What's the difference between China and western traditional architecture?

There are many significant differences between Chinese and western traditional architectural arts, which are mainly caused by the differences between Chinese and western nationalities in ethics, psychological temperament, religious consciousness, traditional culture, artistic taste and many other aspects. Analyzing these differences plays an important role in how to understand and appreciate Chinese and western architecture and deepen the understanding of other Chinese and western arts. This paper only talks about the differences between Chinese and western nationalities in religious concepts, traditional culture and artistic taste and their embodiment in architectural art. The artistic temperament of Chinese and western traditional buildings,

It is more prominent in religious buildings. Ancient Egyptian monarchs used the mystery of religion to rule the country, so religion had an important influence on Egyptian art and architecture. The Egyptians believed that people could be resurrected after death, and this knowledge of death prompted pharaohs to spend a lot of energy on building tombs and temples. Pyramids and temples are huge, and their huge volume and weight give people mental pressure, which makes people feel great fear and depression. In particular, the famous Karnak Temple has 134 columns, with a diameter of 3.5 meters and a height of 2 1 meter, all of which are stones. The temple is a concentrated expression of the deification of kingship.

The Greeks have no less faith in God than the Egyptians. Greek mythology is the soil of Greek art. The Greeks interpreted almost every natural phenomenon as the function of God, and endowed God with human appearance, personality, thoughts and feelings. Polytheism influenced the social life of the Greeks, and the temple was the symbol of the city-state. Dorian, Ione and Corinth were founded in architecture. These three forms played an important role in ancient western architecture.

The ancient Romans also accepted this concept, so the most important works left by the ancient Greeks and Romans in architecture were temples. In medieval Europe, people were shrouded in more Christian theology. As a symbol of the city, the church is a symbol of the prosperity and strength of the city. "People in this period are fanatical religious believers, even the rulers are no exception. The only knowledge is to recite asceticism creed and Bible words. The art of this period has a strong religious color and acts as a spokesperson for God and the church. " Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic churches are the best architectural embodiment of this social reality. Therefore, religious architecture reflecting theocracy has long occupied the mainstream position in the history of European architecture. Most churches in Europe are built of stone, and the famous church projects are very huge, which often take more than ten years or hundreds of years to build.

Western religious architecture pays attention to the religious passion in people's hearts, and puts the confused, fanatical, fantasy and vacant visual image of Hua Song religion in people's hearts, and further pushes people's emotions to a higher level with this image. In addition to Greek temples, western religious buildings are immersed in boiling passion, with extraordinary scale, strong spatial contrast, mysterious changes in light and shadow, carved figures and passionate momentum. Many examples can be found in Egyptian, Byzantine, Roman, Gothic and Baroque temples and churches, and even in modern buildings (such as the Church of Our Lady in Le Ceylon, a suburb of Paris, 1922- 1923). Even the churches in the Renaissance and classicism could not completely get rid of this architectural structure. Although there are differences in different degrees, they are similar in expressing religious irrationality. Their functions are to infect people's rationality through architectural art and force people to follow missionaries to the other side.

This feature is particularly prominent in Gothic churches, where the vertical upward momentum is the most fascinating. The tall towers, bony straight beams and columns, bare skeleton structure, cornices and arches, and colorful light from stained glass make people feel a mysterious religious emotion soaring in the sky, as if the human soul has also risen at the feet of God.

The history of China's social development determines that China's architectural art should develop along its own path.

In the primary stage of China's social development-slave society, in order to keep its status eternal, the rulers produced a series of ruling thoughts: "Heaven", "Rite" and "Filial Piety", and used these thoughts to educate future generations. Knowledge can only spread among the ruling class, thus maintaining and consolidating their rule. The so-called religious activities are mainly based on the divination sacrifices of ghosts and gods, heaven and earth, monsters and wizards in folklore. Therefore, so-called cultural officials such as Shi, Wu and Zhu are also defenders of the interests of the rulers' regime. During this period, there was no fixed God and no theory about God. From the slave society to the feudal society which lasted for more than two thousand years, the palace architecture embodying imperial power has been the mainstream in China. "God" is just a tool to foil the imperial power in China. Apart from Taoism founded by Zhang Daoling in the Eastern Han Dynasty and Tao Te Ching by Zhuangzi, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam are all foreign cultures. Buddhism was introduced into China from India in the Eastern Han Dynasty and developed. Islam was introduced into China from the Arab region of Central Asia in the middle of the 7th century, but it spread in the northwest minority areas of China, which had little influence on the culture of the Central Plains. Christianity was introduced into China from Europe in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Therefore, China's orthodoxy for thousands of years is basically based on Confucianism.

The religious buildings in our country are very different from those in the west. It has never been too immersed in the excitement of theology and the ecstasy of accepting superman, but needs a kind of spiritual peace and harmony. Taoism believes that refining qi and taking Dan medicine is the way to ascend to heaven and become immortal, and its buildings are mostly in deep mountain canyons. For example, the main peak of Wudang Mountain, a Taoist resort 16 12 meters, has Zixiao Palace, Taiqing Palace and Yuxu Palace. Zen advocates seeking liberation in the heart, resting in the mountains, meditating on the face, and seeking peace and tranquility. The famous Mount Wutai, Mount Putuo, Mount Jiuhua and Mount Emei are collectively called the four famous Buddhist mountains in China. The ancient temple in the mountain stream is looming, the Sanskrit chanting in the forest sea, the incense curling in the clouds, and the temple seems to be a picture scroll in the mountain. "Brake" is a Sanskrit transliteration, which can refer to both Buddhist countries and Buddhist temples. The Buddhist temple in China itself is the symbol of Buddhist spirit or the epitome of pure land. People should seek safety and experience liberation here, and everything should be understandable by ordinary human nature. Bricks, columns, beams, foreheads, trusses, rafters, arches and rafters of the Qin dynasty are interwoven into a network to form a building. China's religious buildings are magnificent compared with civil buildings, but they are always in a subordinate position compared with buildings representing imperial power. In the capital, there is no more than the palace, and in counties, there is no more than the palace and the yamen. Buddhist temple buildings in China are actually the expansion of secular houses or the reduction of palaces.

Buddhist memorial buildings and pagodas are also full of secular feelings. Although it has a towering figure, it does not emphasize the rise blindly like the Gothic steeple. The eaves of the pagoda weakened the vertical movement, as if looking back at the earth from time to time during the ascent. China stupa is also a replica of secular architecture. China's architecture is obviously conservative and technically strictly limited, so that China's architecture is satisfied with the wood structure system for thousands of years, and it is impossible to make a greater breakthrough. Due to the limitation of stress degree and material size, wood structure is not good at building large-scale, complex and varied large-scale building units. Compared with stone structures, wood structures are easier to build. As the capital of China, the palaces in the city can be built in a few years or even longer. In China, there is not a stone church that the west can often meet and take hundreds of years to complete. It is easy to see the effect of the image and style of the wooden structure building, which meets the needs of China people. The long-term use of wood structure has also brought the architectural art of this system into full play and reached the point of perfection. The characteristic of wood structure architecture art lies in group layout. Therefore, to appreciate the beauty of traditional architecture in China, we should pay attention to the beauty of groups, which contains the image contrast and coordination between groups, groups and courtyards, courtyards and courtyards, the echo and foil of positions, the ups and downs of the whole group outline, the twists and turns of the plane, the promotion and transformation of space series, the looming changes of artistic atmosphere, the emergence and dissolution of climax and so on.

As far as the single building is concerned, the buildings in China are very different from those in the west. The west only pays attention to the strangeness and novelty of the external image, and more exists in the organic combination of body, surface, line and point, showing the relationship between the whole and the part, giving it harmony, tranquility and charm.

Generally speaking, China architecture pays more attention to spirit and artistic conception in temperament, while western architecture pays more attention to materials and appearance. The former is the unity of the group, which is internal and implicit; The latter is the highlight of the monomer and exposed to the outside world. This difference may explain the difference in artistic taste between China people and westerners from another angle. In short, the former has the beauty of "painting", while the latter means "carving" more.