Architectural Painting
01 · Historical Records
The history of Bai vernacular architectural painting runs parallel to the tradition of building construction in the Dali region. During the Nanzhao and Dali Kingdom periods, courtyard-style architecture built mainly with timber-and-earth structures was already prevalent in the Dali area; while absorbing decorative techniques from Han Chinese architecture, the Bai ancestors gradually formed a painting style dominated by black, white, and grey in keeping with their own aesthetic preference for white and blue-green, and this style matured in the construction of vernacular dwellings from the Ming and Qing dynasties onward.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Architectural painting is a fairly broad term. One of its meanings, the same as what is commonly understood, refers to using colors, paints, and lacquers to depict images in a flat plane on the walls of buildings; another meaning refers to using materials such as earth, stone, wood, cloth, paper, and pottery to decorate buildings and their interior furnishings. For geographical and folk-custom reasons, the architectural painting of China's various regions and ethnic groups differs markedly in overall style and treatment of detail; from materials and techniques to colors and subject matter, it displays strong local characteristics, fully demonstrating the ingenuity of the working people in adapting to local conditions. Bai architecture in the Dali area is mostly built with timber-and-earth structures, often presenting an appearance of grey bricks, white walls, and grey tiles. In harmony with this, the colors used in architectural painting are also dominated by black, white, and grey, with emphasis on highlighting plain white as the dominant tone of Bai vernacular architecture. Bai vernacular dwellings are usually decorated with exquisite paintings at the main gate, the reflecting wall (zhaobi), the gable walls, the waist lines, and the dragon-horse corners (longma jiao); among the patterns used, the fragrant-grass motif, the ruyi cloud motif, and the meander (huiwen) pattern appear most frequently and have become the most ethnically distinctive part of the painting. Besides painted patterns, Bai vernacular dwellings also often decorate the main gate and the eaves with woodcarving, combining carving and painting. The reflecting walls are built with clay dougong brackets, and in some cases with clay relief sculpture. Bai vernacular architectural painting is the essence of Bai architectural art. Deeply influenced by Han culture, it organically integrates the grandeur of northern architecture with the refinement and elegance of southern architecture; brimming with strong ethnic character, it stands as evidence of cultural exchange between the Bai and Han peoples. These vernacular paintings greatly enhance the beauty of houses and vividly reflect the healthy, forward-looking spirit of the Bai people.
Vanilla, cloud and key patterns
Gates, screen walls, gables, waistlines and corners carry painting in which vanilla, cloud-of-ruyi and key-fret motifs predominate.
Screen walls combining carving and painting
Beyond painted motifs, gates and eaves are wood-carved, and screen walls are finished with clay bracket sets and relief.
Black, white and grey on plain white
Timber-and-earth Bai houses of grey brick and white wall set the palette: painting works chiefly in black, white and grey to keep white dominant.
Li Yunyi's relief on painting
The third-batch inheritor Li Yunyi, born in 1942, adds relief to flat painting for depth, his works including the Jizushan panorama at Zhusheng Temple.
Northern grandeur, southern finesse
Strongly shaped by Han culture, the painting fuses northern grandeur with southern finesse and stands as evidence of exchange between the two peoples.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Bai vernacular architectural painting popular in the Dali City area of Yunnan Province is a remarkable flower of Dali Bai culture. Rich in content and meticulous in form, its style is plain yet dignified; it is used not only to decorate shrines, temples, and large ensembles of historic buildings but is also widely applied in Bai vernacular architecture.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Architectural Painting · Architectural Painting · Architectural Painting · Architectural Painting · Architectural Painting.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Li Yunyi (from the official archive records of the associated inheritor): Male, Bai ethnicity, born in June 1942, from Dali City, Yunnan Province. He has practiced architectural painting successively in Binchuan, Kunming, and elsewhere; he has mastered the craft process and various techniques of Bai painting and has developed his own distinctive characteristics. He has innovated on the basis of tradition: the patterns he paints blend harmoniously with the architecture, and he applies relief sculpture according to the circumstances on top of flat painting, enhancing the three-dimensionality of the painted decoration. His representative works include the Panorama of the Daofang at Jizu Mountain on the great reflecting wall of Zhusheng Temple in Dali, the Ink Dragon in the cultural relics room of Jizu Mountain, and the reflecting-wall paintings of the Bai Village in the Yunnan Ethnic Villages. He attaches importance to the transmission of his craft and devotes himself to guiding and participating in the painting of vernacular houses in surrounding villages; his disciples include Li Yanfeng (his son), Zheng Tang, and Yang Hu. He is a representative inheritor of Architectural Painting (Bai Vernacular Architectural Painting), an intangible cultural heritage item of the third national-level batch.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Li Yunyi 03-1302
- Li Shengbin 03-1303
- Hao Yanming 05-2705
- Chen Jinde
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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