Art and Politics in China China. By L. A. Lyall.
(Beim. 21s.)
China. By Reno Grousset. (Hamish Hamilton. 25s.)
THESE two books bear the same title, but there is little else in common between them, apart from the fact that each of their authors is, in his own sphere, an authority on Chinese life and thought.
The earlier part of Mr. Lyall's book is historical and descriptive. It is somewhat overburdened with quotations, some of them extending over several pages ; and as they are mostly from authors whose books are readily accessible, the justification for such extensive quotations is not clear. It is the later portion of the book, dealing with the modern period, that will best repay perusal. Mr. Lyall is rightly critical of British policy in China during the past few decades. He observes, as others (including Chinese) have done, that England generally ends by doing the right thing but does it too late (p. 369), and thereby gets little or no credit for her good intentions. The Chinese (as the educational text- books sponsored by the Kuomintang painfully reveal) are convinced it was fear, or conscious weakness, that made the British surrender the Hankow and other Concessions in 1927. It is therefore not surprising that their surrender, in the circumstances of that time, produced in Chinese Nationalist circles feelings of contempt rather than of gratitude.
Mr. Lyall very rightly points out (p. 385) that the study of the language and culture of China has not hitherto been pursued in England with the thoroughness it deserves, and that in this respect we are surpassed by France, Germany and Russia. Japan, of course, should be added to the list. The languid support given by the British Government and by British commerce to the Chinese department of the School of Oriental Studies in the University of London is one of many indications that the importance of Chinese studies is not adequately realized in the country to which, as Mr. Lyall rightly observes, " a true understanding of China " is more necessary than to any other.
Many of h:s criticisms of the actions and policy of the Shanghai Municipal Council are valid, but the following paragraph is one which will be read with amazement by many who know how repeatedly the allegation which it contains has been authoritatively repudiated. " Early in 1892," he says, " I went to the Shanghai public gardens with another Customs man, who pointed out to me, as we were going in, a notice hanging on the gate : ' Chinese and dogs not admitted.' We looked at one another and burst out laughing." The alleged notice is one which to the minds of many irresponsible globe-trotters and others has proved irresistibly attractive, but a man of Mr. Lyall's 'experience and standing should not have made it without at least mentioning the fact, of which he cannot have been ignorant, that the Shanghai authorities have repeatedly and emphatically denied that any such notice ever existed.
It may be that Mr. Lyall's sympathy with the aspirations of Nationalist China sometimes makes him too censorious and petulant in his criticisms of his own countrymen. But
the sympathetic understanding with which he contemplates -a China that is vastly different not only from the China
of the classical age, which he knows so well, but even from the China of his own youth, shows that the years have not impaired the elastic‘ty of his mind. He is one of those fortunate people who, according to a well-known saying of Confucius, are qualified to be the teachers of others because they are not content with cherishing their old knowledge but are constantly acquiring new.
The distracted China of these days of revolutionary turmoil and civil war is in many respects so saddening a spectacle that it is a relief to turn to the serene and tranquil China that finds expression in art and poetry. We are told at the beginning of M. Rene Grousset's beautifully-illustrated work that its " sole ambition " is " to serve as a general introduction to the study of Asiatic art," though we find on turning its pages that it deals almost exclusively with the aesthetic ideals and artistic achievements of China. A long and valuable chapter, however, is devoted to the influence of Buddhism in that country, and the chapter justifies the claim of the book to be concerned with the art not of China only, but of Asia.
The author shows most clearly how closely the art-motives and inspiring influences of the successive Chinese dynasties were associated with the changing political fortunes of the Chinese people. In the chapter on Buddhist influence he .tells us how the history of Chinese thought and aesthetic ideal " which can be explained by their own natural laws of development alone up to the fourth century of our era " underwent a sudden change owing to the invasion of Buddhist ideas and art-conceptions. M. Crousset accepts—probably justifiably—the view that the treatment of landscape as a subject for painting does not, as was formerly supposed, go back further than the Sung dynasty. His d7scus ;ion of Chinese poetry, however, shows that he fully realizes how deeply the soul of China was stirred at a much earlier period by the wonders of mountain scenery. There appears to be no doubt that the characteristic Chinese love of wild nature was manifested in poetry long before it revealed itself in landscape painting. The T'ang poets and " their counterparts in painting," the Sung artists, " discerned the soul of the cosmos in the lines of a landscape bathed in mist and lost in infmite distances, which make it as poignant as a human countenance."
The translation is well done. One of M. Grousset's earlier books is referred to (on p. 205) by its French title of Sur Les Traces du Bouddha, which should iri future editions be changed to the name adopted for the English translation— jai the Footsteps of the Buddha. More than once the river known to the English-speaking world as the Yangtze is referred to as the " Blue River,"—a translation of its French name ; and it may confuse some readers ,to be confronted with both names on one page (see p. 112). !:::ha p. 262 the author or translator seems to have assumed that Dhyiina (Ch'an or Zen) and T'ien-T'ai were alternative names for the same Buddhist School.
The book is one which will be treasured by those who believe, with ample justification, that in Chinese. art at its best the human spirit has soared to heights not transeendfd in the art of any other country or civilization.
AvEGINALD F. JOHNSTON,
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