Chinese classical garden art refers to the Chinese landscape garden form represented by private gardens in the south of the Yangtze River and royal gardens in the north. Among Chinese Han architecture, classical gardens are unique buildings with major achievements. It is universally recognized as the mother of world gardens, a wonder of world art, and an important heritage of human civilization. Its gardening techniques have been praised and imitated by Western countries, setting off a "Chinese garden craze" in Western countries.
Chinese gardening art takes the pursuit of the spiritual realm of nature as its ultimate and highest goal, thereby achieving the aesthetic purpose of "although it is made by humans, it appears to be created by nature." It is deeply immersed in the connotation of Han culture. It is an artistic treasure created by China's five thousand years of cultural history. It is a vivid portrayal of the inner spiritual character of a nation. It is a magnificent cause that we need to inherit and develop today.
origin
Chinese architecture has a long historical tradition and glorious achievements. From the square or round shallow cave-style houses excavated at the Banpo site in Shaanxi Province to the present day, it has a history of six to seven thousand years. Chinese classical gardens, with their unique artistic style, have become a pearl in the cultural heritage of the Han nation. This series of existing buildings with superb technology, exquisite art and unique style are self-contained and unique in the history of world architecture. They are an important part of the splendid culture of ancient China and a precious historical and cultural heritage for all mankind.
development path
In order to briefly explain the development history of Chinese gardens, based on the investigation of historical documents and existing ancient garden sites, and following its obvious trajectory, it can be roughly divided into three periods.
Qin and Han Dynasties
This period may be called the "natural period", which is the development period from "囿" to "园", which is approximately equivalent to the Yin, Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties in the development of Chinese social history three to four thousand years ago. After settling the labor of life, slave owners and emperors had enough time to engage in various entertainments, including "hunting" activities. Those places chosen as hunting areas must be those where animals are concentrated, hills or forested areas, and places with overgrown water and grass. These are the "environments" where animals are planted, planted, and kept in captivity.
This earliest "confinement" had new development in the Han Dynasty. It was not just a primitive state of natural mountains and forests, but became increasingly specialized. The emperors built "palaces" and "pavilions" here. In addition to meeting the needs of hunting, they added sleeping quarters, palaces and living facilities, and also equipped them with ornamental plants, artificial landscapes and other scenery, which initially took on the nature of a "garden". Starting from the Han Dynasty, Its name has also been changed from the ancient "忿" to "yuan" or "yuanquan". In the famous "Shanglin Garden" of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, there is the "Jianzhang Palace" and the "Taiye Pool". Around hundreds of miles, dozens of palaces were built, including the "Shexiong Pavilion", "Deer View", "Tiger Enclosure" and other animal enclosures.
And they planted exotic trees and flowers sent from various places, such as "walnut", "purple peach" and so on. However, this fashion is in the early stage of the development of Chinese gardens, and there is no certain plan for the layout of the gardens. It still has the hunting interest of ancient "environments". The arrangement of buildings and landscapes is not harmonious and orderly, and the planting of exotic trees and flowers is just a curiosity. Although it has some garden properties, it opens up a new aspect of gardening in the future. Generally speaking, it is still in a period of natural development.
Tang and Song Dynasties
It is the formative period of Chinese classical gardens. The development process of Chinese gardens started in the Han Dynasty, passed through the transition from the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms, the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to the unification of China in the Sui Dynasty, and reached a prosperous situation in the Tang Dynasty. Two remarkable features emerged in the development of gardens. First, attention was paid to the functions of recreation and scenery appreciation in the construction of gardens. For example, outside the palace buildings, attention was paid to stacking stones to build mountains and digging pools to draw springs. The layout relationship also tends to be harmonious, forming a beautiful environment that can be used for rest, sightseeing, and even entertainment.
The most outstanding achievement in the formation period of Chinese gardens was the combination of gardening with literature and painting. The well-known "Gen Yue" built by Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty was the origin of the "Hua Shi Gang" in "Water Margin". This imperial garden has beautiful mountains and rivers, luxuriant trees, stacked rocks, tree peaks, and palaces and pavilions. It is a unique sight with mountains and pools. It can be called a representative work of Chinese classical gardens in the Tang and Song Dynasties. Unfortunately, it has been destroyed by war. It was razed to the ground and disappeared forever on the ground.
Ming and Qing Dynasties
The heyday of Chinese classical gardens. After the Northern Song Dynasty was replaced by the Liao and Jin Dynasties, the three dynasties of Liao, Jin and Yuan successively built royal gardens in the Yanjing area. In the Jin Dynasty, a large number of Liangyue flower stones were dismantled and transported from Kaifeng to Zhongdu. In the Yuan Dynasty, architectural art promoted the exchanges between domestic ethnic groups and Eastern and Western cultures, adding to the rich and unique architectural forms of various ethnic groups in China. The Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty were a glorious period in the history of Chinese garden development, reaching its heyday. This is proven by many physical scenes that we can still witness today. Gardens in this heyday were different from past eras in three characteristics: (1) full functionality, (2) multiple forms, and (3) artistic.
The development of the garden in each historical period has added new content. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was completed, such as listening to politics, receiving congratulations, banquets, watching plays, living, garden tours, reading, worshiping Buddha, viewing, hunting, planting flowers, etc. Everything is available, and even commercial streets were built to satisfy the rulers' "elegance", such as the restored Suzhou Street of the Summer Palace and the original shopping street of the Old Summer Palace. Including all the activities of the emperor's life, the diversification of functions naturally expanded the scale of the garden's architectural construction.
Many forms
This refers to the buildings that are an important part of the garden. Whether they are a combination of building groups or a single building, their forms are also diverse. It not only absorbs the local characteristics of various regions and the national styles of various ethnic groups, it has both palaces and pavilions, as well as Youni Buddhist temples; it has both whitewashed stone walls and bamboo fences and mud fences. It is flexible and changeable, and can be decorated everywhere. The Grand View Garden is also very vividly reflected in "A Dream of Red Mansions". In terms of garden layout and arrangement, the essence of garden art from the north and the south is absorbed and combined according to local conditions. For example, the Wudang Mountain Prince Slope Garden Scenery in the Three Yuanming Gardens reproduces the characteristics of famous gardens in Suzhou, Hangzhou, Yangzhou and other places in China, which is called " It is not an exaggeration to move the sky and shrink the earth.
Artistic
What dominated the gardens of the Ming and Qing Dynasties was the highly artistic nature of garden architecture. The application of artistic aesthetic theories such as its scenery, its style, and its layout, borrowing scenery while walking, and combining movement and stillness have become popular. Various architectural forms of landscapes The combination of water, wood, stone and plants and the arrangement of buildings all have a three-dimensional effect. Even the style of ancillary facilities, interior decoration and environmental colors are unified and harmonious, reflecting the harmonious design. The superb state of Chinese gardening thought.
Basic classification
Royal Garden
It is a garden specially designed for emperors to rest and enjoy themselves. The ancients said that the whole world is the land of the royal family. In the eyes of the ruling class, the country's mountains and rivers belong to the royal family. Therefore, it is characterized by its grand scale and many real mountains and rivers. The buildings in the garden are magnificent in color and tall in size. The famous existing royal gardens include the Summer Palace in Beijing, Beihai Park in Beijing, and the Summer Resort in Chengde, Hebei. It is privately owned by the emperor and the royal family. In ancient books, it is called garden, garden, palace garden, imperial garden, imperial garden, etc.
private garden
It is a garden for the royal family, princes, officials, wealthy businessmen, etc. to relax. It is characterized by its small scale, so rockeries and water are commonly used, and its buildings are small and exquisite, showing its elegant and pure colors. Existing private gardens include Prince Gong's Mansion in Beijing, Humble Administrator's Garden, Lingering Garden, and Lion Garden in Suzhou, and Yu Garden in Shanghai. Northern gardens are privately owned by civilian aristocrats, bureaucrats, and gentry. In ancient books, they are called gardens, garden pavilions, garden villas, ponds, mountain ponds, villas, villas, thatched cottages, etc.
temple garden
Affiliated gardens of Buddhist temples and Taoist temples also include the landscaped environment of the inner courtyards and peripheral areas of the temples.
Various artistic images, as mentioned before, architecture is not only a technical science, but also an art. After a long period of hard work, ancient Chinese architecture also absorbed the characteristics of other traditional Chinese arts, especially painting, sculpture, arts and crafts and other plastic arts, creating a rich and colorful artistic image, and formed many characteristics in this regard. Among them, the following three aspects are more prominent.
Ornamental roof
Ancient Chinese craftsmen have long discovered the possibility of using roofs to achieve artistic effects. There is a sentence in the Book of Songs about "making temple wings", which shows that poets three thousand years ago were already praising the wings-like roofs of ancestral temples in their poems. By the Han Dynasty, there were five basic roof styles in later generations - the "veranda roof" with four slopes, the "single roof" with four, six, eight or eight slopes or a round roof, and the "hard roof" with two slopes but two gables flush with the roof. They already have the "top of the mountain", the "top of the mountain" with two slopes and the roof protruding beyond the gable, and the "top of the mountain" with the upper half of the mountain hanging and the lower half of the slope on all sides.
The application of contrasting architecture
The application of contrasting architecture is a commonly used artistic treatment technique for high-end buildings such as palaces and temples in ancient China. Its function is to set off the main building. The earliest applied and artistically distinctive foil building was the "que" built in front of the palace's main entrance since the Spring and Autumn Period. By the Han Dynasty, in addition to palaces and mausoleums, ancestral temples and large and medium-sized tombs were also used. The existing tomb of Gao Yi in Ya'an, Sichuan is very exquisite in shape and carvings and is a typical tomb of the Han Dynasty. Various forms of que can often be seen in sculptures and murals after the Han Dynasty. By the Ming and Qing dynasties, the que evolved into the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City today. Other common artistic supporting buildings include Chinese watches, archways, screen walls, stone lions, etc. in front of the palace's main entrance.
use of color
Ancient Chinese craftsmen were the most daring and adept at using color in architectural decoration. This feature is inseparable from the wooden structure system of Chinese architecture. Because wood is not durable, Chinese architecture has long adopted the method of coating wood with paint and tung oil to protect the wood and reinforce the joints of the wood components with mortise and tenon joints, while increasing the beauty and achieving a combination of practicality, solidity and beauty. . Later, red was used to decorate pillars and beams, or to draw colorful paintings on brackets, beams, and other places.
Comparison between ancient and modern times
Whether it is a palace, a palace, a mausoleum, a house, a wine shop, a tea house, a garden or even a romantic garden, they all embody the construction concept of two halves into one. For example: Ningbo Tianyi Pavilion Library has a pool for fire extinguishing, pavilions, corridors, flowers, trees, rocks and mountains; Yangzhou Meihua Academy has many plum trees, pavilions, pools and pavilions, pavilions and pavilions; Jiangning Prefecture County Guild Hall has gardens; Yangzhou Qingzhi Pharmacy is attached to " "Twelve Rooms Garden"; dozens of ancient elm trees outside Chongning Temple form a large stage; the small mountain garden is the fish pond; There is a pool of water"; Yangzhou Shangfang Temple has eight scenic spots; Huiyin Temple has a Deer Garden and Parrot Forest, and the water bureau is the best...
Moreover, buildings such as residences and temples are interlaced in various types, all of which are integrated with the garden. Take residences as an example: According to the "History of Classical Chinese Gardens" compiled by Zhou Weiquan, the vast majority of private gardens across the country are residence gardens and are attached to residences; Suzhou's small and medium-sized gardens are mostly located on the east or west side of residences, "all surrounded by "Study or living room layout"; the large ones are mostly located at the back, and the combination is quite good. They cannot be isolated. Taking the Humble Administrator's Garden as a representative, we can understand the round house from the organic combination of functions and the integration of the overall spatial structure. A dual life unified relationship.
In short, gardens are by no means an art only for viewing, but a place of life with rich content, in which spiritual enjoyment is also the interest of life. Not every house must have a garden, but as a type, it is generally combined with a garden. It can be seen that using a garden as a semi-combination of all types is one of the main features of ancient Chinese architecture. Looking at the city as a whole, gardens permeate all building types, and together with the natural landscape in the city and suburbs, they form an urban structure that unites nature and man. The Three Gardens of Yuanming, the Summer Palace, the Three Seas of Beijing and the Summer Resort are good evidence.
