Artistic Concept of Chinese Gardens: Part 1

Confucius said that the wise take pleasure in water, and the kind find happiness in a mountain . The idea contained in this apothegm that wisdom is as comprehensive as water that could contain infinity and kindheartedness is as firm as a mountain from which everything could grow is widely accepted in later times.

In this sense, garden owners actions of digging lake and making rockery represent not only their fondness of natural environment, but also their longing and pursuit for virtures and wisdom. Emperor Qin Shi Huang made the Chang Pond by leading the Wei River to Xianyang, and built the Penglai Sacred Mountain in the pond to pray for the blessing of supernatural being.

This practice of building symbolistic immortal islet or sacred mountain had always been employed frequently in later ages, for example, the three islets built in the Taiye Pond of the Jian Zhang Palace in Chang an in the Han Dynasty; the Peng Lai Islet built in the Taiye Pond in the Grand Ming Palace in Chang an in the Tang Dynasty; the three islets in the Taiye Pond in imperial city in the Grand Capital in the Yuan Dynasty, the Peng Islet and Yao Hill in the Sea of Happiness, the largest lake in the Garden of Perfect Splendor and the three islets in the Kunming lake in the Summer Palace in the Qing Dynasty.

We could see that the devout belief in landscape s symbolic meaning never faints in later times.

Ancient people also projected their recognition of Confucianism onto plants in nature. Pine trees are mighty and sturdy, bamboos are straight and gnarled and plums blossom in cold winter. Their stances and natural habits associate people with temperaments or characteristics such as loftiness, chastity and tenacity.

So Chinese scholars consider pine, bamboo and plum blossoms as the three friends in frostiness to signify the exalted human character, thus the three plants become the usual carriers in Chinese poetry, painting and even gardening. Artists chant verses or portray these images to assimilate themselves or to show their admiration for these noble characters.

For example, the most important mountain path in the mountainous area of the Summer Resort is the pine-covered Pine Cloud Gorge. Scholars like the straight and gnarled stance of bamboo, so almost all private gardens south to Yangtzi River are decorated with bamboos. Bai Juyi, a poet who favored bamboo, not only wrote many poems about the bamboo, but also planted many bamboos in his own private garden.

Su Shi, an eminent writer in the Song Dynasty, was famed for his affection to bamboo. It is possible to dine without meat, but cannot live without bamboo , he once wrote, eating no meat makes people thin, but without bamboo people will become vulgar.

Lotus roots are fragile, but they can grow high out of silts segment after segment. Water lilies grow from mud, but they blossom beautifully out of water. These ecofeatures of lotus and water lily no doubt embody profound life philosophy and signify the noble characters and virtues people should possess in a stagnant social environment.

So lotus and water lily, like pine, bamboo and plum blossom, always appear in paintings and garden. They not only decorate the picture and environment with their beautiful appearance, but also purify people s hearts with their artistic implications. In the Garden of Perfect Splendor, lotus flowers cover the pond in a scenic spot called Lian Xi Yue Chu and Qianlong inscribed, there are men of honor everywhere .

The designers of the Humble Administrator s Garden made full use of the double functions of water lily and lotus in image and cultural connotations. Lotus and water lily they planted covered the pond in front of the main hall and the hall was named the Fragrance Spreading Far hall because the fragrance of lotus is light and could be spread to far away.

They built a pavilion beside the lotus pond in the west of the garden, and named the Lingering and Listening Hall, which was quoted from Li Shangyin s sentence of keep the remnant lotus for listening to the rain . When summer passes and autumn comes, one can sit in the pavilion silently and listen to the sound of rain dropping on the leaves of the lotus.

source: Chinese Gardens, published by China International Press