Chapter 6 Section 5 Brick Carving, Wood Carving and Stone Carving

my country is a country with a very long history of sculpture art. A long time ago, ancient craftsmen in my country used their exquisite sculpture art in the buildings of palaces, gardens and Buddhist temples, adding a wonderful decorative effect to the magnificent ancient buildings in my country. This is an event that should be highlighted in the history of Chinese art. Similarly, the brick, wood and stone carvings of ancient Chinese folk traditions also brought artistic harmony and harmony to ancient Chinese dwellings, and this harmony and harmony has more national spirit and life characteristics.

This is because the traditional Chinese carving art originally originated from the folk, and it already has various local styles and local colors. Unfortunately, we can hardly see the dwellings before the Tang and Song Dynasties. We can only understand the characteristics of Chinese folk sculptures from some dwellings preserved after the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In ancient my country, there were extremely strict regulations on the grade boundaries of the residences of princes, officials and common people.It is not allowed to use bucket arches in residential buildings, and it is not allowed to be decorated with colorful colors. It is not allowed to exceed three rooms and five frames. To decorate.This determines that the ancient dwellings in our country can only seek comfort from compactness and embody gorgeous features from simplicity, emphasizing the decoration of ordinary building materials in certain parts, and enhancing the beauty of architecture and environment as a whole.

Civil brick carvings, wood carvings, and stone carvings are used to decorate buildings according to this principle. Brick Carving Brick Carving is a folk art in which chisels and wooden hammers are used to drill carved patterns on water-milled blue bricks. It is mainly used for decoration of certain parts of the building.The origin of brick carving in our country is very early, and it has been found in the urban ruins of the Warring States Period, but the brick carvings used for residential buildings are mostly after the Tang and Song Dynasties.The brick carvings of ancient Chinese dwellings have different styles because of different regions.Generally speaking, the brick carvings in the south are more slender and beautiful, while the brick carvings in the north are thicker and bolder.At present, the brick carving areas that are well preserved or have more traditional inheritance mainly include Anhui, Suzhou, Guangdong, Beijing, Hezhou (now Linxia, ​​Gansu), Tianjin and so on.

Anhui brick carvings mainly refer to Ming and Qing brick carvings in Huizhou (now the area around She〔she〕County, Anhui).In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, many people went out to do business in Huizhou. Due to the influence of feudal clan ideology and local concepts, they brought a large amount of savings back to their hometown after doing business, built residential ancestral halls, and flaunted their wealth to each other, thus forming a unique style of Huizhou dwellings. Huizhou buildings are mostly built along streams and small rivers, with long and narrow patios, blue-gray ridged roofs, snow-white powder walls, and water-polished blue brick door covers, gate towers, and cornices, all in harmony.The thresholds and feet of houses in Huizhou (one or two feet above the ground) are mostly made of bluestone or granite, and some even the gates are tiled with water-polished blue bricks, and then fixed to the wooden door surface with round-headed nails.Such a building, with brick carvings embedded in it, is very harmonious.Huizhou brick carvings are mainly decorated on gatehouses, door covers, cornices and column bases.Mainly in relief, a few line engravings.The pattern is based on animal flowers and birds (such as lion, tiger, dog, elephant, rabbit, monkey, plum, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum, pomegranate, citrus, loquat, litchi, etc.), auspicious patterns (such as Bogu, Eight Treasures, Ruyi, Dark Eight Immortals) , auspicious characters and cloud patterns, hui patterns, etc.), myths and legends, opera stories and folk life scenes, simple and simple, elegant composition, neat carving, smooth lines, clear layers, with the style of stone portraits in the Han Dynasty (Figure 11) .The engraving system of Huizhou brick carving is divided into two processes: "blank making" and "detailing". "Bricking" means chiseling out the outline of the picture on the brick surface, determining its position and level, and distinguishing the front, middle, and distant scenes; And the scenery is highlighted one by one.It is said that Huizhou brick carvings originally focused on birds, animals and flowers. Later, due to competition among households, many craftsmen were often hired to make brick carvings for one or half of the gatehouse, and the work was completed within a time limit.The artisans are vying to come up with the latest and best patterns to compete with each other, so the subject matter is getting wider and higher, and the level is getting higher and higher.The representative works of Huizhou brick carvings are "Hundred Sons Picture" and "Guo Ziyi Shangshou", etc., and their carving level has been unanimously praised by people.

Suzhou brick carvings refer to some residential and garden brick carvings left over from the Song Dynasty and Ming and Qing Dynasties.The temples and gardens in Suzhou had been greatly developed in the Song Dynasty. The Xuanmiao Temple in the center of Suzhou is a relic of the Song Dynasty.During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Suzhou’s economy and culture were developed, and there were many residences, gardens, ancestral halls, temples, guild halls, and business houses built by bureaucrats, landlords, literati, and wealthy businessmen.They are either arranged along the river or facing the street. There are many exquisite brick carvings in the gatehouse, screen wall, head, door forehead, column base, skirt shoulder and wall corner.The contents of brick carvings mainly include opera stories, myths and legends, social life scenes (such as fishing, salary picking, horse herding, playing chess, reading at four seasons, festive banquets, etc.), flowers and birds (the four friends of plum, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum) , peonies and riches and honor, magpies making trouble with plum blossoms, etc.), animals (two dragons playing with pearls, two lions grabbing a ball, etc.), auspicious patterns (shouyun, Ruyi, Huiwen, swastikas, Kui patterns), calligraphy, etc. The applied techniques include openwork, Relief carvings and line carvings are all kinds of styles, tall and straight, fresh, delicate and vivid.In particular, maroon and black lacquered columns are often used in buildings in Suzhou, rather than painted. These brick carvings complement each other with white marble and bluestone building materials, whitewashed walls, and black columns, which are very elegant and bookish (Fig. 12).

Guangdong brick carving refers to the Ming and Qing folk house brick carvings in the Pearl River Delta region.The brick carvings in these areas are part of the building, and at the same time are indoor and outdoor decorations, so they have local characteristics.Guangdong brick carvings are mostly used on gable walls, both sides of gates, gate towers, and eaves.Either appear independently, or be decorated together with colored paintings, gray sculptures, pottery sculptures, etc., reflecting each other.Guangdong brick carving techniques include high and low relief, openwork, line engraving, etc. The content is flowers, figures, and animals, which are beautiful and vivid.

Beijing brick carving.Beijing has been the imperial capital for several generations, so there are many ancient dwellings preserved.Beijing brick carvings are mostly used in gates, porches, screen walls, flower walls, flower windows, etc. The themes are mainly flowers, with fewer animals and figures.Beijing brick carving techniques include relief, openwork, and line engraving, with a full and steady style.It has a strong national style. Hezhou brick carvings refer to the brick carvings in Linxia, ​​Gansu (known as Hezhou in ancient times).Hezhou brick carving originated in the Northern Song Dynasty and matured in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.It is characterized by kneading and engraving. "Kneading" is to first knead clay into patterns of dragons, phoenixes, lions and various flowers, birds and insects by hand or molds, and then bake them into bricks in a kiln. "Carving" is to carve various relief patterns on green bricks with a knife.The brick carvings in Hezhou are designed on the gable screen walls of the residential temples and the entrances of the corridors.At present, there are places such as Linxia Red Garden and East Mansion that preserve the art of brick carving in Hezhou relatively well.Most of the brick carvings in Hongyuan were made by Zhou Shengpu, a famous brick carving craftsman of the Hui nationality, and his clan members.The pavilions, pavilions, winding paths and corridors of the East Mansion are all decorated with brick carvings, which are one of the masterpieces of brick carvings in Hezhou.

Tianjin brick carvings are generally used for architectural decoration, inlaid on gatehouses, screen walls, ridges, and walls. Themes include flowers, animals, figures, etc., mainly flowers and birds. Brick carving pays attention to engraving and technique, but also pays attention to the harmony of content, style, courtyard layout and color tone, which is not easy to make.From the perspective of artistic tradition, Chinese folk brick carvings have inherited the tradition of portrait bricks in the Han Dynasty, and have mutual influence and absorption with wood carvings, jade carvings, and tooth carvings.Many complex brick carvings are as beautiful and elegant as the jade carvings and ivory carvings used in the court. This is the contribution of ancient Chinese folk artists to the art of carving.

Wood carving Wood carving is the art of carving various images from wood.In ancient my country, woodcarving was mostly used to decorate building parts or furniture, and was also used to carve figures, animals and other images, but folk woodcarving was mostly based on the former. Folk woodcarving decoration is mainly used for beam frames, beam supports, brackets, eaves, floor railings, Chinese boards, column chess, window panes, screens, partitions, door rails, architraves and other parts. The patterns are flowers, insects and fish. , Birds and beasts, Babao Bogu, Huiwen, cloud patterns, characters, opera stories, myths and legends, auspicious patterns, calligraphy, and techniques include round carving, relief carving, openwork carving, line carving, etc., with strong local characteristics.

The wood carvings of residential houses are generally made of high-quality wood such as cypress, catalpa, toon, nanmu, and ginkgo, and are generally not painted, which means to show off the noble quality of the wood. . Areas where brick carvings developed in ancient my country are generally well-known for wood carvings, such as Huizhou and Suzhou, where brick and wood carvings are very distinctive.But in terms of woodcarving alone, the famous production areas in my country include Dongyang in Zhejiang, Fuzhou in Fujian, Chaozhou in Guangdong, Suzhou in Jiangsu, Jianchuan in Yunnan, etc. The history of woodcarving in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and some other minority areas is also very long.

Zhejiang Dongyang woodcarving was very famous in the Song Dynasty.The Suyong Hall that still exists in the territory was built by local craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty, and the wood carvings are extremely magnificent.During the reign of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, more than 400 Dongyang craftsmen participated in the renovation of the palace in Beijing, which shows the development of local woodcarving skills.Now, there are still many works of Dongyang craftsmen in the Forbidden City in Beijing and Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou.Dongyang woodcarving has a unique style, the techniques are mainly relief carving, and the pattern is particular about "full flowers" (that is, the picture is covered with decorative patterns), the layout is full, the layers are clear, the theme is prominent, and it has the artistic effect of viewing the big from the small.The themes of Dongyang woodcarving patterns are mostly based on historical drama stories or folklore, such as Jiang Taigong fishing, Zhong Kui catching ghosts, Liu Haixi Jinchan, Hehe Erxian, etc. The folk color is strong, and there are also some gods and Buddhas. Fujian woodcarving originated in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and was mostly used for architectural decorations and daily furniture. Later, round figures and animals gradually appeared.Fujian woodcarving mostly uses camphor wood, nanmu, and fir, and the themes are mainly figures, historical stories, and folk tales. Chaozhou woodcarving in Guangdong is most famous in Chaoan, Chaoyang, Ninghai, Puning and other places near Chaozhou, and enjoyed a high reputation in the Ming Dynasty.Chaozhou woodcarving is mainly used for architectural decorations (such as doors, windows, screens, etc.) and daily furniture.Techniques are divided into relief carving, sinking carving, round carving and Tong carving, among which Tong carving is the most exquisite.Tongdiao is a carving technique that integrates various carving methods into one picture to express complex and multi-layered content. During work, the raw materials are fully hollowed out and carved to make them exquisite and transparent, and the surface is impressive. Finally, various kinds of lacquer are painted and covered with gold leaf.The themes of Chaozhou woodcarving include figures, landscapes, flowers and birds, etc., but most of them are opera stories, melons, fruits, fish and insects, and aquatic still lifes. The style is delicate and graceful, with strong artistic charm. Jiangsu Suzhou woodcarving.There are many gardens in Suzhou, and the wood carving technology has always been developed. Therefore, the wood carvings of the nearby houses often complement each other with the brick carvings, showing the beauty of the water town in the south of the Yangtze River.Suzhou woodcarving is exquisite and exquisite, and is good at carving flowers and figures in relief carving.Dongshan, 40 kilometers southwest of Suzhou, once built a carved building in modern times. It was a private garden.The wooden carvings of the building are reliefs, and the content is very beautiful.It is said that the woodcarving of this building was made by Zhou Yunlong, an artist of Xiangshan School in Wu County. Although it is a modern work, it inherits the artistic tradition of Suzhou woodcarving, which can give us a glimpse of the style and features of ancient Suzhou woodcarving art. The woodcarving of the Bai nationality in Jianchuan, Yunnan Province has a long history and was very popular in Tang and Song Dynasties.Many sculptures of scenic spots in ancient Yunnan, Kunming and other places were made by Jianchuan craftsmen.Jianchuan woodcarving uses the local specialty "cloud wood" as the raw material, and the knife technique is refined and delicate, with a unique style.Jianchuan wood carvings are mainly architectural decorations and furniture, and the patterns are mostly symbolic auspicious patterns, such as dragon and phoenix, deer and crane in the same spring, more than one year, bamboo for safety, historical figures, religious stories, myths and legends, etc., multi-layered Hollow engraving is widely used (Figure 13). The ancient traditional wood carvings of other ethnic minorities in Southwest China are also very distinctive.For example, the Drum Tower and Feige Pavilion with double eaves in Dong villages have vivid wood carvings or colored paintings on them.The village piles, ritual pillars, and tomb beasts of some ethnic minorities are also mostly decorated with wood carvings, which have distinct ethnic characteristics and mysterious colors.The capitals, shafts, and bases of Uyghur mosques and residences in Xinjiang are often decorated with bas-reliefs of geometric patterns. Although there are no specific specifications, they have unified ethnic characteristics and are very meaningful. In addition to the wood carvings used for architectural decorations, the wood carvings of ancient Chinese artworks are also quite developed.Famous ones include boxwood carvings in Wenzhou, Yueqing, Zhejiang, and Chaozhou, Guangdong; longan wood carvings in Fuzhou, Putian, and Huian, Fujian; regular wood carvings in Qufu, Shandong; natural scar tree root carvings in Changle, Fujian, etc., all have a long history.The wood carvings on display are mainly figures, followed by birds, animals, flowers and fruits. Most of them are carved with high-quality wood, which is natural and vivid, and vivid. Stone carving The application of ancient folk stone carving in my country is also very common. Folk stone carvings are mainly used in temples, archways, bridges, steles, and residential building railings, pillars, flower stands, pools, wall foundations, column foundations, and drum stones and stone lions on facades.There are also some artworks and practical handicrafts for indoor display and appreciation. Folk architectural stone carvings are divided into round carvings, relief carvings, bas-relief carvings and line carvings.Archways, stone lions in front of ancestral halls, small stone lions in front of village houses, and some special-purpose facilities such as horse-tie piles in Weibei, Shaanxi, and sacrificial pillars of ethnic minorities in southwest China are often combined with round carvings or round carvings and reliefs; residential buildings Stone carvings such as railings, flower beds, pools, wall bases, etc. are generally reliefs or bas-reliefs with a strong sense of painting. Many) and landscapes, and less content about characters (Figure 14).Residential stone carvings have distinct layers and compact structure. Generally, flowers, animals, eight treasures, etc. appear on the fretwork or other geometric shading, which is very detailed.The stone lions, horse posts, and stone carvings on the sacrificial pillars are all over the ocean, whether they are immortals or Taoists, or gods or Buddhas, or literary or martial arts. They are full of strange things and have local characteristics. Most of the stone carvings for display and appreciation are flowers, animals, figure shapes, stationery, incense burners, smokers, tripods, etc. Divided by raw materials, there are Shoushan stone carvings, Qingtian stone carvings, chrysanthemum stone carvings, and pebble carvings. The main producing areas of folk architectural stone carvings in my country are Quyang, Hebei, Fangshan, Beijing, Dali, Yunnan, and Huian, Fujian.Quyang white marble carvings began in the Han Dynasty. From the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, due to the prosperity of Buddhism, Quyang stone carvings also reached prosperity.Fangshan white marble was mined in the Sui Dynasty, and most of the decorative jade carvings in the tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the royal gardens were taken from it.Yunnan marble carving began in the Tang Dynasty. It is characterized by being good at designing and processing according to the natural patterns and color changes of marble, making the products harmonious and elegant.Hui'an stone carving was famous for its bluestone Buddha statues in Tang and Song Dynasties, and famous for its stone lions, figures, and dragon pillars in Ming and Qing Dynasties. The stone lions carved in this place with mouths that can roll stone beads are called "Southern Lions" and are the most distinctive.