onsist 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.

The _pagoda_ (Chinese _taa_), 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. Paleologue, _L'Art chinois_ (1887): S.W. Bushell, _Chinese
Art_, vol. i. (1904); J. Fergusson, _History of Architecture_;
Professor Chuta Ito, articles in _The 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 century B.C., a number of which are figured in
Professor E. Chavannes's standard work,[81] while 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