Chapter 18 Chapter Five Landscape Architecture

According to historical records, gardens existed in the Shang Dynasty as far back as the 21st century BC.The garden is to choose a piece of land in the mountains and forests, and put some wild animals in it for the emperor to hunt and enjoy himself here.At this time, apart from a high earth platform built in the garden for observing astronomy and looking out, there were no buildings.In the Western Zhou Dynasty (from the 10th century BC to the 8th century BC), the gardens were called yu, and the size of the yu was as large as 70 li in a radius. In these yu, animals and fish were raised, spiritual marsh was dug, and a spiritual platform was built. Started to build palaces for the emperor to enjoy.Qin and Han unified China, and this kind of garden was further developed.The Weilin Garden built in the Han Dynasty has a length of 300 li, where animals are raised, flowers and trees from various places are collected, palaces and buildings for viewing and entertainment are built, and it is already a garden for entertainment and rest of the emperor.

During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the rulers of various countries annexed and killed each other, and the wars continued for years, which made some literati and bureaucrats have a negative and pessimistic thinking.They ignore world affairs, advocate metaphysics, and like to talk, and for a while, Lao Zhuang's theory of escaping reality is very popular.They hide in the rivers and lakes and put their love on the mountains and rivers.During this period, landscape poetry and landscape painting became very popular, and nature became an environment for people to place their feelings on. Therefore, literati and bureaucrats began to manage a small environment with the beauty of natural landscape around themselves, which led to the rise and development of landscape gardens that pursue natural appeal. .The hunting-oriented gardens of the emperors also began to transform into landscape gardens. In the gardens, ponds and mountains were opened, and pavilions and pavilions were arranged to create an environment with natural beauty.In order to avoid the troubles of the world, Buddhist temples often choose beautiful mountain forests to build temples, thus developing the natural scenic spots in mountainous areas.The literati and officials built a large number of private gardens, piled up hills in the garden, and cultivated flowers and trees to cultivate their temperament and express their feelings.This period can be said to be the foundational period of Chinese landscape gardens.

The Tang Dynasty was a period of comprehensive development of landscape gardens.During this period, the country was relatively stable, the economy developed, poetry, painting, and crafts all showed prosperity in culture, and architecture developed on a large scale.In the northern suburb of Chang’an City in Kyoto, there is a large-scale Forbidden Garden, and there are also East Inner Garden, West Inner Garden and Nanyuan Gardens; in the inner court area of ​​Daming Palace, there is a Taiye Pool dug, and Penglai Xianshan is piled up in the pool. Hall corridors are arranged around the pool to form a special inner court garden area.The Qujiang area in the southeast corner of Chang'an City is opened up as a public scenic spot. Every February, Zhonghe Festival, March, Shangsi Festival, and September Double Ninth Festival, it is a resort for people to gather and play.In Hangzhou and Guizhou (now Guilin) ​​in Guangxi, there are such natural scenic spots for ordinary people to enjoy.Among the landscape buildings in various places, the most famous ones are the Tengwang Pavilion in Jiangxi, the Yellow Crane Tower in Hubei and the Yueyang Tower in Hunan, which were first built in the Tang Dynasty.These three buildings have reached a very high level in terms of the choice of construction site and architectural image.During this period, private landscape gardens were greatly developed.The poet Bai Juyi tried his best to develop the West Lake Scenic Area when he was governor of Hangzhou. At the same time, he carefully built his own small house in Luoyang.The house garden covers an area of ​​only 17 mu, of which the residence occupies 1/3, the water surface occupies 1/5, and the bamboo forest occupies 1/9; 〕Pu; the bank of the pool is tortuous, and the path around the pool passes through the bamboo forest. There are small buildings, pavilions, and corridors around it for reading, drinking, enjoying the moon and listening to the spring; there are Taihu stones and Tianzhu stones piled up in the garden. , bluestone and stalagmites.The small house has been in operation for more than 10 years, which shows his dedication.There are thousands of such small private gardens in Luoyang.

In the Song Dynasty, gardening became more common. From the capital to localities, from nobles to commoners, the area and scale of gardening expanded.In Bianliang, Kyoto, there were as many as nine imperial gardens built, the most famous of which was Gen Yue built by Emperor Huizong of Song Dynasty.In order to build this imperial garden, a special Yingfeng Bureau was set up in Pingjiang Mansion (now Suzhou, Jiangsu Province), responsible for collecting famous flowers and stones in the south. Anyone who found a stone or wood available in the folk would break the wall and demolish the house and seize it and transport it to Bianliang.At that time, there were groups of boats transporting flower stones, so it was called "Hua Shi Gang", which aroused great public outrage.Inside and outside Bianliang City, there are no less than two hundred private gardens of ministers and nobles.At that time, in order to attract business, some restaurants also set up gardens and built pavilions in their stores, and some dug ponds and set up painted boats for guests to drink and have fun on board.Large-scale gardening activities promoted the development of gardening technology and art.The orogeny in the garden has changed from mounds of earth to mountains of stones, imitating the screen peaks, peaks, stone walls, waterfalls, and valleys in nature, and some have also made mountain roads and plank roads, imitating the difficulties of the Shu Road. In practice, a group of famous craftsmen of rock formation have been created.Plant cultivation has also been developed. With domestication and grafting techniques, there are as many as a thousand kinds of flowers and trees in Luoyang gardens, and more than a hundred varieties of peonies and peonies alone.Famous flowers in the south such as purple orchid, jasmine, and camellia are also settled and grown in Luoyang.

The Ming and Qing dynasties were the last flourishing period of ancient Chinese gardens, leaving us with many famous gardens, enabling us to appreciate the elegance of ancient gardens in concrete terms.