Ancient Architecture: Ancient Doors and Windows - The Rhythm of Ancient Fragrance and Color

Like the status of Chinese mahogany furniture in the history of Chinese furniture culture, doors and windows in Chinese architectural decoration culture also contains a profound cultural meaning. In the eyes of the ancients, doors and windows are like a curtain between the sky and the people. Ancient China, especially the Ming (1368-1644) Qing (1644-1911) period of the flower windows and flower panels, set of rich and noble phase, elegant style in one, not only has a rich cultural connotation, but also exquisite carving, giving a person a high visual enjoyment, and a certain collector's value and a high degree of decorative utility, and is increasingly becoming one of the most fashionable decorative materials for modern homes.

The art of windows and doors

From the perspective of Chinese architectural history, the core of the development of architectural art is the evolution of the proportion of wooden components, curvature, combination and other arts. The maturity of the structural art, so that the ancient Chinese craftsmen space expressively completed the structure of doors and windows and the way of combination. The cultural connotation of ancient Chinese doors and windows is expressed by the door and window decorations and patterns, and the decorations of the doors and windows also reflect the vastly different aesthetic tastes, status and wealth symbols of the owners of the houses - officials, merchants and literati.

Ancient doors and windows are generally carved with good nanmu, cypress, after hundreds of years, not deformed at all, after years of use, but moistened more shiny. In the carving method is also quite complex, doors, windows, partitions, each part is decorated with different patterns, the most typical is the auspicious category of Fu (bats), Luk (deer), life (unicorn), hi (magpie), peonies, orchids, and other authentic traditional Han Chinese carving patterns. Some homes have a thin layer of gold leaf on the windows to show their wealth, which is still visible after a hundred years. Readers of the home of the door of the carving of poems and paintings, Buddhism of the home of the carving of the door of the cloud gong umbrella cover, Maitreya Buddha and other Buddhist motifs, from the door can be roughly judged from the family's origins, preferences.

Windows and flowers according to the wood can be divided into nanmu, camphor wood, cypress, boxwood, longan wood, mahogany, etc., according to the wood there are different carving techniques and forms of expression, such as round carving, bas-relief, line carving, translucent carving and so on. There are roughly three schools of ancient door and window wood carving: the first is the Oriental wood carving, which is shallow and detailed; the second is the Anhui Hui school, where the carving goes from deep to shallow; and then there is one kind which is the Fujian Yongchun, which is usually characterized by characters and plots, which is comfortable for people to look at. Most of the flower panels come from doors, windows, tables, beds, chairs, screens and so on.

Door and window decorations and patterns have the following classification:

1, geometric patterns

Where a variety of straight lines, curves, and circles, triangles, squares, rhombuses, trapezoids and so on, constituting a regular or irregular geometric patterns to do decorative patterns, collectively known as geometric patterns. Doors and windows on the geometric pattern is the most important means of decoration, which includes a variety of variants and a variety of combinations. Geometric patterns in the most simple four-sided, hexagonal, triangular and other forms, but also starlight, windmills and other literary meanings of the form, as well as the corner of the rounded treatment is commonly known as a vine, tugging on the symbolism, the form of good luck, coupled with a variety of geometric forms of combinations such as the outer square and inner circle, a large area of ice cracks and so on. Geometric patterns as the main body of the decorative strength is that the regularity is strong, and therefore rich in rhythm and rhyme. Large areas of neatly organized decoration, strong visual impact. Especially when the number of window sashes and partitions is large, the effect is very obvious. Geometric pattern is an abstract pattern, so the literary allegory is not so direct, more difficult to understand.

2, trees and flowers

Trees and flowers are often used in ancient auspicious motifs, the ancients gave life to the literature of plants, focusing on the intrinsic qualities of all types of plants, to advocate. For example, "plum orchids, bamboo and chrysanthemums" four gentlemen, "pine, bamboo and plum" three friends and so on. Here, the personality of plants is a specific portrayal of the social norms of morality. In the Ming and Qing dynasty doors and windows, a large number of plant motifs.