4 8 4 CHINESE ARCHITECTURE. BOOK IX. However admirable and ingenious the modern Chinese may be, it is in the minor arts such as carving in wood and 508. Archway in the Nan-kau Pass. (From a Photograph.) ivory, the manufacture of vessels of porcelain and bronze, and all that relates to silk and cotton manufactures. In these they certainly excel, and reached a high degree of perfec- tion while Europe was still barbarous, but in all the higher branches of art they take a very low position, and seem utterly unprogressive. Their sculpture is more carving than anything we know by the higher name, and although in their painting they would seem, at one time, to have been far in advance of that found in Europe, both in the complete maturity of the art and in the mastery of the brush, within the last 300 years there has been a serious decline, so that it now scarcely rises above the level of decoration. Their architecture also stands on the same
