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.

The diversified themes of brick carvings can be divided into the following two kinds:

The first kind includes scenes from myths, legends, opera stories, folk customs and so on. Dignitaries in a procession, woodcutters or farmers at work, and shepherd boys on the back of buffaloes are constant images. There are also scenes of people feeding farm animals and fowl, pushing carts, carrying water, and poling boats, as well as scenes of entertainment and performances. The figures are vividly carved. There is a piece, for example, about an official on an inspection tour. The official is caricatured as an arrogant, pot-bellied figure, and his fat and large entourage all bear foolish, servile expressions.

The second kind includes images of animals, birds and flowers. Temples were usually decorated with images of dragons and phoenixes. The southern Anhui artisans were most skilled at carving lions. Following traditional images, they portrayed the lions in various imaginary poses playing with balls and dancing. Each lion was given a personality -- some fierce, some naive, some naughty. More than two lions appearing in one scene are carefully arranged and portrayed so that their poses together form a coherent whole. Other animals like elephants, tigers, dogs, rabbits and monkeys were also common images in brick carving. Plum blossom, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum, pomegranate, orange, tangerine, loquat and lichi were other popular objects for brick carvers. There is a carving of an egret standing beside blossoming and budding lotus flowers -- with images vivid and true to life, the composition discards the traditional symmetry and distortion. This makes the whole work resemble a beautiful painting. These carvings are always framed by symmetrical ancient vessel patterns, eight-treasure patterns and cloud patterns.

Brick carving in the Ming Dynasty was simple and plain, like Han-dynasty stone carvings in tombs. The sculptured main figures and the background in low relief combine without proper perspective. The simple themes, stereotyped figures and symmetric composition make the carving highly decorative. During the last years of the Ming Dynasty and the first years of the Qing Dynasty, brick carving started to show certain influences from the rising of the Xin'an painting school in southern Anhui and the spread of elegant, colorful Anhui-style woodcuts. During the Qing Dynasty, when the merchants were wealthier, brick carving became more exquisite and complex to suit their magnificent houses. A carving in a brick with a surface less than 0.1 square meter would show several gradations of perspective, with a composition like that of a Chinese painting. For example, a carving of a flower and bird is framed by a raised hui-shaped pattern, the sculpture of the leaves and branches being set off by a relief of geometric background. A carving about a story or human life had an even more complex composition: the sculpture of human figures are in the front, in the middle are pavilions and verandahs in openwork, and in the distance are houses. In some of the carvings of that time, though, this exquisite style was so exaggerated that the works, having moving, overmeticulous figures and background, became mechanical wonders rather than art works.

Other commonly used building materials in the Ming and Qing dynasties were wood and stone. Wood and stone carvings had many points in common with brick carvings in their themes and forms of expression, only differing in carving techniques because of their different textures. Wood carvings were often found on beams, pillars and their above brackets, upturned eaves, railings, doors, windows and such furniture as cupboards and tables. The application of tung oil instead of colorful paint exposed the natural texture of wood while at the same time protecting the carvings from corrosion.

Stones were used to build the house foundations, memorial archways or bridges, and stone carvings are often seen on roof-beam plates, eaves and socles. The diversified patterns include Hindu swastika, diamond, plum blossom, bamboo, and dragon.

As a bright pearl in the treasurehouse of Chinese folk art heritage, brick carving, with new themes and modern designs, is now used to ornament classical-style gardens and memorial halls.