Chinese Garden Landscaping
As early as in the 6th century, Japan had already known of Chinese garden landscaping with Europeans learning of the Chinese style through Marco Polo who visited many Song dynasty gardens in southern China during the Yuan dynasty. In the 17th century, Chinese garden landscaping was introduced to England where it then spread to France and the rest of Europe. In the late 18th century, Chinese garden landscaping had a huge influence on the European Romantic Movement, European landscaping moved away from a stiff aristocratic style to a more natural style found in Chinese gardens.
Western and Eastern garden landscaping bear different forms and styles because of different philosophies and sense of aesthetic beauty. In form, Western landscaping embodies artificial beauty with symmetrical, regular and well-knit layouts. Geometry is ever-present as flowers and plants are pruned upright and square. Chinese garden landscaping doesn't require symmetry or fixed regulations as plants, trees and buildings are built to a natural form. Whereas Western landscaping theory aims to remedy the defects of nature, Chinese garden landscaping blends plants and buildings into an organic whole and imitates nature by building mountains (rocky outcroppings) with flowing water to present a quality suggestive of poetry or painting. To fully enjoy the beauty of Chinese gardens, it's important to understand the philosophy implied through the sceneries.
THE ORIGIN & DEVELOPMENT OF CHINESE GARDEN LANDSCAPING
Chinese garden landscaping has a history of more than 4,000 years with the earliest gardens appearing in 2000 BC during the Shang dynasty. Shang kings used forests and mountains for hunting and as sightseeing destinations. Chinese garden landscaping would develop from this embryonic form of garden.
The first gardens in early Chinese history were imperial status symbols of the kings and aristocrats. Their most distinguishing features were that they covered large areas and had dual purpose, for hunting and for holding sacrificial rites to the god.
Gradually the appeal of gardens spread beyond the aristocracy to officials, poets, painters and traders who hoped to recreate the scenic spots they saw in the convenience of their hometowns. Early private gardens were small and featured stones piled into mountains, water channels were usually planted with pine and cypress trees and bamboo. These gardens recreated natural scenes and are named "gardens with mountains and waters sceneries."
The wealth of the Tang dynasty spurred the building of gardens. The imperial gardens were in Chang'an, present day Xi'an and the largest was called the Forbidden Garden. This garden was 14km wide and 12km long and held 24 gardens and building complexes. It was the main imperial getaway with scenic spots and different activities like hunting, singing and dancing.
Landscaping painting became an independent branch of Chinese painting during the Tang dynasty. Mountains, water, trees and villages were popular subjects and painters sought to embody the harmony between man and nature with their paintings. Painters not just painted sceneries, but expressed their thoughts and emotions with the images. Gardens were built in a similar vein, the garden designer attempts to harmonize architectural beauty with natural beauty so the visitor sees a complete picture.
During the Song dynasty, garden landscaping became even more popular and spread further down the social hierarchy. Owners of teahouses began to build gardens to solicit customers and everyday commoners could enjoy the beauty of gardens. Landscape painting now had greater influence on garden landscaping than before. For example, the emperor would hire a commercial painter to paint a design and the garden would be built according to the painting. Great detail was given to the lines, structures and decoration of courtyards, with particular attention paid to the placement of small ornaments.
Chinese garden landscaping reached a golden age in the Ming and Qing dynasties and became an art that blended music, painting, poetry and architecture. Gardens began to influence each other and designers referred to other gardens for inspiration. The number of gardens greatly increased, with many of them private gardens such classics like the Humble Administrator's Garden, the Master of Nets Garden and the Ge Garden. Imperial gardens like the Old Summer Palace and the Summer Palace began imitating and copying ideas from private gardens.
CLASSIFICATION OF CHINESE GARDEN LANDSCAPING
Classification by Geographical Location
Northern gardens are large and have grand structures. Because the northern climate, there isn't a large variety of water areas or evergreen trees and they're not as delicate as their counterparts in southern China. Northern gardens are found mainly in Beijing, Xi'an, Luoyang and Kaifeng, with the gardens in Beijing as most representative of the northern style.
Jiangnan (south of the Yangtze River) gardens cover smaller areas than the ones in the north, but have a variety of waterscapes and evergreen trees. The scenery is delicate and cozy. Southern gardens are found in Nanjing, Shanghai, Wuxi, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Yangzhou, with the gardens in Suzhou considered the best examples. Southern gardens are artistic designs consisting of buildings, mountains, water and plant life. These gardens blend nature, architecture and painting into a unified whole.
Guangdong is in a subtropical zone so Cantonese gardens feature more waterscapes, vegetation and they feature subtropical scenery tall and spacious buildings.
Classification by Owner
Imperial gardens are large and grandiose, and were built using natural mountains and waterways. The most famous ones include the Imperial Forest Garden built during the Han dynasty, and in the Tang dynasty the Forbidden Garden in Xi'an. The current imperial gardens are Qing dynasty creations with Beihai Park, the Summer Palace and the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, and the Imperial Summer Villa in Chengde as the finest examples. These gardens highlight scenic spots of China's different regions blend themes of gods and legends with anecdotes of well-known historical personalities. Particular attention was given to the connection of independent sceneries within the garden.
Private gardens were relatively small with small mountains and waterways. Most only measured one hectare and very few were four or five hectares. Within such a confined space, particular attention was given to incorporating small buildings, manmade mountains and waterways, and to the placement of vegetation and decorations. The theme of the garden varied according to the taste of the owner, some showed the owner's upright and outspoken character and others presented the owner's pursuit of a plain and simple life. The private gardens of Suzhou, Yangzhou and Nanjing are considered some of China's most distinguished, with Suzhou being home to the majority of them.
Temple gardens are attached to temples and were built in approximately the same manner as private gardens, but with a greater emphasis on tranquility. Temple gardens are an integral part of temple complex and influence the design of the overall temple, thus temples have a gardenlike atmosphere.
FEATURES OF CHINESE GARDENS
Although there's a great variety in Chinese gardens, and each garden has its own particular features, there are some common features.
The pursuit of poetic beauty and an artistic ideal as Chinese gardens are closely connected with poetry and painting. The artistic creation of gardens and paintings are interlinked, with both "in pursuit of poetic meaning," an attempt to recreate a poem or painting in a garden setting. Such characteristics find their expression in the design of the mountains and water. The architectural design of gardens are very detailed and each garden has their own thematic content, most of which are taken from well-known poems and have layouts based on landscape paintings. In general, gardens aim for the harmonization of space and natural scenes according artistic principles.
Gardens take advantage of scenes to express the designer's emotion and arouse the visitor's associations and imagination. An artistic expression of emotion is a basic theme in art and Chinese gardens are no exception. Because gardens are a recreation of nature in an artificial setting, the process of creating a garden requires imagination and innovation. Firstly, water and mountains are created using stones and ditches and their mutually dependent pairing brings out a striking effect. Secondly, choosing an auspicious name is an important part of creating associations with the garden and nature. Names are inscribed on stone tablets, gatepost couplets and door boards. These two measures help create a picture for the visitor and set the mood for the garden.
Creating a sense of space within a limited area is important, especially in small private gardens. In order to create more scenes, designers construct mountains, waterways, plant tress and flowers and breed fish. Fixed scenes are given varied views and perspectives by using contrast, offsetting the point of view and by using winding paths. These measures give a new view at every point throughout the small garden, thus creating a larger sense of spatial freedom. Some methods include making the river banks curved with irregular stones, planting flowers and trees according to different seasons, varying the length of corridors, and using decorative windows and gates. A careful observer will notice in Suzhou garden that if there's a window facing a white wall, there will also be rockery or vegetation within the frame. The design is meant to create a sense of exploration, the scenes aren't in the open and offer different impressions from different angles.
Gardens borrow and use the scenery of the nearby
surroundings. Chinese garden emphasizes the arrangement of different scenes inside and outside the garden in proper proportions. For example, in the Ge Garden in Yangzhou, there's the Summer Mountain, which is topped with a pavilion. From this pavilion the scenery of the Slender West Lake can be seen in the distance. In Wuxi, the Jichang Garden borrows the pagoda in Xi Shan as a backdrop to set off the scenes in the garden.
The design and landscaping of Chinese gardens has evolved into an independent technique in its own right and it always includes four essential features.
Mountain Scenery
Mountains are the foremost feature in forming garden scenery. During the reign of Emperor Wudi of the Han dynasty when laborers shaped a small island from soil they dug out while repairing a pond. This island was an early example of artificial mountains. Later garden designers, instead of merely duplicating the size of mountains, stressed the importance details so artificial mountains closely resembled their real counterparts. From the Tang and Song dynasties, and with the development of landscape painting, landscape gardeners began paying greater attention to construction techniques.
Water Scenery
Waterways are one of the most important scenic features of a garden. Waterscapes in a garden can be static lakes or dynamic waterfalls. There are three ways to construct artificial water scenery.
Coverings
Covering the water bank with thick growth of grass and constructing buildings on the shore. Architectural constructions are usually erected above the water in order to create a sense of flowing water from the base of the structure. Plants and grass along the water will give it an appearance of tranquility and stillness.
Partitions
Stone bridge, corridors or large stones placed in the water allow visitors to cross the waterway and give the space above the flat water a compartmentalized layered effect.
Decorations
If the area that water occupies is very small, a winding path along the shore made with irregularly shaped stones or planted vegetation help to create a spatially open feeling. Fish and water plants in the water also add to the scenic beauty.
Animals and Plants
In order to make the water and mountains look natural, it's necessary the tic shapes, colors, and fragrance. Landscape gardeners often prefer red maples, green bamboo, colorful roses, and white magnolias, all of which serve as a visual and olfactory ornament in all seasons. The symbolic meaning of each plant is also carefully considered. For example, bamboo is the symbol of uprightness, pine is a symbol of strength and longevity, the lotus is associated with purity and the peony with wealth and rank. Designers use these plants as another method to get across their artistic intention.
Classical Chinese gardens attach considerable importance to animals within the garden. Animals such as goldfishes, mandarin ducks, white cranes, and parrots provide amusement as well as serving as symbols of longevity. Animals allow visitors to feel as if they're in the midst of a truly natural environment.
ARCHITECTURAL CONSTRUCTIONS
Architectural constructions in gardens differ from common buildings since they must embellish the garden as part of the natural scenery while maintaining their practical uses. Halls, pavilions, pleasure boats, corridors, bridges and walls are the various types of a buildings found in gardens.
Halls
Halls are where visitors are served and meetings are held and are the central structure of a garden. The location of the hall influences the disposition of the overall scenery. The hall must be allocated sufficient space as it's usually fairly large, and according to Chinese custom, its entrance should face south. Outside the hall lies the main scenery of the garden.
Buildings
The highest structure in the garden should provide the visitor a panoramic view from all four-window walls. The building can also be used as a storage books and paintings.
Pavilions
The four sides of a pavilion are open with single roof. Pavilions are used as a rest stop or a scenic point. Pavilions vary in shape from three, six and eight sided structures to square or circular. They're usually built next to a scene, next to a pathway, corridor, adjacent to a wall or edge of a cliff. Famous pavilions include the Surging Waves Pavilion and the Songfeng Pavilion in the Humble Administrator's Garden.
Pleasure Boats
These artificial boats are placed along the shore. A good example is the marble boat in the Summer Palace.
Corridors
Corridors are more than passageways; they're also vantage points for sightseeing. Corridors are some of the most creative structures in Chinese gardens; they link the different structures allowing easy movement within the garden and provide shelter from the elements. The Long Corridor in the Summer Place is 728m long and has more than 14,000 colorful paintings. If a visitor spends only 2 seconds to view each painting, it would take about 8 hours to see them all.
Bridges
Bridges provide vantage points on both sides of the bridge and in the waterscape itself. Garden bridges are straight or twisty, arched or flat and made from stone, bamboo or wood.
THE CONNOTATION OF CHINESE GARDENS
Traditional Chinese thought places humans as a small part of the infinite universe. Each living creature is a part of nature and the intrinsic link between humans and nature can't be broken. Chinese gardens are an effort to imitate nature in their homes, to conform to nature without breaking this fundamental connection. Each part of the garden is meant to highlight and remind visitors of the harmony between humans and nature, with the goal of breeding harmony between character and emotion.
Imperial gardens symbolized the supreme power of emperors, but were also places of recreation. Private gardens were places of relaxation and contemplation, a sanctuary to satisfy people's longing for nature. Regardless of geographic location or scale, Chinese gardens represent a Chinese tradition of finding harmony within the world by turning to nature.
