New on View: In the Garden

In China, garden design developed in tandem with residential architecture. Whether set within palaces, country estates, or urban homes, gardens were viewed as both an extension of domestic space and an escape from it. They offered respite from familial and professional duties and were a favored site for literary gatherings, solitary study, and other leisure activities. Traditional Chinese residences were constructed around courtyards, which were ideal locations for plants, trees, and rocks of interesting shapes—the necessary ingredients for a garden. As residential gardens flourished in urban centers during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties, they were taken out of courtyards and placed in areas adjacent to main living spaces. As a result, urban gardens became larger and more complex. In turn, the layout of city gardens drew renewed inspiration from the sprawling rustic gardens found in country estates of the wealthy.

In the Garden seeks to demonstrate the rich connections gardens have with nature, culture, and art. Some paintings portray gatherings set in gardens; others depict open landscapes that can be read as gardens based on the activities they host; still others capture small scenes composed of rocks, insects, and flowers that draw on the iconography of the garden to represent human virtues such as fidelity and humility.

An example of a country estate garden is seen in the Ming dynasty painting Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden. The scene portrays a legendary party of erudite gentlemen including scholars, artists, calligraphers, imperial relatives, and a Buddhist monk. The rural location of the garden is clear; the distant mountains and natural expanses unbounded by walls or fences indicate that the setting is not an urban garden. Here, the distinction between a curated garden and untrammeled nature is blurred. The attendees of the gathering are placed in the middle of a natural landscape. Only the large tables, chairs, and antique objects imply the setting should be interpreted as a garden.

Urban gardens presented particular design challenges in part due to the spatial constraints of city life. As a result, a carefully encoded vision of nature was created. Garden designers chose plantings not merely for their visual appeal but also to convey complex symbolic programs based on a particular plant, tree, or flower’s association with specific human qualities or emotions. For example, bamboo, a popular garden plant, symbolized the gentlemanly virtues of humility and constancy, as well as longevity. Pure Serenity of Green Bamboo portrays bamboo in various stages of growth, from young shoots to tall stalks with a profusion of brightly painted green leaves.

Along with special plants, ornamental rocks were an important component of garden design. Often large in size with deeply pitted surfaces and contorted shapes, rocks, such as Taihu Rock, were thought to embody a scholar’s uncompromising character and were placed in gardens to be admired and contemplated. Rock Bound, a series of album leaves painted on satin, portrays a host of different types of rocks. Each rock seems to express a personal attribute, and together the set of paintings may have symbolized the artist’s circle of close friends.

In the Garden will be on display through the end of the Spring semester, running concurrently with a new course called “Gardens in China and Japan,” taught by Professor Thomas W. Hare of the Department of Comparative Literature and Professor Jerome Silbergeld of the Department of Art and Archaeology.

 Zoe Song-Yi Kwok
Assistant Curator of Asian Art