The boat is a boat-shaped building built on the water surface of the garden, imitating the shape of a boat, for people to play and have banquets and watch waterscapes, such as "Xiangzhou" in Suzhou Humble Administrator's Garden and "Qingyan Fang" in Beijing Summer Palace.

The boat is a boat-shaped building on the water's edge or in the water, divided into three sections at the front and rear. The front cabin is higher, the middle cabin is slightly lower, and the rear cabin is built with a two-story building for ascending and overlooking. The front end is connected to the shore by a flat channel, imitating a springboard for boarding. The boat in the water brings people closer to the water, and being in it makes people feel rippling in the water. It is a place for people to rest, enjoy and drink in the garden.

Suzhou Humble Administrator's Garden Xiangzhou

Ancient boats have all-stone structures, also known as stone boats. Most of the boat hulls are made of masonry, and the upper structures of the boats are made of wood or brick-wood mixed structures. Fangs are like paintings, and are generally divided into three parts: front, middle and back. The bow is used as an open shed and terrace for viewing and admiring the moon. The middle cabin is slightly shorter in appearance and is the main resting and banquet place for the boat. Long windows are opened on both sides to allow you to sit and watch the scenery outside the boat. The rear part is the highest, and the cabin is made up of two floors, the bottom is real and the top is empty, and the contrast is strong. The lower floor is the passage hall, and the upper floor has windows on all sides, resembling a pavilion, which provides a great view. The boats are mostly made of canopy or two slope roofs.

Qingyan Boat in Summer Palace, Beijing

The ancient boat is gorgeously decorated, the overall shape is suitable for virtual and real, scattered and neat, light and stretched, and it is an important viewing and spot building in the garden. Lingnan people call the boat "Ship Hall", which is the landscape center of Lingnan garden architecture. It often has multiple functions of halls and pavilions. Generally, the ship hall is near or near the water. Occasionally, those who built the ship hall on the mountain, "a man with deep clouds", using clouds as water, implicitly abstract, full of poetry.

Jumbo Seafood Boat

This kind of building has special significance in the artistic conception creation of Chinese garden art. We know that boats were the main means of transportation in the south of the Yangtze River in ancient times. However, since Zhuangzi said, "The incompetent has nothing to ask for, and they invite to swim when they are full. After the "non-tied boat", the boat became a symbol of the ancient literati recluse the rivers and lakes, which means that the owner of the garden has secluded the rivers and lakes without asking about politics. Because in ancient times, a considerable number of scholars were frustrated in their official careers and were dissatisfied with real life. They often wanted to escape from the world and enjoy the mountains and rivers. Most of their leisure trips were bought by boats and traveled for thousands of miles in a day. Happy. Therefore, the boat is often a building where the owner of the garden puts on his emotions, which implies seclusion, but the boat also has different meanings on different occasions. Editor/He Yuting