Study On Brick Pagodas Of The Song Dynasty In Sichuan

Located on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River in the southwest of China and embosomed in mountains,Sichuan has a unique topography and landform that has created distinctive features of the architecture in the area.According to the third national cultural relic census,there exist 706 ancient pagodas in Sichuan,including 16 relatively well preserved brick pagodas of the Song Dynasty which are the handed down ancient pagodas of longest history and large scale,with important historical values.The author tries to start with the relevant historical documents,take the 12 brick pagodas with conclusive construction ages as the ruler,and combine with the field investigation,mapping and predecessors’ research results,so as to analyze and summarize the characteristics of the evolution of the Sichuan brick pagodas,and accordingly date the 4 pagodas with unclear construction ages.Through a systematic case study on the existing Song Dynasty brick pagodas in Sichuan,this article divides the development and evolution process roughly into three stages: the first stage is from the Jianlong period of Northern Song Dynasty to the Jianyan period of Southern Song Dynasty(960 ~ 1130),and the brick pagodas in this period are all of tight-tile type,basically with the same shape and structure;the second stage,from the Shaoxing period to Shaoxi period of the Southern Song Dynasty(1131 ~ 1194),the brick pagodas built in this period shows characteristics of transition from the tight-tile type to the pavilion type;the third stage,from the Qingyuan period to the end of the Southern Song Dynasty(1195 ~ 1279),and the brick pagodas in this period are of pavilion type,with very much attention paid to the external decorative performance of the pagoda;this stage can be further divided into the early section and later section.The early section is from the Qingyuan period to the Kaixi period(1195 ~ 1207),and the decorative components of pagoda are mainly distributed in the lower half of the outer wall of the pagoda;the later section,from the Jiading period to the end of the Southern Song Dynasty(1208-1279),pagodas are all built with their outer walls completely covered by ornamental elements.After clarifying the overall shape and structure of the pagodas of the Song Dyna sty in Sichuan,and the characteristics of their evolution and development,this paper makes an analytic comparison with the pagodas of the same period of the Shaanxi,Yunnan,Henan and Zhejiang areas,expounds its regional characteristics from the angle of overall sculpt,shape and structure,and finally summarizes the characteristics of the pagodas of the Song Dynasty in Sichuan into three: lagging,uniqueness and continuity.