Situated in Jingsheng Town, 12 km east of Lingshi County in the province, the Wang's Grand Courtyard is only 35 km from the Ancient City of Pingyao, which is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site.

 

This luxurious residence covers about 45,000 square meters with 123 compounds and 1,118 rooms and took about half a century (1762-1811) to build.

 

The Wang's family of Jingsheng, Lingshi, originates from Taiyuan and resided for generations in Gouying Village (now Gouyutan Village of Fujiatan Town) in Fenhe River valley, this county. In Huangqing Period of Yuan Dynasty (1312-1313), after moving to Jingsheng Village, ancestor Wang Shi was engaged in farming and commerce, with the population gradually growing. Then, he studied and held office. Therefore, getting prosperous with commerce and trade and becoming illustrious through official career, Wang's had become a local distinguished family.

 

Wang's family entered time of great prosperity in the period of Kangxi, Qianlong and Jiaqing when it went in for large-scale construction, built residences, ancestral halls and grave-yard and set up shops and workshops while running private schools charging no tuition, setting up local public welfare granary, building bridges and roads, making water reservoirs and channels, relieving the people in stricken areas and aiding the poor, and contributed money to build Confucius temple and academic houses, with philanthropic acts endless. In such period, there are twelve persons from Wang's family who held offices as fifth-to second-rank officials, twelve persons who were awarded, conferred, and granted titles as senior officials and two persons who took part in the old man banquets held by the royal court in sixty-first year of Kangxi (1722 A.D.) and the first year of Jiaqing (1796 A.D.) separately.

 

Since the eighteenth century (in the period of Daoguang), Wang's family gradually declined, and the reason for it lay in that, in addition to the social, political, economic and other objective factors, its descendants did not try to make a good showing and got extravagant day by day. They cast away the fine moral characters handed down from their ancestors. Some of them were out of studies while contributing money for official posts, and some neglected farming while indulging themselves in smoking opium. Finally, Wang's family went to declination just like the falling leaves in Autumn wind and the collapsing building. Though individual rich families still ran firms and shops within the province and in Beijing and Tianjin before the War of Resistance against Japan, they suddenly closed their businesses and moved to the South to stay idle or wandered destitute far from home after the Lugouqiao Incident.

 

Wang's family has experienced 27 generations for more than 680 years and, after the new China was founded, the people of Wang's family are engaged in the trade of various circles and some have made contributions

With a time-honored history, Jingsheng is a famous historical and cultural town. Archeological finds have revealed a painted pottery site of the Neolithic Age in the town, demonstrating that Chinese ancestors have dwelt in the place a long time. The tomb cluster dating form the Shang Dynasty (About 16th - 11th century BC) boasts a lot of precious relics from the Bronze Age. The cultural relics from the Qin and Han dynasties (221BC-220AD) also abound in the town. Currently, there are still many buildings in Jinsheng that were built in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

 

The Grand Courtyard of the Wangs, deliberately protected and left from the Qing Dynasty, boasts strong ethnic Chinese flavor and occupies an important position in Chinese construction history.

 

The mansions of the family are rather luxurious, as the family paid little attention to the production cost. In the Kangxi Reign of the Qing Dynasty, the Wangs built the first two lanes named Yongcui and Suorui for their mansions in Jingsheng. In the Qianlong Reign, the Zhongling lane was built, and the Hongmen, Gongji, and Dongnan fortresses were also built to form a dwelling area for the Wangs. During the Yongzheng Reign, the Chongning Fortress was built. Two Wang members, Wang Rucong and Wang Rucheng, built the Gaojiaya dwelling area, the last construction cluster.

 

Gaojiaya began to be built in 1796 and finished in 1811. After 16 years, the whole construction covered 11,728 square meters with 26 courtyards and 218 rooms. The features of the mansion are as follows:

 

First, the whole construction faces the river, away from the mountain. The buildings were established upon the fully advantages of the landscape of the hills, which makes the whole compound appear scattered in a graceful manner. Layers of gardens on different heights of the hill give the compound more levels and the hill more vibrancy and glamour. 

 

Second, the compound walls of are very tall, and there are four gates on four circles of walls that enclose the buildings on different layers. This style inherited the construction mode of the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century-771BC) that employs halls in the front and rooms in the rear part, as well as many rows of houses. There are a multiple of spaces, which strengthens safety. 

 

The main body of each building strictly follows feudal rules about the construction styles of different ranks, reflecting the class differences in the feudal society as well as the notions and thoughts of the scholar-officials.

 

The third feature is the magnificence and the complete functions of the compound. The main body of the construction is symmetrical in its layout. Inside one courtyard, there always seems to be another; behind one door, there always seems to be another door. Rooms, pavilions, studies, gardens, and kitchens are all stationed in the places that are most suitable to them.

 

Stone carvings, brick carvings, and woodcarvings have various themes and rich content. Known for their exquisite skills, the carvings incorporate folk customs and folk arts, and best represent the "fine and dense" artistic style of the Qing Dynasty. Many experts and scholars think that the place is suitable for traveling, dwelling, and just plain appreciating.

 

Why Wang's Grand Courtyard can be famed all over the world lies not only in that it perfectly satisfies the requirements of the three architectural elements of "practicality, firmness, beautiful appearance" but more importantly also in that it embodies tremendous momentum and originality in the ranges from cultural connotation to scale and imposing manner and from terrain selection to internal structure design.

 

Under the prerequisite of compliance with courtesy system and striving for practicality, the whole architecture combines the gardening art with the courtyard making skill as a whole, both keeps the traditional style of North-China civil residence and fully uses for reference the thinking train of design of South-China gardens.

 

Its layout, alternation and consistency, and its separation by paying attention to application of the artistic expression means of brightness and darkness, principles and reality, thickness and thinness as well as lightness and heaviness make the whole architectural complex like gentle and sweet music from traditional stringed and woodwind instruments or like loud and strong sound of drum group, scattered here and there and dotted with each other to present its expression and form, and become a superb artistic work of civil residence architecture immortal in the world.

Carving works made of brick, stone, and wood can be seen almost anywhere in the Grand Courtyard of the Wangs, yet each piece of the work is fine and ingenious. As an important part of the courtyard's construction art, the carvings demonstrate the artistic feature of the time.

 

With varied themes, the carving works applied a multiple of carving skills. Literati figures, painters, and carving artists participated in making the artistic carvings works, presenting Confucius, Taoism, and Buddhism thoughts as well as the Chinese folk customs and arts. Consciously or unconsciously, the carvings have inherited ancient Chinese civilization in its unique way.

 

The carvings are an important reason why the courtyard is also reputed as the "art gallery of Chinese folk residence."

 

As an important component of the Chinese artistic treasure trove, the furniture art boasts not only practical use, but also values in cultural research and artistic appreciation. Most of the furniture exhibited in the courtyard were made in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties. Although the style is usually simple, the carvings on the furniture are very exquisite, fully showing the natural beauty from the fine texture, color, and pattern of the wood.

 

The calligraphies and paintings collected in the courtyard were mostly from the famous calligraphers and painters in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The famous literati Zheng Banqiao's handwritings, Qi Junzao's horizontal wood inscribed boards on doors, vertically-hung scrolls of Fushan and Liuyong (Liu Luoguo), paintings of Tang Bohu and Wen Zhengming, and Weng Fanggang's stone carvings and horizontal wood inscribed boards can all be found here. 

 

All the works contain their workmanship in the strokes and place their feeling on the points and in the paintings. Even after two to three hundred years, these works still remain full of charm and are of high value, therefore, often enticing numerous poets and writers among the courtyard's many visitors to make a temporary stay to savor their flavor a bit longer.

 

 

The Gao Jia Ya Architectural Complex in the Courtyard of Wangshad been built by the brothers of Wang Rucong and Wang Rucheng, the Wang’s 17th generation, within the period from 1st year to 16th year of Jiaqing (1796-1811 ), covering 19572sq.m, including 35 large and small courtyards and 342 rooms of houses, the buildings and courtyards are well-spaced, adapting themselves for the geographical conditions having magnificent manner and completed functions, inheriting the courtyard style formed in the Western Zhou Dynasty with the halls in the front and the bedrooms at the back. The brick, wood and stone carvings have great originality and rich intension, in cultural grade of which is very high.