shawan liugeng garden

liugeng garden located in shawan town, panyu zone, built in the first year of de you in south song dynasty (1275). after several ruins and reconstructions, the dimension now was expanded in the kangxi of qing dynasty, earlier than chen clan temple over 170 years (built in 1890 guang zhou). shawan liugeng garden, alias he ancestral hall, is the ancestral temple of he nation in shawan. “liugeng” taken from "the kind mind is from ancestor, the nice tradition remains with descendants", means to benefit the posterity by constructing the ancestral hall.

shawan liugeng garden’s main characteristics are various columns, prime carvings, abundance of script, and grand. liugeng garden has 112 stone and wooden columns. the material of wooden columns was stocked from southeast asia countries. in carving aspect, liugeng garden retained the extremely fine stone carvings, the wood carvings, the brick carvings, the ash carvings, which have manifested the exquisite construction art in lingnan garden.

liugeng garden occupied a floor area of 3,300 square meters, north topography higher south lower. there are the big pond, the great day street, the entrance, the gateway, the courtyard, the platform, the hall of sacrifices (virtuous hall), the bedroom palace (liugeng garden), east and west corridor and the ancestral temple.

as soon as enters is the entrance, the front of liugeng garden is broad, the great day street (square) which built with the big blue stones is in the face of a pond, in approaches the pond there are stone base for horse on both sides and also with 8 stone flagpoles which used for commend when admitted to school. for both sides of the great day street stood two red brick wall, with the colored ash on it about "double dragon play the peal", "the dragon and phoenix rejoicing", "the unicorn assumes fantastic future" and so on with meticulous skills to made them as vivid as nature. the north of the great day street is the solemn and respectful main entrance. under it is a tablet with red bottom gold characters "the he great ancestral hall". and the couplet on the two sides of the gate is "the predecessor repairs the posterity to continue enjoys continuously and all the posterity need to live together in peace.", which is indicated the predecessor’s hoping. the two leaves of main entrance are made by the quality of material hard lumber, and drawing two armor military commanders in gold corselet as the gate god on each side which used the dark color with traditional mural technique. nearby the gate are two stone drums, is as the symbol of the academic honor and on the base of the drums inscribed the propitious design. on the frontispiece is engraved the auspicious lion, the side inscribed "the old dragon teacher his child", "three positive opens peacefully" and so on. the east and west sides of the gate have a platform with three stone and wood beam with the supporting beam had the golden characters on it, for meets the ritual; latter is "eight sounds platform" for welcoming the guests. moreover, also has two drum towers for "serves for funeral" and "enters the younger brother", they constitute together remain the hall the façade of the building, which has unfolded the initially broad appearance of this historic building.

in the main entrance, the crossbeam is the thing most worth to be carefully appreciated with fantastic wood carving on it. specially for 33 tertiary ruyi which is called "the camelback" on the historic architecture, various carving content one after another, with rare plants and animals, or historical story character, as vivid as nature. entire front door, beam, sandalwood, the system of brackets constituted a group of nice lingnan architecture artistic treasures.

enter into the main entrance, a big stele then stand in front of people which named yi gate which is the second entrance for liugeng garden. the top of lintel is carve stone from the qing dynasty well-known calligrapher chen baisha "the poetry will be inherited generation to generation" to indicated shawan he is a scholarly family. all previous dynasties many people were admitted to a school the imperial civil service examination academic honor. the tablet branched out three entrances by eight stone columns; on the top of it are the carving of flower-and-bird and beast on red white stone, including the scarlet rose, gorgeous peony, pure white chrysanthemum, vigorous falcon and so on. on the eave receives by the wooden construction ruyi system of bracket, layer flutters. four sides are projecting eaves tiles tall building, the main keel of tablet is with the ash technique sculpture comes out east the tail seven colors dragon to return, and the dragon it seem like wants to fishtail high flies. carved it on the top of tablet would filled lively but also the propitious implication.

crosses the tablet, it to the big courtyard, and look back on obviously in the tablet are with four vigorous large brush-written chinese characters means "three phoenixes leave a good name to posterity". this is for commend the three brothers of shawan he ancestor to be admitted to a school in the later period of northern song dynasty successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations. these three people are politely called "what three phoenixes" but to leave a good name to posterity at that time the later generation.

besides yi gate, the second enters also including the courtyard, platform and the east and west corridor. the courtyard is made by red brick and the platform is constructed through the north of the courtyard, one meter higher than the courtyard for it used to the stage for clansman see the play in the jubilation day. the base of it are made of 15 pieces marble, carving the "the old dragon teach the child", "the double phoenix peony", "the double lion play bead", "the rhinoceros full moon", "the dark green loose writing coherence", also about the drawing of pine, plum, bamboo, chrysanthemum, peony, and so on. all these stone carving are made during the yuan and ming dynasty for them are worthy. the east and west corridor has total 24 beams with 4 are stone and 8 are woods. this originally is when a sacrificial offering rests the place for the visitor, and presently is the exhibition room for the precious cultural relic. stand on the platform and look around, more than 60 big columns scattered and organized that are in the virtuous hall and east and west corridor. it seems like the piano keys to make you nearly hear a tune classical music as if, melodious and bring you into the sea of artistic.

heng palace also called xiangxian tang, with the depth over 17m, was very rare in the ancient temples. two wooden plaques hung in the middle one front another one at rear, with the epigraph of “da zong bo” and “xiang xian tang” of golden characters in red painted base.  “da zong bo” referred to mr. he qilong, the second generation of he’s family of shawan who was the director of the board of rites and ceremonies at hongwu times of ming dynasty. the director of the board of rites and ceremonies was also called “da zong bo” at that time. “xiang xian tang” was built for memorial of he deming(named xiangxian), the ancestor of he’s family in shawan. xiangxian tang was supported by 4 stone columns and 24 big wooden pillars with the circumference of two men stretching their arms., there were complicated wood carving with the patterns of clouds, birds and beasts, flowers and fruits, worms and fishes on the beams, purlins, and camel peak bucket arches. it made you feel nothing could be better than this. entering into such a wide and high building, the big columns were so solemn and severe, the respect to those who went before us arose spontaneously deep from our heart.

the western and eastern gallery of rear living room was at the back of middle building. there were eight column bases made of brownstone and carved in the shape of lying lotus petals, with very beautiful and unique forms, was relics of ming dynasty. the rear living room was the last building of liugeng garden, which was divided into three rooms of middle room, eastern room and western room. the room in the middle was the biggest one. the shrine in the middle was of a rectangular shape, carving a lot of auspicious patterns pained in golden colour, with dazzling attraction. a plaque with black characters on white base inscribed “liugeng garden” was hung under the middle eaves, with a pair of wood carving couplet at both sides:  “good virtue was planted by the ancestors, the field of heart is left to plough by the descendants”, which pointed out the original meaning of “liugeng garden”. now there are statues for historic persons of panyu exhibiting at the east and west side of the rear living room. in the west there stand the bronze statues of the “three outstanding persons in he’s family”____he liutang, he shaoxia and he yunian of the elegant music genre in guangdong. the statues of qu dajun, poet of panyu in qing dynasty, gao jianfu, gao qifeng and chen shuren, the three representatives of lingnan school of painting are standing in the east side. in the eastern and western rooms of the living palace, there is a famous folk craft of panyu——shawan colour dyeing carving. with a history of hundreds of years, having bright colours, vivid images, slim colour stem and artful structure, shawan colour dyeing carving was famous at home and abroad.