The Artistic Image of Ancient Chinese Architecture

As early as half a million years ago in the Paleolithic Age, Chinese primitive people already knew to utilize natural caves as shelter, and cliff caves where primitive people had lived have been found in Beijing, Liaoning, Guizhou, Guangdong, Hubei, Zhejiang and other places. By the Neolithic Age, the clan tribes in the middle reaches of the Yellow River utilized layers of loess for walls, and built semi-cave dwellings with wooden frames and grass mud, which in turn developed into buildings on the ground and formed settlements. The Yangtze River basin, because of the humidity and rain, often flooding and animal damage, and thus the development of dry bar type building. In this regard, there are many records in ancient literature that "constructed wood as nests to avoid group damage" and "the upper one is a nest, and the lower one is a cave". According to archaeological excavations, about 6,000 to 7,000 years ago, ancient Chinese people were known to use mortise and tenon construction of wooden frame houses (e.g., the Hemudu site in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province), and a number of primitive settlements have been found in the Yellow River basin (e.g., the Half Slope site in Xi'an, and the Jiangzhai site in Lintong). In these settlements, the living area, burial area, and pottery production site are clearly divided into zones with a coherent layout. The form of wooden frame has already appeared, and the plan form of the house is also round, square, lv-shaped and so on due to the different manufacturing and function. This is China's ancient architecture of the grass-roots stage.

Twenty-first century BC Xia Dynasty was established, marking the end of primitive society, after the Xia, Shang, Zhou three generations, and the Spring and Autumn period, the Warring States, on the ground in China has built a lot of capitals, rammed earth technology has been widely used in the construction of walls and platforms. Such as Henan Yanshi Erlitou early Shang capital site, there are long, wide are 100 meters of rammed earth platform, platform built on the eight room hall, surrounded by gallery. At this time the wooden structure technology compared to the primitive society has been greatly improved, there are axes, knives, saws, chisels, drills, shovels and other specialized tools for processing wood components. Wooden frame and rammed earth technology have been formed, and made some progress. Western Zhou built Fengjing, Haojing and Luoyang's Wangcheng, Cheng Zhou; Spring and Autumn, Warring States vassal states are each created to the palace as the center of the capital city. These capital cities are rammed earth version of the building, the wall around the city, with tall gates. Palace layout in the city, built on rammed earth platform, wooden frame has become the main structural method, the roof has begun to use ceramic tile, and wooden frame decorated with colorful paintings. This marks the ancient Chinese architecture already has a prototype, whether rammed earth technology, wood technology or building facade modeling, plan layout, as well as the manufacture and use of building materials, color, decorative use, have reached the prototype stage. This is the basis for the development of ancient Chinese architecture in the following generations. In 221 B.C., after Qin Shi Huang annexed the six kingdoms of Han, Zhao, Wei, Chu, Yan and Qi, he established a centralized empire and used the whole country's manpower and material resources to build the capital city, palaces and tombs in Xianyang. Nowadays, from the ruins of Afang Palace (to be verified) and the large-scale terracotta warriors and horses lined up and buried in pits on the east side of the First Emperor's Mausoleum, it is possible to imagine the magnificence of the construction at that time. In addition, the construction of the national road, building the Great Wall to prevent the Huns from moving southward, and the Spirit Nullah to facilitate water transportation. These huge projects, often mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people, almost all at the same time, the Qin empire ended up with too much extravagance, the poor use of people's power, the second and died.

The Han dynasty following the Qin, after about half a century of rest and recuperation, and then entered a large-scale construction period. Han Wu Di Liu Che has five large-scale construction of the Great Wall, open up the Silk Road to West Asia; and the construction of Chang'an City of Gui Palace, bright Palace and the southwest outskirts of the Jianzhang Palace, Shanglin Yuan. The end of the Western Han Dynasty also built in the southern suburbs of Chang'an Mingtang, Piyong. Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty, according to the former site of the Eastern Zhou capital of the city of Luoyang and its palaces.

Total Qin, Han five hundred years, due to national unity, national strength, China's ancient architecture in its own history, the first development of the climax. The main body of its structure of the wooden frame has tended to mature, the general use of arch on important buildings. Diversified roof forms, hipped, hiatus, overhanging hills, save the tip, hoarding roofs have appeared, some are widely used. Brick and masonry structures and arch structures have been a new development.

Continuing Development and Buddhism

The Jin Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties were a period of great national integration in Chinese history, during which traditional architecture continued to develop and Buddhist architecture was introduced. Soon after the Western Jin Dynasty unified China, the Eight Kings Rebellion broke out, and several leaders of ethnic minorities on the northwestern border led their troops into the Central Plains and established a dozen regimes, known as the Sixteen Kingdoms period. Only in 460 CE did the Northern Wei Dynasty unify northern China, and then split again. In the south, the Jin family moved south to establish the Eastern Jin regime, followed by the Song, Qi, Liang and Chen dynasties. This was the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties in history. Since then, the socio-economic recovery of China's north and south has gradually taken place, with the capital city of Luoyang built during the Northern Dynasty and the city of Jiankang built during the Southern Dynasty. These capitals and palaces were built on the basis of the previous generation, and their scale and momentum were far inferior to those of Qin and Han.

Buddhism was introduced to China during the Eastern Han Dynasty, when it developed, and the Northern and Southern regimes built a wide range of Buddhist temples, and Buddhist temples and pagodas were prevalent for a time. According to records, the Northern Wei Dynasty built more than 30,000 Buddhist temples, only Luoyang has built 1,367 temples. Jiankang, the capital of the Southern Dynasties, also built more than 500 Buddhist temples. In many areas, cave temples were also excavated and statues of Buddha were carved. Important cave temples include the Datong Yungang Grottoes, Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, Tianshui Maiji Mountain Grottoes, Luoyang Longmen Grottoes, Taiyuan Tianlong Mountain Grottoes, and Fengfeng South and North Ringing Mountain Grottoes. This makes this period of Chinese architecture, blended into many from India (Tianzhu), West Asia's architectural form and style. The architecture of the Sui and Tang dynasties, not only inherited the achievements of the previous generation, but also the integration of foreign influences, forming an independent and complete architectural system, ancient Chinese architecture to a mature stage, and spread far and wide influence in Korea and Japan.

The Sui dynasty was a short-lived dynasty of less than forty years, but it did a lot of work in architecture. It built the capital city of Daxing, created the eastern capital of Luoyang, and operated Jiangdu (Yangzhou) on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It dug the Grand Canal, which was about 2,500 kilometers long, starting from Yuhang (Hangzhou) in the south, reaching Zhuo County (Beijing) in the north, Jiangdu in the east, and Chang'an (Xi'an) in the west. The Great Canal is about 2,500 kilometers long and the Great Wall of China was built with millions of people. During Emperor Yang's Daye years (605-618), Li Chun, a famous craftsman, built Anji Bridge, one of the world's earliest open-shoulder boulder bridges, in present-day Zhao County, Hebei Province.

The pre-Tang Dynasty, after more than 100 years of stable development, was characterized by economic prosperity, national strength and far-reaching boundaries, reaching its peak in the Kaiyuan years (714-741). Huge palaces, courts, and government offices continued to be built in Chang'an, the capital, and Luoyang, the eastern capital. Throughout the country, many famous local cities, commercial and handicraft cities appeared, such as Guangling (Yangzhou), Quanzhou, Hongzhou (Nanchang), Mingzhou (Ningbo), Yizhou (Chengdu), Youzhou (Beijing), Jingzhou (Jiangling), and Guangzhou. Due to the development of industry and commerce, many new changes in the layout of these cities appeared.

The Tang Dynasty in the capital and local towns built a large number of temples and pagodas, Taoist temples, and inherited the previous generation continued to chisel the grottoes and Buddhist temples, the remains of the famous Wutai Mountain Buddha Light Temple Hall, the South Ch'an Temple Temple Hall, Xi'an Ci'en Temple Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Recommended Fukuji Temple Small Wild Goose Pagoda, the Xingjiao Temple of the Xuanzang Pagoda, the Dali Thousand Pagodas, as well as a number of grotto temples, and so on. During this period, the construction technology has a new development, wood frame has been able to correctly use the material properties, architectural design is known to use the "material" for the design of wood frame standards, the court formulated a decree on the renovation, set up to master the rope and ink, drawing drawings and management of the building of the officials.

Song, Liao and Jin

Development of architecture in the Song, Liao and Jin Dynasties and the promulgation of the "Construction Methods"

From the Late Tang Dynasty onwards, China entered a period of more than three hundred years of division and war, starting from the Liang, Tang, Jin, Han, the five dynastic dynasties and the ten local regimes, followed by the Song and the Liao and Jin Dynasties, and then the north-south confrontation, which resulted in the great destruction of China's society and economy, as well as the decline of its economy. Architecture also fell from the peak of the Tang Dynasty, and there was no capital city and palace as large as Chang'an. Due to the development of commerce, handicrafts, urban layout, building technology and art, there are many improvements and breakthroughs. For example, the city gradually evolved from the Li Fang system of the previous generation to the layout of street stores and streets. In terms of building technology, the early Liao Dynasty inherited more of the characteristics of the Tang Dynasty, while the later Jin Dynasty, the building inherited the characteristics of the Liao and Song dynasties and some development. In terms of architectural art, since the Northern Song Dynasty, a change in the grand and majestic momentum of the Tang Dynasty, but to the delicate, delicate aspects of the development of architectural decoration is also more elaborate.

The Northern Song Dynasty, in the second year of the Chongning era (1103), the court issued and published the "Building Code". This is a book about the norms of architectural design and construction, is a perfect construction technology specialized book. The purpose of promulgation was to strengthen the management of official buildings such as palaces, temples, government offices and mansions. The book summarizes the experience of building technology since generations, and formulates the building model system of "material as ancestor". The building's function limit and material example made a strict limit, which was used as a guideline for budgeting and construction organization. The promulgation of this book reflects that by the Song Dynasty, ancient Chinese architecture had reached a new historical level in terms of engineering technology and construction management. Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties ruled China for more than six hundred years, during which time, except for the short period of wars at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the end of the Ming Dynasty, the situation of China's unification was largely maintained. As the development of ancient Chinese society has been the end of the socio-economic and cultural development is slow, so the history of the building can only be the last development of the climax. The Yuan Dynasty built the metropolis and its palaces, while the Ming Dynasty created the southern and northern capitals and their palaces. In terms of architectural layout, compared with the Song Dynasty is more mature, reasonable. Ming and qing dynasties big construction of imperial courts and private gardens, formed for China's history of a gardening climax. Lamaism building construction, is entirely out of the political needs of the Qing court, a time in Mongolia, Tibet, Gan, Qing and other places widely built Lama Temple, Chengde alone has built eleven. These temples are large-scale, beautifully made, is a strange type in the history of the development of ancient Chinese architecture. The Ming and Qing dynasties recently, many architectural masterpieces have been preserved to this day, such as the capital of the palace, altar and temple, the suburbs of the capital of the garden, the two dynasties of the emperor's tomb, Jiangnan gardens, throughout the country of the Buddhist temples and pagodas, Taoist temples and Taoist palaces, and folk dwellings, city walls, etc., constituting the history of ancient China's architecture of the glorious chapter.