[ { "id": 204723, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 26, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\n17\n\nand Bengal, except the Turkey which belongs to Baring Brothers and Company, London.\n\nAt night the linguists took me on board their boat stationed in the creek opposite the Factories and gave me supper, after which I was returning home to turn in when two of Houqua's13 coolies on guard at the gate contrived to slip inside the gate a small bag containing two boiled capons, a boiled ham, three loaves of bread and some crackers tied up in leaves. I paid them half a dollar. The articles were brought by order of Houqua.\n\n29th\n\nTwo sheep, four pigs, sixteen hams, ten fowls, sixteen geese, and six bags of rice were brought today for distribution amongst the American residents. The linguists say they are from the Commissioner* and deputy Governor* and a mark of Imperial favor for having consented to deliver up the opium.\n\nOur situation is one of great mystery. Although the Chinese say that having promised to deliver up the opium we have risen in the Commissioner's esteem yet today no foreigner is allowed to pass up China Street which we were allowed to do till this morning, and a strong guard has been posted there of about fifty men with pikes, staves, shields and so on.\n\n30th 10 p.m.\n\nHouqua's head man came in just now in a great fright and told me that our cook and coolie, who have been in our Factory since last evening and who contrived to get in over the roof of the rear Factory, must immediately leave as the Commissioner had just issued another edict threatening with death any native who sold a particle of food to, or who served a foreigner in any way inside his Factory.\n\nI communicated this to the cook and coolie who consent to remain till morning.\n\n31 March, Sunday\n\nThis morning at 9 a linguist from Old Tom's establishment brought us a basket of bread and eggs.\n\nEvery night the force stationed to guard the Factories consists of about 500 men drafted from the different Hongs and armed principally with pikes or lances and long heavy staves.\n\nWord illegible.\n\nEach", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205992, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 72, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "A HONG KONG BUTTERFLY\n\n67\n\nThe female has two indistinct dull red lunules above the anal angle.\n\nBody: Back black, upper part of the sides yellow, abdomen white with two lateral rows of black spots.\n\nUnderside: Forewings as in upperside. The white streak on the hindwings forms a 'V' and there are two short white bars above the anal angle. The hind wings are extremely hard to set, as they are not all in the same plane and the white fringes overlap.\n\nThe underside of the female differs in having buff instead of white hairs protruding from the body, and ochre markings instead of white on the anal angle.\n\nPostscript\n\nSince the above observations were recorded by Colonel Burkhardt some thirteen years ago, this insect has been observed throughout its entire life cycle. The species is still quite abundant in three widely separated locations in the New Territories and it is almost certainly also established in an inaccessible location on Hong Kong Island.\n\nL. curius has been bred through from the egg on a number of occasions since 1967 by both Carey-Hughes and Pickford, all stages having been photographically recorded.*\n\nThe eggs which are 0.75-0.8 mm in diameter are smooth, white and translucent in colour and are found on either side of mature leaves. During observations the eggs hatched early in the morning and the larvae on emergence were greyish green in colour with a pale yellow translucent head, hairy, with the single hairs divided at the tip.\n\nTwo days later the larvae entered the second instar and were now 4 mm in length, the head became a definite yellow and the back a much darker greenish grey, flecked with tiny black spots. At this stage the body still has tiny hairs, as can be seen in the photograph.\n\nThree days later the larvae were observed to be 9 mm in length and much blacker in colour, and the underside still a pale lime green.\n\n* See the coloured plates 7-14 at the end of this volume.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207341, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "# EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n101\n\nAt 5 A.M. he awakes with a soft punkah breeze fanning him. 5.15. Cup of cocoa and a biscuit brought to his bedside by a coolie. 5.30. The barber coolie shaves him, still in bed. 6. Bathing parade. 7.30. Breakfast, of which 1/2 lb. of beef-steak forms an invariable component. 8 to 11. Nothing whatever to do, and plenty to help him to do it—the everlasting coolies perform nearly all the cooking, sweeping, and cleaning up in barracks. 11. A short spell of school and theoretical instruction in gunnery. After dinner, unanimous repose on bamboo matting, as being cooler than a mattress. 5 P.M. One hour's easy gun-drill. 6 to 10. Sally forth to chaff the Chinese folk, try a trifle of 'samshu',* and practically ascertain that this potent rice spirit will prostrate with splitting headache the seasoned old soaker to whom a tumbler of brandy would be but as a glass of water. In fact, during the hot weather, he merely mounts guard, and is available for emergencies; in the cool season, he is of course made to rub up his drill. His idle life is not a happy one, destitute as it is to him of interest and active amusements, and in a very short time he becomes listless, depressed, and pulled down, contrasting painfully with his newly landed, fresh-looking comrades... I have known it asserted that no efforts of a commanding officer can keep European troops permanently stationed at Hong Kong in a state of military efficiency.23\n\nThe problem of drunkenness worried the naval, military, and civilian authorities in Hong Kong throughout the nineteenth century. In 1898, a commission to investigate the problem was set up because, as the preamble to the report states, there was a strong opinion in some quarters that deleterious liquors were being sold in the Colony, which were doing a great deal of mischief to soldiers and sailors.24 The commissioners discovered that although soldiers and sailors often drank samshu, a cheaper brew than Western spirits, the problem was not a simple one of 'deleterious liquors' incapacitating troops and naval ratings but rather that of excessive imbibing of all types of spirits, both Western and Chinese.\n\nIn 1898, there were 23 licensed public houses and bars in Victoria alone; 47 storekeepers were licensed to sell alcohol; and numerous Chinese shopkeepers sold samshu. A part of Upper Lascar\n\n* See Couling Encyclopaedia Sinica, 1967 reprint of the original edition of 1917, p. 497.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207384, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 152, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "144\n\nBRIAN MORTON & P. S. WONG\n\nused in N. America e.g. Virginia, by poorer oystermen (Yonge, 1960). During summer, the oysters can be harvested more easily by diving. The oysters are usually taken by boat to the major marketing village of Lau Fau Shan (∗) and are deposited on the shore close to the village. There they are either separated from the cultch (Plate 16; A) immediately or left for a day or two according to demand.\n\nShucking (➠) (Plate 16; C) is undertaken by hand using a traditional shucking implement (…). This is a hammer-like instrument with one long sharp-edged arm and a short, stout, pointed arm. A cotton glove is needed to hold the oyster as the shell is extremely sharp. When shucking, the opener sits on a low stool and the oyster is held firmly, left cupped valve down, on the ground. Using the short pointed arm of the shucking hammer a small hole is punched in the shell an inch or so from the posteroventral end of the right, upper valve. The long arm is then inserted into the hole and with the sharp edge working forward and upward in a right and left motion, the adductor muscle of the oyster is cut where it attaches to the upper valve. A prying motion of the long arm of the hammer also breaks the hold of the ligament. The sharp edge is again used to cut the adductor muscle from the lower valve. In Lau Fau Shan, shucking is usually undertaken by the female members of the family.\n\nThe shucked oysters are usually sold fresh. With reduced demand some of them may be dried under the sun and sold impaled upon characteristic rings (∗∗) (Plate 16; D). Small ones in the cluster or those broken during shucking are used to make oyster sauce (…). Most of the fresh oysters are transported to outside markets or to restaurants in Kowloon or Hong Kong Island. A small quantity is sold at Lau Fau Shan in small market stores as the village is itself a tourist centre famous for oysters (Plate 16; B). These oysters are shucked as purchased. The shucked oysters are quantified by means of standard sized cans and sold at the following price (1973-74):\n\nH.K. $13 per large can\n\nH.K. $11 per medium can\n\nH.K. $9 per small can\n\nLong plastic bags (40 cm x 8 cm) are used to hold the shucked oysters. Previously the oysters destined for outside markets or", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207810, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "The Ancient Mon--Pagan, Peru & NAKORN PATHOM\n\n183\n\ncentury. The main vestibule of Sulamani faces east and the upper storey is reached by two stairways built into the walls; it is almost the same height as the ground floor. Sulamani used to have good paintings but these have been lost and newer ones dating from the 19th century cover the old ones. The Dhammayangyi is a single-storey building rising in stepped levels and closely resembles the Ananda in structure. The quality of the brickwork is excellent.\n\nLastly, of the many temples to be visited in Pagan, there are two not strictly speaking temples. The Pitakat Taik was built as a library by Anawratha in 1058 to house the Buddhist scriptures he took from the sack of Thaton. It is a modest square building with small Mon windows, but the roof, rather elaborate, already bears the traces of baroque flamboyance of later Burmese styles; it was repaired in 1783 by King Bodawpaya and is currently being repaired again. The Upalithein is a long, low ordination hall of the 13th century with a battlemented roof. Inside are paintings of the 17th or 18th century which are bright and arresting, though without the interest and minute detail of the early paintings to be seen elsewhere in Pagan. Only the two temples near Minnanthu are omitted from this list of the major temples in Pagan; these are Nandamannya, which is a small vaulted chamber with one entrance and paintings of a Mahayanist Tantric nature from the middle of the 13th century, and the triple form of the Payathonzu temple, late 13th century, with paintings of a similar character in the corridors and vaults linking the three main cores. The two are difficult to reach without sturdy transport.\n\nIf this catalogue of temples gives the impression that there is nothing else to see in Pagan, it would be false. There is a cottage lacquer industry, another weaving traditional shoulder bags, and making cheroots; one can take boat trips on the Irrawaddy at sunset and make journeys by pony and trap and see the colourful display of fruit and vegetables in the village's markets. But the setting of these scenes of daily life is subservient to the temples, and the arid landscape, for Pagan is the centre of the dry zone of Burma, in which they are placed, is balanced in some measure by the majesty of the river flowing through. One is left with the impression of scrub, sandy tracks, and marvellous brown brick temples arising on all sides as far as the eye can see.\n\nIn Mandalay, to the north, where the evening cool in winter is even more striking than in Pagan, the two most impressive temples", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208631, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 88, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n61\n\ntomato catsup, and we soon had a cupful of each of delicious stew, or what have you. We were allowed to go not more than a few feet away from our garage, such desperate criminals we evidently were. But this was far enough to exchange a few words with the British soldiers who had come in two nights before. They gave us a little tea, and said they were pretty well supplied with food. That night, when we were tied up again after our supper, the guards tied our hands not behind our back as heretofore, but in front, and as a consequence we slept a little more comfortably.\n\nThe twenty-eighth. Our bonds were removed, we were again allowed to go outside to cook our meals. There happened to be a few straggling vegetables growing within the ambitus of our permitted area, and these went into our stew. For cups and dishes we used the milk cans which we had the day before, and the hard-tack container was our all-purpose kettle. Fathers Meyer and Walter were our capable cooks, and as we were allowed to get water from a well we did not fare too badly. After cooking our meals we had to return to the interior of the garage, though finally our bonds were entirely removed. About this time we came across a few burlap bags and when we were allowed outside we managed to pull up enough dried grass to stuff these bags for pillows. Providentially the weather continued mild and we did not suffer from cold.\n\nAs we were preparing our noonday meal we heard a truck rumble by, and from it a cheery voice hailed Father Toomey. The truck stopped and even pulled into our driveway, and Major Kerr, a British officer whom Father Toomey knew very well, jumped down. Major Kerr, knowing Japanese, was acting as interpreter for the time being, and was even now with the British prisoners in the room adjoining us. Seeing our plight, he promised to do what he could for us and a little later managed to bring out a few cases of food for us and for the British soldiers. We also asked him to see what he could do about getting us off the cement floor of the garage and, after a conversation with an officer, we were allowed to go upstairs in the house where there was at least a wood floor. Accordingly, we lost no time in moving our very few effects to this new domicile.\n\nWe had not been upstairs for more than a few hours when a Japanese officer called us all to come down. We lined up in front of him, and in broken English he said, \"Japanese. English. Finished\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208680, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "110\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\n27-Medical inspection of repatriates at 2:00 p.m. and preliminary inspection of baggage in rooms at 11:00 a.m., so it is beginning to look as if the good ship Asama Maru does mean business, after all!\n\n28-Sunday. There were no public Masses this morning in the Club Chapel, as that public room was reserved by the authorities for inspection of the baggage of the repatriates. Some baggage was also inspected at the same time just in front of our American Blocks. All bags and suitcases and bundles had to be put in a line and opened for the inspecting gendarmes as they passed along the line. After all, the inspection was not very strict. The baggage was then taken away in trucks to the small pier jutting out into Stanley Bay where, evidently, embarkation will take place. Since we could not have our regular public Masses in the main chapel, we had to be content with three Masses said in the Maryknoll Sisters, Canadian Sisters and in the Dutch apartments. In the afternoon as well we had to have Benediction in another garage just behind the American Club. At Stanley pier, we notice three small launches and some lighters, which are no doubt awaiting the arrival of the Asama Maru. All the Americans on the qui vive these days, and wondering when and if the good repatriation ship will put in an appearance.\n\n29—Maryknoll Foundation Day for all and Departure Day for some. As we arose, we scanned the horizon for signs of the Asama Maru, but there was no sign of her. However, along towards noon, she hove in sight and proceeded to Stanley Bay, where she anchored off shore about a mile distant. It was a thrilling sight, especially for the departants, and they were all wondering what kind of accommodations they were going to get, and what kind of food. After the ship dropped anchor no time was lost, and early in the afternoon the repatriates, about three hundred from the Stanley Camp, and some sixty direct from the city, went aboard the ship by launch. These sixty Americans from the city were bankers and banks' other officials who were allowed to remain at their posts, but who were practically interned in their own quarters. Some forty Americans are remaining in Camp, some of whom, including us, hope to get out to Hong Kong one of these days. Of this number, half are Maryknollers, including 15 priests, one Brother and 4 Maryknoll Sisters. Since we again lose our cooking squad, Father Meyer jumps into the breach and takes over, preparing our supper, which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211735, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 150, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "125\n\nhillslope at the back and sides.\n\nstone\n\nAs far as can be ascertained, the walls of the nunnery are throughout either of blue brick or of heavily plastered stone rubble, on footings of the standard building technique in the region. The roofs are of tile laid single thickness on beams supported directly by the walls. The only windows are very small (about one foot square) openings with bars and wooden shutters in the front face in the second and fourth sections, and the side wall of the fourth section, and two tiny single-brick openings, in the front wall of the second section, and the side wall of the fourth section.\n\nThe main temple hall is the third section. The main entrance to the nunnery is here, at the top of a shallow flight of steps. The double-leaved door opens into an Entrance Hall bare of all furniture except for the brick spirit-screen wall, with the altar to Wai To (卫道), the Defender of the Way, against its inner face. The Entrance Hall opens out into the Tin Tseng, which is mostly filled with the large brick paper-burner, and the steps up to the upper level. Above the steps is the Main Hall, with the altar against the back wall, and with a large offering table in front. The altar is to Kwun Yam, and has statues of the Lord Buddha (Sakyamuni), and the King of Hell (Ti Ts'ang Wang, 地藏王), as well as of Kwun Yam on it. To either side of the main altar are very small subordinate altars, where the tablets commemorating certain deceased monks are kept. In front of the main cult statues are five small images: two are unidentified, the others are of Milofu, Shan Ts'ai (善财), and Yũ Nũ (玉女). Below the altar is the usual shrine to the spirits of the Five Directions (五方).*\n\nTo the left of the Main Hall as you look at it from the entrance, i.e., at the back of the second section of the building, is the Side Hall, containing an altar to the Earth God (To Tei, 土地). This Side Hall has no Tin Tseng or windows, and is in consequence rather dark, being lit only by the light coming in from the arch which links this Hall with the Main Hall. The nunnery is now in a very run-down state, and it is not clear what furnishings were originally in this Hall: presumably there was an offering table of some sort in front of the altar. This Side Hall contains the inscription commemorating the rebuilding of the nunnery in 1868.\n\n* I am indebted to Mr. Keith G. Stevens for identification of the deities worshipped in the nunnery.\n\nPage 150\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212003, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 418, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "393\n\nforces were defeated. In 1841, Hong Kong Island was ceded to the British. According to the Census taken on 15th May, 1841, there were sixteen villages, with 7,450 people, on the island,\n\nAt that time, pirates still caused great disturbance along the coast. Those of outstanding importance were Shap Ngai Tsai+ and Tsui Ah-po. In the 30th year of Tao Kuang (1850), piracy along the coast was suppressed by the combined force of the British and the Ch'ing navies.7 With this, the island gained its name 'Tai Ping Shan'\n\nwhich means 'the Mountain of Peace'.\n\nDuring the early years of British rule on the island, Chek Chu was considered as a suitable place for the capital city of the Colony.5 However, because it was subject to severe tropical disease, the British built the capital city between the Central and Upper Bays (Chung Wan and Sheung Wan :). It was named Victoria after the name of the British Queen at the time of the early colonization.\n\nFrom then on, development on the island continued. With political changes in mainland China,8 more people flocked to Hong Kong, and they helped to make the city famous in the world.\n\nConclusion\n\nHong Kong, an isolated island at the mouth of the Pearl River, was only sparsely populated with fishermen. During the Ming Dynasty, because of the cultivation of incense trees, which gave great profit, population increased rapidly. However, the Coastal Evacuation at the 1st year of the K'ang Hsi Reign obliged the people to retreat to the mainland. Fields were left barren, and houses were pulled down.\n\nWhen the Edict of the Coastal Evacuation was abandoned, people were encouraged to return to their old dwellings. Villages were rebuilt, people from the neighbouring counties came and settled in the Hong Kong region, too.\n\nWith political changes in mainland China, more people came to Hong Kong. They helped to develop Hong Kong into a densely populated commercial city.\n\nANTHONY SIU Kwok-Kin", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215409, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 186, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "135\n\nthe town of Pontevedra into prominence during the first half of the sixteenth century. They provide interesting insights into the social factors that favoured the development of this kind of structure, and remind us of Macao's pre-eminence in the region due to the trade with Japan.\n\nFrom Late Gothic times the town became the centre of a cofraria or confraternity of Pontevedra seamen in the southern region of Galicia. Its wealthy trading ships sailed to Portugal, France and Italy and the church's construction by the cofraria was a direct result of the city's commercial prosperity.7\n\nCornelis of Holland and Juan Nobre, probably a Portuguese, started work on the façade of the church in 1541. These master masons and their team of artists actually superimposed their large carved Late Gothic decoration onto the front of an early sixteenth-century church.\n\nThis highly decorative \"stone altarpiece\" is in fact fitted, in imitation of a real main altarpiece, into the apse-like space created by the wall of the church and the two large plain buttresses framing it. Apart from its function as a refined embellishment to the church and city, the sole reason that such a large decorative work should be erected outdoors on top of a high hill was evidently that it could be seen for miles around and from the river below, especially by seamen and traders aboard ship.\n\nIt is divided into five bays, comprised of a large central bay and two adjoining narrow ones at either side, divided horizontally into five storeys. The three lower storeys are sculptured and stand forward, away from the two upper ones executed in lower relief. Stone steps lead to a sumptuous terrace and to an equally sumptuous façade (Fig. 3).\n\nIn spite of its 1541 date, rather outmoded Early Plateresque baluster columns are used throughout. But there is little one can say against the delightful Netherlandish fantasy of these columns and their carving (Fig. 4).\n\nMore important to my arguments are the reliefs of its central bay. They have as focus a depicting the Dormition of Mary, which in style recalls Gothic retables of the School of Cologne and others (Fig. 5).8", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215425, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "151\n\nthey stand free of the wall in a way that is not usual in the more orthodox building practices of architects, but which had many precedents in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Iberian altarpieces. They appear in the four storeys of the front as if they were delineating the nine vertical bays of a large post-Tridentine altarpiece (Fig. 17).\n\nAlthough both Hugo-Brunt, of the Department of Architecture of the University of Hong Kong, and Professor J. B. Bury have already noted that they are freestanding, their arguments for the façade follow a different line. As an architect, Hugo-Brunt was sensitive to the fact that much of the architectural elements of the façade were used in a highly unorthodox decorative way.23 But neither Hugo-Brunt nor J.B. Bury connect this feature to either retables or retable-façades.\n\nHowever, Professor George Kubler, of Harvard University, has noted that the theme of the projecting column with entablature, in which a continuum is formed in order to lead the eye upwards, is one that would later become a characteristic feature of Latin American retable-façades.14\n\nLikewise in the façade of St. Paul's each column supports the column directly above it in order to create a vertical ascent that leads the eye upwards.\n\nThe columns' bases, shafts and capitals were laboriously carved from three separate granite blocks, with practically all the shafts carved out of one piece. They could almost be the highly decorative wooden supports of an altarpiece, with no genuine functional purpose. Although the unorthodox employment of classical columns and other architectural features is characteristic of Italian Mannerism, this kind of decorative, juggling use of supports and pinnacles is much more typical of the artistic idiom of Mannerist altarpieces in Spain and Portugal.\n\nContemporary accounts are obviously right in praising the classical erudition shown by the designer of the façade. However, closer inspection reveals that not all details conform to orthodox classical canons. Some of the subsidiary sculptures adorning the façade are of Chinese or Japanese origin. At the extreme sides of the two upper attics, right next to obelisks, there are four Chinese lions emerging in front of squat corner obelisks or ornamental balls on pedestals (Fig 18). Another", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215426, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 203, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "152\n\npair emerges at the back of the fourth storey. These six lions obviously served the same purpose as the gargoyles of Gothic churches, and may be void of iconographic meaning. In this case more important than classical orthodoxy for the Jesuits was evidently the incorporation and integration of Chinese and Japanese decorative motifs.\n\nPurpose of Decoration\n\nOne of the most striking features betraying the influence of retables is the profusion of religious symbols adorning the walls of the frontispiece, an esoteric hieroglyphic language growing in iconographic intensity as it moves towards the top. In purely architectural terms this richness of imagery appears to be mainly artistic and non-functional, and is not found to this extent in the decoration of more conventional church façades. However, it is something typical of Counter-Reformation altarpieces, one of its main purposes being a didactic one. Not only the structure, but also the decorative dialogue of the façade also reveals it to be a mixture of medieval scholasticism and Renaissance classicism.\n\nAnother characteristic of retables found in the façade is the hierarchy and progression of symbols and sculptured images that goes from bottom to top. For example, instead of the geometric decoration of the first storey, the second storey's bays display naturalistic bas-reliefs of palm trees. The bronzes themselves start with images of blessed and saints, above which appear those of the Virgin and Jesus.\n\nThe upper half of the façade consists of a third storey united to those below by carved volutes, and a fourth storey or attic joined to it by segmental brackets and crowned by a large pediment displaying the dove of the Holy Spirit.\n\nIn this upper half there are several Chinese inscriptions, further attesting to the didactic purpose of the decoration. Although these apparently were not the work of Chinese artists knowledgeable of calligraphy,25 they are quite legible and visible from the upper steps and the entrance courtyard below. There can be little doubt that their main purpose was to make the iconographic and calligraphic messages of the frontispiece, largely concentrated in the upper half of the façade, clear to the Chinese population and to potential Chinese converts.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]