jiǎ’áng 假昂

Note (full)

Literally meaning “pretend” or “simulated” ang, jia’ang refers to a bracket arm that appears to be a xia’ang visually, but does not function as a xia’ang structurally. Architectural historians have used jia’ang as a term in traditional Chinese architecture since the 1930s (Liang 1933，26). Usually it refers to a huagong in an eaves bracket set (wai yan dougong 外簷斗栱) with a shape of ang mouth (ang zui 昂嘴) on the outside. In most cases, there is a carved huatouzi 華頭子 underneath the jia'ang.4

Based on extant timber frame structures, such as the Sage Mother Hall (mid 11th century) in Jinci, we know that jia’ang were already being used in the Northern Song dynasty. It can be traced back even further, to the Southern Tang through a wooden building model discovered in a coffin in Baoying 寶應, Jiangsu (Zhou 2020, Li 1965). Jia’ang became popular in architecture after the Southern Song and became a standard form in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The ang mentioned in architectural literature from the Qing dynasty are all jia’ang (Liang 1981, 21-22).5

Some scholars extend the meaning of jia’ang to elements such as cha’ang 插昂 mentioned in the Yingzao fashi (Wang and Niu 1992, Cheng 1997, Li 2000, which is a small timber in the shape of an ang mouth, but which does not function as a lever arm. This view is not universally accepted (Su 1994, Feng 1995). Recently, a more generally accepted opinion is that cha’ang was a transitional form, which was used before jia’ang became standard (Wen 2013, Yu 2017).6

“假昂”為1930年代以後建築史學家所使用（梁 1933, 26），通常用於指外簷鬥栱中外挑斫成昂嘴形的華栱，大部分案例中昂嘴下還帶有刻出的華頭子。本質上”假昂“作為一種現象，是指在形態上通過昂尖（昂嘴）的形式追求視覺上的下昂意向，但在構件整體形式與所起作用上已不具備下昂基本特點的構件。4

假昂在現存木構建築實例中出現於北宋（晉祠聖母殿，11世紀中期），但在墓葬中最早可見出土于寶應的南唐木屋（周 2020，黎 1965）；南宋以後假昂在木構建築中逐漸普遍。此類做法在明清建築中成為標準做法，清代營造文獻中的“昂”均指此類構件 (梁 1981，21-22)。5

部分學者將“假昂”延伸為具有昂（尖）的形態，但不符合昂的杠杆原理的構件，如《營造法式》中的插昂（王 和 牛 1992，程 1997，李 2007），但這一觀點有爭議（宿 1994，冯 1995）。近來較為普遍的看法是：插昂是假昂定型前的過渡形態（温 2013，喻 2017）。6

Broad Match: bracketing