Japanese Gardens for today. David Engel
afford such a life. Deciduous and flowering trees were used in great masses. But as social conditions changed, so did the gardens. By the thirteenth century the gay life of the Heian period had crumbled. The ensuing years of civil war and the appeal of Zen Buddhism's philosophy of simplicity and meditation influenced all branches of the arts. Gardens became more sober and restrained, more impervious to the effects of seasonal change. Evergreen plant materials became predominant.
The Static Quality & Evergreens. The slow, measured, almost drifting tempo of Japanese gardens today is produced by the predominance of slow-growing broad-leaf and needle evergreens combined with rock. Together they form the main structural skeleton of the garden, contrasting with deciduous elements such as maple, cherry, and plum trees, which are generally kept smaller than the evergreen through rigorous and regular pruning. (See Plate 6.)
In comparison with American or European temperate-climate gardens, showing dynamic changes from season to season, Japanese gardens remain static, varying little with the changing seasons. This contrast illustrates again differences in Eastern and Western views of life. Buddhists, certainly, tend to take the long view of the world and life—the revolving wheel that comes back to its original position—while in the West it is action, change, and pragmatic views which shape our lives. We spend little time contemplating in the sort of atmosphere where life seems to be holding its breath.
Since the Japanese garden generally is built on a small piece of land and because of its close and intimate relationship to the house and the people who live there, it has to be slowed down. Such intimate gardens which changed swiftly with the seasons would disturb and jangle the nerves of the people who came into close daily contact with them.
There are also horticultural reasons for the wide use of evergreens. Although Japan lies in the north temperate zone, its winters, tempered by warm ocean currents, are milder over most of the country than the winters of much of Europe and North America. Consequently, the frost-sensitive broadleaf varieties of evergreens survive Japanese winters. Perhaps, if American and European winters were milder, ever-greens would also assume greater importance in the basic structure of gardens in the West.
We in the West, whose homes are in areas of extreme seasonal changes, have learned to appreciate the dynamic development of a plant's life cycle. We feel something sad or beautiful and inspiring in the bare starkness of a winter landscape, and something exciting and joyous in trees bursting with spring buds. The aspects of the landscape as it shifts with each season remind us of the pulsing, rushing rhythm of our own lives. It is possible, of course, to take the middle road by striking a balance between static and dynamic effects. The final decision remains with those who will use the garden—their tastes and pace of life.
Yin & Yang. Familiarity with only the material elements of a Japanese garden, however, brings understanding up to a point which is still not at the heart of this unique art form. There are broader questions. Why is it that Japanese gardens seem to have more structural solidity and depth than most gardens in the West, gardens which by comparison seem frail, shallow, insubstantial, and meaningless? A partial answer to this question may be found in the collection of Taoist teachings, Tao-te-ching, formulated by Laotse in China several thousand years ago. This propounds the principle of opposites: in weakness there is strength; in passivity and non-resistance you win. It is the balance of light and dark, the positive yosei and the negative insei, the Yin and the Yang.
When these opposite concepts are observed in nature we find not opposition but union. One complements the other to compose reality, the truth of creation. Japanese gardens, with their rock and plant life, embody this reality and therefore seem alive, vibrant, part of life. The positive, male element is plant life in all its forms and species. The negative, female part is the rock element in myriad shapes and sizes. Rock, decomposing and being pulverized into soil becomes the mother earth. And earth, through countless ages, is pressed again into rock—a never-ending process of decomposition and composition.
Fig. 2. These are the shapes which formed the gorin-no-to, or sacred stone tower, from which both the five-storied pagoda and the stone lantern were to develop. The five parts symbolize the five elements of the universe in ancient Japanese cosmology—sky, wind, fire, water, and earth. A simplified version symbolizes spirituality, consisting of heaven (the triangle) and earth (the rectangle), with man (the circle) between them.
Although as compared with plant life, rock and earth would seem the stronger and more substantial, its life is of an inner quality and strength, a typical female characteristic. Trees and shrubs and grass and flowers show an active, exuberant vitality and growth. Rock and soil embody the waiting, receiving element, while plants show their impatience, spurting ahead, reaching out, externally vital.
Is it because Yin and Yang meet in a Japanese garden that it seems settled, more complete, rounded out, more stabile and solid? The two opposites are balanced so that neither one is in excess; just so does nature automatically achieve its own balance if left to itself without the interference of men. The Japanese garden artist seeks to discover this balance and to make his garden freely in whatever design or style he chooses, with rock and plant life happily wed in his composition. (See Plates 14, 37, and 56.)
Garden builders in the West must also assume this task if they desire to make gardens in this spirit. They may achieve this result through pure intuition. But they are more likely to be successful if they follow the example of their Japanese brothers, who, from childhood, and from the advantages of an ancient and noble tradition, have studied nature in all its forms and moods. The modern garden builder can learn more from a walk in the woods, fields, and mountains than from all the home and garden magazines and manuals. Interest, love of nature, patience, open eyes, and curiosity are the only tools he needs. For more than a thousand years of Japanese gardens this has been the lesson taught by Buddhist priest, artist, tea master, and garden designer.
Something of Symbolism. Working with rock, gravelly sand, plant material, and ceramic, stone, metal, and wooden artifacts, Japanese garden builders from earliest times have made use of certain conventional forms which have represented to them both artistic truths as well as symbols in Buddhism and Shintoism (see Plates 7-9). The triangle, circle, and rectangle have been considered the fundamental shapes in all design as well as geometric abstractions symbolizing the basic elements composing the universe. The triangle represents heaven or fire; the circle, water; and the rectangle, the earth (see Fig. 2). In a religious context the triangle symbolizes the hands of man, pressed together, pointing heavenward in prayer; the circle represents man or the mirror, one of the three most sacred Shinto symbols. To these three basic forms are added the half circle or the half moon, an abstraction denoting the wind; and a persimmon-shaped, bulbous globe for the sky. These five forms are the parts of the Japanese stone lantern.
To discover in a garden the rectangle, triangle, and circle we must think in abstract terms. One day I went with my teacher to see the famous rock, moss, and sand garden of Ryoan-ji in Kyoto (Plate 10). I reasoned that the rectangle was the outline of the garden itself, the area of sand enclosed by a low, earthen plaster wall. I then saw that a series of triangles were suggested by imaginary lines one might draw between the rocks within each group and between the rock groups themselves. But I searched in vain for the circle. Finally I turned to my teacher. "Where is the circle?" I asked. My teacher smiled and said: "Stay here for a few hours. Relax, Quietly look at the garden and you will soon become a part of it. The circle is you."
4. Conventional
Classifications
SCHOLARS of the Japanese garden—in contradistinction to those who actually design and build the gardens—have been inclined to an academic, conventional formalism in their analyses. They say that a garden must fit into a certain category and classification in order to be a valid work of art. The result has been that those who build gardens, both in Japan as well as abroad, have tended rigidly to follow rules laid down by the writers and classifiers. They have ended up copying the outer form of the garden without penetrating to the heart of the matter. This slavish copying of forms classified by scholars