Transcript Gao 14_Chinese Gardens

Chinese Gardens
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In a Chinese garden, all components complement each other (or at
least should be reflected in garden designs) without losing
individuality of each element such as rocks, water, plants,
architecture or literature. In addition, a thoughtful garden has also
taken into consideration its relation to its environment. At a
philosophical level, an ideal Chinese garden serves as a metaphor
for an ideal human society in which a community doesn’t assert its
“tyranny of the majority” as phrased by John Stuart Mill.[1]
Explain how Chinese gardens make a cultural, philosophical, and
artistic statement.
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[1] John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, reprinted from The Harvard
Classics, vol. 25 (New York: Collier, 1909). A copy of the work is
on the website for this course: http://uwch4.humanities.washington.edu/~188/ 188 Texts/
John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873)
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British philosopher, economist,
moral and political theorist, and
administrator, was the most
influential English-speaking
philosopher of the nineteenth
century.
The overall aim of his
philosophy is to develop a
positive view of the universe
and the place of humans in it,
one which contributes to the
progress of human knowledge,
individual freedom and human
well-being.
Complementary vs. Competitive
Sourcebook 28
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Chapter 2 (Tao Te Ching)
Thus Something and Nothing produce each other;
The difficult and the easy complement each other;
The long and the short off-set each other;
The high and the low incline towards each other;
Note and sound harmonize each other;
Before and after follow each other.
To setoff: something used to enhance the effect of
another thing by contrasting it, as an ornament.
Zhuangzi
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Without an Other
there is no Self,
without Self no
choosing one thing
rather than another.
Page 99 in CR5
onilne
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Liezi could ride the
wind and had a good
time flying for 15
days. But he still
had to depend on
something to get
around.
Page 98 in CR5
Types of Chinese Gardens
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1. Royal Gardens: Summer Palace; Beihai
Park; Jingshan Park (Hill of Prospect);
The Imperial Summer Resort -承德避暑山庄
(The Mountain Resort and its Outlying
Temples, Chengde)
2. Private Scholar Gardens: Yu Yuan and
Zhuozheng Yuan
3. Natural Gardens: Seattle Chinese Garden
(Sichuan natural garden)
The Summer Palace
The Marble Boat vs. a Strong Navy
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颐和园【Yíhéyuán】 the
Summer Palace (in
Beijing, modeled on the
West Lake in Hangzhou).
The lake and the hill is
half man-made. The
Longevity Hill is a branch
of the Western Hills in
Beijing.
Western Hills are most
famous for red leaves.
The best season to see
the scene is in the fall,
especially after the first
frost hit the red leaves
(late October, early
November).
Ci Xi’s 60th Birthday
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Embezzled the fund for building a strong army
for her birthday celebration;
China lost its first Sino-Japanese War (1894 to
1895) over who could dominate the Korean
Peninsula;
The result is China lost Taiwan to Japanese
who did not return it until 1945, then the
National Party;
Taiwan, the biggest island, is nicknamed as
the “Treasure Island”;
The Marble Boat
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The Marble Boat, also known as the
Boat of Purity and Ease (清晏舫 Qing
Yan Fǎng) is a lakeside pavilion on the
ground of the Summer Palace in Beijing,
China.
Emperor Qian Long (1736 to 1795)
wrote a poem to describe its symbolic
significance: Never Sinking with stability
The Royal Gardens and Han fu
Royal gardens are like Han Fu
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Scale—magnificent/
“Mathematically
sublime”--Kant
The Han fu inherited
from the Chu poems
the sao-style
prosody (chap.2 in
How to Read
Chinese Poetry)
See the DVD
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Rhapsody or Fu,
best executed by
Sima Xiangru and
Yang Xiong in the
Han dynasty;
Read “Shanglin Fu”
or “Fu on the
Imperial Park” by
Sima Xiangru online
司马相如《上林赋》
Chéng dé bì shǔ shān zhuāng
承 德 避 暑 山 庄
The Imperial Summer Resort
Imperial Summer Resort
1703 -1792
Humble Administrator's Garden
拙政园, Suzhou, Wang Xianchen 王献臣, 1506;
Lu Guimeng 618～907, a Tang Poet’s Residence
“Mother of Chinese Gardens”
Yu Garden 豫园, Shanghai
Pan Yunduan, 1559
Rocks from Lake Tai
Components in a Chinese Garden
Complement each other
Rocks/
Stones
Plants/Flowers
Water
Architecture/
Literature
Calligraphy
Paintings
Rocks Used for the Royal
Garden Designs
How to Judge Rocks
Natural Internal Frames
in garden designs
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East Asia 285
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Hidden views
Indirectness in
garden designs
Three Friends in Cold Seasons
岁寒三友
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Pines
Bamboos
Wintersweet
Painting of Three Friends
in Cold seasons by Zhao Mengjian
宋趙孟堅《歲寒三友圖》
“Four Gentlemen” among Flowers
their symbolic significance
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Spring/Orchid 春兰
Summer/Bamboo
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夏竹
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Autumn/
Chrysanthemum秋菊
Winter/
Wintersweet冬梅
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One Can Never See the Whole
Scene of a Chinese Garden
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Our knowledge is
partial;
Actions based on the
partial knowledge will
entail consequences
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Scenes are forever
changing:
Different flowers in
different seasons;
Same plants and
tress but with
different colors in
different seasons;
Sublime vs. Beautiful
Kant, in 1764
Observations on the Feeling
of the Beautiful and Sublime.
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In aesthetics, the sublime (from the Latin sublimis
([looking up from] under the lintel, high, lofty,
elevated, exalted) is the quality of greatness or vast
magnitude, whether physical, moral, intellectual,
metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic. The
term especially refers to a greatness with which
nothing else can be compared and which is beyond
all possibility of calculation, measurement or
imitation.
Kant on the Beautiful
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Immanuel Kant developed a theory of aesthetic
judgment in his Critique of The Power of
Judgment (1790), that concentrates on how it
is that we make the claim that a work of art is
beautiful. That is not the same thing as a claim
that we like it, that it pleases us, or that the
claim pertains only to ourselves. Instead, Kant
argues, when we say of a thing that it is
beautiful, we expect everyone else to agree-and if they do not, it is because they have
failed to understand the form of purposiveness
that the work displays.
Subjective vs. Objective
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That means that just looking at an object is not enough: an
aesthetic judgment is not like saying that you like pancakes or
peaches or the color red. Those are judgments of sense, and
they pertain only to the person who happens to like those
things. In the same way, the reason we claim that something is
beautiful is not because it has certain properties or
qualities. An object judged to be beautiful can have any
qualities whatsoever (shape, color, texture, etc.). When we say
that something is beautiful, we have to carry out a thoughtful
and accurate analysis of it: we see that its form is purposive. It
is no accident that all the details of the work (a poem, a
painting, a novel, an essay) are exactly as they are. When we
understand exactly how the work is integrated, and why it is
exactly as it is, then and only then are we entitled to say that it
is beautiful, and we make the claim in the expectation that
anyone who understands it will agree.
the Sunken Garden
Victoria BC
The Butchart Gardens
An Intelligent Transformation
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As Mr. Butchart exhausted the limestone in the
quarry near their house, his enterprising wife,
Jennie, conceived an unprecedented plan for
refurbishing the bleak pit. From farmland
nearby she requisitioned tons of top soil, had it
brought to Tod Inlet by horse and cart, and
used it to line the floor of the abandoned
quarry. Little by little, under Jennie
Butchart's supervision, the abandoned quarry
blossomed into the spectacular Sunken
Garden.
The Sublime and the Beautiful
Chinese Royal Gardens (sublime) vs.
Chinese Scholar Gardens (delicate)
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Contrast the
breathtaking sunken
garden with the
delicate Japanese
garden.
Then you will suddenly
understand what it
means to be
mathematically
sublime as defined by
Kant.
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Delicate
Miniature
Petite
Well manicured
Chinese Garden at MET, New York
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The Chinese Garden Court at The
Metropolitan Museum of Art
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9
2bYFQDTzA
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DVDs