With Huangshan Mountains as a majestic backdrop, the tree-covered mountainous southern part of Anhui Province in eastern China offers beautiful scenery of winding limpid streams. The residences and temples, mostly sitting by the streams and below hills, look simple from the outside -- yet within the plain, white walls are intricately built halls and rooms, all in well-designed order, presenting a unique style among the civil residences in the region south of the Yangtze River.

This temperate region produces such valuable resources as pine, Chinese fir, bamboo, tea, tung, and lacquer trees. Before the 10th century, the indigenous people lived a simple life, using primary tools of production and closed to the outside world. The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) saw a rapid development in farming, animal husbandry and handicraft industry, due to policies for economic development. After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the local people gradually shifted from farming to trade, processing the valuable trees and exchanging the products for  everyday necessities. By the 17th century, merchants from this area had become distinguished for their wealth and far-flung trading operations. 

These merchants lavished money on luxuries, building splendid, large houses, gardens and temples. But as commoners, they were limited in the size and ornamentation of their houses. Although the concerned statute was not carried out strictly, the merchants, conscious of their low social status, were not without scruples about the layout and design of their houses.

With brick walls, wooden roof-beams and floors of square bricks, Ming and Qing residences around this area were similar to other contemporary houses of southern Chinese style except that they featured delicate carvings in ordinary building materials like brick, wood and stone. From the frame and eave above the gate, to the socles in front of the gate, to beams and handrails of stairs, carvings are present almost everywhere. Most distinguished is the brick carving.

Brick carving, done in fine gray bricks of varying shapes and sizes, mainly decorated brick frames and eaves above the gates. The process had two steps: the first step was composing and chiseling an outline in the brick, usually done by a veteran artisan who was familiar with many traditional themes and composition; the second step was carving the relief into the outline, usually done by the apprentices.

With the gray brick being more brittle than ivory, animal bone or wood, but easier to process than the stone, the art of brick carving has a unique style. The exaggeration and distortion of images required by the limited frame they were cut within, and the neat high relief determined by the texture of bricks, help to strengthen the ornamental effect of the work.

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See also: Philosophy Carved in Wood