Buddha's niche style of Buddha's niche

Famous architectural historian Liu Zhiping has pointed out that "China for niches, hide, stone lamps, memorial columns, incense burners and other small items, usually with small houses to solve the problem of styling, which is a kind of habit, but also has the meaning of the small things made big, looks extraordinarily exquisite."

"Indeed, in the Qing Palace in the niche not only to 'house' modeling accounted for a large proportion, which in turn to simulate the official building for the bulk of the people, such as palace-style niches, pavilion-style niches, pavilion-style niches and various types of pagoda niches and so on. The value of the Qing Palace niche is not only in itself is a category of architecture, more importantly, because most of the ancient Chinese buildings are wooden and difficult to retain for a long time, so the value of the niche as a microcosm of the building is even more precious." He Fang told reporters.

In the Qing Palace Hall of Buddha's prominent position, usually placed in the style of the proposed palace and fully in accordance with the proportion of the entity made of miniature Buddha niche. On the roof, often carved arch, in the body of the column, for the Buddha; under the pedestal, commonly used Sumeru. Each detail is not randomly designed, but has a strong ethical character, reflecting the strict hierarchy of feudal society. Such as the style of the roof, the number of decorative animals, as well as the arch, color painting patterns, etc., are strictly regulated.

In addition to the palace-style niches, the Forbidden City in the number of people, the style is quite a lot of the proposed religious architecture for niches, which is most notable to the tower-style niches. Tower is a type of building with Buddhism and introduced into our country, the Qing dynasty palace craftsmen from historical documents, wall paintings, stone carvings to learn from a wealth of nutrients, made by the tower niche style in addition to the traditional pavilion type, heavy eaves, etc., there are many bold variations as well as a combination of styles, the most Qing dynasty palace is characterized by the "three towers niches" and "five tower niche", a synthesis of the typical architecture of China and Tibet, the top of the arrangement of three or five Lama Acacia Tower, on behalf of the "Three Buddhas" or "five Buddhas and five Zhi" meaning.

In addition, there are similar monks training "hut" style niches, and some even change the shape of the lotus, experts say its inspiration may come from the cave murals or Tibetan thangka. In short, the palace craftsmen to use their skills, the representative features of religious buildings around the condensed to the Palace of the Buddha in the Hall.

Additionally, it is common to see Buddhist shrines modeled after garden-style buildings. One of the eye-catching work is the pavilion niche, its writing method of extreme imagination and creation, become the most varied and ornamental style in the Qing dynasty palace niches. Pavilion-style modeling niche is divided into garden pavilion type, square pavilion type, rectangular pavilion type and four corners, hexagonal, octagonal pavilion type. The top of the most colorful changes, there are hiatus, overhanging mountains, save the tip, out of the top, etc., some of the eaves design is even more varied and strange, light and wonderful.

In addition to the above modeling, there is a proposed traditional artifacts modeling niches. Such as screen niches, inspired by the Tibetan thangka "lacquer clay Buddha hanging screen niche" is unique to the Qing Palace characteristics of the decorative screen. This form was later developed into all the theme of the Buddha's infinite longevity hanging screen niche, as the dowager empress or the emperor's birthday wishes. In addition, the gourd-shaped niche is also common in the Qing Palace Buddha niche style, it is a gourd and its variants as a carrier, often for the Buddha to 3, 6, 9, or multiples of 9 for a group of appearances. The reason why the choice of gourd-shaped, because the traditional view of gourd seed, vine stretching, symbolizing the proliferation of offspring, endless. In addition, the gourd is also due to "fortune, fortune" resonance become "fortune and fortune generations" of auspicious objects, so there are a large number of artifacts in the Qing dynasty used gourd modeling. Surprisingly, this modeling is used by the niche makers, and enshrined Tibetan Buddhism God, just shows that the Qing emperors think of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, "the same out of the original, the Road and not contrary to the concept of". In addition, in the middle and late Qianlong niche archives, began to appear frequently in the "Western-style niche" records, becoming a unique style. Decoration also used a lot of "passion flower pattern", "passion Portuguese pattern", "passion flower and grass pattern", creating a strong Western mood.