The Artistic Features of Horsehead Wall

Horsehead wall is a kind of traditional residential buildings of Han nationality in Jiangxi and Huizhou schools. Its roof is divided into two slopes with the middle transverse ridge as the boundary, and the left and right gables are either flush with or higher than the roof. When using the horse's head wall, the gables on both sides are higher than the roof, and overlap in a horizontal step according to the slope of the roof, unlike the gables that are generally seen, which are isosceles triangles on the top and rectangles on the bottom. It is an important feature of Jiangxi architecture and Huizhou architecture.

Horsehead walls are strewn at random, usually two or three folds. Because of the front and back halls, the number of overlapping Horsehead Walls can reach as many as five, commonly known as "Five Mountains".

From the appearance, it has quite a style, so it is not only one of the common formats of Jiangxi architecture and Huizhou architecture in the south of China, but also a saying that "small tile-headed walls with blue bricks and latticed windows hanging in cloisters" was used to summarize the styles of Jiangxi architecture and Huizhou architecture in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Beautiful horsehead walls are common in rural areas, but in bustling cities, horsehead walls are extremely rare and precious.

The tall and closed walls of Jiangxi buildings are patchy because of the design of horse-head wall, and the static and rigid walls show dynamic aesthetic feeling because of horse-head wall. Seen from a height, in the villages where people live in compact communities, the undulating Horsehead Wall gives people a sense of "Ma Benteng" visually, which also implies that the whole clan is full of vitality and prosperity.