Huizhou architecture In the beautiful land of Anhui, there are still many ancient Huizhou buildings preserved. They are like graceful and elegant artistic wonders, embellishing the splendid Huizhou culture. As a model of Huizhou's architectural art, the "Three Wonders of Ancient Architecture" - ancient residences, ancient ancestral halls, and ancient archways are even more amazing. As the ancient villages of Xidi and Hongcun in southern Anhui have been listed as world cultural heritage, more and more friends have become interested in Huizhou ancient architecture and have embarked on a tour of Huizhou ancient architecture.
Huizhou’s ancient folk houses were influenced by factors such as Huizhou’s cultural traditions and beautiful geographical location, forming a unique Huizhou architectural style. The harmonious combination of white walls, green tiles, Hui-style horse head walls, bricks, wood and stone carvings, as well as stacked courtyards, high-ridge cornices, winding corridors, pavilions, pavilions, etc. constitute the keynote of Hui-style architecture. Huizhou ancient residences are grand in scale, have reasonable structures, coordinated layouts, and fresh and elegant styles. Especially the brick, wood, and stone carvings decorated on door covers, window lintels, beams, and window sash are exquisite in craftsmanship, diverse in shape, and lifelike in shape. Tourists are often amazed by the exquisite wood carvings on the beams of the front hall of Hongcun Chengzhi Hall, such as "Tang Suzong's Banquet", "Fishing, Woodworking, Farming and Reading", and "Qin, Chess, Calligraphy and Painting" on the beams in the front hall of Hongcun Chengzhi Hall. Huizhou folk houses pay attention to the natural charm and aura of mountains and rivers, and the layout of the houses pays attention to the coordination with the surrounding environment. Since ancient times, there has been a saying that "it is impossible to live without mountains and water." Most of Huizhou's ancient folk houses are located among green mountains and green waters, close to mountains and rivers, and complement each other with pavilions, terraces, buildings, pavilions, towers, squares and other buildings, forming a beautiful realm of "small bridges, flowing water, and people's homes". Hongcun in Yixian County is backed by the towering Leigang Mountains, facing the beautiful Nanhu Lake in front, and next to the lingering Yuxi River with clear water. The entire village is designed in the shape of an ox, and the scenery is extremely beautiful. It is known as "the countryside in Chinese paintings". Huizhou's ancient folk houses are mostly brick and wood structure buildings with three-room, four-room and other layouts. There are several types of floor plan, such as opening, concave, H, and sun. There are multiple entrances on the two floors, and each entrance has a patio, which fully exerts the functions of ventilation, light transmission and drainage. Sitting indoors, people can enjoy the morning glow and watch the stars at night. The "secondary refraction" of the patio is softer and gives people a sense of tranquility. Rainwater flows into the gutter through the water trees around the patio, which is commonly known as "Four Waters Returning to the Hall", which means "the fat water does not flow out", which embodies the idea of ??Huizhou merchants to accumulate wealth. The upstairs of the residential building is extremely open and is commonly known as "Paoma Building". There are also beautifully carved railings and "beautiful people leaning" around the patio. For some large families, as their descendants multiply, they build houses one after another, forming a rich and deep house with "thirty-six patios and seventy-two sill windows", which seems to have the effect of "how deep the courtyard is." feel. The "Eight Families" in Guanlu, Yixian County are composed of 20 intersecting residential houses and courtyards of eight brothers. Huizhou folk houses are also very particular about interior decoration and furnishings. There are paintings in the main hall and couplets on the center pillars on both sides. "It is good to study well, to do business well, and to be efficient; it is difficult to start a business, it is difficult to maintain success, and it is not difficult to know the difficulties." "For hundreds of years, people have only accumulated good deeds, and the first good thing is just reading." etc. reveal profound philosophies and reflect Huizhou A businessman likes Confucianism and values ??literature and learning. There is a table in the hall. There is a vase on the east side of the table, an ancient mirror on both sides, and a clock in the middle, which means that Huizhou merchants will always be safe outside. When walking into Huizhou, people can see "the epitome of oriental culture" from the numerous ancient residential buildings. The famous ancient residential villages include Xidi, Hongcun, Tangmo, Nanping, Chengkan, Changxi and so on.
In ancient Huizhou, the custom of honoring ancestors was prevalent. Every village built ancestral halls, which were divided into ancestral halls, branch temples and family ancestral halls. According to "Jiyuanjishuozhi": "Xin'an lives together as a clan, and there is absolutely no one with mixed surnames mixed in. Its style is the most recent. People come and go, and their surnames are unified by ancestral halls. Every year in Fula, there are people with the same surname in the village. Thousands of people gathered together to offer sacrifices to Zhu Wen Gong in a polite manner. "There are more than 30 ancestral halls in Nanping Village, Yixian County. The ancestral halls are grand in scale and the family ancestral halls are small and exquisite, forming a group of ancestral halls with an elegant style. There are eight ancestral halls on Hengdian Street in front of the village, 200 meters long. "Xu Zhitang" and "Cheng's Ancestral Hall" are the two major ancestral halls, as well as three branch ancestral halls and three family ancestral halls. They can be called a museum of China's feudal patriarchal power. In ancient Huizhou, famous families renovated and expanded their temples and built branch temples, which were as large as palaces and palaces to show their family's prosperity. These large ancestral halls are made of large and thick materials. Some even use a large piece of wood that is 6.7 meters long, more than 1 meter high, and 80 centimeters wide as the moon beam; a large piece of wood with a circumference of 2.3 meters and a height of 7.8 meters is used as the hall. pillar; a large stone slab more than 10 meters long and 5 meters wide was dug out to serve as steps. The "Hang Hall" and "Bedroom Hall" of the ancestral hall are made of the same precious wood, such as ginkgo, and are called "Ginkgo Hall"; there are also heavy beams stacked on top of each other, called "Hundred Liang Hall".
The gates of ancestral halls are often built as "Five Phoenix Towers" with high walls and corners. The entire ancestral hall is solemn and solemn, reflecting the sacred majesty of clan laws and regulations. Chengkan Luodongshu Temple, a national key cultural relic protection unit, integrates "ancient, elegant, beautiful and large" into one. It has four entrances to the four courtyards, and the Baolun Pavilion in the back is 13.6 meters high and 11 bays wide. Famous ancestral halls include the Longchuan Hu Ancestral Hall, Yixian Jingai Hall, Tangyue Qingyitang (a rare female ancestral hall), etc.
In ancient Huizhou, literary style was prosperous and education was developed. There was no shortage of people who "entered officialdom with talent and passed down the world with literature", who were as bright as stars. In order to promote feudal ethics and commend officials for their political achievements, filial sons and martyrs, honest women and martyrs, Huizhou people often use the method of "erecting archways" to convey their glory and make them famous for generations. The ancient archway has a rigorous structure, reasonable layout, and large scale. Every beam and every inlay is in line with the strength. The construction pays attention to site selection, shape, carving, and materials. There are different types of archways, including the ridge type and the "soaring column" type; there are square four-column and eight-column types, and there are also "one-line" single-door and three-door types; some are decorated with carvings and are exquisitely crafted, and some are flat and polished. , without carvings or decorations, they are arranged in seven or four columns, or three in a row. The seven archways of the famous Tangyue Archway Group rise from the ground and spread out in a semi-arc shape, seeming to tell stories of loyalty, filial piety, integrity and righteousness. Xu Guo Shi Fang (commonly known as the Eight-legged Archway), which is listed as a national key cultural relic protection unit, has eight columns on all sides. It is composed of two three-room, four-column, three-story archways at the front and rear, and two single-room, double-column, three-story archways on the left and right. It is extremely impressive. Magnificent, showing the great achievements of Mr. Xu Ge. Standing at the entrance of Xidi Village in Yixian County, Hu Wenguang's Governor's Square is 12.3 meters high and 9.95 meters wide. It has four pillars, three bays and five floors. It is made of fine and fine "Yixian Qing" stone, with exquisite carvings and flowing eaves. It is magnificent.
Huizhou Three Carvings - Brick Carving, Stone Carving, Wood Carving
---Huizhou Three Carvings refers to the abbreviation of three folk carving techniques of brick carving, stone carving and wood carving with Hui style. . The "Three Sculptures" of the Hui Style are most typical in She County, Yi County and Wuyuan County, and are relatively well preserved. It is mainly used for the decoration of residential buildings, ancestral halls, temples, gardens and other buildings, as well as for the engraving of ancient furniture, screen couplets, pen holders, fruit plates and other crafts. The history of "three carvings" originated from the Song Dynasty and reached its peak in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The carvings of the Ming Dynasty were rough and simple, generally only flat carvings and bas-relief carvings. They relied on line modeling and lacked perspective changes, but emphasized symmetry and were full of decorative interest. The carvings of the Qing Dynasty were exquisite and complex, and the composition and layout absorbed the expression techniques of the Xin'an School. They paid attention to artistic beauty, mostly used deep relief and round sculptures, and advocated the hollow effect. Some hollows have as many as ten layers, with pavilions, towers, and trees. Landscapes, figures, animals, flowers, birds, insects and fish are all gathered in the same picture. They are exquisite, well-proportioned, layered and lifelike, showing the superb artistic talent of the carving craftsmen.
Brick carving is an architectural decoration formed by exquisite carvings on the fine gray bricks that are abundant in Huizhou. It is widely used in Huizhou style gate towers, door frames, lintels, eaves, roofs, and roofs. etc. to make the building look elegant and solemn. It is an important part of the Huizhou architectural art that has emerged since the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Brick carvings include flat carvings, relief carvings, and three-dimensional carvings. The themes include feathers and flowers, dragons, tigers, lions, elephants, forest landscapes, dramatic figures, etc., which have a strong folk color. The materials and production of Huizhou brick carvings are extremely exquisite. The Jixian County Museum has a brick sculpture of the Kitchen Temple. On the brick surface, which is only one foot square, is a round sculpture of a Bodhisattva wearing a golden helmet and armor and holding a steel mace in his hand. According to research, this exquisite brick sculpture cost With 1,200 craftsmen, it can be called a classic work of Huizhou brick carving art.
Stone carvings are widely used in urban and rural areas of Huizhou, and there are many categories. They are mainly used for decoration of pillars, door walls, archways, tombs, etc. of temples and houses. They are relief and round carving arts and enjoy a high reputation. The themes of Huizhou stone carvings are limited by the carving materials themselves and are not as complex as wood carvings and brick carvings. They mainly include images of animals and plants, ancient patterns and calligraphy. As for characters, stories and landscapes, they are relatively rare. In terms of carving style, the relief carvings are mainly shallow openwork carvings and flat carvings. The integration trend of round carvings is obvious. The knife skills are refined and simple, and are not as delicate and cumbersome as the wood carvings and brick carvings of the Qing Dynasty.
Wood carvings are mainly used for decoration on old buildings and household appliances, and are spread throughout urban and rural areas. Its wide distribution is one of the few in the country. The elegance of wood carvings can be seen on the screens, window lintels and railings in the courtyard, as well as the beds, tables, chairs, desks and study utensils used in daily life. They can be found in almost every village. Huizhou wood carvings cover a wide range of themes, including figures, landscapes, flowers, animals, insects and fish, cloud heads, fretwork, eight treasures, ancient Chinese characters and tin couplets, and various auspicious patterns.
Huizhou wood carving uses expression techniques such as round carving, relief carving, and openwork carving based on the needs and possibilities of the components of the building object. Early Ming Dynasty. Hui-style wood carving has begun to take shape, with a simple and rough carving style, mainly using flat light relief techniques. After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, as the financial resources of Huizhou merchants increased and the awareness of showing off the countryside became stronger, the art of wood carving also gradually transitioned to fine carving, with multi-layer openwork carving replacing flat and shallow carving becoming the mainstream.