If the title suggests this is a book about ceramic decoration of architecture or perhaps pottery in the shape of Chinese architecture, this hardly does justice to its scope. Clarence Eng has written a book filled with information about Chinese architecture, particularly of the Ming (1368-1644) and to a lesser extent the Qing (1644-1911) dynasty. Most of the buildings have ceramic tile decoration, so even though the author's focus is tiling, he is able to write a comprehensive study. The book is beautifully produced with a staggering 560 exquisite colour illustrations.
The introduction opens with a strong statement, and an accurate one: “Traditional Chinese Architecture is designed to enable the careful occupant continuously to maintain it by making local repairs or replacing parts as they become worn.” The ceramic parts, he continues, are the heaviest of the building, and (not being wood) they protect it. Using buildings primarily from the three richest locations for extant premodern architecture in China, the capitals Beijing and Nanjing, and Shanxi province, the author writes a social history of Chinese buildings. The buildings are his primary sources. His secondary sources are documents and secondary literature, of course, and lab-based studies. The technology of Chinese ceramics is an important component of the book.
The first chapter introduces Chinese architecture that is not supported by a timber frame. Rock-carved architecture and the so-called “beamless halls” (wuliangdian) figure prominently here. Eng emphasises that Chinese fortifications usually were not wooden. The second half of the chapter is an important discussion of ceramic technology leading up to the Ming dynasty, types of glazes, and other research on his subject. The second chapter is a brief introduction to Chinese wooden architecture, including the structure of an independent hall, its place in an architectural complex, and roof styles. Eng makes a point of offering fascinating facts, such as that the roof of the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City weighs more than 2,000 tons.
The long chapter three presents everything everyone should know about glazes. It begins with a discussion of liuli, which the author tells us refers to all glazed architectural components. Then comes an explanation of plate tiles (banwa) and cylindrical tiles (tongwa). The rest of the chapter first deals with decoration on drip tiles and then on how to assess size and quality based on features such as colour. The reader is likely to be familiar with many of the buildings shown in the more than ninety illustrations in this chapter. Reading the text, he will see all of them to a degree he has heretofore missed.
Chapter Four, even longer and with more illustrations, is the heart of the book. It begins with ornamentation on the ends of the main roof ridge. The reader learns how to distinguish those of Nanjing and Beijing, metropolitan style, from those on buildings in Shanxi. Calling the ceramic decoration of Shanxi's roofs exuberant, the reader further learns how to distinguish four styles. Eng then turns to central ridge ornamentation, an opportunity to inform the reader about basic Buddhist iconography. The reader also learns about the Qiao, one of the most important families of tilers who worked in Shanxi, and about the almost as important Zhang family workshop.
The next chapter turns to ornamentation on the other roof ridges and eaves. The topic gives the author a chance to survey the most common Chinese roof types. Following is a definitive discussion of the lead figure and those that follow on roof ridges. Last comes a section on taoshou, ‘casing creatures’, animals that protect the outer end of a cantilever beam, the piece placed beneath an eaves corner to help support it. Again the superb illustrations help the reader notice features like teeth that are easy to miss even when studying a building.
The chapter on signs, symbols and rank explores purposes of ceramic tiling other than on roofs. Noting that bold ceramic decoration proliferates in imperial architecture, the author breaks down its locations and purposes to explain it. The exercise is not obvious, for as he notes, rules governing roof ornamentation and glazed tiles were not explicit, and to the extent rules existed, the physical evidence shows that they were only rarely followed (p. 159). In Shanxi, however, the material evidence suggests there were conventions. The author first turns to colour to try to understand what he sees. Gold denotes imperial, blue is next in importance, and monochrome is more prevalent in the capitals whereas polychrome is more evident in Shanxi. As for symbols, the dragon is universal and premier. Buddhist symbols, such as a stupa shape at the centre of a roof ridge, may or may not be explicitly Buddhist, for the author has observed it on at least one Daoist building. Lions and elephants are other animals he explores as possible symbols of Buddhism. The author then looks briefly at animals on fascia, ridge terminals, and eaves corners.
Chapter Seven examines decorative applications of ceramics as wall insets, panels, roundels, on altars, as floor tiles, and dragons on screen walls. Like roof tiles, colours such as gold are associated with imperial decoration. The author notes the visual effect of small sections of glazed ornament compared to an entire glazed wall or other surface. This is the set up for discussion of dragon screens, which, Eng rightly points out, are usually labelled by the number of dragons across the front, but sometimes the same number or more appear in glaze on the back side of a screen wall. The dragon screens in Datong and Beijing are extensively illustrated and their dates are explored. The final section of the chapter deals with perhaps the most extraordinary glazed pagoda in China, Flying Rainbow (Feihong) Pagoda at Guangsheng Monastery in Hongdong, Shanxi. Here the author examines a wealth of detail even someone who has studied the pagoda carefully is likely to have missed. The Guangsheng Monastery pagoda poises the author to write in the next chapter on the famous porcelain pagoda of Bao'en Monastery in Nanjing, built between 1412 and 1431.
Taking as a premise that a pagoda faced with ceramic tile in the first Ming capital would look different from one in southern Shanxi, the author looks at surviving pieces of ceramic tile and the wealth of European and Chinese illustrations. He finds a number of L-shaped bricks among the pieces in Nanjing that he relates to similarly shaped bricks in other collections. Eng notes that the pagoda of Xiuding Monastery in Henan, the Iron Pagoda, also in Henan, the Flying Rainbow Pagoda in Shanxi and the Bao'en Monastery pagoda all use the fixing techniques of stonemasons. He thus is able to conclude that glazed techniques in Shanxi and Nanjing have similarities and those in Beijing are in more ways different. Transport of materials, the scarcity of firewood, and climate change are possible differences. A fascinating section on the labour involved in transporting materials needed for glazed tiles follows. The chapter ends with a summary of problems in the manufacture of large pieces of ceramic tile.
The conclusion summarises the points the author has tried to make: ceramic decoration on architecture can only be understood through the building of which it is part; when separated from its buildings, the provenance of ceramic tile is extremely hard to determine; ceramics tile may inform about the rank and purpose of a building; the full implications of a dragon in Chinese art are still not understood, but it is the dominant creature; two types of immortals are found at the corners of eaves; Nanjing designs may have been precursors for those in Beijing, but the luan (phoenix) seems to appear only in Nanjing. The appendix is a valuable summary of buildings whose ceramic tiles have been discussed according to location. The buildings that are sources for those in Shanxi are illustrated.
Few books are written in European languages on Chinese architecture. Clarence Eng's book is a major contribution to a specific topic of China's building tradition, but one that has broad appeal to scholars and students of Chinese art as well as architecture.
