of pond called shinji-ike, i.e., a pond in the form of the Chinese character shin, meaning "heart, soul, spirit," a favorite character with the Zen sect of Buddhism. The light filtering through the trees and the softness of the moss-covered earth invite meditation. This garden is the work of Muso Kokushi, a famous Zen priest of the fourteenth century. (Saiho-ji, Kyoto.)
Conscious and keen observation and appreciation of wild nature inspires the creator of a Japanese garden. In executing his design, however, the raw forms of nature are symbolized, suggested, implied. The garden-maker's objective is to humanize the natural landscape immediately around him, not to force it into a strait-jacket of bilateral symmetry; he aims, with artistry and discrimination, to select out of nature those elements that he feels are most perfect and pertinent to his composition. This is what is meant when it is said that the Japanese garden is subjective in spirit.
The materials of the Japanese garden are selected to bring the timelessness and solidity of the world of nature into a garden. Thus, lasting elements such as rock, gravel, sand, and evergreen trees and shrubs are predominant, while fleeting blossoms and color play the counterpoint. This has been a distinctive attribute of Japanese gardens for eight centuries, ever since the Kamakura period, when Zen Buddhist meditation, though demanding freedom from the world's bright, gaudy distractions, still insisted upon a feeling for the world. Under such conditions the garden became an idealization of nature in which could be discovered something of the heart of nature, of its very elemental spirit. It was designed so that the beholder could relate himself to nature. By discovering in it something of ordinary human experience he felt drawn into the garden and even a part of it. This very subjective experience is an expression of the all-embracing Buddhist concept of the oneness, the unity of all things under Heaven.
Such feeling bears little relation to certain popular notions of Japanese gardens flourishing outside Japan. These stereotypes have been propagated and nourished by three generations of visitors, who, over the past one hundred years, have periodically "discovered" Japan. In the big cities these visitors may catch a glimpse of gardens of teahouses and restaurants in all their overdone, cluttered ornamentation. From this fleeting contact they believe the Japanese garden to be a quaint, tinkling medley of little arched bridges, carp ponds, paper lanterns, oddly pruned trees, bamboo blinds, grotesquely jutting rocks, and perhaps a dainty geisha. Other travelers, who barely get beyond Tokyo's Imperial Hotel lobby and gift shops, have conceived of the Japanese garden to have something to do with dwarfed plants and the miniatures of a tray landscape. Many visitors, of course, do make the regular tours of Nikko, Kyoto, and Nara to view those cities' celebrated temples, shrines, palaces, and gardens. They may see famous feudal-period gardens, built on a grand scale, of imposing richness and intricate detail. But many of these are also sadly artificial and sterile, having no relationship to the life of the common man, devoid of the bright buoyancy of nature. Visitors to these places come away convinced that Japanese gardens must be filled with giant stone lanterns and great rocks and boulders.
The problem is that, even with only superficial contact with Japanese gardens, the outsider is bound to form an opinion of garden art in Japan. The average traveler, unfortunately, sees nothing but the external decorative elements. He has not had the chance to see either simple, well-designed, modern home gardens or very old ones made in the earlier and more creative periods of Japanese garden art. Diverted by exotic and romantic elements, most visitors to Japan have missed the real point of a Japanese garden. It surely is not merely a matter of using rocks, pebbles, unpainted wood surfaces, Japanese maples, twisted pines, rocky pools, waterfalls, garden rills, bridges, pagodas, stone lanterns, or Buddhas. The elements of the Japanese garden are not just dramatic garden props, used for easy upkeep and unique effect. If it were so, the garden would be merely a clutter of things, sterile, insincere, false. Above all, a good garden has naturalness, strength, simplicity, humor, and human warmth. Its elements are arranged to convey the feeling of the partnership of nature and art. In effect, the symbolism is that of man and nature in a pact of friendship, sealing it, as it were, with a hearty handshake.
You do not have to be a lover of Japanese culture to be able to grasp some strong validity in its garden art. From the standpoint of pure design it is logical and honest. But, more than that, its bonds are stronger and its roots deeper than any we have known heretofore in the realm of garden art. They are ties of an ineffable spirituality, which can be felt at all levels of perception. And this forms what may be the real attraction of Japanese gardens at this critical juncture of Western cultural growth.
PART ONE
The Theory:
WHY & WHAT?
1. Some Universal
Garden Effects
WE ARE children of nature. But since the dawn of life we have come a good distance. Our human civilization down through the years has evolved into ever more intricate and complex urban patterns, in which steel and concrete have come to play the predominant role. Though it seems obvious that at least one foot is irretrievably stuck in the hard city pavement, the other remains just as solidly planted in the moist, soft earth. We will never give up loving nature, wanting some quiet, beneficent refuge to go back to when the "world is too much with us." And so we have made gardens.
A garden offers us security. It is as if a kind power instilled in a garden has come around to preserve us. We do not, of course, respond to all manifestations of nature with indiscriminate trust and open arms. From the very beginning we have made the distinction between nature in the raw and the humanized landscape. In the midst of untamed wildernesses of forests, mountains, plains, swamps, deserts, tundra, or jungle we are struck with awe by the power and majesty of nature expressed in great stretches of uncultivated terrain, untouched or ungentled by man.
Such feelings are altogether different from what we experience in a pleasant spring meadow surrounded by the sights and smells and sounds of farm life. Or, lying under an apple tree whose fragrant blossoms pour out their perfume into the burgeoning spring air, we feel some upsurging energy, a link with nature's creative drive. Any bit of humanized landscape, whether it be large or small, elaborate or simple, used for flowers, fruit, vegetables, or grazing, has qualities of a garden; and, as such, can be enjoyed in varying degrees and ways according to our special interests, experience, and sensitivity.
But, although a farm may offer us nature in a humanized setting, we know that a farm and a garden are not the same thing. The former is designed with a view to the practical requirements of an efficiently producing agricultural unit; while the latter is made, not for economic gain, but with a view to esthetic values and to serve a purpose offering no direct economic or material benefits. The value of a well-designed garden may be judged only by the subjective effects it produces on the people who use it. It might be an effect of pleasure caused by some esthetic perception; an effect of convenience, leisure, or repose induced by some direct sensory experience in the garden; an effect of spiritual enrichment, the result of some mystic inspirational process; or, depending upon the individual, the time, and the place, it might be combinations of all of these effects in varying proportions and strengths. It is evident then that while the appeal of a garden is universal, the effects it may produce depend upon its location and its particular individual character. The latter is in turn the product of local tradition, customs, and the way the garden was designed to be used. The personality of the user is the final determinant.
What, then, are those desirable garden effects that have pleased men in all times and all places? Let us consider them in the following paragraphs.
Space & Vista. We love the effect of spaciousness and vista. Looking across long, unrestricted distances, we gain a feeling of freedom. As we gaze at a far horizon our imagination takes flight. But we also like our privacy.
Of course, if our garden is located in a sparsely populated area, such as desert, mountain, seashore, or woods, we may be able to combine both vista and privacy.
