Japanese Gardens Key Concepts

Philosophy

Chinese garden concepts arrived in Japan along with Buddhism in the 6th century A.D. But instead of attempting to create recollections of wild nature with its mountainous precipices, Japanese garden designers sought to develop an ideal of nature in conformity with the scale and topography of their own small, well-watered, island landscape. Buddhist creation mythology and Taoist belief in the Isles of the Blessed furnished the lake-andislands motif that underlies the composition of many Japanese gardens. Most of Japans famous gardens are either temple gardens or inspired by temple gardens. This has resulted in long periods of stable ownership and a reverential attitude to garden design, garden construction and garden maintenance. The Japanese word for garden, Niwa, denotes a sanctified place set apart for the worship of Shinto gods. A Shinto shrine is a clearly marked space within a natural setting purporting to have spiritual power, much as the ancient Greeks designated their sacred groves. The Shinto shrine at Ise in Mie Prefecture is considered the holiest spot in Japan (above). There are also Zen gardens and tea gardens. Beginning in the 13th century, members of the Zen Buddhist sect designed minimalistic compositions of carefully positioned stones symbolizing islands, set in a dry river of carefully raked gravel, or as mountains in a landscape of mosses. These were intended as aids to meditation. Japan also imported the tea ceremony from China in the 15th century, which provided a disciplined experience of concentration and refreshment. Passage along a garden path to a tea house (at left) furnished the proper prelude to a tea ceremony.

Early History

In 607 A.D., the Japanese ambassador visited the Chinese Emperor Sui Yang-di at his pleasure garden near his capital city of Luoyang. From then on, Japanese garden designers began to adopt Chinese artistic and architectural forms rather than building more shrines in the Ise style. In 710, Nara became the capital of Japan, and Korean

craftsmen were brought there to help develop imperial gardens in the lake-and-islands Chinese style. Later, Emperor Kammu moved the capital to Heian-kyo (today, Kyoto). The Heian period (781-1185) became the golden age for Kyoto where all the arts were held in high esteem. The powerful Fujiwari clan gained supremacy by 850, and these nobles all tried to outdo one another in building magnificent imperial gardens and pavilions facing artificial island-studded lakes. Murusaki Shikibu, a lady of the court who lived around 1000 A.D. wrote The Tale of Genji, about a prince who enjoyed rowing his boat around islands in his lake or going on an outing to admire the fall foliage. Here at the Phoenix Hall at Byodo-in, the roof of the main pavilion (above) represents the wings of the mythical bird as it alights in Amida Buddhas (The Buddha of Everlasting Lights ) Paradise. After the fall of Kamakura rule, the Muromachi rulers (1333-1573) continued to build princely pleasure gardens and pavilions. One of the most important of these is Kinkaku-ji (the Golden Pavilion, at left), built by Yoshimitsu around 1397 after he retired from his public duties as a wealthy shogun. Upon Yoshimitsus death, Kinkaku-ji was converted to a Zen temple.

Zen Gardens

From the 7th to the 12th centuries, Zen Buddhism was overshadowed by the powerful Tendai and Shingon sects esoteric Buddhist sects with their origins in India and China, which emphasized the importance of various bodhisattvas (enlightened beings who out of compassion, forgo nirvana in order to save others). However, when the monk Eisai returned from China in 1192 and espoused the austerity and simplicity of the Zen sect, the new religion appealed to the shoguns (hereditary warrior class), and its minimalistic aesthetics guided the design of Zen temple gardens during the Kamakura

period (1185-1333). The greatest proponent of the Zen gardens was Muso Soseki (1275-1351) a significant religious figure as well as a gifted garden designer. In 1339, Muso Soseki began to reconstruct an existing garden that had been destroyed during the civil wars. This Garden of Saiho-ji Temple in Kyoto is famed for its mossy embankments. Although it is a lake garden, the atmosphere of the Heian pleasure garden has given way completely to a deeply spiritual environment derived from Pure Land Buddhism and intended as a metaphor for Amidas paradise. The upper part of the Saiho-ji garden on a hillside includes a dry cascade possibly the first example of a Kare Sansui (dry garden) composition in a Japanese garden. For the last 100 years or so, gardeners have encouraged the local moss around the lower part of the garden to grow into a thick, velvety tapestry that now covers the entire ground. During the Kamakura and subsequent Muromachi periods, Japanese gardens went through a transition phase in which the great Heian residential lake gardens to the minimalistic Zen monastic gardens gained prominence. Foremost among these is the monastic garden of Ryoan-ji, built in the 16th century (right) in the Kare Sansui style. Here, carefully controlled compositions in small defined spaces were meant to serve as an aid in raising consciousness.

Return to Opulence

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the austerity of Ryoan-ji are the palatial gardens such as the one at Sambo-in, created during the rule of Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the 16th century. He was the second of three generals who united Japan in the late 16th century after a devastating civil war. He built himself a castle in the southern Kyoto suburb known as the Momoyama District.

This is the best example of a garden from the Momoyama period. Hideyoshi was a powerful military leader who took valued rocks from other Japanese gardens and created a waterfall. This is regarded as a turning point in the use of rocks in Japanese gardens. There is a winding pond with three islands, bridges and a shore on which rocks are intricately placed. Hideyoshi was also very interested in the development of the Japanese tea ceremony instituted by Sen no Rikyu (1521-1591), who made this secular pursuit into a spiritual experience. The tea ceremony is conducted in a small rustic hut with elegantly simple utensils. Guests must stoop to enter the tea house. The garden view is intentionally blocked from view so that the participants in the tea ceremony can concentrate on the fine scroll and elegantly simple flower arrangement (Ikebana) prepared by the host. There are a number of specific items along the tea garden path that are traditionally included in the tea garden. These include a narrow corridor of stepping stones leading from the open-weave bamboo entry gate, a natural stone basin where guests may wash their hands before the tea ceremony, and stone lanterns that illuminate the path at night.

The Edo Period

After the death of Hideyoshi, there was another episode of civil conflict a situation always common in a feudal society. The samurai leader Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616) usurped power and ushered in the Edo period at about the same time, in about the same manner, as Boris Gudonov wrested power from the child-prince Dmitri in Russia. The shoguns took control of the government and left the aristocracy with nothing to do except focus on Japanese aesthetics. Kobori Enshu was one of these powerless aristocrats a student of various masters of the tea ceremony, ceramics, poetry, and garden design, and a leading figure in Japans cultural life at that time.

During the early Edo period, Kobori Enshu built a stroll garden at his Katsura Villa near Kyoto and became the first professional landscape gardener of Japan. The underlying aesthetic of the garden is Kirei Sabi (elegant beauty with a weathered, rustic quality), expressing a nostalgic longing for the days of Heian glory before the emperor had been robbed of his power. This new style of elegant simplicity replaced the stationary view of the Zen temple gardens with a hide and reveal approach, as one travels along a prescribed garden route. Over the ensuing years, Katsura became an important place for later princes to host tea parties, boating parties, and moon viewing parties. Another of these imperial stroll gardens from the Edo period is Shugakuin Rikyu, also near Kyoto. Situated in the hills, this country retreat, built around 1650 in the Kirei Sabi style, uses the design technique of Shakkei (borrowed scenery). It consists of three separate villa gardens: a lower one with a pond and three carved stone lanterns, a middle villa with a residence and a small temple, and an upper villa with an artificial lake and vistas of the mountain range to the northwest. By the 18th century, the tradition of Japanese garden art was becoming devitalized, with designers substituting formulas for the deeply felt spiritual and aesthetic impulses of earlier times. English-style lawns were added, and hybrid landscapes became the norm. It was only later when the Modernist movement espoused the idea of Less is More that the West received inspiration from the minimalist approach, borrowed scenery, hide-and-reveal technique, and rock artistry of the earlier Japanese garden designers. Only then were the roots of Japanese garden design respected once more.

Design Features

Several important features of the Japanese flat gardens (in front of temples or palaces), hill and pond gardens (usually in the mountains), and tea gardens (with their emphasis on the tea garden walk) distinguish them from other garden designs. All are representations of nature, which is not intended to be subjugated. Geomancy or Feng Shui determined the directions in which gardens and especially stones were to be oriented. Japanese aesthetics in garden art (such as well-placed lanterns and carefully selected rocks) was based on qualities Kirei Sabi and Wabi Sabi, underlying qualities of unique, elegant beauty graced with the patina of age. There is always a balance between planted or built space and empty space. Japanese designers did not fill in every space in the garden with plantings. Japan has a great deal of rainfall. The central feature of every garden is water, or a symbolic representation of water (as in the Zen Kare Sansui Gardens). Rocks are the gardens backbone, symbolizing permanence. Since islands were of mythological importance (such as the Isles of the Blessed Taoist deities), they were often symbolized by carefully selected rocks or clusters of rocks. Trees were highly trained and pruned so that they would look ancient and weathered, symbolizing the veneration of timeless age. Trees, shrubs, and perennials symbolize time. Flowers were incidental and helped to emphasize the changing of the seasons. Winter is as important as spring. The use of gravel, crushed granite, or washed sand harks back to early Shinto shrines in forest clearings. Zen masters used carefully raked gravel to represent seas or rivers. Walkways accompanied by simple gardens of stone and plantings were constructed in zig-zag or curvilinear fashion in order to slow the walker down and present new views at each turn. This design idea is known as Miegakure or hide-and-reveal. Borrowed scenery (Shakkei) was considered tasteful, with distant vistas framed by the stones and plantings in the garden. Enclosed spaces and garden rooms with fences and gates allowed the user a sense of privacy and retreat from the outside world. Entering the garden retreat through a gate means You are entering sacred space leave your cares behind.