Gardens of the Far East

UNESCO Courier, May, 1997 by France Bequette

The gardens of the Far East are small enclosed worlds that awaken the senses and calm the mind. Everything in them seems designed to encourage meditation: murmuring water, birdsong, the sound of frogs and crickets, wind rustling in bamboo leaves, the delicate smell given off by lotus leaves after a summer shower, and succulent fruit ripen-ing on the stem.

CHINA: ROOMS WITH A VIEW

"In Chinese," writes Antoine Gournay, assistant curator of the Cernuschi Museum in Paris, "the word yuan (garden) means not so much an area set apart from built architecture and mainly used for growing plants, as a specific way of distributing and arranging the space of a dwelling." He goes on to say that "House and garden in China are more often dovetailed together than juxtaposed; what's more, the vegetation that decorates this ensemble is considered as secondary to rocks and water." The regularity of architecture contrasts with the irregularity of the garden with its twisted rocks and ponds in a variety of shapes.

Rocks symbolize mountains, the place where sky and earth meet. They are chosen carefully. The more unusual their shape, the more they are worth. Their size depends on their creator's resources and ambitions. In the 11th century, the Northern Sung dynasty emperor Hui Tsung spent twelve years creating the Lake of Golden Clarity, Longevity Mountain (5,000 [m.sup.2]) and Gen Yu rockery (150 metres high) in the imperial city of Bian Liang. In his book Classic Chinese Gardens, Qiao Yun tells how the emperor "did not hesitate to knock down bridges or destroy roads and canals to transport these rocks." In China, where mountains are worshipped (e.g. Kunlun shah, the residence of Taiji, the "immensely great one"), there are no gardens without rocks.

Water is as essential as rocks, to which it is a complement, since water and rocks are yin and yang. Sun-drenched, angular and hard, rocks are yang. Cold and dark but also free, pure and regenerative, water is yin. Liu Bang, Gaozu (founding emperor) of the Hah dynasty in the third century B.C., created three artificial islands in Tai Yi Lake, to symbolize paradise. From that time on all imperial gardens used this symbol.

The first private gardens are recorded in the year 900, the finest examples being in the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu province. Many men of letters went to live in the city in isolation from the world, and there they practised gardening and painting on silk. The format of traditional painting on hand scrolls, which is read either vertically or horizontally, is said to correspond perfectly with the thought processes of the lover of gardens.

Enclosed by walls, which provide a neutral background, the Chinese garden contains buildings for various leisure activities. The landscape is arranged according to the rooms from which it is viewed. No single point affords an overall view. Natural compositions are framed by open-work, round, rectangular or fan-shaped windows, and doors shaped like full moons or vases. Non-structural walls are replaced by moveable partitions. Covered walkways meander through the garden so that it can be enjoyed in all weathers. The fusion between the inside and outside areas is complete.

Galleries, pathways and bridges shun rectilinearity, for straight lines are used by evil spirits. Garden design is regulated by the science known as fengshui, which literally means "wind and water" and is expressed via geomancy. For 2,000 years it was inconceivable to build a house without first consulting a geomancer. "If you induce harmony of place," says the Book of Rites (Li ji), "then sky and earth will assume their rightful places and everything will prosper." Antoine Gournay explains: "The site, orientation and shape of buildings are chosen so as to use to maximum effect the breaths of the life force (qiyun) that appear in this place, capture their beneficial effects and take precautions against their baneful influences." The ideal site faces south, turns its back to a mountain and is near a stream flowing from northwest to southeast. The garden should be entered from the south.

JAPAN: PUTTING THE WORLD IN ORDER

Japanese garden design is also governed by fengshui, and as early as the sixth century it was drawing inspiration from Buddhism and Chinese practices. But Chinese and Japanese thinking about gardens went different ways. "By means of the most ordinary things gardens enable us to grasp the secret of nature and its real essence," wrote Soami, a sixteenth-century monk and aesthete who wrote a book on gardens.

"The shadow of the bamboo sweeps the steps but not a speck of dust moves. The moon plunges to the bottom of the fountain but the water is unruffled,"

reads an entry in the Zenrin Kushu, an anthology of quotations compiled in the fifteenth century. The garden is a place conducive to meditation. Rigour, purity and asymmetry preside over its composition. Nothing is left to chance. Its architecture is as codified as calligraphy, the tea ceremony or the art of flower arrangement. In fact gardening was done by monks, painters or masters of the tea ceremony until professional horticulturists came on the scene. As a way of putting the world in order, it expresses a religion or a philosophy with as much precision as a cathedral or a treatise. Its size is of no importance. It can be miniaturized and even be contained in a small porcelain cup.