China News Agency, Beijing, December 8th, title: Old Summer Palace: A Catastrophe Not Escaped from the Exchange of Eastern and Western Civilizations
Author Sun Chenhui
Today, no matter whether you are an Easterner or a Westerner, standing in front of the ruins of the Old Summer Palace, you will always feel the grand scene of this "Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens" 162 years ago.
"Just imagine that it is a fascinating building like a castle in the Moon Palace. The Summer Palace (referring to the Old Summer Palace) is such a building." In November 1861, Hugo recorded his yearning for the Old Summer Palace like this, This is also the starting point for many Westerners to imagine the East since the 19th century.
Yuanmingyuan, located in the northwest suburb of Beijing, is composed of Yuanmingyuan, Changchun Garden, and Qichun Garden (later renamed Wanchun Garden), collectively known as the Three Yuanming Gardens.
"As the epitome of the prosperous period of the Qing Empire, the Old Summer Palace is one of the main places to receive foreign guests. During the Qianlong period, Lord Macartney's mission sent by Britain visited the Old Summer Palace. Many foreign guests who have been here are amazed by the grand scenery of the Old Summer Palace. " Wu Hao, executive dean of the Silk Road Research Institute of Beijing Foreign Studies University, introduced in an exclusive interview with China News Agency "East and West".
From the twelfth year of Qianlong (1747) to the twenty-fourth year of Qianlong (1759), Emperor Qianlong introduced a group of European-style garden buildings in Changchun Garden, called "Western Buildings".
At that time, a large number of Western missionaries were active in the palace.
Qianlong ordered the Italian Giuseppe Castiglione and the French Michel Benoist to participate in the design of the Western Waterworks.
On October 18, 2022, the 162nd anniversary of the death of the Yuanmingyuan, people visited the Dashui method in the Yuanmingyuan.
Photo by Zhao Jun
In the early winter of 2022, the 162nd anniversary of the death of the Old Summer Palace, the author entered the park and walked with the tourists in the fallen leaves, rain and fog, recalling the present and the past.
Enter from the south gate of Qichun Garden, pass through the boundary of the three gardens, and detour for more than 1000 meters to reach the site of Xiyanglou.
Craftsmen from the East and the West once gathered their wisdom and civilization here, and smelted a model building that leads the world's garden art.
Stepping into the narrow strip above the scattered vegetation, there are ten scenic spots of "Dashuifa", which are distributed with "Harmonious Interests, Ten Thousand Flowers Array, Bird Cage, Square Facade, Haiyan Hall, Yuanying Temple, Dashuifa, Western-style buildings and courtyards such as "Water Viewing Method, Line Method Mountain, and Line Method Painting".
The construction of the Western Building area has absorbed the "Baroque" architectural style of the late European Renaissance, and some interior decorations are similar to the Palace of Versailles in France.
Different from the main building, in the restoration map of the Western Building in the Yuanmingyuan, the Western Building is not a Western-style building roof, but more inclined to the glazed tile roof of traditional Chinese buildings.
In addition, elements such as Taihu stone and bamboo pavilion add a lot of oriental style to it.
No wonder some people jokingly compared Xiyanglou to a Chinese man in a suit and a Chinese-style round cap.
"The Old Summer Palace is a historical witness to the exchange and integration of the essence of Eastern and Western garden architecture art, and it is also the result of peaceful exchanges between human civilizations." Wu Hao said.
More than 200 years ago, the Eastern and Western craftsmen who participated in the construction realized the organic combination of the Chinese gardening art of pursuing "learning from nature" and the western design of "according to symmetry and proportion".
Perhaps this is also an important reason why Yuanmingyuan has fans all over the world.
Remake old photos of the ruins of Haiyan Hall after it was burnt down.
Photo by Cui Nan
Looking around the world, the broadness and depth of civilization is to a large extent derived from the beneficial and reasonable elements of multiculturalism, transforming and creating them, and casting them into a part of our own culture.
Professor Zhang Xiping of Beijing Foreign Studies University once pointed out that the formation and development of European civilization was realized through long-term exchanges with Eastern civilization. Sumerian culture was once the mentor of Greek civilization, and Christianity came from the East. Integration has become the background color of Western civilization.
In the 18th century, there was a centuries-long China craze in Europe.
As the standard-bearer of the French Enlightenment Movement, Voltaire with a strong Chinese complex once said: "When you understand the world as a philosopher, you first turn your eyes to the East. The East is the cradle of all arts, and the East has given everything to the West."
But there are painful lessons on how to treat civilization in human history.
In 1860, during the Second Opium War, the British and French allied forces invaded Beijing and burned the Old Summer Palace to the ground.
In 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces broke into the gardens in the western suburbs of the Old Summer Palace and started looting.
Elgin, who was the leader of the British army at the time, ordered the burning of the Old Summer Palace, and the fire continued to burn for three days and three nights.
The White Jade Seal of Jiaolong Niu, the imperial treasure of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, was originally stored in the Ji En Hall of the Old Summer Palace. Experts say that the burn marks are most likely caused by the burning of the Old Summer Palace by the British and French allied forces.
Photo by Zhang Wei
This cultural treasure house, dubbed by the world as "Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens", "Model of World Gardens", "Oriental Versailles Palace" and many other famous names, changed suddenly in a few days 162 years ago.
Today, in the silent Yuanmingyuan, mottled black marks are left on the carvings of the residual pillars, and the sparse withered grass is crowded in the gaps between the stone pillars, which is desolate to look at.
Not far from the intersection of the north-south axis of the Changchun Garden and the east-west axis of the Western Building, there is a bust of the French writer Victor Hugo.
Hugo's "Letter to Captain Bartley" is engraved on the book-shaped stone sculpture next to it:
"One day, two robbers walked into the Old Summer Palace, one looted, the other set fire to it, and together they completely destroyed the Old Summer Palace... In the face of history, these two robbers are called France and England..."
The Chinese translator of this letter, Cheng Zenghou, who was awarded the "Palm Leaf Education Knight Medal" by the French government, once stood in front of the statue and sighed. To punish the emperor is to punish civilization.
After the Yuanmingyuan was looted in 1860, the Chinese-style garden buildings that accounted for more than 80% of the area almost disappeared.
Because the Western Building is mainly made of stone structure, it is relatively difficult to be destroyed, and it has become the place where most of the architectural relics of the Yuanmingyuan are preserved.
Therefore, people will mistakenly think that "the Western Building is the Old Summer Palace".
Snow scene of Yuanmingyuan Ruins Park.
Photo by Luo Xinghan
Too many coincidences allowed the remains of the Western-style building, which combines Chinese and Western styles, to survive.
This place where stones have life reminds people of the awe they should have towards civilization.
Cheng Zenghou emphasized that the establishment and preservation of civilization is extremely difficult, but conflicts can happen in a flash.
"The Old Summer Palace has suffered from fire, gold, stone, wood, and earth. The destruction of the Old Summer Palace is a tragedy in human history, and the economic and even cultural losses it caused are immeasurable. The results of the conflict not only brought The destruction of the representative building of the cooperation between Chinese and Western gardens has wiped out the human treasure house formed by the fusion of different cultures in different centuries. There are many countries in the world whose history depends on buildings to survive. Once the buildings are destroyed, those civilizations will also follow. It disappeared in the long river of human history." Cheng Zenghou said.
The staff selected suitable parts from the porcelain fragments unearthed in the Yuanmingyuan for splicing and repairing.
Photo by Cui Nan
Whether it is the Parthenon Temple in Greece, the Baal Shamin Temple in Syria, the Yongming Temple in North Korea, the Royal Opera House in Valletta in Malta, or the Griffith Church in England, too many world treasures were destroyed by wars. destroyed by conflict.
In the process of deprivation and aggression, the diversity of human civilization is reduced to a disaster in the bloody accumulation of capital.
With the Great Geographical Discovery as the boundary, great changes have taken place in the direction and mode of communication between Eastern and Western civilizations.
When Eastern civilization spread to the west, typical cases such as the "Silk Road" and "Zheng He's voyages to the West" were carried out in a peaceful manner. The bloody destruction of colonial life and culture is a catastrophe in the history of exchanges between the East and the West that is still unhealed today, and it is also of worldwide significance that the site of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing must be protected.
Today, with non-Western countries on the world stage, the 300-year dominance of Western civilization is gradually being broken, and how to live in harmony among different civilizations has once again become a worldwide issue.
Old photos of the Old Summer Palace on display in the United States.
Photo by Jia Guorong
In recent years, Wu Hao has invited many friends from different countries and regions to visit the Old Summer Palace.
In his view, the Western Building area is only a small part of the Yuanmingyuan panorama.
If the Old Summer Palace had not been destroyed by the war, we could still witness more precious cultural resources of mankind.
"The gardening art of the Yuanmingyuan, which is 'moving the sky and shrinking the earth in the king's arms', contains rich Chinese philosophical thoughts. The integration of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism has built a bridge for the consciousness of the Chinese nation's community. The existence of the Yuanmingyuan also allows people to see that human civilization In addition to violent collisions, communication can also have peaceful communication."
A horse head on display at the Manjusri Pavilion in Zhengjue Temple, Yuanmingyuan.
Photo by Du Yang
In 2020, the "160th Anniversary of the Looting of the Old Summer Palace" interviews with Chinese and French scholars will be held.
Wu Hao set the commemorative event at the "Wanfang Anhe" site, which means "peace" and "auspiciousness".
"The war destroyed this artistic treasure that borrowed from Western culture, and future generations will never forget it." Wu Hao said, "Human civilization needs to be beautiful, and the beauty is shared. Especially in the face of the current epidemic, we must understand the importance of cooperation and exchanges. .”
After the Yuanmingyuan was robbed, some Westerners visited here, leaving behind precious old shadows of Western-style buildings.
Among them, the more famous photographers include the German Almer, the French Yale Park, and the American Gamble.
Today, the Western Building has virtually become the image of Yuanmingyuan in the minds of many people.
Today, 162 years later, people of different races and skin colors stand in front of the Dashuifa in the Xiyanglou site area and press the shutter of their cameras.
Looking back at history, people hope to see a future of lasting peace and a new era of coexistence and harmony between Eastern and Western civilizations.
(Finish)
Respondent profile:
Wu Hao, Executive Dean of the Silk Road Research Institute of Beijing Foreign Studies University, Deputy Director and Secretary-General of the Publicity and Publishing Committee of the International Confucianism Federation, Executive Director of the "Belt and Road" Research Branch of the Chinese Association of Higher Education, Researcher of the Institute of Chinese and Foreign Cultural Exchanges of the Palace Museum Research Institute .
Cheng Zenghou, professor of Sun Yat-sen University, director of Chinese French Literature Research Association, and Chinese member of the French Society of Friends of Victor Hugo.
He has won the "Palm Leaf Education Knight Medal" and is the author of "Hugo and the Old Summer Palace".