In Linfenhongdong County, Shanxi, there is one of the oldest and most complete preserved glass pagodas in the world. The tower is made of green bricks, and the exterior is inlaid with yellow, green, blue, purple and white glass components. Total height 47,31 meters, planar octagonal, thirteen floors.
The Feihong Pagoda was built in the Han Dynasty and has been repeatedly rebuilt, and now it was built in the eleventh year of Ming Wuzong Zhengde (1516) and completed in the sixth year of Jiajing (1527), which took 12 years to complete. In the thirty-fourth year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty (1695), the Linfen Basin was hit by an eight-magnitude earthquake, and this pagoda was unharmed.
According to archaeological data, glass was only used for architecture during the Tang Dynasty in China, and in the heyday of the Ming Dynasty, the best glass in this period was produced in Datong in the north of Shanxi Province and Hejin in the south, and the glass used in the Forbidden City of the Imperial Palace was produced in these two places. The Flying Rainbow Tower is just a masterpiece of the heyday.
The glass we produce now will change color and fade after a certain period of time, but the Feihong Pagoda has gone through more than 500 years of vicissitudes from its construction to the present, but its color is as bright as ever, still bright and dazzling, which has to make people marvel at the technology of ancient Chinese craftsmen firing glass. Therefore, the Feihong Pagoda is an important physical material for the development of glass craftsmanship in the Ming Dynasty of China, which not only has ornamental and artistic properties, but also has irreplaceable historical value and research value.
The characteristics of the Flying Rainbow Tower with many layers, many eaves, many faces, and many corners give full play to the great advantages of the decorative exterior of the glass components. All layers of bucket arches, flying together than wings; various patterns, competing for wonder and beauty; like a classical girl in cardamom age, graceful and colorful, Chuchu moving.
The foot of the column, the pubaifang and the hanging column are all green glaze. Beige glaze on the forehead of the column. The finch is a green bottom, a yellow line edge, and a golden dragon on the top. The golden-yellow lotus under the hanging flower column naturally kisses the lower neck ridge, as if this column is a corner column to divide each face into a "three-room wide face" style. The pillar has a monk's head play style interspersed with fangs "ejecting", which is a unique decorative component of the Flying Rainbow Tower. In the middle and lower parts of the eight directions, there are various decors and components such as ancient miniature glass pavilions and temples. There are single-storey type, heavy eaves type, hanging mountain type, and cross mountain type. The small buildings above these buildings are small and exquisitely crafted, which is admirable.
Each floor has a tower eaves, and each floor has a set of central patterns, or a wealth of glass Buddha statues, bodhisattvas, Vajrapani, pagodas, dragons, birds and beasts, and various animal patterns, Buddha statues, or Buddhist scripture stories; under the eaves are glazed brick imitation wood structure firing bucket arches, auxiliary fangs, eaves and other components. The decorative patterns have their own characteristics, the characters are expressive, and the shapes are not repeated.
Another feature of Feihong Pagoda is its pagoda brake, which is not only unique among the many pagodas in China, but also has been tested by the historical 8-magnitude earthquake. Feihong Pagoda is the soul of Guangsheng Temple architecture, and the builders poured their profound Buddhist knowledge, literary knowledge, aesthetic knowledge, moral cultivation, and superb traditional architectural skills into this tower, creating a miracle of Ancient Chinese Pagoda architecture.
Zhang Dan Original works