Suzhou-style decorative painting

China has a long history of applying decorative paintings on buildings. Like the Long Corridor, most of the Chinese ancient buildings use timber as building materials. In fact, the paint used during decorative painting can protect the timber. Therefore, decorative painting has become an important enhancement in China’s architectural history.

Most pictures of the Suzhou-style decorative paintings are limited in a big semicircular vinculum; it is called a “cloth-wrappers” painting. Most of the bottom colors of the decorative painting are brick red, khaki or white; these colors create a warm atmosphere. At the same time, this kind of painting employs the subsection layout method; the picture in the middle is the story, landscape, scenery, etc. that we see. On the side of the cloth-wrappers, there are decorations, pools, etc as a foil. Meanwhile, there are clips and pattern lines as fixed pictures. These are the basic and common characteristics of Suzhou-style decorative painting.

Paintings on the pavilion’s beam

Comparing with the Halls colored drawing, which features neat and uniform patterns, the feature of Suzhou-style decorative painting is its free-style creation and rich flavor of life. There exists an obvious distinction between these two paintings. The Halls colored drawing uses colors that contrast strongly with each other to depict tier upon tier in order to manifest the palatial manner of the Royals. Although Suzhou-style decorative painting comes from the South, it is developed and innovated in Northern parks.

The Classification of Decorative Paintings

The decorative paintings of the Chinese architectural ornament can be classified into three types: Imperial colored drawing, Xuanzi colored drawing and Suzhou-style decorative painting. The Imperial colored drawing is a drawing that combines all the fine elements together, forming delicacy, magnificent decorations and elaborate colored drawings. It employs dragons and phoenix image as main pictures. It is mainly used by royalty-related architectures such as a palace or a temple.

Paintings on the corner beams of the Long Corridor

The Suzhou-style decorative painting originates from the folk traditional method of the area of Suzhou and Hangzhou; usually it is called “Suzhou piece”. Most of its bottom color is red, khaki or white. The technique of painting is flexible and the tone is bright-colored and beautiful.