Chinese art  

"IN studying Chinese art we are dealing with a people whose native conservatism has preserved their fundamental traditions for more than four thousand years — a unique instance in the history of civilizations. To be sure, foreign influences have entered China and become powerful, but eventually they have been absorbed or assimilated by truly Chinese thought and action." --Gardner's Art Through the Ages (1926) by Helen Gardner

"Ornament and color are especially stressed and are of great splendor. The approaches and the balustrades of the terrace are elaborately carved. The roof tiles of royal buildings are yellow, the imperial color in China. On other buildings the tiles are sometimes blue or green; and the choice, determined by strict laws, is indicative of the rank of the owner and symbolic in meaning. The ridgepoles are decorated with dragons, phoenixes, and grotesques, as if to break the long lines as well as to ward off evil spirits. The columns, the beams, and the undersides of the projecting roofs and the interior are elaborately ornamented with gold and vermilion, carvings, lacquer, and inlay." --Gardner's Art Through the Ages (1926) by Helen Gardner