China and the West

Ruskin, John. The nature of Gothic [ID D27798].
"There is, however, a marked distinction between the imaginations of the Western and Eastern races, even when both are left free ; the Western, or Gothic, delighting most in the representation of facts, and the Eastern (Arabian, Persian, and Chinese) in the harmony of colors and forms."
"The best colorist invents best by taking hints from natural colors ; from birds, skies, or groups of figures. And if, in the delight of inventing fantastic color and form the truths of nature are willfully neglected, the intellect becomes comparatively decrepit, and that state of art results which we find among the Chinese."
"The Chinese porcelain-painter is, indeed, not so great a man as he might be, but he does not want to break everything that is not porcelain ; but the modern English fact-hunter, despising design, wants to destroy everything that does not agree with his own notions of truth, and becomes the most dangerous and despicable of iconoclasts, excited by egotism instead of religion."
"But if the roof be willfully and conspicuously of any other form than the gable, - if it be domed, or Turkish, or Chinese, - the building has positive corruption mingled with its Gothic elements…"