Wenbo Time and Space / Wen Wenbo Time and Space Author: Dong Yan
Cultural relics photography|Du Guanglei
Located in Huizhou, in the south of Anhui Province, it was known as Xin'an and Shezhou in ancient times. Qin Zhiyi, Sheer County, Jin called Xin'an County, to Song Xuanhe three years (AD 1121), changed Shezhou to Huizhou. The origin of the name of Huizhou is that there are Huiling and Huixi in Jixi, and "Hui" is beautiful. In fact, the word "Hui" originally meant "rope" and "binding", and was named after "Hui", expressing the hope of the Song Dynasty to strengthen its restraint on this place after the "turmoil".
Huizhou has always been famous for its many businessmen and prosperous literary style. With its abundant capital to run education, create academies, buy ancestral halls, build temples, have been known as the Ming and Qing dynasties for more than 300 years, forming a prosperous economy, the heyday of education development, so known as "southeast Zoulu" and "no Hui is not a town" said. The "Xin'an culture" in history is unique, Xin'an science, Xin'an medicine, Hui Puxue, Xin'an painting, Hui printmaking, Hui seal carving, Hui architecture, Hui bonsai and Hui carving, Hui opera, etc., are famous for their outstanding achievements.
Following the concept of "pillow mountain, face water, aggregation, and rising sun", for thousands of years, the mountain is the bone, the water is the vein, and the Hui style building has been carved out of its own school, which has gone through wind and rain in the hazy smoke and rain, and is still gentle and simple, which can be known and felt. In the Anhui Museum, you can savor the subtlety of Huizhou's ancient architecture.
Anhui Museum Huizhou Ancient Architecture Exhibition
The ancient villages here have their own unique layout structure, or pictographic, or ideographic, reflecting the ingenuity of "relying on the mountains to collect shapes and taking advantage of the water".
"The mountains surround the city with clear streams, and it is difficult to paint white clouds and blue mountains", and Hongcun Village, a world cultural heritage site known as the "village in the painting", is an ancient village full of natural charm. The whole village is located in the northeast of Yi County, Huangshan City, built during the Shaoxi period of the Southern Song Dynasty, the scattered dwellings carved this land into a "cow" shaped layout, the village is the bone, the water vein is the shape, the hard-working villagers uphold the time scale of sunrise and sunset, so that the "ox" who sleeps on the mountain and the water has the flow of blood.
Schematic diagram of the layout of Hongcun village
One real and one virtual, one black and one white, one yin and one yang, Chengkanli Ancient Village, located in a corner of Huizhou, follows the simple concept of "Taoism and Nature", and integrates the traditional Bagua Feng Shui theory into the construction of the village. The Longxi River in the village is in the shape of "S" from north to south through the village, forming the dividing line of the gossip yin and yang fish, eight streets and alleys in the village, ninety-nine alleys converge into the nine palace gossip pattern, eight mountains outside the village, similar to the direction of the eight trigrams, the inside and outside are combined, the kan is relative, since the time of the Three Kingdoms of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it is silently staring at the heaven and earth, blessing the people.
Schematic diagram and top view of the layout of Chengkan village
Walking into the ancient architecture exhibition, what greeted you is the "Huizhou Three Uniques" known as the folk house, introducing the entrance door of the Huizhou house, the three carvings of Huizhou, the architectural structure and other contents, the Huizhou style architecture is a practical house, but it also does not lose the aesthetic characteristics.
The entrance door of Huizhou dwellings is mostly oriented to the southeast, and they are all equipped with gatehouses or door covers, which can prevent rainwater from splashing down the wall to the door, and play a decorative role, which is a typical decoration method of the "façade" of Huizhou architecture, so it is known as "the four two houses of the Qianjin Gatehouse".
Huizhou gatehouse
As the "façade" of the Hui style dwelling, the construction of the gatehouse is also rich and thrifty by the people, there are word plaque doors, arch doors, hanging flower doors, eight-character doors, archway doors, etc., the top of the door cover usually adopts green tile eaves, and the eaves are piled up with blue brick inlays into a pattern rich in changes.
The gatehouse is more complex, composed of two parts, "building" and "cover", imitating the style of the archway, using bricks and stones to build out the pillar square bucket arch, adding eaves, carving exquisitely, this kind of gatehouse is mainly used for the official eunuch or the house of a wealthy businessman, the side highlights the social status and wealth accumulation of the owner of the house, people condense it into "the door is the right person", "the door is ranked" and other idioms are passed on by word of mouth. Now that Wang Xie's house is no longer in the past, these gatehouses are still braving the wind and snow to shelter future generations.
Structural diagram of the archway door
Folk houses, ancestral halls, archways for the "Huizhou three unique", the wonder of the folk houses in the three carvings, that is, wood carving, stone carving and brick carving. From the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the Hui merchants who went out to go out were fortunate to return to their hometowns, and built houses, built ancestral halls, and set up archways, so that their hometowns and ancestors could enjoy the glory and pride with the three carving skills. Influenced by the Xin'an School of Painting, flowers, birds, plants, historical stories, and anecdotes are all indispensable to painting and carving.
Brick carving decoration wall: "The door cover is misty and happy, and the wall becomes a carved wall", which is a true portrayal of Huizhou brick carving. Brick carving by the Ming Dynasty Huizhou potter Bao Si pioneered, the subject matter is wide, the exhibition in the "spring figures" is the best footnote of Huizhou brick carving. 78 bricks and stones, carved six layers, the top layer is Bogutu, meaning elegant and noble, the second layer is the fishing wood ploughing and reading, the third layer is the melon leaves and branches, meaning "the melon is soft", the descendants are luxuriant, the fourth layer is the "dark eight immortals", meaning longevity and auspiciousness, the fifth layer is the "spring map", the mountain stones and trees, the small bridge and flowing water, the pagoda pavilions and pavilions contrast with each other, and the sixth layer is the ordinary auspicious pattern.
Detail of the character picture of the spring
Huizhou brick carving commonly used building location map
Brick carving: dark eight immortal pattern brick carving
Brick carving: 100 sub figures
Wood Carved Pillars: The exhibition dismantles and displays the characteristics of Huizhou dwellings, allowing us to get a glimpse of the skills of ancient craftsmen through scattered fragments. Huizhou is prolific in wood, the craftsmen will take local materials, using round carving, relief, openwork and other techniques, a variety of patterns engraved on the window sash, railing, drag, eaves, etc., a beam and a column, alive the whole era.
Opera character treasure flower sash
Opera characters in the middle of the window sash
The opera character Baoxianghua window sash is a representative work of Huizhou wood carving. Its top is decorated with flowers and birds, the bottom is Rui beast, the main part is carved with treasure flowers as the ground, and the center is bas-relief opera character pattern. Baoxiang flower is a traditional Chinese auspicious ornament, derived from Buddhist decorative arts, a collection of lotus, peony and other characteristics, especially at the stamen, with beads as a regular arrangement, like a glittering pearl, rich and gorgeous, auspicious, perfect meaning. Baoxianghua was popular in the Sui and Tang dynasties, and after the Sui and Tang dynasties, it was also widely used in decorative arts such as porcelain, gold and silverware, fabrics, and carving.
Dragon-patterned hollow sash and partial
The dragon pattern hollow window sash uses a large number of hollow carving methods, which is more flexible in shape. Its main body is decorated with a symmetrical double dragon pattern, echoing up and down, galloping in the clouds and mist waves, with a vigorous posture and vivid expression, which is very dynamic. The upper layer is carved with a number of magpies playing in the peony flowers, and the lower part is decorated with a swastika pattern, implying double happiness, wealth and auspiciousness, and longevity. The surface of the carved ornament is decorated with gold lacquer, and the red lacquer is edentified, the main and secondary are distinct, the theme is prominent, and there is a sense of grandeur.
Common patterns of Huizhou wood carving
Huizhou wood carving commonly used building location.
Legend has it that in the Spring and Autumn Period, Wu Wangfu set up a beauty for Xi Shi to rely on, which was specially used for the two of them to rest. Therefore, "beauty leaning" is also called "Wu Wang leaning", the scientific name is "gooseneck chair", it is a kind of wooden building with a stool under it and a railing on it, and it is named because the backrest leans out outward like a gooseneck. Its elegant, graceful curves conform to the contours of the human body and are very comfortable to sit on. It is usually built on the waterfront side of the cloister or pavilion sill, and in addition to resting, it also has the interest of Lingbo's reflection.
Stone carving engraving: If the memorial arch is the emblem of the ancient building of Huizhou, the stone carving is the most vivid symbol on the badge. Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, the stone of the archway generally adopts "tea garden stone" and "Qianxian green", and the relief carving is mainly based on plane carving and shallow openwork. "There is a stone carved door cover at the gate, and there is a stone carved fish tank in front of the hall", after more than 500 years of wind and rain, Huizhou stone carving is still gorgeous.
The drum stone, the door symbol of traditional Chinese houses, is generally located at the entrance of the house door at the bottom of the gate of the traditional courtyard, which resembles a round drum and belongs to a kind of door sleeper stone. Because it has a drum-like shape supporting the stone seat, it gets its name.
The subtlety of Huizhou dwellings also lies in the horse-head wall of Ze by later generations. "Depending on the wall of fire, it is enough to resist the trouble for thousands of years, and it is shallow and deep for the sake of planning, and it is close to the long-term water." This inscription engraved in the Huizhou Shexian government office truly describes the practicality of the Matou Wall in the dwellings, and the "fire wall" is the predecessor of the Matou Wall.
The essence of the horse head wall is to seal the fire wall, which is to prevent dense dwellings from implicating the surrounding area and aggravating the loss when a certain household is on fire. Although it is practical, it cannot lose its elegance. The tenacity and perseverance of the ancient Huizhou people and the cultural heritage are inherited by the horse head wall, and its shape is staggered, complex or simple, like a horse with its head high, and it is painted with auspicious patterns, landscapes, flowers and birds, which are beautiful.
Seal bucket type horse head wall: the upper end of the seat head is decorated with a square brick with a "field" or swaslet pattern, which resembles a gold seal and has the meaning of "gold seal like a bucket", which expresses the pursuit of fame and inspires children and grandchildren to study hard to learn from their talents.
The magpie tail horse head wall, the seat head is carved into the shape of a magpie's tail, which has the meaning of a happy event.
Sitting on the kiss type horse head wall, the seat head is the kissing beast component of the kiln burning, which has the meaning of praying for peace, driving away evil spirits and avoiding disasters.
There is also a sad legend about the origin of the horse head wall. In the Dragon Boat Festival in the Ming Hongzhi years, Huizhou city is a jubilant, unexpectedly in the evening when the sky falls a catastrophe, a row of houses in the east of the city is engulfed by fire, because each household is a wooden house, and the top beams are connected, with the help of the wind, the whole street is caught in the sea of fire, the loss is heavy. At that time, He Xin had just come to Huizhou to take up his post, determined to reduce the fire hazard, he investigated many ways, consulted information, and finally found that the construction of a high gable can organize the spread of fire, which is the predecessor of the Matou Wall "Fire Sealing Wall".
Entering the ancestral hall area of the exhibition, you can feel the strong family heritage, and in this area, the history, architectural characteristics, site selection, and spatial layout of the ancestral hall, one of the three unique halls of Huizhou, are introduced. The ancestral halls of the ancient villages of Huizhou, large and small, are important cultural and discussion centers, and are the foundation of the local patriarchal society. Different from the ancient production-oriented villages, the ancient villages of Huizhou are consumption-oriented villages, and the industrious ancient Huizhou people go out or do business or study, and return to their hometown with glory, so they naturally want to glorify the lintel and reward the ancestors, so there is the Huizhou ancestral hall known as the three unique Huizhou ancestral halls.
It is said that in the Song Dynasty, under the influence of "Cheng Zhu Lixue", Huizhou people attached great importance to reading, and had the reputation of "the village of ten households, not abandoning reading", and had given birth to 29 civil and military champions, 17 prime ministers, more than 2,100 Jinshi and thousands of people in history, which can be called "Confucianism is unique in the south of the Yangtze River".
In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the population of Huizhou increased dramatically, the per capita arable land was insufficient, and a large number of Huizhou people went out to do business, adhered to the tradition of "Confucianism and Taoism management", and finally created the "world's first merchant gang" - Huizhou merchants.
From the Southern Song Dynasty to the Ming and Qing dynasties, more than 100 ancestral halls were built, which were divided into different types such as ancestral halls, ancestral halls, branch ancestral halls, family ancestral halls, etc., and the scale of sacrifice and management gradually decreased. Among them, the ancestral hall is also called the ancestral hall and the general ancestral hall, which is the large ancestral hall of each branch in the clan commander, such as the ancestral hall of the new Ancheng program. The ancestral hall is the clan ancestral hall established by the clan tribes of various surnames in the migratory villages, such as the Wu clan ancestral hall on the north bank of She County. The branch ancestral hall is the ancestral hall of the subordinate tribes to worship the ancestors of the tribe, such as the Ye branch of Nanping in Yixian County. The family ancestral hall is the smallest, and it is the ancestral hall of the ancestors in a certain room in the family room, such as the Qiankou Division of She County.
Tongzong Ancestral Hall
ancestral hall
Ancestral Hall
Family Shrine
Usually the location of the ancestral hall is either adjacent to the village or in an open place outside the village, but most of them are built in the center of the village with the strength of the whole village, which is not only convenient for clan gatherings, but also maintains a certain solemnity and mystery.
Although the material resources are complicated, we will not dare to save labor. As a ceremonial building of the family tribe, the ancestral hall is mostly a brick and wood structure of "three entrances and five phoenix towers". Sanjin refers to the three main spaces of the ancestral hall - the instrument gate, the enjoyment hall, and the sleeping hall.
Three-way planar distribution map. One entry is the gate, also called the "instrument gate". The second entrance is the enjoyment hall, which is the place where the clan holds sacrificial ceremonies and discusses the major affairs of the clan, and is the key decoration space in the ancestral hall. The third entrance is a dormitory, mostly five bays, and it is a place to worship ancestral tablets. In the middle, there is a shrine dedicated to the ancestral tablet, and an offering table is set up in front of the shrine to place sacrificial items.
The five phoenix floor refers to the roof decoration of the ancestral hall gate: five pairs of eaves corners, two by two symmetrical, flying eaves and angles, like a phoenix bird spreading its wings, take the beautiful image of "there is a phoenix to come" and "five phoenixes to the sky".
Elevation of Wufeng Tower
If you continue along the ancestral hall, you will see an introduction to the structure of the ancestral hall. Huizhou people believe in the past and present life, so they also have more awe for their ancestors, in order to concretize this awe, they will lift the beam structure and wear the bucket structure to form a new beam and wear the bucket mixed structure, so as to enhance the solemnity of the ancestral hall, the momentum is magnificent.
Beam-lifting structure
Bucket structure
Mixed structure of lifting beam and bucket
The importance of the ancestral hall is education. Ancient Huizhou is known as "Cheng Zhu Queli", advocating the traditional ethics and morality of "worshiping ancestors and respecting ancestors, repaying gratitude", and also attaches importance to guiding their own virtues...... Different couplet plaques convey the simple values of the ancient Huizhou people, time has left traces on the plaques, but the power of thought will never be erased.
Classification and introduction of the cross-linked plaques of the ancestral hall
It is worth mentioning that there are male ancestral halls in Huizhou ancestral hall, there are also female ancestral halls, and most people in Huizhou are "young mother's kindness, long inheritance of mother's training", grateful for the mother's kindness, so build a mother's ancestral hall to commemorate. In the exhibition, we were introduced to the famous women's ancestral hall in Huizhou, Qingyi Hall located in Tangyue Village, She County. The hall is named after "Qingyi", which means "innocent conduct and beautiful virtue". This ancestral hall has a grand structure, with three entrances and five bays, and the scale even exceeds that of the men's ancestral hall. The women's shrine and the men's shrine stand side by side, like two rivers, nourishing the people of this land.
Qingyi Hall in Tangyue Village
Tangyue Village Dun Hontang
Walking through the ancestral hall, we came to the important functional building in Huizhou - the stage part. The ancient stage of Huizhou is mostly the stage of the ancestral hall, with the ancestral hall moving forward as the stage, the stone is the bottom, the green tile is covered, the gongs and drums are up, all are the mirage of powder and ink, the fan opens and closes, and the complaints are all human feelings.
This part shows us the classification of the stage and its architectural characteristics, the ancient stage of Huizhou is divided into family stage, ancestral stage and temple stage because of its different functions, among which the ancestral stage is the most preserved, and among the ancestral hall theater left in ancient Huizhou, the ancient stage of Yuqingtang is the largest and the most well-preserved, and the form of the ancient stage of Huiyuantang is relatively rare. These two ancient stages represent the two types of ancient Huizhou stages: a movable stage and a fixed stage. As the name suggests, the movable stage is easy to disassemble, and the ancestral hall door is integrated into one, performing on the stage and passing under the stage, while the fixed stage only has a performance function and cannot be disassembled.
Yuqingtang ancient stage
Kaigendo Ancient Observatory
Every time I look at the theater, I have to marvel at the construction wisdom of the ancient craftsmen, who applied the "resonance" design of the modern stage space to the stage early, which is a major feature of the ancient stage in Huizhou - caisson. After the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the caisson was mostly circular, divided into three layers, and the layers were adducted to the top, and the profile resembled an inverted horn, which not only enhanced the beauty of the shape, but also played the role of sound absorption and resonance, so that the opera audience could sound like a long aftertaste.
Huizhou has the reputation of "the hometown of the archway", there were thousands of archways, and now there are more than 100 ones. The origin of the memorial arch is not the same, according to the opinion of the architect Mr. Liang Sicheng, the earliest can be traced back to the "Book of Songs" "under the Heng Gate, can be perched late", the Heng Gate is the city gate built by two pillars and a horizontal log, the archway was called the wedge of the "wedge" and "gentry wedge" in ancient times, that is, the wooden pillars on both sides of the door.
After the development of the Han and Tang dynasties, the memorial arch appeared in the Southern Song Dynasty, and gradually took shape in the early Ming Dynasty, after many stages such as Hengmen, Huabiao, Fangmen, Aconitum Gate, etc., it is mostly used to commend meritorious service, Kedi, virtue and politics, and loyalty, filial piety, and righteousness. There are many merchants and literati in Huizhou, and in order to record the merits of the family, the memorial arch with the meaning of commendation and commemoration is therefore prevalent. The arches are like historical pearls, engraved with the blood of Huizhou people.
The evolution of the torii
Among the arches of the ancient city of Huizhou, the Tangyue archway group is the most famous. Located at the entrance of Tangyue Village, the archway group surrounds the village in an arc, and is arranged in the order of loyalty, filial piety, and righteousness. Legend has it that at the end of the Song Dynasty, the county guard rebelled, Hui merchant Bao Zongyan was captured, his son came to follow, to die for his father, the father insisted on his own death, the father and son fought to the death moved the rebellion, the two were released, the court to show its virtue, specially given to build the archway, and engraved Yongle Emperor himself "Bao family father and son Quanren filial piety, leave the reputation according to the ancient and modern".
Torii structure
Out of the exhibition hall, still make people fascinated by the elegance of Huizhou, a stone here, a lane and a lamp, all need to be savored, a hundred years of wind and rain, Huizhou, still calm.
Character Sparrow: Huizhou businessmen run in the rivers and lakes, or sing about wine, or pay attention to baht, these life scenes are picked up by Huizhou folk artists, and one stroke falls on the timber merchants, and there are characters (components placed at the intersection of beams and columns, which have both stabilizing and decorative effects).
Thrush husband and wife brick carving: the woman dresses up in the courtyard, the man wearing a square scarf seriously gives his wife a thrush, and the waiter who delivers tea avoids and is deterred, which is the allusion of Zhang Chang for his wife thrush in the Han Dynasty, showing the warm and happy love of husband and wife.
Carved bricks of garden landscape: the picture carves a two-storey gatehouse, lined with landscapes, flowers and plants, the door is closed, the wall leaks symmetrically, there is a plane tree outside the wall on one side, and the red apricot in the courtyard on one side is out of the wall, and the scenery is quiet and full of vitality.
"Lotus Crab" Brick Carving: The literati of the Song Dynasty once painted the "Lotus Crab" picture, and the folk of Huizhou in the Ming and Qing dynasties used this theme for brick carving, giving a new cultural connotation with its homonym "harmony". This picture is a realistic scene of the pond, the wind shakes the green leaves, the lotus flowers are fragrant, crabs and birds inhabit it, the artistic conception of the picture is vivid, the subject matter is unique, and the pond scene is full of vitality.
Brick carving of the education of the elderly: Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, promulgated the "Religious List", and the elderly in the township accepted household registration and land cases, eliminating civil disputes at the grassroots level. In the picture, the old man is writing the list, and the gentleman advises the young man to go to the Shenming Pavilion to listen to the old man's preaching.
Phoenix opera peony brick carving: In the blooming peony, two phoenix birds play in the meantime, full of fun. The brick carving takes the peony and the phoenix bird as the theme, which constitutes the picture of the phoenix opera peony, adds the beautiful taste of the phoenix bird, and symbolizes the wealth and glory forever.
Carp into dragon pattern brick carving: Ancient Chinese legend says that the carp jumps over the dragon gate, that is, it turns into a real dragon, conveying people's desire to be inscribed on the gold list, promoted to become wealthy, and so on. The picture depicts two carps leaping up, one of the heads has turned into a dragon head, in the air, looking down majestically, the picture of the carp turning into a dragon has a strong sense of tension, giving people a sense of tension about to succeed in the title of the gold list.
Exhibition information: The exhibition is located on the fourth floor of the Anhui Museum (new hall) and is a permanent exhibition.
Transportation routes: Take Metro Line 3 and get off at the "Provincial Museum"; Take bus No. 105/113/129 to the "South Gate of the Provincial Museum" or take No. 13 to the "East Gate of the Provincial Museum".
Reservation for visiting: You only need to make an appointment for admission tickets in the official account of Anhui Provincial Museum, and the museum is closed every Monday.
Knowledge expansion: (1) Documentary "Ancient Buildings of Huizhou (Part I)" (can be watched on the digital resource service platform of Anhui Provincial Library) (2) Documentary "Huizhou"
Anbo Ancient Construction Exhibition: Huizhou People with Smoke Willow Painting Bridge|Exhibition
Picture | Du Guanglei
Typography | Xiao Xie
Design | Yin Lisa