Chinese Gardens
Garden building is considered a chief component of Chineseculture.The Chinesegardens have a long history.It firstly appeared as early as the 11th century BC during the Zhou Dynasty in the form of a hunting preserve for emperors and nobles.During the Qin and Han Dynasties,those natural preserves were made more beautiful and became places of recreation for imperial families.Garden building had its heyday during the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the imperial garden Yuanming Yuan was regarded as the master work of this period.Different from the classical European gardens,in which geometric patterns dominate,Chinese gardens are made to resemble natural landscapes on a smaller scale.Traditional Chinese gardens fall into categories:imperial,private,and landscape gardens.
Most imperial gardens are located in north china:Beihai Park;the Summer Palace;the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City in Beijing;the Imperial Summer Resort in Chengde,Hebei Province;and Huaqing Palace in Xi’an,Shanxi Province.Imperial gardens occupy large areas.The Summer Palace,for example,has an area of 290 hectares while the Imperial Summer Resort in Chengde,which covers more than 560 hectares,is the largest imperial garden in China.Most of those gardens have three sections which serve administrative,residential,and recreational purposes.
In large imperial gardens,the main buildings are connected by an
imaginary line in the middle of the garden on a north-south axis.Other scattered among hills and waters are linked by subordinate lines,forming a well-designed symmetry and adding more beauty to the chief architectural complex.Colored by paintings,manmade hills and lakes,and ingeniously-designed buildings,screen walls,stone tablets,and decorated archways.
Most private gardens are found in the south,especially in cities south of the Yangtze River.A landscape of artistically arranged cockeries,ponds,pavilions,dridges,trees,and flowers.Surrounding are small open areas partitioned by corridors or walls with latticed windows or beautifully shaped doors.Buildings in the gardens are used for receiving guests,holding banquets,reading,or writing poetry. Suzhou,known as the home of gardens,displays the most and the best Chinese traditional,private gardens.Among them,the Pavilion of the Surging Waves is known for its rustic charm,Lion Grove for its strange rockeries,the Humble Administrator’s Garden for its tranquil waters and elegant buildings and the Garden for Lingering for its ancient architectural art and arrangement of hills,waters,and plants.They are the examples of the garden styles of the Song,Yuan,Ming and Qing Dynasties respectively.
Landscape gardens are different and are places for public recreation.It mainly contains natural scenes,so it looks more natural than
artificial.Good examples include the 10 Wes Lake scenes in Hangzhou,the 24 Slim West scenes in Yangzhou and the 8 Daming Lake scenes in Jinan. Many famous poets and painters contributed greatly to the development of landscape gardens.They either left poetic inscriptions for those gardens,or designed many of the gardens themselves.In order to commemorate those poets and painters,later generations had their poems and inscriptions engraved on tablets,pavilions,or pagodas,thus inspiring visitors.