:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Daruma Pilgrims Gallery
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Japanese Gardens 日本の庭園
Nihon no Tei-en (teien)
Japanese Gardens ... much has been written about them.
There is a difference between a Zen garden, usually in a temple, and a private garden or park, made for a Daimyo or a rich merchant.
My friend Mark has the details
Rock Gardens, Dry Landscapes, Hill Gardens
Karesansui, Kasan, Tsukiyama, Others
Mark Schumacher about Japanese Gardens !
Here is a short list of some articles I have produced so far.
park, tei-en 庭園
garden, niwa 庭
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Garden in Takahashi
岡山県、高梁市、頼久寺
Kobori Enshu 小堀遠州 (1579 - 1647)
Stone Garden in Takahashi
Takahashi, Temple Yakushi-In 薬師院
going in circles
the mind
the sand
© Gabi Greve, Spring 2008
Tofukuji Temple (toofukuji 東福寺)
and master gardener Shigemori Mirei 重森三玲
Shunmyo Masuno, Zen Garden Master
禅庭氏 増野
Koraku-En in Okayama (Koorakuen 後楽園 )
Tsuyama Park PHOTOS
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
External LINKS
"The Beauty of the Japanese Garden"
Introduction
The Japanese garden evolved from the landscaping of gardens and it developed into an original art form to become an important part of the Japanese culture. The art of Japanese garden is closely associated with the art of architecture and the stone arrangement which are the integral part of the comprehensive art of gardens. History of the Japanese garden goes back to around 7th century and the early documents about the design of gardens are from approximately the 10th century.
From the ancient remains of the rock arrangement ( of the AD 5th century ) we seem to find some likely resemblance in the existing Japanese gardens. They are the circular layout of rocks either flat or upright found in Akita and Hokkaido. However, it appears that they were used for the spiritual rituals and not designed for as stone arrangement for the beauty of gardens. It may be fair to say that the concept of gardens were yet premature in this period.
Although these early circular stones or other rocks that are jutting out in the cliff were the objects of worship and prayer for the spirits of nature, such spiritual foundation for the stones continued to sublimate in the later art form of stone arrangement and gardens. In the transition process from 7th century to 10th century, Buddhism and new cultures were brought in from China and Korea and they played important roles in the development of garden art. They became the philosophical foundation for the original design of the Japanese art of space in the form of gardens.
In the background of the design and rock arrangements of the Japanese garden there is a respect for the nature and abstract representations of the utopian world of the time which were derived from the religion and philosophy. Therefore, the Japanese gardens use natural stones, only without any artificial processing. They are arranged to show many expressions of sometimes dynamic forms and other times extremely subtle and sensitive forms. These gardens give many impressions to those who appreciate them and they move people in various ways. This is the evidence that the designers of the Japanese gardens of different times had extremely sophisticated sense of beauty and aestheticity.
In the following section we will see the Japanese gardens from different historical period and appreciate their beauty and the designs of arrangements.
(Translated by Mr.Shigeru Komori.)
© "The Basics of the Japanese Garden Elements"
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
......................... H A I K U
Haiku and Zen Gardens, a project
The following postings are a transcript of students' responses to our unit on Art and the Ordered Cosmos: Japanese views of nature.
Before completing this assignment, students examined Zen Buddhism and its notion of the transience of the world, Shinto, and their expression in the samurai code of Bushido, "The Peach Orchard" from Dreams by Akira Kurosawa which exemplifies the Shinto notion of nature as alive and as an expression of the Kami while also demonstrating the Zen notion of the transience of beauty and the world, and the Japanese Way of Tea (tea ceremony).
Students also studied Zen gardens and created one in class. Students were required to write a Haiku poem, an art form which attempts to capture some essential aspect of eternity through a single moment in nature. Student postings have not been edited in any way.
one sample poem
The rock buried
still content and quiet
surrounded by friends and light.
© 2000, Assignment from Dr. Vess
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
buddha’s fingerprint
in the sand...
Zen garden
summer drought —
the Zen garden
in bloom
© Standford Forrester
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Compiled by Larry Bole
Rikugien - Japanese Garden 六義園（りくぎえん）)
Rikugi-En
I wrote this on a photograph by
Museki Abe at his Interactive Photo Haiku website:
Rikugien
from one poem to the next
a stony path
The other poems I like that were written for that photo are:
three butterflies enter
the garden formally through
the human gate ~
brahman~Narayanan~
bamboo fence
unconstrained the garden
comes through
Gillena Cox
"Rikugien is one of Tokyo's most beautiful, Japanese style landscape gardens. Built around 1700 by Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, Rikugien literally means "six poems garden" and reproduces in miniature 88 scenes from famous poems."
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3026.html
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Zen garden -
goldfish and maple leaves
the same deep red
© Andre Surridge, 2006 NZ
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
. World Kigo Database .
Daruma Pilgrims in Japan
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
1 comments:
Nature naturalized in Japanese gardens
By DONALD RICHIE
INCOMPARABLE JAPANESE GARDENS, photographs by Gorazd Vilhar, text by Charlotte Anderson. Tokyo: IBC Publishing, 2008, 192 pp., with 159 full-color plates, ¥5,500 (cloth) If we compare the "incomparable," we will discover that the difference of the Japanese garden depends upon the Japanese, very different, attitude toward nature.
Two attitudes toward nature are everywhere possible: you confront it or you accept it. This is illustrated in gardens West and East. In the former (think Versailles), nature is but the rawest of materials to do with as you will. Trees are in ordered ranks, paths are straightened, a form is imposed.
In the latter (see any of the 75 Japanese gardens here beautifully photographed), nature is accepted and adopted as a model. But as Charlotte Anderson tells us in her interesting introduction, one of the earliest garden manuals, the 11th-century "Sakuteki," recommends "looking at nature's most beautiful landscapes for inspiration, yet it advises that a garden should reflect nature, not copy it."
Nature is thus not only accepted, it is also naturalized. Just as the flowers in ikebana ("living flowers") are presumed to be more flowerlike than any natural bloom (even though those seen in ikebana are, having been picked, either dead or dying), so the Japanese garden is to be more natural than nature.
To achieve this desired effect, gardening in Japan reached the unexampled heights that Gorazd Vilhar's photographs well illustrate. At Kyoto's Shinya-in, river stones are laid in a pattern to create the impression of a flowing stream. In Myoman-ji, a Buddhist monk rakes wavelike patterns in the sand of the dry landscape garden. At the Shugaku-in, the view of the distant mountains is appropriated and brought within the focus of the garden design.
From here one may follow the Japanese garden as it mimics Mount Sumeru, the center of the Buddhist world, with its sand-pile reconstruction at Kennin-ji. It is then but a step to later gardens (such as the Koraku-en in Tokyo) that are so crammed with replicas of famous world sights that they seem like some ancestor of Disneyland's "It's a Small World" ride.
Making the garden more natural than nature has its limitations. Anderson tells us of a man-made mountain in the Ritsurin Koen up which workmen with full buckets of water scrambled so that when the lord walked by there would be a splendid waterfall coursing down.
Earlier garden design, however, kept the semblance of nature itself and it is this which is so ably caught on these pages.
Vilhar and Anderson have an impressive repertoire of books doing this — several volumes on Kyoto, one on Tokyo, one on festivals, another on shrine and temple offerings, as well as some beautiful bound postcard collections.
"Beautiful" would be perhaps the word to describe this work, in that Vilhar follows the beaux-arts tradition of creating that which is traditionally pleasing.
To this he adds his own accent, one necessary to all photographers photographing here, the Japanese technique of "selective vision," finding the angle from which the power line, the parked bicycle, the vending machine, are not visible. Wide-angle Japan, showing all the clutter, is not often seen because it is not widely photographed.
Rather, the view is selected, or restricted. Just as the "Sakuteki" counsels a reflection rather than a copying of nature, so, such splendid beaux-art photographs as these, reflect nature naturalized.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20080518dr.html
Post a Comment