Decorative Art of Doors and Windows in Southern Jiangxi: Taking Bailu Ancient Village as an Example

Yuting XIAO, Xiaoyun LI, Yishun ZHOU

College of City Construction, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China

Abstract China, as a country with 56 ethnic groups, has different geographical location, historical development and national customs. Residents in different places have incorporated different cultural characteristics when building local houses. This differentiated cultural and artistic feature is a reflection of the cultural connotation in a specific age and region. However, cultural protection is not always perfect. Many details are missed in this torrent of conservation culture, and door and window decorations are in this position. When collecting data, it is found that there is very little research on door and window decoration in Jiangxi. In this study, taking the doors and windows of Bailu Ancient Village as an example, combined with the cultural history of door and window decoration in southern Jiangxi, the artistic essence and historical value of the decorative patterns of houses were discussed. After searching a large number of documents, a field investigation was conducted in Bailu Ancient Village. Through direct observation of doors and windows and asking local residents about their understanding of door and window decoration, the history, current situation and future of door and window decoration in Bailu Ancient Village were described in detailed and predicted roughly.

Key words Bailu Ancient Village, Decorative art, Cultural significance, Realistic value

1 Introduction

Due to the rapid development of society and the instability and lack of culture, many people are terrified. Therefore, the continuous development of traditional ancient villages has turned more and more historical and cultural villages into tourist attractions. The traditional architectural elements and various intangible cultural heritages in the ancient villages are in a difficult situation under the pressure of modernization and interests. In many historical and cultural villages, due to inadequate protection measures, many traditional elements of the refurbished buildings are almost invisible. The rich historical information and cultural landscapes contained in traditional villages have disappeared. In 2012, the Expert Committee on the Protection and Development of Traditional Villages decided to change the customary title "ancient village" to "traditional village"[1]. Research and restoration of traditional villages in various places also started in an orderly manner. As of 2019, a total of five batches of the list of Chinese traditional villages have been published, with a total of 6 819, 343 of which are distributed in Jiangxi. Experts and scholars from various places have done detailed exploration and research on most traditional villages. The academic achievements on the decorative art of doors and windows in traditional villages are also very fruitful. Nevertheless, in order to better protect the cultural landscape and pass on civilization, a part of the ancient buildings in the ancient village, namely the doors and windows, were studied in this paper. Through the gaps between the doors and windows, the charm of the ancient architecture decoration was exhibited.

2 Overview of the architecture of Bailu Ancient Village

Bailu Ancient Village, which has been built more than 870 years ago, is located in the northernmost part of Ganxian District, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province. It is on the border of Ganxian County, and adjacent to Xingguo and Wan’an counties. The total area of the village is about 1 km2, with a population of nearly 3 000 people. The village is an important education base for studying Hakka culture, religious culture, and ancestral temple culture in southern Jiangxi. Since Zhong’s founding the foundation in the sixth year of the Shaw family in the Southern Song Dynasty, under the hard work of the ancestors, villagers in Bailu Ancient Village have cultivated a unique Hakka culture on the basis of inheriting the Central Plains culture. In the cultural tradition of Bailu Ancient village, the villagers usually go to business after farming well and enter the official carrier after doing business well. Therefore, the architecture of Bailu Ancient Village is different from the mainstream architectural style in southern Jiangxi[2]. It has Hakka dwellings, local dwellings and Huizhou dwellings, similar to the residential style in the middle reaches of the Ganjiang River. There are 45 ancient Ming and Qing buildings preserved in the village. The earliest one can be traced back to the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the latest one was built in the eighth year of the Republic of China (1919), most of which were built during the Qianlong, Jiaqing and Daoguang periods of the Qing Dynasty. The buildings in the village are mostly built around the mountains and rivers, and in the densely built part, the houses are distributed in crescent shape along Luxi Creek. They all have blue bricks, gray tiles, brick and wood structure, exquisite materials, fine structure. From the perspective of composition, each building entity surrounds a hollow patio type building. There are four main roads in the village, resembling a Chinese character "豐", implying that the people are numerous and products are plentiful[3].

3 Brief analysis of the current situation and decorative art of doors and windows in Bailu Ancient Village

The decorative art of ancient architecture in China mainly has two parts, namely color painting and sculpture. Color painting can protect the wood from direct attack by wind and rain in nature, and sculpture can enrich the architectural style. Residential decoration art mainly uses local materials, techniques and measures according to local conditions, to reflect the beauty of art through patterns, shapes, furnishings, colors and other artistic methods. For doors and windows, brick carving, stone carving, gray sculpture, pottery sculpture, painting and other forms are used, to form different patterns, textures, styles and charms and give different cultural connotations to each component of doors and windows, so as to achieve the purpose of enriching the external forms and internal culture of doors and windows. At the same time, they also entrust the owner’s pursuit of happiness and "beauty".

3.1 Windows

3.1.1Types of windows in Bailu Ancient Village. The size of the windows in Bailu Ancient Village varies greatly. The large window opening is about 1 m, while the small one is only 30 cm. The windows are mostly rectangular, with three colors: brown, dark red, and gray. Patterns are divided into four categories: birds, flowers, text, and line[4]. Due to the constraints of local conditions, the windows are mainly made of the following three kinds of materials: wood, brick and stone. The windows are mainly divided into four types: exquisite windows, tile carving windows, mullion windows, and railing windows. Among them, the main shrine of Zhong Yu (Shichang), the founder of the Bailu Zhong family, is called the "big ancestral hall" by the locals. In the railing windows of the Zhong’s ancestral hall, there are mother-of-pearl microgrooves of 6 cm2on the center of the deformed mullion with zigzag moulding. This is a rare treasure existing in Hakka dwellings in southern Jiangxi.

3.1.2Types of window decorations in Bailu Ancient Village. In Bailu Ancient Village, there are two main types of window decorations. Among them, the structural decoration of the window body is the dominant. Every time during the festival, local residents will appropriately paste some simple festive and auspicious patterns (such as window grilles and wormwood) on the windows. The themes of the window decoration mainly include "praying for the prolonged life of children", "inviting wealth" and "exorcising evil and disaster", corresponding to the three spirits of health, wealth and safety[5]. This also reflects the cultural characteristics that the ancestors of Bailu Ancient Village were deeply influenced by the feudal ritual system and patriarchal culture of the Central Plains.

The themes of window decoration are more complicated. In order to better express the content and form of window decoration in Bailu Ancient Village, after investigation and research, the decorative patterns collected from the windows of Bailu Ancient Village were divided into six major categories: figures, auspicious animals, flowers and fruit trees, text symbols, historical and cultural allusions and geometric figures.

Since most of the windows in Bailu Village are made of wood, the decorative composition of the windows is subject to certain restrictions. Among them, the patterns of the halls are relatively small and exquisite, and they are mostly composed of scattered points. The decoration themes are generally pine, bamboo, plum, begonia and other styles. The flowers are evenly distributed in the window frames. The dragon and phoenix and other auspicious animals are combined with different shapes and cloud patterns to form a complete picture. If the shape of the pattern is too scattered, it can be circled or squared. Or, the frame is surrounded with wood strip outside the circle, and the circle is surrounded with vines and cloud patterns[6]. The window decorations in Bailu Ancient Village are consistent with those of Hakka dwellings. The patterns are regular, square or round, and the form is relatively simple. Most of the flowers are at the intersection of the lattice bars, and the scattered flowers all take the frontal form, which is more dignified. As a node, the flower heart corresponds to the junction of the lattice bars. Leaves, vines,etc. are handled appropriately according to the decorative grammar rules. Mostly there are four blades with bas-relief and openwork. Flowers are usually carved in two to three levels. For large flowers, there are vines or cloud patterns around the flowers along the lattice bars. In the continuous window pattern combination, there are mainly tangled branches, flower and bird patterns, and geometric integrated patterns. This combination pattern is rare in Bailu Ancient Village.

3.2 Doors

3.2.1Types of doors in Bailu Ancient Village. The doors of Bailu Ancient Village have another characteristic. The shape of the doors here is divided into two types: arched door and rectangular door. The doors are almost a brick and stone structure embedded with a wooden door. The doors of Bailu Ancient Village differ greatly in size due to different functions. First of all, the size of the small indoor doors is not much different, generally around 100 cm. The gates generally have 3 steps or less, and the decorative materials are mostly small stones and bricks. The size of gate is mainly determined by the size of the building. In a building with a courtyard, the size of gate is positively related to the size of the courtyard. The material is generally stone. The auxiliary paving material is a small piece of stone or brick. Usually, there are 1-3 steps at the gate. The doors in the inner courtyard are generally arched doors made of stone or bricks. There are also some with gourd shape.

3.2.2Types of door decorations in Bailu Ancient Village. The decoration of the gates of the buildings in Bailu Ancient Village is mostly concentrated on the door head. Some are single-sided sloping roofs picked out from the wall, and simply covered with tiled surfaces on the wooden structure. The more complicated ones are Xieshan gable and hip roof and gabled roof. Some have more than one roof, and there are multiple roofs[7].

Among the dozens of existing ancestral halls, the construction of the gate can be said to spare no effort, ingenious, and each has its own characteristics. The front brick wall (or side brick wall) of the gate in the building has two forms: one is flat, and the other is to make the wall slightly behind the door. The walls on the two sides of the gate are made into a shape of trumpet, so the gate is also called "eight-character gate"[8]. The latter form is more common. As the streets and alleys formed by the buildings are relatively low and narrow, the space left by this retreat is firstly convenient for access. Secondly, it constitutes a semi-public space for residents to move and communicate here, instead of occupying the position of the streets. The doors of the houses in Bailu Ancient Village, whether on the front or on the side, have cover on the frame. Some door covers are relatively small and very concise. Some are relatively large and complicated. The main position is very prominent. Door cover is the decoration focus of the whole building. Almost all the door covers are made into archways with walls, but there are no floor-to-ceiling clamp stones and Misu seats. Generally, they have three rooms with four pillars and three floors. A small number of them have five rooms with six pillars and five floors[9]. Some are relatively small, built between the door frames and the eaves, and slightly wider than the gate. Some are very large, spreading out with the wall in a trumpet shape. The height is from the door frame to the eave (the building eave and the house eave are combined as one). The pillar hangs down on the door frame. Regardless of the size of the door cover, bolster, beam and rafter are complete. The rafters are extended layer by layer, covered with blue tiles. The cornices are not very exaggerated.

3.3 Decorative valueArchitecture and human beings are closely related, and the decoration on the building embodies human wisdom. In the historical tradition, the door of the traditional building reflects the primary image of the owner. It can reflect the different functional properties of different houses and the wealth and status of the owners.

In the architectural decoration patterns of Bailu Ancient Village, a large number of patterns such as "lyre-playing", "chess", "calligraphy", "painting", "kylin with book on its back", and "heron and lotus" are widely used. This also reflects a cultural mentality that emphasizes culture and education. Although these ancient buildings are now declining and few people try to figure out the patterns, the idea of emphasizing culture and education has continued to this day. Secondly, as an important carrier of culture, door and window decoration has always been one of the manifestations of history and culture. The decorative patterns on traditional buildings have their profound cultural heritage.

The shapes and patterns of doors and windows in Bailu Ancient Village are relatively uncomplicated. They refine and develop through the methods of today, evolving from traditional decorative form into a form that is more in line with modern aesthetics. Under the aesthetic conditions under the historical and cultural heritage, the refined new elements and new styles are used in various spaces, such as home and business.

4 Conclusions

In the five thousand years of history, the Chinese nation has passed down from generation to generation and given birth to a splendid traditional culture. Among the magnificent Chinese culture, Chinese architectural culture stands alone, and with its exquisiteness and unique architectural style, it stands proudly among the world’s architectural culture. As a solidified artwork, architecture is important for the inheritance of Chinese culture, and it plays an important role for studying the life customs of the ancients. The eyes are the windows of the soul, and the windows are the eyes of architecture. Doors and windows are not only part of the building, but also the extension and improvement of architectural culture. At the same time, in order to meet people’s aesthetic requirements, door and window decoration art came into being. With the efforts of generations of architects and craftsmen, door and window decoration art has been progressing and developing continuously. Eventually, they become an indispensable part of Chinese architectural culture and finally form a complete system. In this investigation, focus is placed on the decorative art of doors and windows of traditional houses in southern Jiangxi, and three following values are extracted.

4.1 Historical valueIt is conducive to the inheritance and development of traditional residential building decoration culture in southern Jiangxi. The traditional folk house decoration in southern Jiangxi has irreplaceable cultural value, aesthetic value, and artistic means in the process of human civilization. The traditional dwelling decoration in southern Jiangxi that has been passed down to this day is a rare carrier of historical culture and humanistic spirit. If it is not properly protected, when human memory is missing, it will sink in the long river of history and cease to exist. At the same time, we also hope to contribute to the inheritance and protection of traditional buildings while enhancing our understanding of traditional Chinese architecture.

4.2 Realistic valueThe existing traditional dwellings in southern Jiangxi provide sufficient research cases for archeology and research of Chinese dwellings. The decorative art of the dwellings in southern Jiangxi has provided a wealth of ideas, content, forms and methods for inspiration and reference for today’s home decoration. In this article, the famous Bailu Ancient Village in southern Jiangxi is used as a breakthrough in the study of door and window decoration art, and a connection between traditional residential decoration and modern residential design is established, providing more detailed and rich design elements for modern residential design.

4.3 Social valueStudying the decorative art of traditional dwellings in southern Jiangxi is of great significance for discovering the rural charm of southern Jiangxi, creating a characteristic village in southern Jiangxi, enhancing the cultural self-confidence of the country and the nation, promoting the construction of a new socialist countryside and realizing the diversity of cultural protection.