ARCHITECTURE. As compared with that of China the architecture of Japan is less massive; and its effects are even more exclusively those of the great overhanging curved roof forming the chief motive of the design—the element which even more than the rounded and swelling cupola in a domed church of Europe, gives character to the whole design. The common use of timber even for buildings meant to lie, and sufficiently proved to he, very lasting has deprived Japanese archi lectme of the ponderous wall and the great arch. The building of the country is therefore essen tially that of separate uprights tied and braced to gether: in other words, timber construction very like in principle to that of medimval Europe, hut more dignified than that because there was in the Eastern land no overmastering style of masonry architecture, like that of the vaulted buildings of Gothic or of neo-classic type', to restrain its de velopment. Whatever was to he done, architect turally speaking. in Japan, was perforce done with the trees of the mountain forests: whereas in Europe that material was generally used only for dwelling-houses, and in some lands for civic buildings, while the ecclesiastical buildings which set the fashion and fixed the standard of what was fine were almost invariably walled and roofed with stone. The result of this is that the architecture of Japan seems to a European rather uniform in character: but it is evident that a profounder examination of the subject would show divergencies as great in the different forms and characteristics of Japanese buildings as we find in the buildings of any European land. The difference from century to century is less, however; and this because of the admitted slowness of all change among Asiatics, and also because of the deliberate action of so many rulers of Japan in keeping new foreign influences away from the land. In detail there are one or two exceptional characteristics which result from this acceptance of the structural type made neces sary by the custom of building in wood and framework. This framework has its own neces
sary characteristics; and these are heightened and emphasized by the use of metal holders for the points of support and the points where one timber is secured to another. Just as the floor beams in European buildings are often hung in 'stirrups' of wrought iron, which hook on to the girder and support the end of the minor beam, thus saving the whole strength of tile one piece and giving support to the whole under side of the other so as to avoid all cutting away of the ma terial, so in .Japan a metal mount especially af fected to the purpose will mark the insertion of one timber into another, the crossing of two tim bers of equal size, and also the base and top of a pillar, whether of wood, or, as sometimes hap pens, of stone. The interior of the often repre sented Theenix Hall' of the Shoguns of the Fuji warn race reigning in the eleventh century of the Christian Era. has retained almost unchanged the beautiful interior effect produced by this system of construction in wood, braced and adorned by wrought metal. These metal mounts are, then, often wrought with delicate surface ornamentation, and gilded in different hues of gold. They may be varied also by elaborate modifications of the edge. The wooden members which they strengthen and adorn are themselves colored not by the coarse-grained painting of the West, but by the exquisitely smooth and delicate coatings of strong color or of metallic lustre pro ducible by the process which we call in a rough generalization that of lacquer. It is, of course, understood that a .Japanese interior, as of a dwelling-house, is of extreme simplicity; but this simplicity disappears when there is question of a pavilion or house of entertainment belonging to the sovereign or one of the greater nobles; and this not because of the greater resources of the noble so much as because the building is supposed to he permanent, and has both the exterior and the interior treated with somewhat the same re spect that is given to the admittedly everlast ing temples of religion.