Huangshan Culture, or Huizhou Culture, also called Hui Culture, is an integral and important part of Chinese Culture. It embodies both the tangible and intangible heritage created in the past by the people who lived in the historical Huizhou (today's Huangshan City and Xuancheng City of Anhui, and also part of Jiangxi Province).
The Hui Culture began to thrive in the later part of the Northern Song Dynasty(960 to 1120 A.D.), and was at the height of splendor in the Ming and Qing dynasties.It has outshone other local cultures in the country over 800 years because of its rich and special features. The Hui Culture is rich in meaning and exhibits unique styles and genres. It covers almost all the learning, ranging from philosophy, culture, medicine, architecture and so on. Hui Studies, together with Dunhuang Studies and Tibetan Studies, is counted as one of China's three major regional studies.
Hui architecture developed into a significant school in the Song Dynasty. During the middle period of the Ming Dynasty, gardens and houses constructed with Hui styles developed very quickly along with the prosperity of Hui commerce and the development of its social economy. Hui style soon stepped out from Huizhou and was introduced to big towns along the Yangtze River.
The technical features and style of Hui architecture are mostly put to use in the construction of houses, ancestral temples, joss houses, archways, and gardens. Hui style houses are typically ones with skylights. With a quadrate skylight surrounded by houses from four sides or from left,right and backside, these Hui style houses can reduce the beat of sunshine and enjoy ventilation. All the houses drain off water to the skylight which means fortune will not run off outside, which is called four sides water returning to the main hall of the houses by local natives. Hui style houses mainly reflect the mountainous features,geomantic omen, and the beautiful terrain there.
The whole show of Hui style houses, built with black tiles and white walls, surrounded by high walls shaped like horse heads (for fireproofing), and harmonized with refined and elegant colors, brings us a strong sense of beauty. These houses are often decorated with artworks made of brick,wood, and stone. As a traditional architecture school, Hui style embodies elegance, conciseness, and magnificence, and still keeps its special artistic favor to these days.
The Four Carvings of Huizhou Style The Huizhou Four Carvings refer to brick carvings, stone carvings, wood carvings and bamboo carvings using Hui style folk carving techniques. Shexian County and Yixian County in southern Anhui are two major places famous for Huizhou Four Carvings .They came into being in the Song Dynasty, and flowered in the Mingand Qing dynasties and are mainly used in the decoration of buildings,archways, and also in making furniture, brush pots, and new-year couplets enchased on screens. The development of Huizhou Four Carvings can be generally divided into two periods. During the Ming Dynasty they emphasized simplicity, elegance, plain carvingand superficial embossment to create decorative beauty. During the Qing Dynasty, they changed to delicate engraving, deep embossment and circling engraving. Hollowed-out carving and complex layers brought forth the exquisite beauty.
