Main Features Of The Temple Garden On Dongshan Island,Fujian

The folk belief had a strong regional culture characteristics. Fujian was one of the most active area of the folk belief in China. There were numerous of temples distributed in province domain, and existed many kinds of worship of gods and the ingrained of ritual activities. Temples were the main carrier of folk beliefs, and also the palace of the folk art in Fujian province. The temple garden on Dongshan Island were as a part of the temple garden in Fujian province, showing a personality of typical island geographical characteristics, it also enriched the connotation of the regional culture of Fujian. In this study, based on the method of combining theory and practice to analyze the historical and cultural background of the temples and research the temple garden on Dongshan Island by measuring, photographing and interviews. To deep invest and research the temple garden on Dongshan Island, the features were as bellow:(1) In the selected researched 18 temple gardens on Dongshan Island, nine temple gardens with recreation site and nine village temples without recreation site.(2) The site investigation and garden layout on Dondshan temple garden showed that, according to the difference of site investigation, it can be divided into mountain forest temple(Dongshan Guandi Temple, Gongqian Tianhou Temple, etc, a total of nine seats) and island temple(Dongming Temple), According to the relationship between the temple and the mountain, mountain forest temple could be subdivided as selection of a location on the foot of a mountain(elevation of 15~29m), hillside(elevation of 18~51m) and a peak(elevation of 68m). The garden layout had only one type of mountain forest. The building layout were divided into the form of patio(four), the layout was of the rectangular plane with depth is greater than the width; and the form of courtyard(five). The building layout of nine village temples were all the form of patio. The orientation of Dongshan temple gardens had three types, which including taking the northeast to the southwest(five), taking the northwest to the southeast(three), taking the north to south(one). The orientation of village temples also havd three types, taking the northeast to the southwest(four), taking the northwest to the southeast(two), and taking southwest to the northeast(two).(3) The features of building structure and plants in Dongshan temple gardens were as bellow:(1) The temple buildings structure mainly use in the form of wooden insert beam frame and the roof was made up of traditional gable and hip roof, overhanging gable roof, gabbled roof and hip roof, and the roofs with the style of Minnan of Sanchuan temple. Village temples used four types of roof, such as broken eaves lift arrow and Sanchuan temple. Garden art decorations contained stone sculptures, wood carving, porcelain carving, clay sculpture and painting. The stone sculptures included mural decoration with six themes that used operas, geometric figure, exotic animals; Stone column with three themes that used dragon and Phoenix, the literary quotations; Stone sketch with five themes that used bearing stone, burner, the stone lion. Wood carving includind gold carvings with four themes that used exotic animals, flower. Porcelain carving includind three-dimensional with four themes that used exotic animals; Mural porcelain carving with four themes that used operas. clay sculpture includind mural decoration with four themes that used scenery, Painting includind scarf. The maximum of garden art decoration is “dragon” murals size 160x186 cm in Tian Hou temple in Gongqian, the minimum size one was figure Mural porcelain size 30x73 cm in Tian Hou temple in Gongqian. Village temples' maximum of garden art decoration was “Lijiang River” murals size 320x127.5 cm in Young's family temple, the minimum was figure Mural stone size 37x55 cm in He's family temple.(2) The selection of temple garden trees were old trees with several hundred years of history, including Ficus microcarpa, Ulmus pumila, Pistacia chinensis, Casuarina equisetifolia, and twenty-three native trees species such as Erythrina variegate, Acacia confuse, Casuarina equisetifolia and so on. The religious space was dominated by regular planting, and the tour and living space were mainly grown by nature. And the village temples only planted one kind of old tree, which was Ficus microcarpa.