China traditional architectural art

China has a long history of architecture and brilliant achievements. The square or round shallow caves excavated from Banpo site in Shaanxi have a history of six or seven thousand years. The Great Wall, built on a high mountain and winding in Wan Li, is a miracle in the history of human architecture. Anji Bridge, built in Zhao County, Hebei Province in Sui Dynasty, has long been at the forefront of bridge science in the world in terms of the perfect combination of technology and art; The existing wooden tower of Fogong Temple in Yingxian County, Shanxi Province is as high as 67. 1 m, which is the highest existing wooden structure in the world. The Forbidden City in Beijing in Ming and Qing Dynasties is the largest, beautifully built and well-preserved large-scale building complex in the world. As for the classical gardens in China, its unique artistic style makes it a pearl in China's heritage. This series of existing buildings with superb technology, exquisite art and unique style is unique in the architectural history of the world and is an important part of the splendid culture of ancient China. They are like history books with stone carvings, and at the same time they are art for people to watch, giving people beautiful enjoyment. China ancient architectural art is also an important object of artistic appreciation. The characteristics of ancient architectural art in China are various. From the perspective of art appreciation, there are the following aspects:

Clever and scientific frame structure

This is the most important feature of ancient architecture in China. Because the ancient buildings in China are mainly wooden frame structures, that is, wooden columns and beams form the frame of the house, and the weight of the roof and eaves is transferred to the columns through the beam frame, and the wall only plays the role of partition, not the structural part that bears the weight of the house. The old proverb "The wall falls down but the house doesn't fall down" generally points out the most important feature of China architecture as a frame structure. This structure can make the house meet the changing functional requirements of life and production under different climatic conditions. At the same time, because the house wall is not load-bearing, there is great flexibility in the setting of doors and windows. In addition, this frame-type wood structure has formed a unique component unique to high-rise buildings such as palaces and temples in the past, that is, a bunch of "bucket arches" under the eaves. It consists of bucket-shaped wood blocks and bow-shaped cross bars, which are criss-crossed and picked out layer by layer to form a support with a big top and a small bottom. This kind of member not only has the function of supporting the load-bearing beam frame, but also has the function of decoration. Only after the Ming and Qing Dynasties, due to the simplification of the structure, the beam was directly placed on the column, which led to the structural function of the bucket arch almost completely disappearing and almost becoming a pure ornament.

Courtyard group layout

From the images of ancient buildings in ancient documents and paintings to the existing ancient buildings, the plane layout of ancient buildings in China has a concise organizational law, that is, every building such as residence, palace, government office and temple is a courtyard surrounded by several single buildings, some cloisters and walls. Generally speaking, most courtyards are connected in series, reaching the backyard through the front yard, which is the product of China's feudal society's thought of "orderly aging, different inside and outside". The main characters in the family, or people who should be isolated from the outside world (such as girls from aristocratic families), often live in courtyards far from the outside door, forming a deep spatial organization of courtyards after courtyards. How deep is the courtyard written by Ouyang Xiu in Song Dynasty? In other words, the ancients once described the residence of a big bureaucrat as "the door is as deep as the sea", which vividly illustrated the important features of the layout of China architecture.

At the same time, this courtyard-style group and layout are generally designed symmetrically along the longitudinal axis (also known as the front and rear axis) and the horizontal axis. The more important buildings are placed on the vertical axis, and the secondary houses are placed on its left and right sides on the horizontal axis. The group layout of the Forbidden City in Beijing and the northern quadrangles is the typical example that best embodies this principle of group layout. This layout is closely related to the patriarchal clan system and the ethical code system in China feudal society. According to the feudal patriarchal clan system and hierarchical concepts, such as seniority, men and women, masters and servants, it is most convenient to make obvious differences in housing.

Compared with European architecture, the courtyard group layout in China has its unique artistic charm. Generally speaking, European architecture is more obvious. The ancient buildings in China, like a long scroll of Chinese painting, must be displayed one by one, and it is impossible to read them all at once. When you walk into the ancient buildings in China, you can only walk from one courtyard to another, and you must walk to see them. The Forbidden City in Beijing is the most prominent example. Every time people go in from Tiananmen Square, they will enter another courtyard. Walking from one end of the yard to the other, the scenery is changing step by step, giving people a deep feeling. The artistic image of the Forbidden City is deeply left in people's minds.

A colorful artistic image

As mentioned above, architecture is not only a technical science, but also an art. After long-term efforts, China ancient architecture absorbed the characteristics of other traditional arts in China, especially the plastic arts such as painting, sculpture and arts and crafts, and created colorful artistic images, and formed many characteristics in this respect. Among them, the following three aspects are more prominent.

1, decorating the roof

Ancient craftsmen in China discovered the possibility of using roofs to achieve artistic effects very early. In the Book of Songs, there is a phrase "wings of a temple", which shows that the poet praised the wings of the ancestral temple in his poems three thousand years ago. In the Han Dynasty, there were five basic roof forms in the later generations-the Temple Ding Dian with four slopes, the pyramid-shaped roof with four, six and eight slopes or a circle, the hard roof with two gables on two slopes flush with the roof, the overhanging roof with two slopes protruding from the gables, and the sloping roof with hanging mountains on the upper part and sloping around the lower part. Ancient craftsmen in China made full use of the characteristics of wood structure, created the roof's lifting and folding, the roof's tilting and protruding, and formed the soft and graceful curves of the cornices of birds' wings and various parts of the roof. At the same time, the ridge end of the roof is properly carved and the eaves tiles are decorated. After the Song Dynasty, glazed tiles were widely used to add color and luster to the roof. In addition, many other roof styles have appeared one after another, and various complex shapes with artistic effects have been combined from these roofs, which has made China ancient buildings gain rich experience in creating architectural artistic images by using roof forms and become one of the important features of ancient buildings in China.

2, the application of film building

The use of foil buildings is a common artistic treatment method for high-rise buildings such as palaces and temples in ancient China. Its function is to set off the main building. The earliest building with artistic characteristics was the "Que" built in front of the main entrance of the palace during the Spring and Autumn Period. In the Han Dynasty, besides palaces and tombs, temples and large and medium-sized tombs were also used. The existing Gaoyi Tomb in Ya 'an, Sichuan, is a typical work of the Han Dynasty, with exquisite shapes and carvings. Various forms of defects can often be seen in sculptures and murals after the Han Dynasty. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Que evolved into the meridian gate of the Forbidden City. Other common art setting-off buildings include huabiao, archway, zhaobi and stone lion in front of the palace.

3, the use of color

Ancient craftsmen in China were the boldest and the best at using colors in architectural decoration. This feature is closely related to the wood structure system of buildings in China. Because wood can't be used for a long time, China architecture has long adopted the method of painting and tung oil on wood, protecting wood and strengthening wood components through tenon-mortise combination, and at the same time increasing aesthetics, so as to achieve a combination of practicality, firmness and aesthetics. Later, the columns and beams were decorated in red, or colored paintings were painted on the beams and squares of the bucket arch. After long-term practice, China architecture has accumulated rich experience in color application. For example, in palaces and official buildings in the north, they are very good at using the contrast and harmony of bright colors. The main part of the house, that is, the part that can often get the sun, is generally warm, especially vermilion; The shadow under the eaves is a cool color with blue and green. This emphasizes the warmth of the sun and the gloom of the shadow, forming a pleasant contrast. Red doors and windows and blue-green eaves are often decorated with gold threads and dots, and there are also a few red dots between blue-green eaves, which makes the colorful painting patterns on the building more vivid and enhances the decorative effect. Some important memorial buildings, such as the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, have yellow, green or blue glazed tiles lined with one or even several layers of white marble abutments and railings. Under the crisp autumn sky in North China Plain and cloudless blue sky in Wan Li, its color effect is extremely moving. Of course, the formation of this color style is also related to the natural environment in the north to a great extent. Because on the flat and vast North China Plain, the scenery in winter is very monotonous and harsh. In such a natural environment, this bright color brings vitality and interest to the building. By the same token, in the south with beautiful mountains and rivers and evergreen seasons, the color of buildings is limited by the architectural hierarchy in feudal society on the one hand, and it is also because the south is evergreen all the year round and bloom all the year round. In order to coordinate the color of the building with the natural environment in the south, the color it uses is more elegant, and a beautiful and elegant style is composed of white walls, gray tiles and chestnut, black and dark green beams and columns. This color gives people a cool feeling in the hot summer in the south, unlike strong colors, which are easy to stimulate people. From here, we can also know that, in addition to the two main styles mentioned above, there are still some differences in the color application of ancient buildings in China, which are different in nationalities and regions.