Alexander in Amsterdam - Minerva

Chinese culture
James Beresford
takes a new look at
the Anglo-French
military campaign of
1860 that ended with
the destruction of
one of China’s most
important cultural sites
ord Elgin ordered the burning
of part of the Summer Palace.
It was given to the flames on
the 18 th and 19 th of October.
The clouds of smoke, driven by the wind,
hung like a vast pall over Peking. From
an artistic point of view it was an act
of vandalism: from that of sound policy
it was statesmanlike’ (Stanley Lane-
Poole, Sir Harry Parkes in China, 1901,
p. 250).
It is 150 years since Britain and
France were engaged in the conflict
against Qing China that has become
known as the Second Opium War.
Scarcely remembered by the populations
of the two European countries,
the war still has great significance for
the Chinese, who regard it as symbolic
of their national humiliation at
the hands of imperialistic Western
powers. The defining moment of the
Anglo-French campaign was the day
British forces torched the Summer
Palace, Yuanmingyuan, ‘The Gardens
of Perfect Brightness’, one of the most
beautiful architectural complexes ever
created (Fig 2).
Constructed in the early 18 th century,
the Summer Palace was a vast
collection of buildings, set within
landscaped parkland 8km north-west
of Beijing (Fig 3). As the Rev R.J.L.
McGee, Chaplain to the British Army
during the 1860 campaign, would
2
36
Photo: Mlogic.
Sack of the
Summer Palace
Fig 1. Reconstructed
pavilion in the
Elegant Spring
Garden, Summer
Palace.
Fig 2. Sketch by
Godefroy Durand
of the looting of
the Summer Palace
in 1860. The zodiac
fountain decorated
with the 12 bronze
figures, is in the
centre, between the
curving stairs.
recall: ‘If you can, you must imagine a
vast labyrinth of picturesque rocks and
noble timber, lakes and streams, summer-houses
roofed with porcelain of
the imperial yellow, theatres and their
store-houses… temples more numerous
still… filled with works of Chinese
art of great age, beauty, and value.’
(How We Got to Pekin, 1862, p. 211)
(Figs 1, 3, 4).
The numerous buildings of the palace
contained countless artworks from
much earlier periods of Chinese history,
including some of China’s oldest
and most precious manuscripts,
housed in The Wenyuan Hall (Hall of
Literary Profundity). As French writer
Victor Hugo would remark: ‘With all
its treasures, Notre Dame in Paris is no
match for Yuan-ming-yuan, that enormous
and magnificent museum in the
East.’ The burning by British troops
swept away virtually all this vast and
remarkable collection of palaces, while
the looting that preceded the firestorm
led to the destruction of many treasures,
or their removal to Europe. Such
was the loss to Chinese culture that the
torching of the Summer Palace can be
likened to the demolition of the House
of Wisdom in Baghdad by the Mongols
in 1258, the burning of the library of
Alexandria by Julius Caesar in 48 BC,
or Qin Shi Huang’s destruction of the
classic works produced by the Hundred
Schools of Thought in 221 BC.
For the Chinese people, the burning
of the Summer Palace was an act
of willful destruction, driven primarily
by capitalist desire to cow the Chinese
and open up of the country to Western
commerce; a trade centered on opium,
which ‘turned a British deficit with
China into a substantial surplus…
providing massive profits for London
companies and substantial revenues
for the state’ (John Newsinger, p. 125).
The man leading the British diplomatic
pressure on China in 1860 would
tend to agree with this judgement.
James Bruce (1811–1863) was the 8 th
Earl of Elgin (Fig 6), whose father had
become infamous at the start of the
century by removing a large portion
of the marbles from the Parthenon in
Athens. In his letters and diaries, Elgin
would write with bitterness that, ‘in
our relations with these Chinese we
have acted scandalously’, and would
describe his dealings with Chinese officials
as ‘fighting, bullying and getting
the poor commissioners to concede
one point after another’.
The burning of Yuanmingyuan continues
to act as a nationalistic rallying
call for the population of modern
China. The ruling Communist Party is
eager to promote the need for strength
and unity and so avoid the weakness
of the past, when the country was at
the mercy of foreign invaders. Chinese
history textbooks, films and television
Minerva September/October 2010