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Anthony E. Clark, China Gothic. The Bishop of Beijing and His Cathedral

Chang-Xue Shu
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Anthony E. Clark, China Gothic. The Bishop of Beijing and His Cathedral, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019

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Index géographique :

Asie, Asie de l’Est, Chine

Index chronologique :

XIXe siècle
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1The underlying argument of Anthony E. Clark’s new book China Gothic: The Bishop of Beijing and His Cathedral is that the French Catholic bishop Alphonse Favier (1837-1905), and his vision for architecture, participated “in several antagonistic divisions related to China’s transition from empire to nation-state” during the late Imperial era (p. 7). In making this claim, Clark seeks to demonstrate that Favier’s Gothic towers rising along Beijing’s skyline stimulated “the emergence of a national consciousness” (p. 146) among the Chinese. The book thus examines Favier’s life and “architectural legacy” (p. 7, 9ff) within the contours of Sino-French and Sino-Western diplomacy and political relations.

2Drawing extensively on primary source material produced by missionaries, diplomates, and Chinese Catholics, the book begins by discussing (and stresses repeatedly) ideas of nineteenth-century French imperialism, nationalism, and colonialism upon which Favier’s French Catholicism rested (“la mission civilisatrice,” p. 9). The five chapters then set forth different angles related to Favier’s life and his architectural activities, while the conflicts and disputes between Catholics and local Chinese constitute another major line in Clarks’ account. Chapters 1 and 2 open the analysis with a panoramic view of the religio-political and diplomatic milieux of Favier’s activities between France, China, and the Vatican. Chapters 3 and 4 build narratives around the religious continuity and transformation in building Catholic churches in Beijing from the 17th down to the early 20th centuries, seeking to interpret the relocation and design of the new Gothic church Beitang (North Church, 1886-87), in which “Favier was both the architect and site manager” (p. 108). The last chapter extends the societal reactions and opinions around Favier and his cathedral after the Boxer Uprising (1900). Sources from Chinese Maritime Customs and the North China Herald (a newspaper based in Shanghai serving a large Western audience) are employed in interesting ways. In developing this fascinating thesis that (Gothic) church architecture contributed to the rise of Chinese nationalism, Clark’s book raises important issues around what Gothic architecture meant for different societal groups of Chinese in the late Qing and Republic eras – a subject that deserves further study. Future studies of this phenomenon might make more and better use of Chinese sources from the period of ca. 1850-1949.

3A strength of the book, especially in chapters 3 and 4, is the intensive use and quotation of primary materials, which offers original and highly informative accounts about church architecture in Beijing and north China. It is also noteworthy that Clark connects scholarship on architecture with the political history of modern China. Broadly mobilizing secondary sources from political, missionary, and architectural studies, the book provides an account that largely harmonises with established historical narratives. Moreover, regarding missionary strategy in China, Clark exposes distinct ideas and practices between the Jesuits and the Lazarists concerning church architecture across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Clark also discloses conflicts between Favier and the Belgian Lazarist Frédéric-Vincent Lebbe (1877-1940), and “the aesthetic transition” (p. 102) from Favier to the Italian Roman Catholic Celso Costantini (1876-1958), the first Apostolic Delegate to China in 1922. Such an open approach leaves room for further, trans-field study and communication, while still inspiring potential comparisons for architectural historians who study Sino-Western exchange. Several precious source materials relating to Beitang (maps, engravings, and photographs) would prove especially useful for architectural scholars.

4In terms of architectural history, it is not easy to detect an innovative argument underpinning the ambitious title “China Gothic.” The book has clear connections to some original studies on early-modern and modern missionary societies and their influences on architecture in China by scholars such as Thomas Coomans, Elisabetta Corsi, and Zhang Fuhe, but its engagement with other recent scholarship on Gothic Revival architecture is limited. Surprisingly, it mentions important histories that might be productively investigated and analyzed in greater depth across the history of science and architecture in China. These include the Lazarist library (Beitang library, p. 54), the Beijing Lazarist Press (Beitang Press, p. 65-66), and the St. Michael and St. Vincent hospitals in early twentieth-century Beijing (p. 54-56). Moreover, the book’s scope is wide, covering a broad range of cases and topics, sometimes interpreted in a fashion that is perhaps practiced more often in the domain of literature rather than history. In this regard, the work would be of particular interest to early-stage graduate students in architecture, as well as general readers, sinologists, and more demanding audiences concerned with Favier and the churches of northern China.

5The topic of China Gothic can hardly escape essential questions about how the nineteenth-century European Gothic revival (either its forms or ideas) was introduced, adopted, and adapted in China, as well as its variations and influences. Clark’s work certainly showcases an important approach through Favier. For architectural readers, however, the book’s limited use of primary sources concerning architecture, especially on materials and practical aspects of construction, is infelicitous. “Sources unfortunately are silent regarding Favier’s academic preparation in the field of architecture” (p. 55). Moreover, Favier’s “language” of architecture appears evidently eclectic rather than Gothic. For instance, he largely used Renaissance and Baroque styles in several projects built before 1900 (e.g., the Catholic church in Baoding, p. 57; St. Louis Catholic church in the French Concession of Tianjin, p. 60; the East Church, p. 62, 64), and employed local Chinese sources and resources in his Gothic designs (p. 55, 112-7). In this respect, it is not entirely convincing to say that Gothic was “the very vision” for Favier “to convert and civilize ‘backward’ China” (p. 111). Why “Gothic” was adopted in particular for the title of the book, and its association with Favier, remains less obvious. It is a curious fact that, in the early 1860s, while the Lazarists adopted Gothic for Beitang cathedral in Beijing in order to “distinguish it from the capital’s other churches” (p. 88, architect Bernard Gustave Bourrières), in Shanghai the Anglicans decided to use Gothic for the rebuilding of Holy Trinity Church (architect George Gilbert Scott, built 1866-69), but which includes some Romanesque features. Into the 1880s, when Favier needed to rebuild Beitang, there were already successful experiences of building quasi-Gothic churches in China, and Gothic was still in its heyday as a worldwide language of church architecture.

6It seems that the big question concerning Favier’s architectural knowledge and his ways of design remain a mystery. Nevertheless, Clark suggests a lot of European cases regarding Favier’s potential sources of design. This deserves more investigation and examination in view of architecture. Architectural historians would also want to know, among other things, how Favier worked with local Chinese builders and technicians, and what exactly was his architectural rather than Catholic legacy. In China, the issue of the union of the Gothic revival with ecclesiological architecture was laden with multiple local factors of engineering practice, and “China Gothic” gradually formed its own mode of construction and design. The book leaves plenty of room for studying these largely unaddressed issues further with respect to architecture beyond Europe.

7The book commendably offers full endnotes, a bibliography, and index with Chinese characters. But Chinese characters are not included in the main text. It also offers a handy chronology of Favier’s life. It would be even more useful if the book had offered a chronology of architecture that Favier engaged with. Some references mentioned in endnotes are missing in the bibliography, which impedes scholarly use.

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Référence électronique

Chang-Xue Shu, « Anthony E. Clark, China Gothic. The Bishop of Beijing and His Cathedral »ABE Journal [En ligne], 19 | 2021, mis en ligne le 31 décembre 2021, consulté le 15 février 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/abe/12464 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/abe.12464

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Auteur

Chang-Xue Shu

Postdoctoral Fellow, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Department of Architecture, KU Leuven, Belgium Orcid ID: 0000-0002-8520-2802

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Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

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