What are the color features of the ancient Chinese architecture？
2 min readPaint is much used on buildings.Initially paint was used on wood to prevent damage from moisture，but gradually paint became an architectural ornament.Ancient palaces and temples tend to have brilliant colors like glazed yellow tiles，red walls and white balustrades.The shining colors make these buildings look grand and impressive.However，colors applied on garden-like buildings or commonplace houses tend to be quietly elegant.These colors give people a nice，cool sense.
The painting on ancient buildings functions as an ornament.In the Qing Dynasty，it commonly fell into three categories as follows：
a.Hexiwucaihua（Hexi Five-color Decoration）：This painting style is applied only to the key buildings in imperial palaces and altars.Usually，a dragon or phoenix is painted on green background，and paint lines are gilded with gold powder or gold foil.
b.Xuanzicaihua（Circular Color Decoration）：This style is extensively applied to government buildings，key buildings in temples，and the attached buildings of imperial palaces and altars.An artist tends to use brightdesigns and auspicious flowers.In addition，he outlines the designs in ink color and adds some running dragons and strokes.He then draws a pattern in the shape of the Chinese word gui on the either side of the design center.Inside the“gui”pattern are many other brightly colored designs developed from peony flowers.
c.Suzhou decoration:This painting style originated in Suzhou；later it has developed into two schools:the southern and the northern.Southern suzhou decoration focuses on bright designs，and the northern on landscape，figures，flowers，pavilions，etc.
