CHAPfER lWO

The Garden of the Far East, the Garden of Stones and

Water -The translated landscape of nature

Sue -Hee KIM

The Garden of the Far East reflects avision of nature, the translated landscapeof nature in a closed space, in a deter-mined enclosure, created for meditation,besides its function ofbeing an area forrelaxation and recreation. Its nomen-clature in old chinese letters means "thegarden of quietude" or "the garden offlowers" that which expresses the hu-man desire to be in or near nature, un-derstanding it as the "complete and per-fect" artistic creation of the universe.The garden architeciUre of ancient timeswould try to reach the essence of things,the fugitive and at tlhe sametime, cter-nal image of the elements of nature,simulating the naturallandscape withhills, streams, trees,rocks, flowers, ani-mals, insects, cascade waterfalls etc. inharmony with the laws of nature Ac-cording to the ideas of the Far East,nature is understood as the meaning ofexistence, "the made event" or aIl thingsbetween the heaven and the earth, fromthe simple grass to the clouds, themountain, the human being etc. in har-mony, without an established hierarchy .Itmeans "the benevolentnature" Of theConfucian philosph,er, Meng-Zi,' thatis shown in artistic works. Equally, itmeans nature that signifies theperfect and the absolute of the uni-verse, regenerating and maintaininglife, that teaches to respect "the natu-raI", leaving out the artificial structure

as one would an imperfect or vulgar

thing.Throughout history , the Garden that

was created according to these ideaspresented some definite models ac-cording to the religious or philo-sophical theories of each period or eachdynasty. However, in spiteofthe sty-listic variety , the oriental architect al-ways takes into consideration the fol-lowing dispositions in garden con-struction: the geological and geographicconditions that exist at the moment atwhich the selection of the terrain takesplace, which connects it withthe orien-taI theory of Feng-Shui, the geomancy;the different types of vegetation ac-cording to the time of the year and theflowering seasons which condition theappearance and the colour of trees andplants; the size and height of these treesand plants that affect the ventilationand illumination of the sites or thenearest buildings; the importance ofsound as it creates the atmosphere whichechoes the sound of running water, thewaterfalls or the smaIl rivers, thesound of the flights and songs of thebirds nestling in these trees, and thesound of the winds passing between thetrees that seem to resemble the tradi-tional music played by Kumunge , aKorean instrument; the perfume fromselected trees and flowers as weIl astheir fruits.

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Sue -Hee KIM

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Far EastAnapchi

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The G~n ofthe Far East, the Garden of Stones and Water -

Dynasty period according to the"Records of History" written by SimaQian6. The Palace of Tong-Gung wasbuilt with an immense garden and apond named Anapchi, in the seventhcentury , And the following text waswritten in the "History of Three King-doms".

"...in the year of 674, a pond wasmade with some island-mountains,the flowers were planted, the exoticbirds and animaIs were placed in the

d "gar en...Anapchi is a clear antecedent oflater

gardens of Japan and China. in the styleof the landscape gardens with artificialponds. However, its most importantcharacter rests in "the irregularity" ofits composition and of its forms.It is apond ofgreatdimensions, almost 15,000square meters, that symbolises theparadise of Taoist immortals.

There are two elements in the gardenof the Palace ofTong-Gung: that whichis of "natural" origin and that which isartificiaIly constructed. The first Grouprefers to rocks which are the symbols ofmountains, trees plants, animaIs etc.and the second, to bridges, pavilions,the stoneways etc. The garden of thePalace of Tong-Gung served as amodelfor gardens in the Far East, the meaningof the garden being an arranged spacein harmony with the laws of nature.

Among the elements in an orientalgardens, water and stone are respectedand indispensable, and sometimes gar-dens were made with only these twoelements, It was so because water andstone symbolizes the two opposite ele-ments of the universe according to theideas of the Far East as weIl as beingintrinsic symbols oflongevity , reflectedin many styles of expression. In thecase of stone, the rocks are a smaIlisland, often a sculpture, or a

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The Far Eastern garden whose ori-gins are found in the legendary periodof Zhou2, the time of ConfuciusJ andLao-Zi4, and in the construction of therecreation palaces with gardens forbanquet celebrations, scenes of whichare to be seen in the o}d bronze vessels,would in general fall into three catego-ries. The most representative of them isthe model of the cJassical garden, cre-ated in the enclosled site such as thepalace complexes of castles, the noble-man's houses, the acadernies or thevillage houses etc. These gardens imi-tate nature, the miniature landscape,but have an artificüal disposition. Thesecond mode} is the gardens placednear buildings because these were builton beautiful naturaJl sites of woods andmeadows, like the sites of temples ortombs. And the third model is the"natural" garden of the panoramiclandscape that was painted by poet-painters as "the ideal landscape" andprobably, the distant }andscape. Theyare the famous landscapes which trav..,ellers or those who walk wou}d stop tosee. Sometimes, it is the famous cas-cade with Taoist Jegends, the capri-ciously formed rocks or some very oldtrees. Pavilions or a simple balcony arebuilt to enjoy the vision of these singu-lar gardens that are the same a~ nature,the universe-garden which distancemakes almost unapproachable. Thus itis sometimes only possible to contem-plate the landscape paintings of the FarEast, Shan-Shui Hua "the painting ofmountains and water".

Among the models of gardens,oneof the oldest and r,estored gardens issaid to be in the Palace of Tong-Gung,in the old capital of tlTIe Shilla KingdomS ,Kyung-Ju, in the southeast of Korea,although there exis't some documentsabout the birth of garden art in the Han

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The Garden of the Far Easl. the Garden of Stones and Waler -

conmemorative plate. And the water isin varied forfis that enclose it as a lake,a pond, a small river or a cascade would.As for the cascade, thereareno fountainswith high spreading water in the gar-dens of the Far Ea.'\t. This means, thatthe water in a cascade runs down ac-cording to the laws of nature, ofteninterrupted, passing between somestones or rocks that make possible thesinuous water-way. It is the most im-portant difference which distinguishesthe gardens of the Far East. from thoseof the Arabian gardens although wateris the fundamental element in bothcases.

Walking across the gardens of theFar East means passing among plantsand trees like chrysanthemum, orchid,plum tree, bamboo, pine tree, willow,ginkovilova, etc. And it also meanspassing among mountainouslandscapes as a poet -historian of theKorean art once said;

". ..the mountain turns deeper andthe valleys, more blue. The sound ofthe water turns clearer and the stonesandtherocks,moreblue... Thejade-like songs of the mountain' s birdsare like the poulred crystals on thesilver tray. ..walking between therocks and the tree trunks looks likethe difficultwayof the humanlife. .."The ancient gardens of the Far East

represent "natural" beauty. This beautyis not artificial and it is reflected in theleast petal of the lotus flower, in theflying butterfly or dragonfly drawinginvisible lines in the sky or in thoserocks of capricious forfis that create a" non-occupiedspa,ce", Its importance

has been explained by the contempoarysculptors. The restoration of these an-cient gardens and the creation of thenew green zone coincide with the hu-man desire for the illusion of immor-

tality or longevity, which is retained intime and space, and which is possibleonly through such artistic creations.

A poem of a Korean Taoist poetportrays the idea of immortality .Thisshort poem suggests the image of theFar East garden' In other words, It isnature or the universe that tums realityinto a dream, in a cyclical process oftransformation." If I

tum into a stonethe stonetums into a lotusand a lotustum into a lake.IfItums into a lakethe laketums into a lotusand the lotustums into stone."

At the end of the 20th century, inwhich they talk about the retum tonature and ecology, the needs of thenew aesthetic sensibility emerges as awork of research which proposes theemancipation of art from technique.The suggestions that arise from theseancient gardens are to turn to "the uniqueelement, charged with meaning,memories, legends and with the art"help to make the search for an enduringbeauty a possibility.

The gardens of "water and stones"of the Far East is crystallization of themicrocosmic world, the image of" thepoetic and magic world, and also sensi-tive and alive to this last refuge.' for thehuman being of our days. From theworks of the American architect FrankLloyd Wright. who visited the Japa-nese garden of ponds. bridges androcks. a gift of Japan at the UniversalExposition of Chicago. in the final yearsof the 19th century .to the works of an

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artist like M. Mertz, in our day, naturehas been reflected in the hannony ofthe world-creation, the saIne universeshown in artistic creation. It is the saInevision of nature shown in the musicalcreation of Cage, ,. el Crisantemi" of

Fuccini, "the song ofbirds" ofP. Casalsor of the poems of E. Pound, that re-mains.

The beauty of a cut branch of flow-ers of an almond tree in a glass of watera painting of van Gogh or the photog-raphy of an American artist, is the sameimage to a landscape painting. And soit is in the miniature landscape of na-ture in a garden. The :same ..beauty" isreflected in the gesture of taking a natu-ral rock and putting it in an enclosedspace -that means the garden.

At the end of the 201th century we caosay that we still have the poem, thewind, the water and the stone, all thosemean the garden.

Notes

1. Meng-Zi ( 13721- 289 a.c.)

2. Dirastia lJ1Ou (sig1os JqI-UI a. C.)

3. Confucius (551-479 a. C.)

4. Lao-Zi (7604 -? a.c.)

5. Sbjlla Kingdom (57 a.c. -'~35 d. C.)

6. Sima Qian (145-90 a.C. )

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