Jiao Window
Author: Zhu Qianhua
Reading the Lingnan gardens, they are mottled and desolate, and the prosperity is exhausted, giving people an ethereal feeling. Smokey willows brush the shore, and the figures are far away. Many ancient gardens, those aged attics, old-style furniture, dim halls, mottled pillars, decayed and decadent, always make people feel that in the old house, the master is sitting upright, leaning on a stick in both hands, with a gray beard. But the banana plant in the garden is fresh and green, and few people will be indifferent to a banana plant in front of the window. It is not graceful, clever, and has no aura of nobility, but it is bright, clean, elegant, and full of vitality among the leaves.
When writing about windows in Lingnan gardens, they must be related to banana trees. In the old-style deep courtyard at the front, you can see ancient trees shaded by flowers and leaves everywhere. There are too many plants in Lingnan, but there is no plant that can be a perfect match for windows like banana. Banana windows best reflect the agility and artistic beauty of Lingnan culture. The green of the plantains resists the fine fragments of the leaves, and is vivid in large tracts. From the root, it stretches upward section by section, straight to the tip, and then overflows into the cloud-like leaves, creating an eternal beauty.
There is a balcony in front of my window, and there are several banana bushes under the balcony. My window is truly a banana window. The green waves are rippling in the spring sun, and the banana leaves are sparse and bright. Each plant has five or six leaves, green in color, shining in the sun. At that moment, heaven and earth were moved. At night, the moonlight becomes the background, and the goddess of the south floats down. Looking through the window sill, the whole world is new.
Lingnan’s hot climate makes garden designers pay special attention to the thermal insulation design of exterior walls. The key to this is the windows. The window openings in traditional buildings are small, with a lintel on top to provide sun protection. The window is divided into upper and lower parts. The upper part can be turned up and is a transom for ventilation. The lower part can be pushed flat to introduce natural wind according to the wind direction. There are also blinds, which are an important traditional design in Lingnan. They have the functions of sunshade, sun protection, heat insulation, wind guidance, and viewing.
The windows of Lingnan gardens can be described as a dazzling array of styles. The lighting, ventilation, framing, and furnishings are different, and the design of the garden window is also different. Among them, Manchurian windows, stained glass windows, and oyster shell windows are common styles in Lingnan classical gardens.
Manchurian window. This is the most common window style in old Lingnan houses and classical gardens. This is a puzzling mystery. The Manchus are an ancient ethnic group living in Northeast China. Why do southern buildings have Northeastern Manchurian windows? The origin of Manchuria windows can be traced back to the early Qing Dynasty. In 1650 AD (the seventh year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty), King Pingnan of the Qing Dynasty Shang Kexi and King Geng Jimao of Jingnan besieged Guangzhou City for nine months. Guangzhou fell. Massacre the city. Forty miles to the front, rear, left and right of the city, massacres were carried out, and more than 600,000 people died.
By 1652, Guangzhou became a world dominated by two kings. He also opened up 80 acres of land in Guangzhou city and built the South Prince's Mansion (its site is in today's Guangzhou city, starting from the Yingbin Hotel in the west and ending at Jixiang Road in the east). There are nine magnificent palaces in Manchu style. Other large and small official residences, commonly known as banner houses, are all imitated. This is where Manchuria Window comes from.
The Manchu people's ancestral home is in the northeast, where the land is cold and ice-cold. In order to provide ventilation and light indoors, before the advent of glass, windows were covered with paper. Due to the strong wind, the window paper is often broken. Therefore, more horizontal and vertical wooden strips are added to the window panes to make paper bones to make the window paper less likely to break. Among these wooden strips, there are window centers, mostly with irregular patterns and ice cracks, which are called Manchurian windows.
The rich patterns of the Manchurian windows are novel and unique, and the exquisite ice cracks are amazing. Rich households in Xiguan, Guangzhou, followed suit one after another. Since then, Manchurian windows have developed again, combined with the characteristics of Lingnan architecture, and integrated into screen doors, fences, flower walls and other designs. The wooden frame is mostly made of rosewood. The design of the window center is more refined. The flower hall of Yuyinshanfang in Panyu is separated from the front and back. The original calligraphy and painting are used as the window center, making the Manchurian window more ornamental. Outside the window center is the window lining. That is the part surrounding the center of the painting. Flower patterns are often used, such as crabapple pictures, bamboo patterns, etc.
With the exchanges between Lingnan and overseas cultures, the window paper of Manchurian windows has been replaced by more advanced stained glass imported from overseas.
Stained glass windows. The product of the combination of Chinese and Western cultures. After Guangzhou opened to free trade, foreign stained glass was also shipped to Guangzhou for sale. Stained glass is widely used in screen doors and flower windows. Creating works on colored glass is an original technique of Lingnan artists in the late Qing Dynasty. Using imported glass materials, etching, grinding or sandblasting and decolorizing techniques are used on it. Flowers, birds and cordyceps are painted on it, and landscapes of the four seasons are engraved on it. Together with various traditional rosewood flower windows, it becomes a perfect fusion of Chinese and Western cultures. Make the windows more elegant and beautiful.
Later, due to lack of raw materials and other reasons, the glass etching process was gradually lost.
In Lingnan classical gardens, a large number of Manchurian windows are well preserved. The most famous one is the Manchuria window in Yuyin Shanfang. Wo Lao Lu is a resting place specially designed for guests by the owner of the garden. Through the stained glass of the Manchurian window, you can enjoy the beautiful scenery of the four seasons in the garden. Through a single piece of blue glass, you can see the white snow outside and the winter snow scene covered with thousands of miles of ice. After opening the window, looking out from the overlapping blue glass on both sides, the mountains are red, as if you are in the fragrant mountains in late autumn. This is the magic of stained glass that astonishes visitors.
Oyster shell window. Oyster, also known as oyster. In southern Fujian, people call it oyster. People in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and other South China Sea waters call them oysters. Every winter and spring is the oyster harvest season. As the saying goes, from the winter solstice to the Qingming Festival, the oysters are full of fat. That is to say, from the beginning of the winter solstice to the Qingming Festival of the following year, the oyster meat is tender and juicy and the most delicious. Lingnan area, Chaozhou Hanjiang area, Raopingzhijingzhou, Zhongshan, Baoan and other places are all oyster producing areas.
Oyster meat is delicious, and its shell is also useful. Grind oyster shells into thin slices for use in windows. This is the most common type of window decoration in Lingnan. Before the advent of colored glass, oyster shells had been widely used in window decorations to provide lighting and privacy. Even after the advent of colored glass, it was still widely used. Because colored glass is expensive, few people can afford it except wealthy businessmen.
The uppermost floor of Yaoyue Pavilion in Keyuan has nearly thirty oyster shell windows. First, choose large, good-quality oyster shells and carefully grind them into uniform thin slices. This requires a lot of careful work. If you are not careful, it will be completely worn out and worn through. Fortunately, the ancients had plenty of time and were able to endure. The oyster shell windows are made, as thin as paper, and are inlaid on the windows and doors piece by piece. The light inside is soft and comfortable, which is really unique in Lingnan.
Sliding the window, there are several banana plants in front of the courtyard. In summer, banana leaves ripple in the sky, providing shade and large, green leaves that can be used to shade the windows. From a distance, it looks like an affectionate girl holding a banana fan and sending a piece of coolness to the scholar in the window.
The banana window is the most harmonious scene in Lingnan culture. The resulting guzheng piece "Night Rain on the Banana Window" has become a wonder in the history of Lingnan music. When I first heard it, the tempo was slower and gradually faded into the night. A little faster, the wind is about to pick up, as if the mountain rain is about to come. Gradually dark clouds began to gather, approaching from a distance, and the rain fell rapidly. The music speed and intensity increase, and a sudden rain arrives. In the last section, I jumped lightly, the night rain lightly hit the banana leaves, and the raindrops dripped from the banana leaves. Returning to tranquility, a clear breath after the rain.
The artistic conception of this famous Lingnan song that one can never tire of hearing comes from Chao Buzhi's "Huanxi Sand". Word cloud:
The autumn wind howls on the river. The sound of the river keeps coming. Don't leave my soul behind for you.
I stayed up all night alone, listening to the rustle of rain in my ears. There are bananas outside the green gauze window.
Actually, such heartbreaking Song poetry is not suitable for Lingnan. Lingnan culture is more about the integration of nature, the promotion of human nature and the love and beauty of life. Listening to the rainy night leaves outside the banana window, the morning smoke on the water bank is thick with willow color. In the classical gardens of Lingnan, the houses and ancient trees will gradually age. Only the banana leaves in front of the window are always new and evergreen.
In some areas of Lingnan, Bajiao is a graceful girl. Huazhou was a country of bananas in ancient times. To this day, there are still patches of wild bananas in the mountains of Huabei. Local mountain people mostly believe that the banana trees are possessed by banana girls and are spiritual, and they are in awe of these wild bananas. When the plantain buds emerge, they reveal their delicate red leaves. Late at night, you can hear the crisp popping sound of buds. The banana buds are opening the core of the buds, and the white and red tender buds are sticking out from the roots of the leaves. When harvesting bananas, local mountain people always burn incense and pray for a good harvest and peace.
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Stone Bridge
Author: Zhu Qianhua
Lingnan has a lot of rain, mountains and rivers, and numerous streams. Traffic is usually blocked by rivers. The ancient Yue people were good at boating, and they often used wooden bridges to cross dangerous mountain streams. The Lingnan area is often hit by typhoons and rainstorms, making river crossings a dangerous place. Zeng Jiang's "Guangji Bridge Records" of the Song Dynasty says: "The waves are violent and violent." There is often a risk of drowning. Building bridges has become a practical move for local officials to do things for the people, so as to relieve the obstruction of rivers and facilitate people's communication. Where there are many rivers, there are many bridges. There are many bridges in the vast land of Lingnan.
They either hang in deep mountains and canyons, or float on rivers, lakes and seas. Moreover, Lingnan people began to sublimate those ancient bridges with unique styles and integrate them into garden architecture. In Lingnan classical gardens, there are still stone bridges, wooden bridges, stone arch bridges, porous bridges, covered bridges, pavilion bridges, etc. Most bridges in gardens combine practicality and ornamental use, and also serve to divide the garden space.
The stone bridges in the garden have different styles. Its plastic arts and various decorations on the bridge, such as words, pictures, reliefs, corridors, pavilions, etc., are organically integrated with the bridge and embody people's yearning for a better life. Literati often describe the long bridge with the image of a blue dragon lying on the waves, a rainbow rising across the sky, and the image of a crescent moon emerging from the sky, with a half-sunken jade ring used to describe an arch bridge.
The primitive forests in Lingnan are densely covered with various ancient trees. Early bridges were mostly wooden bridges. According to "Huizhou Prefecture Chronicles", there was the Xixin Bridge on the West Lake in Huizhou during the Song Dynasty. Its scale was unprecedented. The bridge was solid with thousands of pillars, pavilions were built on the bridge, and the bridge and the building were integrated into one. Thousands of bridge pillars are lined up on the blue waves. What a majestic momentum it is. On the pedestrian bridge, it's like swimming in a painting. For a time, this bridge became a scenic spot in Huizhou's lakes and mountains. There are also records of this bridge in historical records: the nine flying pavilions are all made of rock salt wood. Rock salt wood, the name of ancient wood. Produced in the south, it is solid and durable, and termites dare not invade.
In Rongqi Town, Shunde, there is an ancient stream. Because it flows through Dapeng Mountain, it is named Pengxi. Both sides of the bank are lined with ocher stones, connecting Tingbu Huakou to the south and Ershan Waterway to the north. The stream runs through all the villages in Rongqi. Pengxi has a great name, but it has no clear water. Only the trickling stream flows, day and night. There was originally a stone bridge over the stream, with the words "Pengyong Bridge" engraved on it. It is said to have been written by Huang Juan, a Jinshi from Shunde in the Ming Dynasty. The rear axle collapsed. On both sides of Shipeng River, ancient banyan trees form shades, and their aerial roots stretch across the stream. The villagers laid wooden planks to form a natural tree bridge, which became a wonder in Lingnan. The bridge is still there and has a history of more than 300 years.
Before the Ming Dynasty, the stone materials for Lingnan stone bridges were mainly sandstone and shale due to the limitations of quarrying technology. By the Qing Dynasty, granite was mainly used as a bridge construction material. Granite is strong, resistant to erosion, floods and typhoons. In addition, the stone bridge's architecture also pays attention to its shape and beauty. On a stone bridge, there can be a variety of stone combinations of different colors to increase the beauty. Heping County is located in northeastern Guangdong, on the upper reaches of the Dongjiang River. There is a famous stone bridge, Youzhuba Bridge, in Yousheng Township. It was built during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. Three-hole stone beam bridge. The bridge deck is made of two kinds of stone slabs, red and cyan, staggered at intervals. The colors are simple and gorgeous, making it a peaceful scene.
The bridge in Lingnan classical gardens is small, exquisite and graceful in shape. The original garden bridge can be traced back to the Liuhua Bridge in the Spring Garden of Nanhan Palace in the Five Dynasties. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, China fell into a period of turmoil and division, and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms emerged. Among them, the Southern Han Dynasty was in Guangzhou. The Southern Han Dynasty took advantage of the superior geographical and natural conditions of Lingnan and carried out many large-scale construction projects, including palaces, gardens, pavilions and pavilions. Among them, Liuhua Bridge is a representative work of bridge architecture in Lingnan gardens. It has a long history and is full of legend.
Liuhua Bridge is a famous bridge in the history of Lingnan. It was built more than a thousand years ago during the Five Dynasties and Southern Han Dynasty. It is located on the north side of Jinhan Exhibition Center on Liuhua Road, Guangzhou City, running north-south and slightly east. It was originally a wooden bridge. More than a thousand years ago, this area was the famous Orchid Lake in Guangzhou. The Liu family of the Southern Han Dynasty built Fangchun Garden here, also known as Ganquan Garden. It is said that the maids of the Liu family got up early to dress up and threw flowers into the water. Fallen flowers were colorful and floated on the bridge, so it became famous as the Flower Bridge.
According to the "Spring and Autumn Annals of the Southern Han Dynasty": Liuhua Bridge is located in the north of Huicheng (now Guangzhou City) and reaches Lizhi Bay in the west. It can be traveled by boat and is connected to Ganquanyuan. Later, passers-by often picked up hairpins and pearls after the rain, and they knew them to be relics of the subjugated country (Southern Han Dynasty). I remember when the Liu family built a garden here, the land was vast and sparsely populated, but there were countless exotic flowers and trees. The garden has winding water and is shaded by flowers and trees. Under the Liuhua Bridge, small boats can be accessed. Peach blossoms are planted on both sides of the bank, and the red peach blossoms and the green willow trees complement each other for miles.
Dongguan Keyuan has a double clearing room downstairs and a Zhanming Bridge outside. Although the bridge is small, it is exquisite and elegant. The small stone bridge was originally made of granite, but now it is converted into an arch bridge. Shuangqing Hall is named Shuangqing because of the Zhanming Bridge and Quchi in front of the hall. The clear water of Zhulan reflects the Yazi Hall and Yingshan Pavilion beside the pool. This bridge is placed between a mountain stream, a plank road, a meandering water, and a square pavilion. It has a staggered and hidden shape, enlivening the close space in the garden. Cross the stream and pond, and build it along the road. Under the bridge, the water flows and fish and shrimps play. Surrounded by cypresses, green vines, green grass and flowers. Lian Yun: Walking on the red bridge, I realize the reason for the joy of swimming fish; watching the curved water, I think about the reason for the fragrant green lotus.
The Yuyin Mountain House in Panyu has a covered bridge that is painted red and spans green. The water corridor spans the water surface and is divided into two major scenic spots in the east and west.
It can also connect with the main buildings such as Shenliu Hall in the West District, Linchi Villa and Linglong Waterside Pavilion in the East District, forming a wonderful picture with scenes within paintings. There are five stone steps in front and behind the bridge. There is a stone arch under the bridge and the bridge pavilion is on the top of the mountain. The front and back inscriptions are red on the forehead and green on the cross. Hence the name. There are railings on the bridge that can be hung down, and both ends are connected to the wind and rain corridor, which is more than 20 meters long. There are beauty seats on both sides of the corridor. Take a break on the water corridor, look up at the sky, look down at the garden, smell the fragrance of the lotus in the pond, and let people feel the deep and clear artistic conception between the natural mountains and rivers.
Pavilions and corridors are often built on ancient Lingnan bridges. There are many winds and rains in Lingnan. The original pavilions and corridors were used as shelters for pedestrians and also had a protective effect on the bridge body. Nowadays, most of the covered bridges in Lingnan are isolated in the mountains. There are also some exquisite covered bridges preserved in various classical gardens. There is also a covered bridge, built in the bustling market, which doubles as a market. For example, the Guangji Bridge in Chaozhou was once said to be one mile long bridge and one mile long city. The old De'an Bridge in Guancheng, Dongguan, was called the City Bridge because the bridge was a city.
There are also many covered bridges in Chaoshan, Meizhou and other places in eastern Guangdong. Use mostly fir. Many villages and towns in the Pearl River Delta have ancient bridges, with watchtowers or bridge houses built at the ends of the bridges for protection. Such as the Shijing Bridge in Guangzhou. There are also archways and stone towers built in the middle of ancient bridges or at the head of the bridge. There is Yungui Bridge in Xiaogang Park in Guangzhou, with a stone archway at the head of the bridge and a plaque inscribed with the title: The birth of Yungui. There is also the Zhennu Bridge in Longjiang Town, Shunde, with the Zhennu Relics Archway. Stone bridges and stone towers are mostly built to suppress water. In river sections prone to flooding, towers were built to control water monsters. In the northern section of Taiping Road in Chaozhou City, there was an ancient bridge from the Song Dynasty, named Taiping Bridge. When it was first built, four small stone towers were built at both ends of the bridge for protection.
Among the Lingnan bridge art, the Chaozhou Guangji Bridge has the most amazing scenery and beautiful shapes. There was no bridge in the original river, and stones were stacked in the center of the river, mainly used for tying boats. Later, stone islands were added, pavilions were built on the islands, and floating bridges were built between the stone islands to provide pedestrians with a place to rest and shelter from wind and rain. However, the pontoon bridge across the river was too long, making it difficult for boats and rafts to pass through. So we built another island, a few steps away from the west bank, with giant trees on top and boats and rafts on the bottom. It forms a unique landscape that combines a beam bridge and an opening and closing pontoon bridge.
Later, Guangji Bridge added piers and beams, and underwent large-scale reconstruction many times. Until now, it has formed a grand and spectacular scene integrating beam bridge, pontoon bridge and arch bridge. It is known as the first bridge in Baiyue.
The covered bridge is called Fengyu Bridge among the Baiyue Dong people. It is unique in Lingnan. Corridors and attics are built on the bridge. The most famous covered bridge, Chengyang Bridge in Sanjiang, Guangxi, is a typical example. This bridge was built in 1916. Across the Linxi River, it is a pavilion-style building with stone piers and wooden structures, with two piers, three piers and four holes. There are five tower pavilions and nineteen bridge corridors built on the piers and abutments. The pavilions and corridors are connected and integrated into one, very majestic and spectacular. It is currently the best-preserved and largest Fengyu Bridge. It embodies the wisdom of Dong people.
Lingnan classical gardens are a beautiful chapter of Lingnan culture. The stone bridge in the garden can give people the feeling of Lingnan water town, and let people feel the beauty of long bridges, short bridges and twists and turns of painted railings. Moving the boat to Yanzhu, you can admire the sentimental wind and willow trees.