China Revisited -- 2013 [28]

Chen's Lineage Hall

Official on-line information for the Chen Clan Academy (one of three names I am aware of) suggests that 45 minutes should be sufficient to see this state protected cultural site.  Forty-five minutes is about what we had for our visit, but rest assured it was only sufficient for a walk through. To see the site will require maybe a week.

Our brief visit to Chen Clan Academy, a.k.a., Chen's Lineage Hall, now renamed Guangdong Folk Arts Museum, was fascinating.  Unlike the ancestral garden compound we would visit the next morning with Angel's parents, this ancestral hall was not built with on-going family habitation in mind; it was built to honor ancestors. And it was used as temporary housing for clan members who came to Guangzhou to take the Imperial civil service exams.

The structures themselves were constructed in the late 19th Century, not old at all by Chinese standards.  It is the art, architecture, and traditional artifacts that bear the stamp of tradition and timelessness.

Briefly, I'll mention the patterns of architectural symmetry that always astonish in China. There are 19 separate buildings in the compound, which is walled to separate it from whatever would have been outside in the 19th Century. The compound is rectangular, 6,400 square meters, facing south. There are 9 main halls, 10 lesser buildings, and many spacious courtyards.

This hallway is just one example of the precise and sometimes breathtaking repetitions that speak of precision and attention to detail. Both are significant. Those characteristics supplement and enhance the traditional meaning(s) of literally every element of the Hall. I hesitate to apply the word "symbolic" because symbolism as a cultural term reduces the way various features might speak to us. Neither statistics nor architectural technicalities nor artistic language can speak separately to this complex construction.

Among the artistic features are various forms of "decorative" detailing. Along the roof ridges and edges and gutter facings we find vividly colored figures that are human and mythical (e.g., the dragon) -- or natural creatures invested with special meaning and power (e.g., the lion).  All of these characters tell stories; that is, they can be "read," although not by me.

So we have human characters with real stories rooted in history; human characters with stories for which "history" is beside the point (think of George Washington and the cherry tree, from which we get the first rule of honesty: I cannot tell a lie, despite the fact that the cherry tree was invented); human stories connected to mythical characters (e.g., dragons) and/or real creatures (lions, frogs, turtles, et cetera); and traditional "symbolism" all over the place.

Pottery is one medium artists work in, wood is another. The story here is told in the branches of what is either a monster vine or a tree with many twisting branches.  We find many things as the branches go up, from birds who naturally roost in trees to humans in tree houses, to the usual assortment of non-human creaturely things.

What knocks you over is the detail, the painstaking and labor-intensive intricate carving that is made to look effortless and graceful and seamless. And, of course, expressively artistic and compositionally balanced. It is not just a question of art and craft that must be mastered, but of massive perseverance -- just staying at it for however long it takes.

These observations apply also to the ivory carvings, like the boat, displayed in a room full of intricate ivory pieces.

The same could be said of brick carving (below) or stone carving.

These are all decorative, although they are not simply decorations in our modern use of that term. The Chinese clearly have understood the value of the many kinds of creative arts for embodying the culture.  What I mean to say here is that "mere" decoration would make things "pretty," a quality Americans have often consigned to the female, as in, this house needs "a woman's touch."



What we find here is not embellishment, although it is embellishment, so much as embodiment.  The decorative arts cannot be separated from the functions of the building; they cannot be removed from the lives of the people who live and work and visit without losing something vital.  That is the chief insufficiency of even the best museum.


The description of brick carving below expresses more eloquently than I could the intellectual energy identified with all these activities.

True enough.  It is all about auspicious patterns and enriching bald walls with various folk arts "used wildly."  I am all about wild uses of art.  In addition to the art already mentioned there were wood carvings, lime carvings, iron castings, frescoes, and various kinds of textiles (especially traditional dresses and robes that would make the pope look shabby).

When our 45 minutes was nearing its end and Lineage Hall officials were (apparently) getting concerned that we would overstay, somebody came to find me.  I may have been grooving on the gardens out back, which have their own explanations, patterns, and exoticisms.  Maybe I am a slow learner, but as they summoned me to the museum shop, where we were encouraged to take our time, I knew that I would like a few more 45 minute visits. Or better yet, I would like the week I mentioned earlier to see all the things I dearly love, like doors.