Japan's Master Gardens: Lessons in Space and Environment

176 Pages·2012·16.21 MB·English

by  Stephen Mansfield

Japan’s
Master
Gardens
Lessons in Space
and Environment
Stephen Mansfield
TUTTLE Publishing
Tokyo | Rutland, Vermont | Singapore
Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd www.tuttlepublishing.com
Text copyright © 2011 Stephen Mansfield
Photos copyright © 2011 Stephen Mansfield All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the
publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mansfield, Stephen.
Japan’s master gardens: lessons in space and environment/Stephen Mansfield.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN: 978-1-4629-0852-3 (ebook)
1. Gardens, Japanese--History. 2. Gardens--Japan--Design--History. I. Title.
SB458.M36 2012
712.0952--dc23
2011019342
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contents
6 Preface
chapter 1
A Sense of Nature
8 Introduction
14 Shinjuku Gyoen
20 Koishikawa Shokubutsu-en
24 Gardens of Ohara
30 Kaku-ji Temple
34 Murin-an
chapter 2
The Modular Garden
38 Introduction
44 Chishaku-in
48 Ryutan-ji Garden
52 Toji-in
56 Kodai-ji Garden
60 Sekizo-ji
chapter 3
Landscape Gardens
64 Introduction
70 Sengan-en
74 Koraku-en
78 Shuizen-ji Joju-en
82 Ritsurin-koen
86 Rikugi-en
chapter 4
Requisitioning Space
90 Introduction
96 Kyu Shiba-Rikyu Onshi Garden
100Koishikawa Koraku-en
104Genkyu-en
108Canadian Embassy Garden
112Kiyosumi-teien
chapter 5
Healing Gardens
116Introduction
122Mukojima Hyakka-en
126Zuisen-ji Garden
130Nezu Museum Garden
134Isui-en
138Shikina-en
142Bibliography
142Historical Periods
143Glossary
144Acknowledgments
PREFACE
Garden nature, like human nature, requires care and nurturing if it is not
to lead to a kind of inanition.
Pondering the fate of the Japanese garden, the Meiji era writer Lafcadio
Hearn wrote: “These are the gardens of the past. The future will know them only
as dreams, creations of a forgotten art.” In this respect, thankfully, he was
wrong.
How is it possible, though, to enjoy peace and tranquility, to savor Japanese
gardens as healing, regenerative spaces when they have become so popular?
Victims of their own success, whatever mystic or higher qualities they once had
are at risk of being drowned out by the din of over-patronage. Japanese master
gardens, however, may still offer alternative models for environmental
enhancement. The purifying sensation one experiences on entering a garden
affirms its power to promote a healthy emotional and spiritual life. In mirroring
our yearning for stability and peace, our search for a settled place, its paths
return us to our original nature.
In exploring the garden, we are making renewed contact with Japanese
culture. Once we have understood one form, we may more readily appreciate
another. In appropriating differing elements of Japanese culture, the Japanese
garden prepares us for an examination of other arts and practices. Japanese
aesthetics, the fine-tuning of taste, the development of connoisseurship through
the appreciation of beauty, came later than the proto-gardens of the pre-Shinto
era, but the transition from divine nature to art was relatively seamless. And yet,
the revisualization of nature that takes place through the filtration of art in the
Japanese garden is often quite different from what we are accustomed to.
Disarmed, for example, by the vision of compositions purporting to be landscape
works but made entirely of stone and gravel, we are forced to reconsider the
place of nature in the garden, where appearances can be deceptive. The painter
David Hockney, whose photomontages of the Ryoanji garden in Kyoto are
playful reinterpretations of time and space, recognized this when he wrote:
“Surface is an illusion, but so is depth.”
As a photographer, I am forced to view and analyze the Japanese garden
through a lens. While shying away from discussing the variations in approach
between Japanese and Western photographers, there do appear to be differences
in the way their garden books are illustrated. It may be a case of suggestion and