillable
land are intensively cultivated. The natural resources are enor-
mous — mines of gold and other metal, quarries, “jade moun-
tains,” and formerly great forests, now destroyed.
The old civilization centered in the valley of the Hoang-ho in
the Shensi province, and comprised perhaps one-fifth of present
China. The people, when not at war, were primarily agricultural,
and for this reason interested in the powers of nature — the sky,
42.8