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Japanese garden

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This view from the Symbolic Mountain in the gardens in Cowra, Australia shows many of the typical elements of a Japanese garden.
Stone lantern amid plants. The shape of the roof will trap and hold a picturesque cap of snow.
Karesansui garden at Tōfuku-ji in Kyoto.
This garden has an abundance of plants, including seasonal flowers.

Japanese gardens (Kanji 日本庭園, nihon teien), that is, gardens in traditional Japanese style, can be found at private homes, in neighborhood or city parks, and at historical landmarks such as Buddhist temples and old castles.

Some of the Japanese gardens most famous in the West, and within Japan as well, are dry gardens or rock gardens, karesansui. The tradition of the Tea masters has produced highly refined Japanese gardens of quite another style, evoking rural simplicity. In Japanese culture, garden-making is a high art, intimately related to the linked arts of calligraphy and ink painting. Since the end of the nineteenth century, Japanese gardens have also been adapted to Western settings.

The tradition of Japanese gardening was historically passed down from sensei to apprentice. In recent decades this has been supplemented by various trade schools known as senmon gakkoh. The opening words of Zōen's Illustrations for designing mountain, water and hillside field landscapes (1466) are "If you have not received the oral transmissions, you must not make gardens" and its closing admonition is "You must never show this writing to outsiders. You must keep it secret".[1]

Typical features

A catalogue of features "typical" of the Japanese garden may be drawn up without inquiring deeply into the aesthetic underlying Japanese practice. Typical Japanese gardens have at their center a home from which the garden is viewed. In addition to residential architecture, Japanese gardens often contain several of these elements:

  • Water, real or symbolic.
  • Rocks.
  • A lantern, typically of stone.
  • A teahouse or pavilion.
  • A enclosure device such as a hedge, fence, or wall of traditional character.
  • A bridge to the island, or stepping stones.

Styles

Japanese gardens might fall into one of these styles:

  • Kanshoh-style gardens which are viewed from a residence
  • Pond gardens, for viewing from a boat.
  • Tea gardens, for viewing from a path which leads to a tea ceremony hut.
  • Strolling gardens (kaiyū-shiki), for viewing a sequence of effects from a path which circumnavigates the garden. The seventeenth-century Katsura garden in Kyoto is a famous exemplar.
  • The dry landscape style known as karesansui. These have no water and few plants, but typically evoke a feeling of water using pebbles and meticulously raked gravel or sand. Rocks chosen for their intriguing shapes and patterns, mosses, and low shrubs typify the karesansui style. The gardens at Ryōan-ji, a temple in Kyoto, and Daisen-in, created in 1513, are particularly renowned.

Other gardens also use similar rocks for decoration. Some of these come from distant parts of Japan. In addition, bamboos and related plants, evergreens including Japanese black pine, and such deciduous trees as maples grow above a carpet of ferns and mosses.

The use of stones, water, and plantings

Hagiwara Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco, California, showing the use of stone, water and plants

Though often thought of as tranquil sanctuaries that allow individuals to escape from the stresses of daily life, Japanese gardens are designed for a variety of purposes. Some gardens invite quiet contemplation, but may have also been intended for recreation, the display of rare plant specimens, or the exhibition of unusual rocks.

Kaiyu-shiki or Strolling Gardens require the observer to walk through the garden to fully appreciate it. A premeditated path takes observers through each unique area of a Japanese garden. Uneven surfaces are placed in specific spaces to prompt people to look down at particular points. When the observer looks up, they will see an eye-catching ornamentation which is intended to enlighten and revive the spirit of the observer. This type of design is known as the Japanese landscape principle of "hide and reveal".

Stones are used to construct the garden's paths, bridges, and walkways. Stones can also represent a geological presence where actual mountains are not viewable or present. They are sometimes placed in odd numbers and a majority of the groupings reflect triangular shapes, which often are the mountains of China.

A water source in a Japanese garden should appear to be part of the natural surroundings; this is why one will not find fountains in traditional gardens. Man-made streams are built with curves and irregularities to create a serene and natural appearance. Lanterns are often placed beside some of the most prominent water basins (either a pond or a stream) in a garden. In some gardens one will find a dry pond or stream. Dry ponds and streams have as much impact as do the ones filled with water.

Green plants are another element of Japanese gardens. Japanese traditions prefer subtle green tones, but flowering trees and shrubs are also used. Many plants in imitated Japanese gardens of the West are indigenous to Japan, though some sacrifices must be made to account for the differentiating climates. Some plants, such as sugar maple and firebush, give the garden a broader palette of seasonal color.

Noteworthy Japanese gardens

In Japan

A spacious Japanese garden, Suizenji, near Kumamoto Castle
An egret rests on a stone lantern in the upper lake of the Japanese Garden in Cowra, NSW, Australia
A kaiyu-shiki or strolling garden

The Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of the government of Japan designates the most notable of the nation's scenic beauty as Special Places of Scenic Beauty, under the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties.[2]. As of March 1, 2007, 29 sites are listed, more than a half of which are Japanese gardens, as below;

Bold faces specify World Heritage sites.

However, the Education Minister is not eligible to have jurisdiction over any imperial property. These two gardens, administered by Imperial Household Agency, are also considered to be great masterpieces.

Twenty stone snow-viewing lanterns in Monte Palace Tropical Garden on Madeira

In other countries

The aesthetic of Japanese gardens was introduced to the English-speaking community by Josiah Conder's Landscape Gardening in Japan ((Kelly & Walsh) 1893. It sparked the first Japanese gardens in the West. A second edition was required in 1912.[5] Conder's principles have sometimes proved hard to follow:

"Robbed of its local garb and mannerisms, the Japanese method reveals aesthetic principles applicable to the gardens of any country, teaching, as it does, how to convert into a poem or picture a composition, which, with all its variety of detail, otherwise lacks unity and intent"[6]

Samuel Newsom, Japanese Garden Construction (1939) offered Japanese aesthetic as a corrective in the construction of rock gardens, which owed their quite separate origins in the West to the mid-nineteenth century desire to grow alpines in an approximation of Alpine scree.

Argentina

Australia

Belgium

Brazil

Canada

France

Ireland

Poland

United Kingdom

England

Northern Ireland

Scotland

United States of America

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Japanese gardens.

References

  1. ^ The Illustrations, nevertheless, are translated and annotated in David A. Slawson, Secret Teachings in the Art of Japanese Gardens (New York/Tokyo: Kodansha 1987), which forms in effect an introduction to the text.
  2. ^ http://www.mext.go.jp/english/org/eshisaku/ebunka.htm
  3. ^ http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/regional/kyoto/katsura.html
  4. ^ http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/regional/kyoto/shugaku-in.html
  5. ^ Slawson 1987:15 and note2.
  6. ^ Conder quoted in Slawson 1987:15.
  7. ^ a b c d e f "UK and Ireland Survey". Japanese Garden Journal. 35. 2003. Retrieved 2007-12-11. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  8. ^ "Japanese Gardens in the UK and Ireland — Compton Acres". Retrieved 2007-12-11.
  • Slawson, David A. Secret Teachings in the Art of Japanese Gardens (New York/Tokyo: Kodansha 1987)
  • Yagi, Koji A Japanese Touch for Your Home (Kodansha 1982)
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