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With Huangshan Mountains as a majestic backdrop,
the tree-covered mountainous southern part of Anhui Province
in eastern China offers beautiful scenery of winding limpid
streams. The residences and temples, mostly sitting by the
streams and below hills, look simple from the outside -- yet
within the plain, white walls are intricately built halls
and rooms, all in well-designed order, presenting a unique
style among the civil residences in the region south of the
Yangtze River.
This temperate region produces such valuable
resources as pine, Chinese fir, bamboo, tea, tung, and lacquer
trees. Before the 10th century, the indigenous people lived
a simple life, using primary tools of production and closed
to the outside world. The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) saw a rapid
development in farming, animal husbandry and handicraft industry,
due to policies for economic development. After the middle
of the Ming Dynasty, the local people gradually shifted from
farming to trade, processing the valuable trees and exchanging
the products for everyday necessities. By the 17th century,
merchants from this area had become distinguished for their
wealth and far-flung trading operations.
These merchants lavished money on luxuries, building
splendid, large houses, gardens and temples. But as commoners,
they were limited in the size and ornamentation of their houses.
Although the concerned statute was not carried out strictly,
the merchants, conscious of their low social status, were
not without scruples about the layout and design of their
houses.
With brick walls, wooden roof-beams and floors
of square bricks, Ming and Qing residences around this area
were similar to other contemporary houses of southern Chinese
style except that they featured delicate carvings in ordinary
building materials like brick, wood and stone. From the frame
and eave above the gate, to the socles in front of the gate,
to beams and handrails of stairs, carvings are present almost
everywhere. Most distinguished is the brick carving.
Brick carving, done in fine gray bricks of varying
shapes and sizes, mainly decorated brick frames and eaves
above the gates. The process had two steps: the first step
was composing and chiseling an outline in the brick, usually
done by a veteran artisan who was familiar with many traditional
themes and composition; the second step was carving the relief
into the outline, usually done by the apprentices.
With the gray brick being more brittle than ivory,
animal bone or wood, but easier to process than the stone,
the art of brick carving has a unique style. The exaggeration
and distortion of images required by the limited frame they
were cut within, and the neat high relief determined by the
texture of bricks, help to strengthen the ornamental effect
of the work.
The diversified themes of brick carvings can
be divided into the following two kinds:
The first kind includes scenes from myths, legends,
opera stories, folk customs and so on. Dignitaries in a procession,
woodcutters or farmers at work, and shepherd boys on the back
of buffaloes are constant images. There are also scenes of
people feeding farm animals and fowl, pushing carts, carrying
water, and poling boats, as well as scenes of entertainment
and performances. The figures are vividly carved. There is
a piece, for example, about an official on an inspection tour.
The official is caricatured as an arrogant, pot-bellied figure,
and his fat and large entourage all bear foolish, servile
expressions.
The second kind includes images of animals, birds
and flowers. Temples were usually decorated with images of
dragons and phoenixes. The southern Anhui artisans were most
skilled at carving lions. Following traditional images, they
portrayed the lions in various imaginary poses playing with
balls and dancing. Each lion was given a personality -- some
fierce, some naive, some naughty. More than two lions appearing
in one scene are carefully arranged and portrayed so that
their poses together form a coherent whole. Other animals
like elephants, tigers, dogs, rabbits and monkeys were also
common images in brick carving. Plum blossom, orchid, bamboo,
chrysanthemum, pomegranate, orange, tangerine, loquat and
lichi were other popular objects for brick carvers. There
is a carving of an egret standing beside blossoming and budding
lotus flowers -- with images vivid and true to life, the composition
discards the traditional symmetry and distortion. This makes
the whole work resemble a beautiful painting. These carvings
are always framed by symmetrical ancient vessel patterns,
eight-treasure patterns and cloud patterns.
Brick carving in the Ming Dynasty was simple
and plain, like Han-dynasty stone carvings in tombs. The sculptured
main figures and the background in low relief combine without
proper perspective. The simple themes, stereotyped figures
and symmetric composition make the carving highly decorative.
During the last years of the Ming Dynasty and the first years
of the Qing Dynasty, brick carving started to show certain
influences from the rising of the Xin'an painting school in
southern Anhui and the spread of elegant, colorful Anhui-style
woodcuts. During the Qing Dynasty, when the merchants were
wealthier, brick carving became more exquisite and complex
to suit their magnificent houses. A carving in a brick with
a surface less than 0.1 square meter would show several gradations
of perspective, with a composition like that of a Chinese
painting. For example, a carving of a flower and bird is framed
by a raised hui-shaped pattern, the sculpture of the leaves
and branches being set off by a relief of geometric background.
A carving about a story or human life had an even more complex
composition: the sculpture of human figures are in the front,
in the middle are pavilions and verandahs in openwork, and
in the distance are houses. In some of the carvings of that
time, though, this exquisite style was so exaggerated that
the works, having moving, overmeticulous figures and background,
became mechanical wonders rather than art works.
Other commonly used building materials in the
Ming and Qing dynasties were wood and stone. Wood and stone
carvings had many points in common with brick carvings in
their themes and forms of expression, only differing in carving
techniques because of their different textures. Wood carvings
were often found on beams, pillars and their above brackets,
upturned eaves, railings, doors, windows and such furniture
as cupboards and tables. The application of tung oil instead
of colorful paint exposed the natural texture of wood while
at the same time protecting the carvings from corrosion.
Stones were used to build the house foundations,
memorial archways or bridges, and stone carvings are often
seen on roof-beam plates, eaves and socles. The diversified
patterns include Hindu swastika, diamond, plum blossom, bamboo,
and dragon.
As a bright pearl in the treasurehouse of Chinese
folk art heritage, brick carving, with new themes and modern
designs, is now used to ornament classical-style gardens and
memorial halls.
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