Japanese Gardens at American World’S Fairs, 1876–1940 Anthony Alofsin: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Aesthetics of Japan

A Publication of the

Foundation

for Landscape Studies

A Journal of Place Volume ıv | Number ı | Fall 2008

Essays: The Long Life of the Japanese Garden 2 Paula Deitz: Plum Blossoms: The Third Friend of Winter Natsumi Nonaka: The Japanese Garden: The Art of Setting Stones Marc Peter Keane: Listening to Stones Elizabeth Barlow Rogers: Tea and Sympathy: A Zen Approach to Landscape Gardening Kendall H. Brown: Fair Japan: Japanese Gardens at American World’s Fairs, 1876–1940 Anthony Alofsin: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Aesthetics of Japan

Book Reviews 18 Joseph Disponzio: The Sun King’s Garden: Louis XIV, André Le Nôtre and the Creation of the Garden of Versailles By Ian Thompson Elizabeth Barlow Rogers: Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition By Robert Pogue Harrison

Calendar 22

Tour 23

Contributors 23 Letter from the Editor times. Still observed is a Marc Peter Keane explains Japanese garden also became of interior and exterior. The deep-seated cultural tradi- how the Sakuteiki’s prescrip- an instrument of propagan- preeminent Wright scholar tion of plum-blossom view- tions regarding the setting of da in the hands of the coun- Anthony Alofsin maintains ing, which takes place at stones, together with the try’s imperial rulers at a in his essay that Wright was his issue of During the Heian period winter’s end. Paula Deitz Zen approach to garden succession of nineteenth- inspired as much by gardens Site/Lines focuses (794–1185), still inspired by writes about this third friend design absorbed during his and twentieth-century as by architecture during his on the aesthetics Chinese models, gardens of winter in her narrative of long residency in Japan, world’s fairs. And despite the 1905 trip to Japan. The pho- of the Japanese were larger than they would a recent trip to Japan, taken have influenced his own West’s opposition to a mili- tographs that Wright took on garden and its later become. They con- for the sole purpose of work. Keane’s essay is com- tant Japan during the first that trip, which Alofsin earli- influenceT in the West. Its ori- tained lakes with islands participating in this annual plemented by a profile of half of the twentieth century, er published as a book (Frank gins lie in the Chinese gar- consisting of arrangements ritual. Stephen Morrell, also a gar- the popularity of the Japan- Lloyd Wright’s Fifty Views of den, which was imported of rocks, some intended to By the Muromachi period den designer and Zen practi- ese garden abroad did Japan: The 1905 Photo Album), into the country in conjunc- suggest the form of a sym- (1333–1573), with the rise of tioner, who is the director of not wane. Today there are demonstrate that Wright tion with Buddhism in 552. It bolically meaningful tortoise the Zen sect of Buddhism, the John P. Humes Japanese an estimated 250 public did not focus on the temple is not surprising, however, or crane. Pavilions in the gardens became austere but Stroll Garden on the north Japanese gardens in at least structures in the famous that an indigenous garden style known as shinden-zukuri compelling compositions shore of Long Island and the 53 countries. monastery gardens of Kyoto tradition quite different stood at the edge of the within small enclosed spaces guiding spirit behind its The Japanese garden did independently of their rela- from that of China evolved water and served as viewing whose visual sphere was ongoing creation and main- not merely spawn replica- tionship to the designed on this small, well-watered platforms. In the eleventh sometimes enlarged with tenance. tions of its basic vocabulary landscapes around them. island, a country whose size, century, the principles outside vistas of “borrowed The Japanese garden con- of forms; it inspired modern To broaden our under- climate, and topography of Japanese garden design scenery” (shakkei). The main tinued to flourish during the architects in ways that rein- standing of the importance differ so greatly from those became codified in an function of Zen monastic Edo period (1603–1868) as a forced their radical break of the Japanese garden as a of its mainland neighbor. important manual of garden gardens was to foster medi- deeply traditional yet contin- from Beaux-Arts neoclassi- cultural expression in its Besides its debt to rules known as the Sakuteiki. tation, and the art of setting ually innovative art form. cism, use of ornament, and own right and also as an Buddhist philosophy, the In an essay here on this of stones was a primary But the impetus for change dependence on an eclectic influence on designers in the Japanese garden owes some- important treatise, Natsumi design consideration. The from within diminished mélange of various European West, the Foundation for thing to its ancient roots in Nonaka, an architectural his- choice and placement of after the appearance of styles. While European Landscape Studies is offering the native, nature-oriented torian specializing in land- stones were also important American naval commander modernists for the most part a study tour entitled “In the religion of Shintoism, which scape subjects, explains that in the creation of the “dewy Commodore Perry in Tokyo sought new forms of expres- Footsteps of Frank Lloyd ascribes sanctity to certain the art of setting stones is path” (roji) in the tea garden Bay in 1853. Understandably, sion through machine Wright: The Gardens of objects such as boulders, the primary step in making a where the ritualized tea cere- as Japan opened its borders technology, they were never- Japan” in spring 2009. Prior often framed by a torii, or Japanese garden, as they are mony (cha no yu) formulated to the outside world, it felt theless influenced to a to that, the California State gate, to mark them as a des- the basic architectural ele- by Sen no Rikyu (1521–1591) with increasing intensity the degree by the minimalist University, Long Beach, is tination for pilgrims. The ments in creating its ponds, was conducted in a small influence of Western culture. elegance of Japanese archi- hosting an international influence of this indigenous islands, and waterfalls. structure of elegantly rustic As a corollary, the West tecture. In the United States, conference on Japanese gar- spiritual tradition, combined Although its structure is simplicity. The tea ceremony, appreciated what it perceived Frank Lloyd Wright forged a dens outside Japan from with the tenets of Buddhism derived principally from the which is carried over to as Oriental exoticism, and distinctly American form of March 26 to 29, 2009. Our and a deep appreciation of composition of rocks and the present day, is meant to the replication of Japanese- modernism influenced by readers will find more infor- the country’s scenic beauty, the setting of stones, the induce a mood of wabi: garden style became a wide- Japanese craft traditions. His mation on these events in accounts for the use of nat- Japanese garden is not with- appreciation of the beauty spread vogue that continues vision incorporated respect this issue. ural objects as primary mate- out flowers. Azaleas, beauti- inherent in the craftsman- to the present. “Style” is the for materials, underlying rials in the construction of fully clipped to form flowing ship of humble spaces and appropriate word inasmuch restraint, asymmetrical com- Good green wishes, Japanese gardens. mounds, are admired by articles of everyday use. as the landscape idiom that position, consideration of visitors today, and the sym- In another essay, the land- was being purveyed by the spatial flow, and integration bolical presence in gardens scape architect and writer Japanese was now a national of “the three friends of cultural product. As Kendall winter” – pine, bamboo, and Brown points out, the Elizabeth Barlow Rogers On the Cover: plum – dates from Heian Editor Hibiya Park, Tokyo, Japan. 2 The Long Life of ing a poem for the emperor as he shuffles back to court trayed in art with both full five-petaled blossoms and tight through drifts of snow. An irresistible image: plum blossoms buds at the end of each twig. This iconography establishes an the Japanese Garden in snow. I flew to Japan on February 10 and found a country air of expectation, of future potential – the same sensation I celebrating plum blossoms in every aspect of daily life. felt later standing in groves of plums. Even on a small ceramic Plum Blossoms: The Third Friend of Winter I began my pilgrimage at the Hatakeyama Memorial incense burner on view by Ogata Kenzan (Ogata Korin’s broth- s one who marks the seasons with rituals of her Museum of Fine Art in Tokyo, founded in 1964 by Issey er), the decoration of a heavy twisted branch combines full own, I have long been drawn to Japan, where the Hatakeyama, who collected unusual tea ceremony utensils and white blossoms with buds. As is customary, the visit to the entire culture is attentive to nature and its cyclical related art objects with sea- museum concluded with bowls of green tea adornments. With the same pleasure and regret for sonal themes that are dis- whipped to a froth and sweets in the shape of the ephemerality of cherry blossoms and the scarlet played at appropriate times. plum blossoms. Each guest held a different bowl huesA of autumnal maples, I have cherished the experience of In the winter exhibition, fea- with individual characteristics worth studying. walking the paths of temple and shrine gardens with hun- turing plum blossoms and Little preparation for this voyage was dreds of others, making a pilgrimage through time. In 1999, camellias, the vigor and required. My friends in Japan embraced my while visiting Kamakura in May, the season of clipped azaleas, beauty of the three friends of quest, taking me to view plum blossoms in sever- I first discovered the temple Hokai-ji and its spectacular allée winter traditionally depicted al regions and milieu. Amy Katoh, whose books of glossy green trees. When I learned they were plum trees, I together – pine, bamboo, and Tokyo store, Blue & White, seek to preserve made a mental note to return someday to see them in bloom. and plum – were captured in traditional rural crafts and the indigenous indigo In Japan, the plum tree flowers just as winter tantalizingly underglaze blue on a seven- culture, had prepared for us, in her inimitable heralds spring. More than 350 varieties of flowering plum teenth-century bowl and lid style, a bright pink-and-white booklet entitled (Prunus mume) with white, red, or pink blossoms bloom from from the Ming Dynasty Pickled Plums & Friends. Among stenciled designs late January through March, making it difficult to pinpoint an in China. This delicate bowl of plum blossoms for yukata (a Japanese hand optimum moment for viewing. As the years passed, I instead was a reminder that the towel cum sweat band) and evocative haiku is a encountered plum trees mostly through art – primarily on the plum tree was a native of mélange of history, customs, and recipes, espe- four sliding door panels or fusuma installed in the shoin or China before it arrived in cially for the tasty pickled plums called umeboshi. Japanese reception room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Japan in the seventh century. (A popular Japanese proverb – “Pickled ume and The panels are collectively titled The Old Plum and attributed In one of the twelve friends, the older, the better” – gave Amy the to Kano Sansetsu, c. 1545; I began visiting them regularly to paintings of birds and flow- title.) Here one learns that in the relatively peace- marvel at the tree’s thickly gnarled trunk, crooked branches, ers by Sakai Hoitsu from the ful Edo period, the crossing of natural varieties and wispy white blossoms set against gold leaf. And in my cat- Edo period, a bright pink yielded a wide variety of plums with fruits that alogue of Rimpa art from the Idemitsu Collection in Tokyo, I camellia is entwined in a are smaller and more tart than their European or frequently study the famous pair of six-fold screens of blos- white plum with a Japanese American counterparts. Some large orchards, soming red and white plum trees, attributed to Ogata Korin nightingale poised on its planted for the fruit alone, are dazzling when in and painted around 1712. In quintessential Japanese style, the bough. Unlike cherry blos- bloom. branches of the red plum twist and turn, contrasting with the soms, which burst into Armed with historical and horticultural infor- linear branch of white. Both are starkly etched into a gold flower simultaneously, the mation, I set out with Amy for the Shimane background above a stylized river in black. plum blooms gradually Prefecture, on the Sea of Japan, and the town of In January this year, a winter exhibition at the Kaikodo along a branch and is por- Omori, with its narrow streets of restored wood- gallery in New York entitled “Let It Snow” featured a nine- en houses, shops, and shrines along a river valley teenth-century hanging scroll by Okada Tamechika, Fujiwara north of the famous Iwami Ginzan silver mine. Kinto with Blossoming Plum. Under the snow-laden branches of Last year the entire region, which dates to a red plum, a portly imperial official in black robe and head- the sixteenth century, was designated a UNESCO dress holds a sprig of plum blossoms and a fan. He is compos-

Fujiwara Kinto with Blossoming Pine by Okada Tamechika (1823–1864), ink and color on silk, 38 1/2 x 13 in. Courtesy of Kaikodo. 3 World Heritage Site. We stayed with her friends the Matsubes summer. Visitors to the Study Center are encouraged to bor- On a Saturday morning, Sumiko gathered a few friends to in their home, Abe Ke, a rambling Japanese courtyard house, row an in-house digital camera to record images of the town join the throngs visiting plum gardens at Zen temples in the one of the largest in town. Its succession of rooms separated as a visual essay of their own impressions. One of the guests eastern section of Kamakura. (A former capital of Japan by shoji screens and fusuma surrounds interior courtyard gar- from Osaka, Aki Izuhara, showed me the sequence of pho- [1185–1333], today Kamakura is a residential quarter on Sagami dens with verandas. Shoes were removed and placed on the tographs she had made in the fresh snow, including one of the Bay, southwest of Tokyo.) While the rest of the city was out packed dirt floor of the entrance hall. gnarled plum tree. Since I choose to describe images only in doing the weekly shopping, a steady stream of visitors wound During the first night, I left the warmth of my futon bed notes, she generously offered me a disk of her photographs as through the neighborhoods that separate the temples. Private and slid open the inner screen and an outer glass one to watch a souvenir. gardens yielded plum blossoms in all hues – some weeping a heavy snowfall on the courtyard garden with its stone snow We then left these wintry scenes behind, continuing on to to the ground – plus red camellias and pine trees pruned into lantern. The next morning, I walked into the front garden and Kagoshima, on Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu. There exotic forms. Sometimes the path followed the banks of the there, gnarled and stunted with age, was a white plum tree in we visited Kobo Shobu, a residential craft center where Down Namerigawa River. blossom with glistening snow piled high on its branches and syndrome and autistic adults create traditional and original For anyone who treasures Saiho-ji, the moss garden in in its crevices. This was the reason I had come to Japan. Later I Japanese crafts. The change in temperature was striking. The Kyoto, the visit to Zuisen-ji in Kamakura is revealing. Muso would see many others, planted along the river that mean- drive into the city was lined with what we dubbed “corduroy” Soseki, who designed Saiho-ji’s lush landscape as the temple’s dered through the town under high arched bridges. Camellia tea fields after the distinctive green rows of tea plants. The first abbot in 1339, began designing in Kamakura, twelve hedges with red blossoms were equally encrusted with snow. plum trees in this warmer clime were in full bloom; our host, years earlier, as the first priest at Zuisen-ji. Beyond the temple Indoors, outdoors, in nature and in art, the plum seemed Kobu Shobu’s director, was particularly proud of the white and its plum trees, Muso carved out caverns at the base of ubiquitous. During the day, we visited the Matsubes’ store, plum that loomed over his garden. We saw the tree at twilight, a steep cliff above a pond. In his time, a dramatic waterfall cas- Gungendo, managed by their daughter, Yukiko. Installed in the which gave it an eerie glow. caded over the cliff and into the pond below, completing entrance was a seasonal display of blue and white ribbon The next day we traveled to a mountainside on the coast the composition, but even today the dark caverns in the rock – streamers with stylized paper plum blossoms. Immediately overlooking a large expanse of bay. We looked out toward with water below and sky above – are an arresting sight. inside there was a pink obi with a plum blossom design. At the Japan’s dramatic volcano, Sakurajima: deep green slopes on a Though the grounds of the temples we visited were not house itself, where Tomi Matsube oversees a Life Style Study peninsula, with wisps of steam rising from the crater. In a extensive, each was distinctive in the color and arrangement of Center, ceramic jars with a few sprigs of plum blossoms were sweeping garden on our side, plum trees with pale pink blos- its plum trees and the preservation of its landscaped features. placed strategically for the best aesthetic effect. And along the soms were interspersed among palm trees in the foreground, a At the entrance to Sugimoto-dera, the oldest temple in wintry town streets, cut-off bamboo stalks tied to the exterior subtropical view. Kamakura, an ancient white plum was supported by stakes in latticework of houses were filled with plum blossoms. Back in Tokyo, my plum blossom walks became more seri- the manner the Japanese do so artfully. A pink plum in the One afternoon, we made an excursion to view a nearby dry ous under the guidance of the writer Sumiko Enbutsu, author same grouping was set off by a yellow witch hazel that bloomed garden with exquisitely pruned trees and clipped shrubs along most recently of A Flower Lover’s Guide to Tokyo: 40 Walks for All simultaneously. Well-placed stepping stones surrounded the a river of stones. We also visited the Izumo Taisha Shrine, the Seasons. In it, she tells the story of the ninth-century Kyoto thatched-roofed temple, and to the side stood a small pavilion oldest Shinto shrine in Japan, with its signature crossed barge- scholar-statesman Sugawara Michizane, much favored at court with effigies of Buddha wearing ritualistic bibs made of color- boards at the peak of the gabled roof. On the way back, by for his command of Chinese classics and poetry in this early fully designed textiles. Of Hokoku-ji, one remembers the chance, in an enclave of old houses with tiled roofs, we passed period of Japanese literature. Falsely charged by rivals, he was woven bamboo fence, the dark pink plum near the entrance, by a classic vignette of the season: a massive plum tree with exiled to Kyushu in despair, leaving his beloved pink plum the raked gravel and camellia trees leading to a dark and mys- dark pink blossoms at the edge of a rice field covered in snow. tree with this farewell poem: “When the east wind blows, / emit terious bamboo grove, like a forest of organ pipes, and caves And the snow continued to fall. thy perfume, plum-blossom; / Because thy master is away, / again in an overhanging cliff. And of Jomyo-ji, the rounded Dinner at a long table in the commodious kitchen of Abe forget not the spring.” forms of tea hedges surrounding the gardens and the combi- house was a communal, neighborly affair. For the occasion, His death soon thereafter was followed by a stream of nat- nation of white, pink, and red plums gradually coming into bottles of plum wine were opened and shared with guests. On ural disasters bringing about his swift posthumous restitution bloom. wooden shelves in an immense storeroom behind the kitchen and deification as Tenjin, a “god of heaven.” Shrines dedicated We climbed the Genjiyama Hill overlooking Sagami Bay for stood large jars of umeboshi from the crop of the previous to him and planted with plum trees are found all over Japan. lunch in an old farmhouse in the sturdy architectural style As the first blooming of plums coincides with the dates of developed for northern regions. The farmhouse had been relo- university entrance exams in January, aspirants who seek sup- port from this scholarly god hang thousands of wooden plaques at the shrines, inscribed with wishes for success. Examination results are announced around the period of full bloom.

4 cated here and restored, its massive beams and loft-like upper prayer sticks, seeds and beans, and other plants. Carefully The Japanese Garden: The Art of Setting Stones rooms creating a sense of amplitude and purpose. tended by the priest, the fire conveyed a sense of purification. he earliest known Japanese treatise on garden mak- Rested, we moved on to Hokai-ji, and there I finally After the congregants rose to circle between the fire and the ing is generally attributed to Tachibana no achieved the fulfillment of the wish I’d first had on that May central altar to leave monetary donations, they settled back on Toshitsuna (1028–94). The author was a nobleman, visit, years earlier: the overarching entrance allée of plum trees the floor, and the priest began to speak. Even though I do not the son of an imperial regent, and he intended his bore myriad buds and fragrant pink blossoms. Further along know Japanese, his tone expressed an openness to the commu- treatise for the aristocracy, who were the main stood a majestic weeping plum with wooden supports that nal aspects of the ceremony, and he had special words for a Tclients in the Heian period (794–1185). Without illustrations appeared integral to its natural form. Other images I still mother holding an infant, beautifully dressed as if for a bap- and originally untitled, the treatise was the product of a long recall: the straw hats of the gardeners, and a large ceramic bell. tism of sorts. oral tradition that had been passed down through generations We ended at the great Shinto shrine of Tsurugaoko Hachiman Once outside, we mingled among the flea market mer- of gardeners. The oldest surviving version of the text, in the with the double lotus ponds that were in flower on my earlier chants and their assortment of antiques laid out on the form of manuscript scrolls, dates from the Kamakura period visit. The shrine is grander and more ornate than the temples, ground or on low shelves. Amy, as usual, sought out blue and (1185–1336), when it was referred to as Senzai-hisho (The Secret and the plum blossoms on either side of the steep stairway white ceramics and textiles. I wandered over to a rack of old Text of Gardens). In the Edo period (1603–1868), the treatise leading up to it were equally impressive. kimonos, always in ample supply since clothes are discarded at acquired the title Sakuteiki (The Book of Gardening). Sumiko and Amy teamed up to plan my last day, in Hino death in Japan. Rummaging through, I was intrigued by one The treatise opens with the topical heading Ishi wo taten City, on the western outskirts of Tokyo. The highlight would the merchant said was from the 1950s. Against a solid ground koto (The art of setting stones). Ishi is the Japanese word for be a visit to Keio Mogusa-en Garden (No. 37 in Sumiko’s book). the color of rosé, a design in white combined sprigs of plum stone, and the expression ishi wo taten koto not only refers to Afterwards we would attend the fire ritual at Takahata Fudo, a blossom – both flowers and buds – with bouquets of autumnal how stones should be placed in relation to one another in a nearby temple of esoteric Buddhism, and visit the antiques chrysanthemums. It is unusual in Japan to mix seasons in a garden, but also to the act of making the garden itself. Three fair on the temple grounds (a natural coupling in Japan). As we design, since women wear only what is appropriate to the sea- basic principles for setting stones are postulated: follow the approached the garden, graphics of plum blossoms on pink- son. Yet there was its message: the first and last flowers to rules of nature; study the examples of past masters; and model and-white banners attached to streetlight poles announced its bloom in the year. I purchased it for five dollars. designs after famous landscapes. A detailed explanation fol- nearby presence. But nothing prepared me for what I saw as I We moved on to the rustic Sanko-in convent for a vegetari- lows on how to construct ponds, islands, and waterfalls using ascended the stone steps and emerged from a wooded hillside: an lunch in the Take-no-Gosho style of Kyoto. We were served stones. eight hundred plum trees of every pastel hue and at various exquisitely presented steamed turnips, potatoes, and seaweed, The recurrent mention in the Sakuteiki of the importance of stages of bloom. In the middle of the garden, by a thatched- reconstituted tofu and other delicacies; the carrots were performing such tasks “according to the will or desire of roofed farmhouse, stood an old white plum that had been shaped into five-petaled plum blossoms. And for our final stones” (ishi no kowan ni shitagaite) testifies that their treatment planted there by a nun three hundred years ago. Because plum stop, we passed by the Jindai-ji temple for a charming view of was both central and essential. As Josiah Conder observed trees are pruned and hacked back to create fuller blooms, the its thatched front gate flanked by pink and white plum trees. perceptively in Landscape Gardening in Japan (1893), the impor- branches develop in contorted directions like the tree in the That evening, at dinner with Amy at Shabusen in the Ginza, tance attached to stones, rocks, and boulders is a striking char- Met fusuma or the one in the Korin screen. Over the course of the dessert, yoshino-koubai, was the real thing: a Japanese acteristic of Japanese gardens. Nowhere in the Western world time – they can live for centuries – they develop their pic- plum, slow-cooked in honey and served in a glass of clear jelly. do we find gardens in which simple stones and rocks play so turesque gnarled trunks. Over the long season of the plum’s flowering, as winter significant a role in the design and making of the garden. Originally the site of a temple called Shoren-an, the land- releases its hold on the land, these rituals surrounding its The value they are accorded presumably derives from an scaping here is enhanced by ponds that reflect the trees, and blossoms are performed countrywide, an integral part older belief in sacred stones called iwakura, boulders used bridges guide visitors along a circuitous route over the water of Japan’s cultural identity. I will continue to share in them since ancient times as prayer sites and usually located in for a full experience of the garden. Interspersed pines, elegant- by wearing the jacket I had made from my plum-blossom mountains. Each was seen as containing a god or as being a ly pruned into cloud formations, are decoratively protected kimono – a kimono another woman wore long ago, to celebrate link to the world of the gods. The author of the Sakuteiki and by taut ropes – like the ribs of bamboo umbrellas, Sumiko the coming of spring and its sustained pleasures of “one his contemporaries would have perceived stones as having says, but with the practical purpose of preventing accumulated early, one later.” – Paula Deitz some kind of will or desire, if not a spirit or life of their own. snowfall. This garden was the pinnacle of plums. Although this animism may no longer be widespread in our When we arrived later for the fire ceremony in the four- age, the use of stones as a central component in Japanese gar- teenth-century, smoke-blackened Fudo Hall, just a few places den design has survived unchanged. With maximum exploita- were left inside, and we squeezed in before the incantations tion of their natural texture, stones remain an aesthetic device began. A central fire had been lit for the burning of stacks of highly expressive of a subtle yet powerful beauty.

5 Pond gardens who lived there as a child, successfully rebelled against the The garden at Tenryu-ji represents the transitional stage The pond garden is the oldest garden type found in Japanese Kamakura shogunate to restore imperial power, but his reign from Heian pond gardens. In addition to imitating natural landscape history. The garden of Daikaku-ji Temple (834) was short-lived. His general Ashikaga Takauji betrayed and landscapes, the stones’ arrangements were associated with in west Kyoto is the oldest artificial garden in Japan, and its banished him, and established a new military shogunate in moralistic meanings. No longer thought of as purely orna- Osawa Pond is the most complete Heian garden lake to Kyoto. In 1339 Emperor Godaigo died in exile, and soon after mental elements recreating beautiful scenery that gave plea- survive. This is a chisen-shuyu-style garden – a pond garden to Muso Soseki dreamed that the emperor, in the form of a gold- sure to the senses, they carried spiritual connotations inviting be enjoyed from a boat. The site was originally a rikyu (literally, en dragon, rose out of the river in Arashiyama. Muso Soseki the viewer to meditation. The spiritual symbolism of stones a “detached palace,” a secondary imperial palace apart from convinced Takauji to convert the Arashiyama detached palace would be a central feature of dry landscape gardens in the cen- the official one), made up of a Shinden-style mansion and a into a temple to appease the spirit of the late emperor; the turies to come. garden with a large pond. Shinden was the preferred architec- priest was then charged with the remodeling of the garden. tural style among the Heian aristocracy. Residences consisted Versed in Chinese art and culture, and inspired by the black Karesansui (dry landscape) gardens of a main building facing south, several subsidiary buildings ink paintings of the Song dynasty, Muso Soseki was one of the In the Muromachi era (1336–1573), a period dominated by mili- connected by covered corridors, and a garden with a pond and first to advocate the idea that gardens could be used as an aid tary rule, priests and warriors preferred symbolic waterscapes. fishing pavilions. As boating accompanied by musical enter- to Zen meditation. Influenced by Zen thinking and Chinese Song dynasty land- tainments and moon-viewing were popular pastimes for Heian The pond at Tenryu-ji provided an ideal setting for stone scape paintings, the era’s gardens became increasingly abstract nobles, the Osawa Pond was placed southeast of the building arrangements featuring Chinese classical iconography. in design. In stark contrast to Western gardens, in which water complex so that the moon could be viewed rising over the Designed to be viewed across the pond from the main build- and vegetation were indispensable components, these Japanese water. ing, beyond a bridge made of three slabs of stone, a large gardens could do without either. A garden without water is Osawa Pond was constructed by damming a natural stream standing rock forms the base of a dry waterfall known as called a karesansui. Its main components are stone and moss, to the northeast of the property, conforming to the theory pro- Ryumon baku (Dragon Gate waterfall). Above and slightly to the with gravel or sand used occasionally to fill in voids. The term posed in the Sakuteiki that water should flow into a pond from left of the base rock is a curved stone vaguely resembling a “karesansui” was first used in the Sakuteiki, designating a dry the northeast and flow out from the southwest. (China’s lovely large fish. This stone is called the carp stone because it sug- landscape portion of a larger garden within which one could Lake Dongting Hu in Hunan province provided the model.) At gests a carp struggling against the current. It is associated with enter and move around. In the Muromachi era, however, it the pond’s northern end are two small islands named Tenjin- the old Chinese belief that a carp, after successfully ascending came to mean a stone garden that was a place for contempla- jima and Kiku-ga-shima. Between them several stone islets the Yellow River Gorge at Lung Men (Dragon Gate), will be tion to be viewed exclusively from the interior of an adjoining appear in a straight line, imitating junks anchored in a harbor. transformed into a dragon. In China, “to pass the Dragon building. Despite its paucity of materials and simplicity of Along the stream to the north of the Pond is a stone arrange- Gate” was a metaphor for passing the qualifying examinations design, the karesansui garden can evoke deep feelings and ment referred to as “Nakoso waterfall,” named after the Nakoso for government service. In Japan, the carp attempting to climb profound philosophical ideas. checkpoint in northern Japan, which is a well-known topos in the waterfall became a metaphor of Zen enlightenment Daisen-in, a subtemple in the large temple complex of medieval Japanese poetry. Here rocks and stones form small- through self-training and meditation. Daitoku-ji (1315) in north Kyoto, features a typical karesansui scale versions of famous natural landscapes from China or Near the carp is an islet made of seven stones. This stone garden dating from 1509. It was designed to be viewed from a Japan in a technique called shukkei (miniature landscape). grouping alludes to the mythic mountain island in the East shoin, a small room in a temple used as a study, featuring a The garden of Tenryu-ji (1339), which was built five hundred China Sea called Horai Island (named after the yomogi plant tokonoma (alcove), chigaidana (staggered shelves), and tsuke- years later in the river resort of Arashiyama in west Kyoto, has that flourishes in uninhabited places). Horai Island was the shoin (built-in desk) . Later shoins were incorporated in resi- a pond too small for boating; it is instead a chisen-kaiyu-style abode of the sen-nin or hermit of Chinese legend who leads a dences of the ruling warrior class, and the term “Shoin-style” garden – a pond garden to be enjoyed by strolling. This garden solitary life in the mountains, having achieved transcendental came to designate the architectural style of warrior mansions. contains the earliest example of shakkei (borrowed scenery), wisdom and immortality. This stone grouping became a In the garden at Daisen-in is a pair of large rocks that stand the technique of visually incorporating into a garden natural favorite garden motif in Japan, frequently repeated in later upright, one slightly taller than the other; together, they repre- features lying beyond its boundaries. Originally the distant gardens. sent a monumental waterfall. The ground is covered with prospect of two hills, Kameyama and Arashiyama, was part of white gravel raked in flowing patterns to represent a river and the garden landscape, although overgrown trees now obscure an ocean. The “water” precipitates down the cascade, forms a the view. river that flows under bridges and around islands, and finally The Zen priest Muso Soseki (1275–1351) designed this garden finds its way into the ocean. The itinerary of the water can be on the site of a former rikyu. Emperor Godaigo (1288–1339), seen as an allegorical trajectory of human life. From waterfall to river, from river to sea, the watercourse widens as it moves

6 along its route, just as our Stone garden at Ryoan-ji. Tea drinking had its origins in China, but its transforma- perspective should broaden tion into a ritual embracing simplicity and restraint was a as we age. The water flowing overtly referring to a particu- purely Japanese invention, and so, too, was the roji. Unlike the under bridges and around lar scene in nature or the traditional gardens created to be enjoyed in their own right, several rocks may represent classical literary past, the the roji was a transitional space leading from the entry gate to the surmounting of obsta- stones remain vaguely and the teahouse, often bordered by a simple fence of bamboo cles one encounters during obliquely allusive. Proposed twigs and adorned with plants of restrained color. The tea- the course of life. The sea interpretations are as diverse house was a modest grass-thatched hut with an interior space suggests Mother Nature, the as “a bird’s-eye view of a measuring only 4½ tatami mats (7.3 square meters). Spirituality final destination of life’s voy- symbolic ocean dotted with was the key concept of the roji, one that Sen no Rikyu age. islands,” or “a mother (1522–91), tea master of the Momoyama era, characterized as The garden of Ryoan-ji tiger and cubs crossing the “the spiritual purity of the mind that has taken leave of all (1619–80) in north Kyoto is sea.” The contemporary worldly toil and defilement.” the most famous karesansui architect Arata Isozaki (1931–) Simplicity pervades the design of the roji. Its characteristic garden in Japan. The site was remarked that the layout of feature lies in the stones combining both utilitarian and a former aristocratic estate the stones was in accordance decorative functions: tobi-ishi (stepping stones), tsukubai that was converted into a with the golden ratio. But (hand-washing basins), and ishi-doro (stone lanterns). Tsukubai Zen temple in 1450. The dat- considering the fundamental (literally a place where one has to bend down) was the stone ing of the stone garden is Zen concepts of enlighten- basin where visitors washed hands and purified themselves controversial, but the con- ment through meditation before entering the teahouse. Ishi-doro were placed along the sensus is that it was original- and the experience of noth- roji to light the path for nocturnal tea ceremonies. They were ly created in the fifteenth ingness, the stones may sym- soon adapted as ornaments in religious and secular gardens, century; its present form bolize nothing more than and continue to adorn them to this day. The tobi-ishi were dates from the Edo period. an invitation to contemplate originally intended to protect the moss and to lead the visitor Enclosed on three sides the landscape and its possi- towards the teahouse, but they gradually gained an aesthetic by walls and on the fourth ble meanings. Or they may characterized by the concepts of wabi (refined austerity) and side by a wooden veranda be an ultimate expression of sabi (similar in meaning to wabi; subdued taste). from which visitors can contemplate the stone arrangements, Muromachi aesthetics of yugen (subtle profundity) and yohaku The stones were selected for their shapes, colors, and sur- the rectangular garden covered with white sand measures only no bi (the beauty of empty space). In any case, the minimalist face textures. Uniformity or unity was not the issue; subtle 25 by 10 meters. Out of this sand rise fifteen stones arranged and monochromatic stone garden at Ryoan-ji features a pure diversities and irregularities among them added to the tasteful successively from the right in groups of three, two, three, two, form and a reductive aesthetic that would have significant rusticity of the small garden space. In the roji of Fushin-an and five. The sand is raked in a pattern of straight lines run- repercussions in art and architecture. Isamu Noguchi referred (1594) at the Omote Senke tea school in Kyoto, the tobi-ishi are ning almost the full length of the garden, except around the to his sunken garden for the Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza in set in moss in a deliberately oblique or winding course. At stones, where it is raked in concentric circles. New York (1961–64) as “my Ryoan-ji.” Koho-an garden (1621), designed by Kobori Enshu (1579–1647) Unlike the powerful rocks that create a dynamic waterscape in Daitoku-ji, Kyoto, the tobi-ishi are also set among gravel in the garden at Daisen-in, the stones at Ryoan-ji are not par- Roji (tea garden) and moss in a slightly sinuous way. These stones are meant to ticularly distinctive in terms of shape, size, or color. Some The Momoyama era (1573–1603) saw the development of two manipulate the pace of the visitors, obliging them to slow barely rise above the ground. The emphasis is not on the indi- opposing trends in garden making: on the one hand, gardens down, look around, and see things that they would have passed vidual stones but rather on their relative sizes and shapes, featuring monumental stone arrangements displaying the lav- by in everyday life. The tobi-ishi are thus intended to increase their combination in groups, and their spatial relationships to ish opulence of costly stones, exemplified by the garden at visitors’ consciousness of the quotidian and the ordinary and each other and the raked sand around them. Instead of Daigo-Sampoh-in in southeast Kyoto (1589); on the other hand, guide them toward a revaluation of the importance of small the understated roji (literally “dewy path” but meaning “tea gar- daily activities. They have proved an enduring feature of den”) featuring a compressed rustic landscape with restrained Japanese gardens up to the present. use of stone ornaments. Sado (the tea ceremony), which estab- lished itself in Japan towards the end of the sixteenth century, gave birth to this latter type.

7 Stroll gardens Garden at Tofuku-ji. grid pattern that is filled in Katsura Rikyu (1620–45) is a sublime synthesis of the Japanese with white sand and shaped garden aesthetics hitherto described. This vast property azaleas. The north garden contains the famous grid of square (58,000 square meters) in southwest Kyoto was a former Heian stones embedded in green moss; it was inspired by the grid Shinden-style mansion estate, remodeled in the early Edo pattern on the sliding doors in the teahouses at Katsura Rikyu period into a full-scale garden for strolling – a fourth garden and Shugakuin Rikyu. In the east garden, stones placed in a type – and dotted with residential buildings and teahouses. cloud-shaped area of white sand represent the constellation of The residential buildings – the Old Shoin, the Middle the Big Dipper. Shoin, and the New Palace – are constructed in Sukiya (tea- Shunmyo Masuno (1953–), a Zen priest and landscape archi- house) style. Their rustic simplicity, devoid of ornamentation, tect, has published widely on garden design and created was much admired by German architect Bruno Taut in Houses numerous gardens in Japan and abroad. His overseas works and People of Japan (1937). The three buildings are intercon- include the Zen garden at the Canadian Museum of Civiliza- nected in a zigzag gankou (geese-in-flight) formation, engaging tion in Ottawa (1995), Taunustor Japan Center in Frankfurt the stroller in a remarkable kinesthetic experience. The tea- (1996), the Japanese garden at Berlin Marzahn Erholungspark houses are situated at scenic spots around the pond, linked by (2003), and the garden of the University of Bergen, Norway paths of stepping stones. A sequence of garden spaces unrolls (2003). Of his many landscape architecture projects within in front of the visitor who follows the paths, creating unex- Japan, the garden of the Cerulean Tower Tokyu Hotel in Tokyo pected surprises and offering a constantly changing view. As (2001) is considered among the most powerful. Outside the one zigzags toward the buildings or follows the intricate con- lounge area is a curving terrace of pale granite ledges lit by tours of the pond with its numerous peninsulas and bays, a concealed lighting. These symbolize waves rolling towards a series of vistas are alternately hidden and then revealed in a shore, represented by a “beach” of pebbles and boulders. technique called mie-gakure (hide-and-reveal). Around the corner is another stone garden made of slabs of At Katsura, three kinds of tobi-ishi are used: shin (formal), darker granite, some with chiseled surfaces, some polished. gyo (semi-formal), and so (informal). The path leading to the Other noteworthy examples of modern landscape architec- front entrance of the Old Shoin is composed entirely of artifi- ture featuring stones are the Stone Plaza in Tochigi cial stone slabs cut in geometrical shapes, shin no tobi-ishi. The (1996–2000) and the Water/Glass House in Atami (1998), both path in front of the bench pavilion in the garden is a combi- by Kengo Kuma (1954–), and private gardens in Kyoto by nation of artificially cut slabs and small natural stones, gyo no Atsushi Akenuki (1947–), including that of the Tsuruya tobi-ishi. The path leading to the Shoi-ken teahouse is com- Yoshinobu cake shop. Akenuki was also in charge of the land- posed entirely of small natural stones called so no tobi-ishi. scaping at the Miho Museum of Art in Shiga (1996). Thus the stepping stones themselves create a remarkably com- Modern stone gardens These Japanese designers create landscapes that are truly plex and beautiful effect. No other gardens display such a vari- A number of modern landscape architects continue to experi- modern in form and content. Yet their creations are based on ety of pleasing ground patterns as those at Katsura. As Taut ment with the use of stones. Mirei Shigemori (1896–1975), a a deep historical understanding that the art of Japanese gar- observed, the Japanese may indeed have a tendency, instead of landscape architect and scholar who trained in painting, dens is first and foremost the art of setting stones. In a broad- looking upwards, to lower their gaze, as their sedentary pose flower arrangement, and the art of the tea ceremony, created er perspective, when Mirei Shigemori talks of his design on tatami has accustomed them to do so. numerous dry landscape gardens that are both novel yet tradi- philosophy as reconnecting humanity with the primordial According to Taut, Katsura Rikyu is the highest achieve- tional in design. Among other projects, he collaborated with force of nature, and Kengo Kuma of making architecture “a ment of Japanese aesthetic taste – a happy blend of the expan- Isamu Noguchi in choosing stones for the UNESCO garden in frame of nature” to allow us to experience the environment siveness of Heian pond gardens, the stark simplicity of Zen Paris. “more deeply and intimately,” we recognize that these design- aesthetics, and the subtle and restrained elegance of the world Shigemori’s masterpiece, the gardens at Tofuku-ji in Kyoto ers are striving to recover modern man’s relationship with the of tea. The exquisite use of stones at Katsura, which enriches (1939), consists of four independent parts. In the south garden, natural world – a vital and profound endeavor in this anxiety- our physical and visual experience of space, remains unparal- four stone groupings amidst white sand represent four mythic ridden age. – Natsumi Nonaka leled in Japanese landscape history. islands of Chinese legend (Hojo, Horai, Eishu, and Koryo), and five moss-covered mounds symbolize the five Zen sects of Kyoto. In the west garden, stone curbs create a checkerboard

8 Listening to Stones things designed this way include precisely detailed lacquer materials he finds are natural – wild, you could say – like boul- n the west of Kyoto, off the main streets that run out from boxes, porcelain teacups, and Buddhist temple architecture – ders taken from rivers or mountains. Others are shaped by the the city center, are stockyards where gardeners come to buy not to mention the products of Toyota, Sony, and company. human hand, like carefully pruned pines and maples. But all the stuff of their trade. Some yards deal in plants, others in But there is another mode of designing, one that is often asso- of them share one important aspect: they are unique speci- stones; most have a little of both. They are often hard to find ciated with traditional Japanese design, that began in the 1500s mens, no two the same. As these diverse pieces are found, and at first, lost in the narrow streets, but you’ll know one when in cities like Kyoto within the context of the social gatherings then gathered to the site, the design shifts to accommodate Iyou see it. Not by the sign out front – there rarely is one – but we now call the tea ceremony. In this mode the designer does their various “capabilities.” The pine, perhaps, is a little larger because of the cluster of leafy heads that pushes up above the not try to control every aspect of the design but instead revels and more canted than what the designer imagined. Fine. surrounding houses: tall green islands in a sea of brown. If in the unexpected serendipity of the process of creation. Everything just slides over a bit. The stone chosen for beneath you are accustomed to stockyards in America, with their neat Wood-fired pottery is a good example, where the magic of the the pine is weak on one side, but that can be balanced by plac- rows of uniform, well-tagged material lined up by size and kiln adds to what the potter has begun; another is highly cur- ing another stone next to it. In this mode of designing, the variety, you’ll be in for a surprise: it’s a bit like a bric-a-brac sive “grass-script” calligraphy, in which the way the brush garden is not entirely created within the designer’s mind and shop. Plants of all sizes and types are mixed together, with opens and streaks is never fully planned out. And, of course, then actualized. Rather, to some degree, it is suggested by the stones, lanterns, and water basins tucked beneath them like there is garden design. materials themselves. chicks and hens. There are no botanical names on plants The reason gardening in Japan falls squarely into the This concept was described in an eleventh-century garden- (Japanese gardeners have no use for Latin) – in fact, there are serendipitous mode of designing is that the materials used, ing treatise called the Sakuteiki, which translates literally as often no labels at all, not even prices or Japanese names. The being natural and therefore unique, disallow the designer Records on Garden Making. I call it The Art of Setting Stones lack of labeling is mostly because these yards deal only with from stipulating entirely what will happen. The designer does because the expression used in the treatise to mean “garden the trade, and that sort of information is either unneeded (like not dictate that a stone or tree will be exactly a certain size or making” was “setting stones.” In the Sakuteiki, the reader is the plant names) or varies by customer (like the prices). The shape; instead he only roughs advised that when placing stones, the most important stone of hodgepodge arrangement stems partly from the lack of space out an idea and then searches The empty space of the garden, an arrangement should be set first and all the other stones in Japan, partly because some materials come into the yard for materials with which to referred to as “ma,” is purposefully that are to be set afterwards should be set in accordance with bit by bit when old gardens are dismantled, and partly as a work. Perhaps he goes to a carved out by the design of this first stone. The author expressed this as “following the means of display. You can hear the owner suggesting, “Doesn’t stockyard like the ones in the the moss areas. Spiral Garden, request of the stone,” suggesting that it was not the aesthetic this pine look good next to this maple . . . and what about this west of Kyoto. Some of the K-Residence, Kyoto. of the designer that was important; rather it was the inherent stone lantern? Nice match, nature of the material that called for a certain design to flow right?” But what’s really from it. In other words, the act of gardening was not simply an interesting about this seem- exercise in design. It was in fact a method of nature study, a ingly haphazard way of lay- practice that asked the designer to look carefully at the world ing out the stockyards is not and understand things from the material’s point of view. its root cause but what it Listening to the stones – that is, designing “from the mater- reveals about the nature of ial’s point of view” – was one of the things I learned by work- Japanese garden design. ing in Japan for many years. This has become a foundation of There is a mode of the way I design. Another was to work with a very limited designing in which the palette. In many parts of the world, the garden is seen as a designer envisions and plans place to gather the bounty of the natural world. The beautiful out every last detail of a arrangement of a wide variety of natural elements, especially design – a controlling or plants – carefully balancing their forms, textures, and colors – intentional mode, one might is considered key to a good design. Nowadays, gathering the say. You can find this bounty of nature is increasingly being replaced by gathering approach in many cultures around the world. In Japan,

9 The palette of the garden is kept den, “no grasses or trees wilder the better. In the West the Japanese maple is seen as a very simple: green in the moss and are planted, no stones trophy plant, an object rather than a symbol, and the wild, mountain laurel, tan from the are set, no sand has been green Japanese maple is only used as rootstock. wooden fence, and tones of the spread, and no small The previously mentioned haiku poetry touches on a third stone lantern, water basin and river stones are laid out as thing that has stuck with me from my time in Japan. As men- jacks. Water-Stone Garden, B- groundcover. In this way, tioned, the haiku has only seventeen syllables, broken into Residence, Darien, Connecticut. the attention of the guest three stanzas. The expression that results is only the sugges- is not distracted and . . . tion of a poetic image, just a hint without any fleshing out of the bounty of genetic modifi- they put their spirit into the details. By paring things down, the poet leaves ample room cation as people cast about for the tea gathering.” The for the reader (or listener) to fill in what has not been written. the latest horticultural vari- simplification of design is A highly abbreviated poetic form like haiku inherently engages eties, but the design mode not simply an elegant and its readers, encouraging them to participate in the poem by remains the same: the display reserved sense of taste finishing it, or expanding on it, themselves. The simplification of bounty. To some degree this (although that is one way is not just a tricky exercise in seeing how much can be was also true in Japan – long, to look at it); rather it is a expressed with how little (although certainly that, too, is part long ago, back when the way of opening up the of it); it is a way of drawing the reader into the creative Sakuteiki was written. Yet ever senses of those who pass process. since the thirteenth and four- through the garden so that Likewise a garden that is designed in this manner – quiet, teenth centuries, under the they will be more highly simple, unassertive – engages those people who experience the influence of the severe ethos of the newly empowered military aware of the subtleties of the experience that awaits them. By class, as well as the Zen Buddhist predilection for stripping designing with a simplified palette, a quiet space is created away outward appearances to reveal inner truths, garden that lends itself to contemplation so that the garden not only design became increasingly rarefied. pleases but also inherently encourages philosophic reflection This can be seen in many of the other arts of Japan, too. and poetic interpretation. Haiku poetry, for instance, reduces expression to just seven- An interesting comparison with Western garden design can teen syllables. Flower arranging, or ikebana, usually involves be seen in the way plants are treated – in particular, those that, only one stem each of three species, and in some cases only a like the Japanese maple, bear the label “Japanese.” In any green single stem with a bud yet to bloom. The utter simplicity of garden you visit in Japan (for there are some with no green at the flower arrangement draws the viewer in and encourages all), chances are you will find a Japanese maple. If you do, it close examination, the way a person who whispers often will be Acer palmatum: green-leafed, upright, and as close to a attracts attention. The stillness created by the act of simplifica- wild maple as you can get. Red-leafed? Cut-leafed? Variegated? tion allows one to perceive details that would otherwise be Weeping? Dwarf? These varieties are not used at all. Not in overlooked. This mode of designing is not just an aesthetic; it Japan. It is telling that the same plant has been perceived so is a method of heightening awareness, of understanding the differently. In Japan the maple is appreciated as a poetical nature of Nature. emblem of the changing seasons, especially as an indicator of Garden design works in a similar way. The gardens autumn. Any wild maple will do fine for that role; in fact, the designed as entry spaces for the tea ceremony, for instance, which are called roji, or pathways, contain no flowers because they would detract from the experience to come. The six- teenth-century tea treatise, Usoshû, states that in the tea gar-

The pattern of the stepping stone path was not designed in the studio, but developed after the indi- vidual pieces were collected and considered. Tea Garden, Hiden-in 10 Temple, Kyoto. garden and encourages them to continue the creative process Tea and Sympathy: A Zen Approach to Landscape Gardening for the property and because John Humes was an ambassador themselves. The clearest examples of this way of designing are n a beautiful day this past spring, I drove to the living abroad during the Nixon and Ford administrations, the gardens called karesansui, which are made of stones set in north shore of Long Island to meet with Stephen the garden around the teahouse received only routine mainte- raked sand. The word karesansui is written with three charac- Morrell, director of the John P. Humes Japanese nance from his estate gardener. ters meaning dry-mountain-water. “Mountain-water” is a way Stroll Garden in Locust Valley. The garden, situat- Upon his return to this country in the late 1970s, Humes, of saying nature, or landscape; “dry” simply refers to the fact ed among several old, Gold Coast estates, consists who took primary responsibility for the project, hired a local that no actual water was used in building the garden. These Oof four acres of steep, wooded hillside carved out of a corner landscaping firm in an attempt to reverse a ten-year period of gardens are images of wild nature, islands in the sea, or moun- of the family property inherited by Humes’s wife, Jean. Its ori- neglect. The manner in which the horticultural crew vigorous- tain ranges peeking above a layer of clouds. They are in no way gin was the purchase in 1960 of a shoin-zukuri-style Japanese ly pruned the trees and shrubs near the teahouse and sup- meant to be literal depictions of a landscape, like scale models teahouse from Gracie Orientalia, a New York firm specializing pressed the weedy overgrowth with plastic sheeting was alien built to film a movie. Rather they are abstractions in which the in Asian décor, following a trip the couple had taken to Kyoto to the Japanese aesthetic, to say the least. In fact, Humes had various parts of the garden symbolically represent whole where they had fallen in love with Japanese gardens. The chal- far more ambitious plans: he wanted to not only restore and swaths of the world. A single stone is a mountain; three stones lenge they now faced was how to create an appropriate setting expand the original garden, but also open it to the public. make an archipelago; a few yards of raked sand becomes the for it. Fortunately, in his search to find someone ocean; a single aged pine is an endless forest. They discovered living who could transform the property and In between the stones in the garden – or the aged pine, or nearby a Japanese couple realize this ideal, he met Stephen Morrell. whatever other few elements are used to compose the arrange- who had set up a landscape- Morrell’s path to the Humes Stroll ment – are large areas that are left seemingly empty. They may gardening practice on Long Garden and his own design practice (his be spread with white sand or covered with moss or some other Island after being released firm is called Contemplative Landscapes) simple treatment. In Japan these empty spaces are referred to from a World War II intern- began in Fall River, Massachusetts, where he with the deceptively simple word ma, meaning a pause, a phys- ment camp. The couple spent his childhood next to a forest preserve ical or temporal space. The portions left unpainted in an ink framed the teahouse with in which he played every day. “The forest landscape painting, a period of quiet time in a musical score, specimen plantings of ever- gives you sense of place and an aesthetic still moments in the movement of a Noh theater actor are all greens and bamboos and context through its tree structure, leaf tex- referred to as ma. This emptiness, however, is not something laid out white gravel paths. ture, and characteristics of light,” he left out or left over; rather it is specifically created by taking In addition, they created a explained when I spoke with him during my truly empty space, or time, and punctuating it with certain kamejia, a tortoise-shaped visit to the garden. “I feel at home in the sparse elements. The spaces framed by those punctuations composition of shrubs and Eastern deciduous woodland; I am most at constitute the ma and it is within those spaces that the mind rocks symbolizing longevity, Stephen Morrell peace there.” His father, a leader of the can wander, filling in the unpainted landscape, the unex- a traditional element of Japanese imperial gardens. They Operating Engineers Union, had pursued a career in his own pressed music, or the part of the garden that waits to be com- reshaped the pond, which sits in a hollow below the teahouse, father’s line of work, and he urged his sons to do the same. pleted. into its present configuration of a gourd, echoing the ponds Two of them complied, but Morrell, remembering the veg- Listening to the materials, using a simple palette, leaving found in old, Heian-era gardens. Rocks were grouped into etable garden he had planted and tended as a boy, knew with emptiness within a design. Of the many aspects of Japanese forms that had symbolical associations. For example, one an unusual degree of certainty for a teenager what he wanted culture that have become part of me and the way I design, group brings to mind a crane, a bird representing immortality. to do instead. To please his father, he worked summers on a these three stand out as the most influential on my work. But the Humeses had no further design and maintenance plan construction crew and trained for a year after high school in What is important to me about them is that they are not just how to handle heavy construction equipment. “That experi- ways of creating a clean look (although that is part of it – have ence provided an understanding of landscape grading and I mentioned that before?). They are methods for increasing drainage,” he told me, “but I knew where my heart was, so I awareness. Not just ways of designing, but ways of learning to see. – Marc Peter Keane

11 naturally gravitated toward being a gardener. My dad couldn’t Since my visit coincided with one of the frequent group over one wrist that he would later use to wipe out the beautiful understand why. He told me that gardening was just a hobby.” tours Morrell gives, I was invited to observe the tea ceremony ceramic tea bowl (chawan) he held in his hands. A slender In 1978, when he was twenty-two and had begun to train for he had planned as the culmination of a guided stroll along bamboo tea scoop (chashaku) rested across the top of the tea his chosen career, Morrell met Ralph Hartman, a landscape white gravel paths and moss-encrusted stones leading up and bowl. In the bowl was a small whisk (chasen) with which he architect whose designs had a Japanese sensibility. Hartman down the steep hillside on which the teahouse (chashitsu) sits would stir the special green powered tea (matcha) used for the encouraged him to enroll in the New York Botanical Garden’s on its platform. Beside the entrance to the defined space that tea ceremony. He placed these next to a water container and School of Professional Horticulture, and there he heard about sets the teahouse apart from the rest of the garden, he directed then went back to the preparation area at the back of the the job opportunity Humes was offering. At the time Morrell our attention to the tsukubai, a large standing stone with its room. He returned holding a large stoneware vessel for the had his sights set on an internship in Europe after graduation. top scooped to form a basin from which he ladled water, waste water (kensui) , a bamboo water ladle (hishaku), and a Nevertheless, because of his interest in the Japanese landscape explaining how the host and the guests (normally around four) green bamboo rest for the kettle lid (futaoki). He next wiped aesthetic, he met with Humes, who must have been impressed purify their hands upon first entering a tea garden. Now, the tea container and scoop, afterwards folding a silk cloth with the young man. “He did the most amazing thing,” because of the number of members of the visiting garden (fukusa) used for this purpose with meditative concentration. Morrell recalled. “He trusted me with the garden’s future and club, he was serving only the chairman, who knelt in the tea- Then he ladled hot water, which had been boiling over a small said he would put things on hold for a year until I got back.” house with expectant curiosity. The rest of us stood outside brazier, into the tea bowl, rinsed the whisk, emptied the bowl, His time abroad began in Belgium, where he trained with the walls of shoji screens, which had been slid open so we and wiped it clean. Following these preparations, he scooped Jelena de Belder at Arboretum Kalmthout and continued at could observe the ceremony. “The purpose is to cultivate pres- tea into the tea bowl, poured in a little water, whisked the mix- Les Bois des Moutiers, the extraordinary Olmstedian-cum- ence, moments of awareness,” he told us. ture into a paste, added more water, and continued whisking Arts-and-Crafts garden in Varengeville-sur-Mer on the It seemed incongruous at first to see a tall, muscular gar- to create a thick frothy tea broth. Bowing, he placed the bowl Normandy coast. dener dressed in work clothes performing a ritual more fre- in front of his hesitant guest, who was waiting for cues as to Upon his return in 1982, Morrell set about developing the quently associated with petite, kimono-clad women. With what she should do next. Morrell instructed her to rotate the garden according to his own evolving aesthetic. The challenge precise and practiced motions he began serving the garden bowl in her hands in order to admire its rustic beauty before he faced was learning how to improve on the design of the club chairman while explaining the significance of each ges- she drank. Bowing after she had, he rose from his tatami mat Japanese gardeners who had formed the pond and landscape ture and stage of the tea presentation. He stepped onto a tata- and disappeared again, returning with a small plate of sweets. surrounding the teahouse and to wed it with the surrounding mi mat in the serving space with a white linen cloth (chakin) At the conclusion of a few sips and nibbles, denoting her par- woodland in order to create a seamless whole. To do this suc- ticipation in the meal, he cessfully he felt he needed to learn more about Japanese cul- accepted the tea bowl from ture. “I came of age in the seventies,” he told me, “so the her, rinsed it and the whisk, culture of Eastern philosophy was in the air, but it wasn’t until and cleaned the tea contain- I came here that I became a practitioner of Zen and incorpo- er. All of this was done slow- rated meditation into my life.” At the Zen Mountain Monastery, ly, implicitly encouraging located on a 230-acre forest preserve in the Catskills, he found her to quietly admire the a master with whom he studied zazen, the formal practice of objects that were now being seated meditation. During this period of self-education he also put away. studied the art of tea ceremony at the Urasenke Chanoyu After the group left, Center of New York, a branch of the Urasenke Konnichian in Morrell and I walked Kyoto. At the same time that Morrell was beginning his through the garden as he immersion in the Zen Buddhist ethos, he was developing his explained what he and his vision for the garden. Humes approved of his ideas and sought to ensure the garden’s future by redirecting the entire annual income of his family foundation to its support.

Japanese teahouse, John P. Humes Japanese Stroll Garden, Locust 12 Valley. crew of two other gardeners do. The bulk of the work consists weeding. The message is there is no place to get to in your life Fair Japan: Japanese Gardens at American World’s Fairs, of “adjusting and responding to the things nature throws your except here and now.” He tries to carry this over into the less 1876–1940 way.” Tip-pruning and redistributing gravel are necessary rou- serene moments of life: working with clients, being a father, etween the Civil War and World War II, world’s fairs tine tasks, but the most important one by far is grooming commuting between Connecticut and Long Island. He says it were enormously influential in shaping American moss, the soft emerald carpet that is the quintessence of a is sometimes difficult but that “you can cultivate a sense of popular culture and attitudes. The Ferris wheel, the ice Japanese garden and the glory of a natural woodland as well. presence even in these things if you let go of self-attachment. cream cone, and the hot dog are all said to have “The importance of moss,” Morrell said, “is that it provides The important thing is to be attentive, aware, present, and to debuted at fairs, and these international expositions horizontal continuity and depth to the ground plane. Moss is embrace the moment, whatever it is.” Bwere no less momentous for developments in gardening and so lush, and when you have something in such mass and are The garden is for Morrell a means of personal transcen- botany. At the first American fair, held in Philadelphia in 1876, looking at this expanse of continuous green growth, your con- dence: “Remove the subject-object duality and you become the U.S. Department of Agriculture exhibited lawns and lawn- nection to it feels immediate and direct.” what you are doing,” he remarked. “That’s what the act of gar- care “arrangements” to propagate the idea of the grass lawn as I noticed that the moss was differently textured in places dening does for me. It is about finding joy in the simplest a distinctive feature of the American residential yard. For that and assumed that there must be three or four species. When I things. The Japanese call it wabi sabi. Wabi has a subjective ori- same exposition, the Japanese brought along the kudzu vine. asked if this were true, Morrell replied, “There are more than entation; it fosters spirituality based on meeting basic needs The 1876 fair also witnessed the construction of the first eleven in the garden of the four hundred found throughout with minimal means and savoring the economy and purity of “Japanese garden” in North America. The success of this gar- New York State. Moss is a whole plant world unto itself.” To a bare-bones existence. Sabi is more objective and refers to an den spawned a long series of such gardens at world’s fairs explore it in depth he returned to the New York Botanical appreciation of the humblest articles of everyday life, seeing in America, each conceived as a cultural artifact and received Garden, where he learned to identify moss by the cell structure beauty in imperfection, understatement, the unexpected, as an exotic aesthetic import. Yet, for the sponsor of these of its leaves in cross-section under a microscope. As I bent asymmetry, and the effects of aging and weathering.” landscapes – Japan’s imperial government, formed in 1868 – down to stroke a piece of the furry green carpet, he told me I asked him how one can retain this admirable perspective each garden was also intended to create an image of Japan that that this moss was Plageoniam, the dominant species in the in such an environmentally troubled age as the one we live in. served a subtle but significant political goal. garden because it will grow anywhere except on rocks. Then Morrell agreed that contemporary humanity is devaluing The gardens at these grand events constituted the first, there is Thuidium, a sodlike mat. Although moss can spread nature as a source of spiritual nourishment by making it largest, most-visited, and best-publicized examples of Japanese quickly, it will die if it is covered with leaves or twigs, and goes something apart, rather than a part of us. But he remains opti- landscape design abroad. Built primarily by workers from dormant without consistent moisture, turning an unattractive mistic, believing that change will occur if enough people bear Japan and sponsored by the Japanese government, effectively dull yellowish green. witness to the possibility of a cultural shift by caring intimate- the gardens were authorized; the ostensible authenticity of When the arrival of a tour is imminent, Morrell and his ly for a plot of land. “The Zen way is not the only way. A veg- their materials, designs, and meanings was guaranteed by dint crew give the garden’s ground plane a once-over with rakes, etable patch will do. The garden is a metaphor,” he concluded. of official patronage and genuine craftsmanship. From the but when they have time they brush the moss with dust “If you are a gardener, you are a witness to the necessity for start then, the act of making a “Japanese garden” outside Japan brooms. Moss also needs weeding, a task that emphatically stewardship, caring for the earth.” – Elizabeth Barlow Rogers had immense legitimacy and prestige. calls for the Zen virtue of patience. Yet to kneel with one’s face Because many of the structures and even some of the plants close to its surface and pluck the tiny weeds that sprout The John P. Humes Japanese Stroll Garden, a preservation project were later incorporated into commercial, civic, or private gar- amidst its conglomeration of inconspicuous leaves, aware of of The Garden Conservancy, is open to the public on weekends from dens, these exposition gardens had extensive second lives. For the odor of moist earth, can be intensely satisfying. Morrell late April through October. For more information visit: instance, the Japanese Village at the California Mid-Winter said, “That sensory experience – the smell, the touch, the lush www.gardenconservancy.org/newpages/features.php Exposition (1894) became San Francisco’s famous Golden Gate green color – is life-affirming. ” Park Japanese Tea Garden, and the success of that garden, in For him, moss weeding offers an opportunity to practice turn, led to a string of commercial tea gardens in California meditation. “Zen practice,” he said, “is about constantly culti- operated by G. T. Marsh. The lavish pond-style stroll gardens vating your ability to be fully present, to eliminate the gap that surrounded by pavilions that were built for many of the occurs when you check out mentally. It requires that you expositions – derived from Edo period daimyo stroll gardens, return to the task at hand whether it is sitting meditation or as revived in the Meiji era – were also imitated, both in the many Japanese-style gardens built at the estates of America’s economic elite before World War II and in civic gardens after

13 it. Finally, many of the carpenters and garden builders who Japanese Pavilion, Chicago World’s came to America to work on fair gardens also remained in the Fair, 1893. country and contributed to other garden projects. International expositions served as an opportunity for izing term “the Japanese gar- Japan to export desired aesthetic and cultural values. What has den,” so too do the placards been less recognized is that fair gardens were also important and pamphlets at modern ideological tools. The fairs themselves were microcosms of Japanese-style gardens still international relations in the competitive age when mature tend to favor grandiose, ahis- industrialization met late colonialism. In this highly charged torical statements linking atmosphere, the meanings formed through Japanese gardens aspects of Japanese garden and the rhetoric associated with them were inherently politi- design to eternal verities of cal. As idealized representations of a pre-modern Japan in the Japanese culture. The cultur- modern West, the gardens were intended to portray the coun- al assumptions embedded in try as a tranquil, artistic, and beautiful land – a nation that, the Japanese gardens at the despite its contemporary outward show of modernity, mecha- fairs are still very much alive. nization, and militarization, was at heart a kind of pre-modern utopia where old values still held sway, where craftsmanship Performing on the was the rule, and where beauty seemed to spring from both World Stage the land itself and the fingers of its people. At the fairs, For most viewers, world’s Japanese gardens featured architecture in styles redolent of fairs were entertainment. the past as well as actual objects that were legitimately old – But for the governments usually stone lanterns and bonsai. Oases of greenery inset with investing their resources and ponds and streams, the gardens provided an undeniable visual prestige, fairs functioned and mental respite that was often linked more broadly with as a kind of theater in which Japanese culture in official descriptions of the gardens. each nation played a differ- Set against the hard-edged physical and ideological envi- ent role, like an actor upon a stage. Often national participa- Within this brutal power dynamic, Japan occupied a singu- ronments of the fairs, the Japanese gardens seemed soft and tion at fairs assumed an hourglass-like configuration: powerful lar position, and its rulers consciously exploited its unique- cool, sanctuaries for body and mind. And in contrast to the nations were abundant, weaker Western countries rarely par- ness to craft a complex message in which gardens played a key aggressive modernity that was the hallmark of many countries’ ticipated, and what is now called the “third world” was well role. Because of its status as an Asian country, Japan was con- exhibits, Japan created a self-image linked to the past. The represented. The presence of dominant nations was intended sidered one of the backward nations of the world, part of the official Japanese poster at the 1939 New York World’s Fair to signal progress, power, and pride. If second-tier nations static, passive, and mute Orient against which the dynamic begins, “Changeless, timeless Japan . . . Its enduring charm were represented at all, they usually made token appearances. nations of the Occident measured their power and progress. takes place naturally in ‘The World of Tomorrow.’” It con- Occupying the lowest rung on the ladder of international sta- Certainly at the first fairs where Japan participated – Paris cludes, “When the Fair’s modern world bewilders you, remem- tus were the territorial colonies of Africa, the Middle East, and (1867), Vienna (1873), and Philadelphia (1876) – it was perceived ber – and enjoy – the Japanese Pavilion.” Asia. They did not control their own presentation at the fairs as a quaint and exotic land just emerging from centuries of If the concept of the Japanese garden was created in the but were represented by their conquerors as trophies of con- sleep. Yet by the middle of the 1890s, the era when America’s official discourse (that of both the exposition organizers and quest and evidence of empire. Perhaps the most striking great fairs began in earnest, Japan was fast becoming a the Japanese government), it was disseminated by the popular example of this practice was at the 1900 Exposition Universelle Western-style colonial power. As the Great Empire of Japan, press, which brought visual and verbal descriptions of these in Paris, where the French displayed their imperial posses- the small island nation was rapidly industrializing at home gardens to the entire nation. The gardens were subsequently sions and ambitions through replicas of monuments from and creating its own dominion in Asia. analyzed in books and articles. Typically the Japanese-style gar- their colonial holdings, including Angkor Wat and a Siamese In a series of striking coincidences, the largest American den built at each fair was simply called The Japanese Garden, pavilion. fairs occurred during Japan’s wars or other critical moments or other non-historically specific variants such as The Imperial in foreign policy. The Chicago Columbian Fair of 1893 Japanese Garden. And just as most non-Japanese still lump took place on the cusp of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95. together the diverse history of Japanese gardens into the total- San Francisco’s Mid-Winter Exposition occurred during the conflict itself, and the St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition

14 marked the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. on, presenting its latest achievements in art and technology. In agrarian, and feminine – in essence, peaceful. The four fairs on the Pacific Coast between 1907 and 1915 these crowded, competitive arenas, Japan demonstrated that it By positioning Japanese identity in a garden, and by posit- coincided with anti-Japanese immigration sentiment in the was no backward nation but instead would soon rival the ing the garden as a quintessential expression of Japanese cul- United States and agitation for legislation to limit the rights nations of North America and Europe in social progress, eco- ture, the Japanese government skillfully linked Japaneseness of Japanese immigrants and eventually bar them altogether. nomic might, and military influence. and gardens – at once demonstrating a living cultural tradition Chicago’s Century of Progress Exposition in 1933 followed When it came to building a national pavilion, however, and “naturalizing” the highly political message being propa- Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and coastal China in Japan presented itself in very different terms. Whereas many gated. This was not a simple device born of the positive 1932. And to cap this remarkable chronological convergence of other nations linked themselves wholly with progress by con- response of Westerners to Japanese gardens, although that Japanese imperial expansion and the nation’s presentation structing national pavilions in contemporary styles, Japan quickly became part of the equation; it was an attempt to sug- of itself in America, the fairs in San Francisco and New York steadfastly embodied itself in historicizing structures set in gest the inherent character or “nature” of the Japanese as a (both 1939–40) took place during Japan’s “Sacred War” in lavish gardens. In contrast to the material and social progress people and Japan as a nation. In essence, if through gardens China – a prelude to the eventual “Greater East Asia War” with indicated by the displays in the exhibition halls, here the mes- (and the explanatory texts surrounding them) we could witness the United States and Britain. To read newspapers that were sage was of ostensible oriental stasis, where Japan epitomized the love of nature in Japanese culture, then it was a short jump published during the run of these fairs is to experience two Asian tranquility, tradition, and beauty. If the Japan displayed to the idea that present–day Japan and its political system were different views of the world. Whereas the front-page headlines in the exhibition halls was masculine and westernizing, the themselves natural and proper. In the neat tautology of one devoted to military and political battles suggest a Japan Japan glimpsed at the national pavilions was feminine and ori- exposition pamphlet from 1940, “Japan is ever true to its eter- marked by turmoil, the pictures and descriptions of the Japan- entalizing. Although the two images acted in concert through- nal nature.” This insistent message indicates the insecurity on ese pavilions and gardens at the expositions evoke a land of out the fair as a whole, when Japan had to be reduced to a both domestic and international fronts of the new imperial timeless tranquility. single image it was the feminine land of tradition that pre- regime, itself created only at the time of the first nineteenth- Several theorists have examined the ways in which world’s vailed. century fairs and reaching its zenith contemporaneously with fair expositions were a part of the “apparatus of representa- This image constituted Japan’s dominant or core identity at the last great fairs in 1940. Anxious about its past and for its tion” in the creation of modern consumerism, nationalism, the fairs for at least two reasons. First and most obviously, the future, the Japanese government felt compelled to present and imperialism, and noted their role within the discourse of picture of Japan as traditional was associated with the national itself as inevitable and enduring, a refined force of nature that Orientalism. But these critiques apply differently to Japan, pavilion, the essential representation for each country. Second, found easy expression in lavish gardens. because – although the country was “opened” by western mili- while displays of Japan’s modernity were dispersed to various tary force – the Japanese were never colonial subjects. On the exhibition halls and might easily be confused with similar Fair Japan contrary, they were successful colonizers. As such, the national products or systems from other nations, the display of endur- The official Japanese garden at each fair was usually not the identity “performed” by Japan was a complex synthesis of ing tradition was concentrated in the self-contained space that only Japanese garden there. In the commercial entertainment opposing roles. was distinctly Japanese. Thus Japan seemed western and com- zones located just outside the exposition gates, Japanese entre- This hybrid presentation was facilitated by the heteroge- petitive in connection with other nations, but at home and on preneurs invariably constructed a Japanese enclave to compete neous space of the fairs, where nations were offered several her own terms in her national space, she conveyed a much with such attractions as the Bavarian Beer Garden or Streets stages on which to display their national narratives. A foreign more congenial and distinctly nonthreatening visage. While of Cairo. Run by businessmen like the ubiquitous Yumindo country could acquire space within multiple exhibition halls the Japanese presence at the fairs was both masculine and Kushibiki (1859–1924), who constructed a commercial Japanese and also lease a parcel of land feminine, the feminine iden- garden near the Boardwalk at Atlantic City and even a Japanese on which to build its national tity was implied to be the tea garden on the rooftop of the original Madison Square pavilion. Japan used both truer one. In addition to, or Garden, they were small and undeniably commercial, often venues to the fullest advantage: perhaps in spite of, the squeezed between a restaurant and theater or bazaar. at the major American fairs, it proud evidence of Japanese It is tempting to divide and oppose these two types of was either the largest or sec- mechanical, mercantile, and Japanese fair gardens as official and unofficial representations, ond-largest renter of space in military might, the message and see the small sideshow gardens as an expression of the the halls dedicated to industry, intentionally promoted by subversive heterogeneity of fairs. Yet the commercial gardens agriculture, education, and so the Japanese pavilion and attached garden was that Japan remained artistic,

The Japanese Garden, Japanese Pavilion, Golden Gate Exposition, San Francisco, 1939. 15 helped to underscore the dominant rhetoric of the Japanese neously commemorate the very idea of Japaneseness. In many In The Wake of Exposition Gardens national pavilion. For instance, photos and postcards of these ways, the gardens and their architecture were intended to Given the concurrent histories of Japan’s popular success at gardens usually feature women – geisha in the terminology of portray Japan’s history as a smooth, homogenous prologue to American world’s fairs and, from around 1913 at least, the dete- the time – posing in front of an arched bridge or miniature the modern moment. In these prismatic spaces, the country’s riorating relations between Japan and the United States that stream. This feminization of gardens, and by extension the dark and confused condition, in which the tribulations of culminated in the ferocious Pacific War and atomic bomb, we projection of a nonthreatening message for the entire country, war, political and social upheaval, and the feelings of national might conclude that the propagandistic use of fair gardens reinforced the underlying theme conveyed at the official inferiority weighed heavily on politicians and business leaders, had no positive political effects in the long term. Although Japanese pavilions. was clarified and projected. By distilling an equally murky Americans were charmed by Japanese culture and gardens, this One could even argue that these commercial spaces were national history through the filter of a living landscape archi- fascination was quickly separated from admiration for Japan more effective agents for Japan’s national interests precisely tectural tradition and laudatory texts, Japan could lay claim to once it became a serious economic and military threat. The because they were not associated with the Japanese govern- a glorious past that informed the present and suggested a American acceptance of the fantasy of a feminine-pastoral-his- ment. The complex political expedience of their existence is radiant future under imperial rule. toric Japan was easily detached from political views of the indicated by the name that was used for most of them: Fair Meaning was created through and between the formal fea- nation precisely because the fantasy was so manifestly a day- Japan. At a minimum, Fair Japan was a clever play on words, tures of the gardens and the writings for and about them. It dream. Moreover, when political push came to military shove, suggesting swiftness of mind and familiarity with the English was also performed literally, in that most gardens were used to Japan was discredited further for having duped the American language. Most obviously, it asserted that Japan was both a host a variety of spectacles. These events could include speech- people with a false image. beautiful country and a virtuous one. The verbal conflation of es by dignitaries, fashion shows, Japan Day parades and festi- Yet the real question is whether such propagandistic efforts aesthetics and ethics in the pun on “fair” strengthened the vals, exhibitions of Japanese dance and drama, and even the altered history in less obvious ways by delaying actions to often stated link between Japan’s physical attractiveness and screening of films. More subtly but no less importantly, pub- counter Japanese aggression. It is not far-fetched to imagine the equally appealing content of its society and culture. If gar- licity photos meant to emphasize the gardens’ beauty and that the degree to which Theodore Roosevelt supported Japan dens at international expositions were intended to display serenity were often animated by the inclusion of Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War was influenced by the Japanese dis- Japan’s national identity, then the fundamental nature of that women clad in kimonos. This presence of figures costumed in plays at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904, and that identity was manifest in the physical forms of the gardens, in historical dress was key, for it indicates that the gardens were Franklin Roosevelt’s reluctance to embargo Japan until the the propagandizing name Fair Japan, and in the way that most not passive or neutral spaces; rather they were stages for activi- summer of 1941 was affected by Japan’s large-scale involvement exposition gardens were used. ties which underscored the associations intended by the in the fairs in New York and San Francisco in 1939 and 1940. design and articulated through various scripts. Because Japan participated on a massive scale and presented a Gardens as Performance Art The garden at the main Japanese exhibition site also served compelling image at America’s fairs, she created an aura of If, among such familiar aesthetic constructions as painting as a transitional space that visitors were made to experience goodwill that was eroded more slowly than otherwise might and architecture, gardens are particularly performative because before reaching the national pavilion where the government have been the case. they call for bodily engagement within a dynamic environ- formally presented a contemporary image of the country One indication of the effects of this sustained campaign ment, then the Japanese gardens at world’s fairs are masterly in photos, dioramas, and other displays. As with the roji or tea is the relatively rapid reappearance of Japanese-style gardens examples of landscape as performance art. They were created garden, through which guests pass before entering the tea- in America after the war. The speedy revival of political and for a public audience, meant to entertain and, in so doing, to house, the Japanese world’s fair gardens first sought to divest cultural relations with a former enemy was built on a founda- persuade. In keeping with these goals, they were often overtly the visitor of his prior conceptions by presenting an environ- tion laid before the war via such things as Japan’s exposition theatrical in style and function. And, if we believe contempo- ment that was so idiosyncratic, so self contained, and so per- gardens. In a new age of “Cold War Orientalism,” Japanese gar- rary descriptions, they were carried out with a surpassing tech- fect in its execution as to suspend disbelief. In this way, they dens were soon built in American residential and business set- nical and artistic skill that became part of the message of softened up the visitor for the hard sell to follow. These tings. Moreover, direct echoes of fair gardens are to be found Japanese ingenuity put to essentially peaceable ends. suggestions – that a garden distilled the fundamental charac- in sister-city displays and theme parks like Disney World and Like most performances, the gardens were temporary, yet teristics of Japan and that Japan itself was a garden – were Sea World. their goal was to establish a lasting impression of Japan in the cleverly integrated into the pavilions, especially those con- The fact that we again think of the Japanese garden as an minds of those who visited. They were meant both to com- structed in the late 1930s whose dominant interior images aesthetic import devoid of political implications is, paradoxi- memorate a specific event – Japan’s participation at a particu- were of Japanese landscapes and women. cally, a measure of its continuing success as a form of propa- lar exposition – and more importantly to instill a perduring ganda. Yet perhaps the deepest legacy of prewar fair gardens image of the modern Japanese nation and its unchanging cul- in their demonstration that American public space could ture. In essence, their function was to construct and simulta- be culturally diverse. Unlike the chinoiserie of earlier periods, this manifestation of Asian culture had a certain weight and dimension, and it had to be taken on at least an approxima- tion of its own terms. Asia had become a part of the American urban landscape. – Kendall H. Brown 16 Frank Lloyd Wright and the Aesthetics of Japan contact with each other produce nearly identical forms, is clients or used them as collateral for loans. He elaborated their apanese aesthetics have long held an attraction for the neglected. The challenging issues of the artistic transforma- appeal in a short pamphlet, The Japanese Print, that is central West. The consequences of Commodore Perry’s opening of tion of old ideas into new ones are similarly dismissed. From to understanding a new primitivist phase of his work. Accord- Japan in 1854 soon were felt not only in global commerce, this perspective, the influence of Japanese art and architecture, ing to Wright, Japan, like the cultures of Mesoamerica, China, but also in the dissemination of Japanese culture through more particularly its gardens, is not so simple as is claimed and southeast Asia, contained the pure sources of form that Jworld’s fairs, the sale of woodblock prints, and other by a conventional model of linear influence. could inspire a new modern architecture. means. Josiah Conder, a young British architect who moved to For instance, the architect Walter Gropius (1883–1969), a For Wright, the archetypal geometries of the circle, square, Japan in 1877, both brought western skills to his own architec- promoter of functionalist modernism, much esteemed and triangle that he found in Japanese art corresponded with tural practice in his new country of residence and spread Japanese architecture and its gardens, but it is unclear how the spiritual qualities of infinity, integrity, and structural Japanese aesthetics abroad. In the twentieth century, despite their influence manifested itself in his architecture or his unity, respectively. In their use he sought to provide a means World War II, Western appreciation for these numerous ideological writings. On the other of moving beyond historicist models toward a discovery of aesthetics increased, and they became hand, although Frank Lloyd Wright (1867- the pure origins of creativity itself. Paralleling contemporary increasingly influential and widespread. 1959), America’s most famous twentieth-cen- European interest in non-Western, primitivist sources, Although the Japanese garden was first tury architect, denied its direct influence, he Wright’s appropriation and integration of Japanese aesthetics appreciated by Westerners merely for its nonetheless claimed to have absorbed and into his own work laid the foundations of a unique branch exoticism, its more profound and enduring transformed Japanese influence in his of modernism. appeal lies in its quality of abstraction – an designs. In 1893 Wright visited the World’s At the same time, however, Wright was extremely sensitive abstraction that has resonated strongly with Columbian Exposition in Chicago; seeing to any implication that his work was derivative. In 1910, when the West’s modern sensibility from the mid- replicas of Japanese temples there opened Charles Robert Ashbee, Wright’s friend and an important nineteenth century through the present. his eyes to the powers of the Japonisme that British Arts and Crafts architect, was asked to write an intro- Japanese treatments of form and color and had blossomed on the Continent and begun duction to a small book of photographs of Wright’s buildings, pattern provide the bold, flat surfaces and to make inroads in the United States. While Ausgeführte Bauten, he claimed in his essay that Japan had dynamic, asymmetrical compositions that we other young architects dreamed of going to “influenced” Wright. The American was furious and censored associate with modernist visual culture. the École des Beaux-Arts or spending time Ashbee’s remarks when he published the picture book. Japanese art, with its root in spiritual prac- on the Grand Tour, Wright yearned for Wright had the opportunity of a lifetime when he received tices, is the perfect Eastern correlative to the Japan. the commission in 1913 to design a new Imperial Hotel in West’s desire for pure imagery, providing a Wright first visited Japan in 1905 in the Tokyo. Rather than abandoning all ornament as did many welcome counterweight to its innate materi- company of his wife, Kathryn, and a couple European modern architects, here Wright revolutionized its alism. who were friends and clients. Among the use, making the Imperial Hotel a culmination and testament And yet charting the influence of sites Wright visited were gardens, waterfalls, to his organic philosophy as it had evolved in the previous Japanese aesthetics on Western design is shrines, and temples, and he documented decade. neither simple nor obvious. Historians and critics have tended many of these places with his own photographs. Remarkably Wright made numerous trips to Japan during this period, to set up a simplistic model based on visual analogy – if A he took far more photographs of landscapes and gardens than the last one in 1922. Never again would he visit the country looks like B, then B has influenced A – and such practices lead buildings. Many of these carefully selected views were unusual that had so touched his artistic sensibility, but it had a to reductive explanations of complex phenomena. The mean- in terms of subject and composition. Apparently feeling he permanent impact on him. His work continued to reverberate dering nature of influence, like a slow stream accumulating understood the buildings, he focused on the landscape, trying with the Japanese aesthetic until the very end of his career. the flotsam of image and word, is ignored, and the phenome- to capture its ageless magic. – Anthony Alofsin non of parallel development, whereby sources that have no Wright also became an avid collector of Japanese artifacts, particularly ukiyo-e woodblock prints. He would study their use of perspective by attaching pins to key points in the images. While like many Western artists he was primarily interested in their flat asymmetrical compositions, an aesthet- ic that found expression in his own architectural renderings, they were for him a commodity as well, and he sold them to

17 Books ography; perhaps the book’s creation of Versailles by the seemingly impossible. it also did for French indus- work, and the few that are do greatest benefit is his synthe- becomes as much a chroni- For example, Louis was a try, engineering, and horti- not appear near the page sis of recent scholarship on cle of seventeenth-century fanatical fountain fancier culture. Despite the Eure that refers to them. To com- Versailles. Informed, French history as it is the and squandered vast sums fiasco, French hydraulic pound the frustration, there The Sun King’s Garden: detailed, and animated, his story of one man’s lifelong filling Versailles with these engineering became the state is no cumulative list of illus- Louis XIV, André Le Nôtre account adds the necessary obsession. works of art and hydraulics. of the art. The demand for trations, forcing the reader and the Creation of the historical context to bring As Thompson notes, Yet, as good as Louis’s thousands of flowers spurred to thumb through the book Garden of Versailles the story to life, much in the Versailles “was not made eas- hydraulic engineers were, the growth of a larger and to find an image under dis- By Ian Thompson tradition of serious works ily.” Thompson vivifies the they were incapable of pro- more efficient French horti- cussion. More unfortunate is New York: Bloomsbury, 2006 like Nancy Mitford’s The Sun exhausting history of viding a water supply equal culture industry, whose the text. It is disjointed, King (1966), Erik Orsenna’s Versailles’ creation, demon- to requirements. Not even representatives perfected repetitive, at times logically “Warmonger, Le Nôtre: strating that even though it the “Machine de Marly,” procedures such as tree inconsistent, and contains womanizer, Jardinier du was a place for pomp and which pumped water from transplantation and intro- far too many errors in conti- and autocrat, Roi Soleil display, it was a perpetual the Seine to Versailles, could duced innovations in horti- nuity, dates, and spelling. Louis XIV (2001), and chantier, the French word for satisfy the demand. To reme- cultural technology and Within the space of three may also have (with a sub- a construction site. For half dy the shortfall, a plan was botanical research. Under paragraphs, Thompson been history’s ject closer to a century, from the early devised to divert waters to the inspired direction of writes, “By the time Le Nôtre most fanatical home) Witold 1660s until his death in 1715, Versailles from the Eure Jean-Baptiste de La Quin- had been summoned to gardener.” Rybczynski’s Louis transformed his River, some 60 miles distant. tinie, Louis’s potager includ- Versailles, things had got out Thus begins A Clearing in father’s modest residence at But even with the supervi- ed over three hundred of hand amongst the garden- Ian Thomp- a Distance: Versailles from a swampy sion of France’s best military varieties of pears alone, ers…” and “By the time that son’s The Sun Frederick Law lowland into the largest gar- engineer, Sébastien Vauban, including the Bon Chrétien, a Le Nôtre and his colleagues King’s Garden, Olmsted and den the world had ever seen and the army’s manpower rare species ripe when others arrived in 1662, order was setting the America in – and by some accounts, he (22,000 in 1686 alone), not a are out of season. well on the way to being tone for this Nineteenth did so not just once but drop of Eure water ever As the infrastructure of restored.” He writes that the handsome, ambitious, and Century (1999). repeatedly. Louis’s sister-in- reached Versailles. The price the château was emerging, so Grotto de Thétis was begun well-intended book on the At its best, Thompson’s law, the Princess Palatine, is of this enormous failure was a national system to in “1665 [and] was years in creation of the château and book is an atmospheric quoted as saying “there was amounted to about ten per- ensure the timely delivery of the making,” but then says it gardens of Versailles. The account of the colossal not a single spot in Versailles cent of the total building men and materiel. To keep was completed in 1666. (It book is indeed ambitious: enterprise that was the which was not modified ten cost for Versailles. the enterprise going, all the was, in fact, begun around Thompson set himself the building of Versailles. As the times.” This fascinating example while allowing the monarch 1664/65 and completed circa challenge of synthesizing monarch’s principal resi- In size, opulence, and of obsession is only the most and court to inhabit a 1674.) He notes the extensive and condensing the long, dence and the eventual seat grandeur, Versailles was and expensive of Louis’s excesses palace in a constant state of “plant list at Trianon,” but complex, and often tedious of government, Versailles is remains without equal. at Versailles, as every aspect construction, an efficient elsewhere writes that the history of the château into a not to be confused with a There is only one size at of its building went to bureaucratic machine was “plant palette of seven- manageable size and palat- home. It’s not just the size Versailles – huge – and one extremes. Yet in his drive for fine-tuned by Colbert. teenth-century France . . . able form for the nonspecial- that sets it apart, it is its sin- purpose – to awe and glory, Louis forced France to Whatever glory Versailles was relatively limited.” He ist reader. gular purpose: to glorify the impress. On these criteria, rise to the occasion. As is presented, it was mirrored has Henriette d’Angleterre, Certainly the author has absolute power and person Versailles scored perfectly, well known, Versailles, as the by the glory of an efficient first wife of Louis’s brother done his homework, provid- of the Roi Soleil. To the but at a cost: the bankruptcy seat of the court, made state apparatus. Philippe, duc d’Orléans, ing information, anecdotes, extent the Sun King was syn- of France. As Thompson France the cultural capital of Yet, for all its merits, as the daughter of Charles I and quotable quotes culled onymous with France, the demonstrates, the king – Europe. What Versailles did Thompson’s book is a frus- from a long list of authorita- much to the chagrin of his for French arts and culture, trating read. The book is tive works, which he lists in supremely able finance min- beautifully illustrated, but his copious notes and bibli- ister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert – most images are not men- was never daunted by tioned in the body of the expense or, for that matter,

18 of England on one page, and Louise de la Vallière, he and married Louis in a Colbert’s flattery to under- often visited the monarch on Though born of modest the daughter of Charles II of “needed a secluded retreat secret morganatic union stand the importance of the field of battle. “What was means into a family of royal England on another. (Charles where he could make love shortly after the death of his building, and – as Thompson Le Nôtre doing at the siege gardeners, Le Nôtre rose I was her father.) The date to [Françoise] Athénaïs wife, Marie-Thérèse, in himself makes abundantly of Valenciennes?” Thompson to heights well beyond his for the Bosquet de l’Étoile de Montespan,” his second 1683. Thompson’s provoca- clear – France was almost asks. The honest answer is station, being ennobled is “1668” in the text and official mistress, and thus tive thesis oversimplifies the always at war during the we don’t know. Yes, as by Louis in 1675. He retired a “c. 1685–1686” in the illustra- commanded the Trianon raison d’être for Versailles construction of Versailles. Thompson notes, it was the rich man, with an estate tion. de Porcelaine to be built. and fails to take into account The relationship between common practice for that included several proper- Equally troubling are Thompson then suggests the complex relationship these “campaigns” was more courtiers to show interest in ties and an art collection of some of Thompson’s inter- that when Mme de Montes- Louis had with his mistress- complex than the author’s warfare, and yes, the engi- over 250 works, some of pretations. As his opening pan lost Louis’s affection, the es. Few were ever dropped account. neering techniques of war- which eventually landed in line implies, Thompson king ordered the Trianon’s cold; most lingered on at Thompson extrapolates fare found their way into the Louvre. Le Nôtre was focuses on certain aspects of destruction at the behest of Versailles or were well pro- his discussion of the con- garden construction, espe- not only a supreme garden Louis’s character and relates his new official mistress, vided for by Louis. Moreover, struction–war relationship to cially on the scale of designer – genius, really them to the building history Françoise d’Aubigné, Mme simultaneous lovers and garden making and war Versailles. Yet one cannot (though Thompson avoids of the gardens and château. de Maintenon. Strikingly, the queen lived in respect- making. Both gardens and suggest, as Thompson does, this superlative) – he was Here he has digested a vast Thompson imputes so much able, if tense, proximity. Both wars needed huge amounts that Le Nôtre attended the equally adept at working amount of old and new importance to Louis’s rapa- Louis’s love life and the of human resources, and sieges of Valenciennes (1677) with and satisfying his material for which the reader cious carnality that he sug- building of Versailles are too both resulted in great losses. and Cambrai (1687) to fur- patron’s wishes. And clearly can be thankful. Unfortu- gests that the initial impetus complicated to be neatly Thompson gives ample sta- ther his understanding of Louis was an exacting client. nately he is prone to drawing for building Versailles was correlated. tistics and a good summary martial engineering tech- As told by Thompson, conclusions and making the monarch’s need for a Thompson’s attempts to discussion of the casualties niques for application in cre- Louis’s manic engagement – assumptions that are both secluded spot to engage in relate the building of incurred during the con- ating gardens. Again even from the battlefield – in misleading and ill-conceived, his amorous adventures. Versailles with Louis’s con- struction of Versailles (most- Thompson undercuts his the creation of Versailles was and sometimes at odds with The facts don’t necessarily quests on the battlefield are ly due to disease), but he assertion with the very facts not just micro-management the information he himself refute this scenario, but they similarly ill-considered. To again overstates the parallels he provides: Vaux-le-Vicomte of the enterprise: it bordered has provided. cannot be used to support it. be sure, it is a tried and true (“lives were lost on the was completed in the early on collaboration with his Thompson is keen on The Trianon de Porcelaine function of art to commem- building site almost as easily 1660s and Versailles was well team of designers. striking parallels between was begun in 1669, two years orate war victories in monu- as they were at war”) and underway by the mid-1670s. While Thompson gives Versailles and its creator. after Louis and Mme de ments and the like, and speculates beyond the sup- Easily the most engaging an adequate discussion “The King’s passion for his Montespan had established building palaces and waging porting evidence (“presum- aspect of the book is of Le Nôtre’s designs (and gardens can be linked into their liaison. The question wars often have a common ably [Louis] regarded Thompson’s discussion of redesigns) for Versailles, he both the patterns of his begs: What were they doing objective: to glorify and garden-making casualties in the warm, long, and by all is on shakier ground when complicated love life and his during the intervening two solidify a ruler’s power. the same way as he thought contemporary accounts, sin- he posits the French master’s military adventures, for it years? Likewise, the Trianon Thompson quotes Colbert: of casualties at war”). cere relationship between minor moments as foreshad- seems that he celebrated de Porcelaine was destroyed “Your majesty knows that, In an overextension of the Louis and Le Nôtre. Despite owing a picturesque sensi- every conquest, whether of a in 1687 (a date Thompson apart from the glorious argument, Thompson ven- the poisonous atmosphere of bility: “But though England’s new territory or a new cour- does not provide), almost a actions of war, nothing cele- tures into even more hypo- the Old Regime, where suffo- William Kent would one day tesan, with an extension of decade after Mme de brates so advantageously the thetical territory. He makes cating etiquette, withering be described as the first his garden.” Conversely Montespan had fallen from greatness and genius of the interesting observation gossip, and jealous resent- European to have ‘leaped the Thompson tells us that when favor. Indeed, Mme de princes than building, and that André Le Nôtre, Louis’s ments were the norm, Le fence and saw that all Nature a mistress fell from favor, an Maintenon was on the ascen- all posterity measures them remarkable garden designer, Nôtre enjoyed an unsullied was a garden,’ there is a element of Versailles associ- dancy from the early 1680s by the yardstick of those reputation. It seems that he possibility that Le Nôtre got ated with her would be superb edifices which they was “loved by everyone,” removed or destroyed. For have erected during their especially by the king, the example, after Louis tired of life.” But Louis didn’t need only person who really his first official mistress, counted.

19 there first.” To support this been overstated,” and that mous amount – that consequences. While both where nature is cultivated. place from undifferentiated claim, Thompson repeats the they were both adept at read- Versailles was conceived for old and new industrial soci- Dig for the Indo-European wilderness. More than a well-known stories of the ing the “capabilities” of the one client by one man, aided eties rationalize the destruc- origins of “horticulture” and clearing in the wilderness, Bosquet des Sources in the landscapes they were in design by several more; tion we are wreaking in the you find gher, the word signi- the forest floor when turned Petit Parc (1679–82), and the reworking. For example, Le that it was constructed and name of social betterment fying an enclosure, such as a to humus – from the same later Jardin des Sources at Nôtre put the Pièce d’Eau maintained by thousands; and the economic benefits of yard or orchard, an ordered root as “human” – is the the Trianon (1687–88). Both des Suisses on the site of a that hundreds of workers’ consumerism, there is an precinct set apart from the medium in which agricultur- were wooded areas in which former duck pond; Brown lives were sacrificed; that uneasy sense that time is randomness of wild nature. al societies as distant in time Le Nôtre departed from his damned declivities in land- rivers were diverted, swamps running out. Ironically, as “Culture” and “cultivate,” of and space as Bronze-Age usual regularized geometries scapes to create lakes. Both drained, tons of earth our race against nature course, come from the same China and colonial America by designing a rivulet in a kept to standard design moved, thousands of trees teeters on the brink of root: The noun means the took root. Conversely, by somewhat naturalistic mean- motifs: Brown’s clumps, Le uprooted and transported, calamity, we are witnessing collective intellectual and planting gardens with trees, der. Notwithstanding the Nôtre’s axis and cross-axes. millions of flowers planted an explosion of garden writ- artistic achievements of a we claim place in partner- adventurous nature of the And both employed thou- then discarded, new indus- ing: magazine articles that people, and the verb to ship with the natural world. bosquets, these two small sands of men and moved tries created, treasure squan- cater to landscape architects improve and prepare land, to In the realm of fairy tale patches of ground with massive volumes of earth. dered, loves lost and found, and their clients, how-to grow and tend a crop. and myth, the forest is a squiggly streams, entirely None of what Thompson the list goes on. It is a heck periodicals for gardeners, Harrison’s earlier book trackless darkness where the encased in the overall struc- says is wrong, but what he of a story, especially for a and coffee-table tomes with Forests (1993) serves in some abominable lurks in the ture of Versailles, cannot be discusses is common to all garden. If Thompson falls stunning color photographs ways as a companion to form of witches, wolves, interpreted as an incipient landscape design at the scale short of giving it the justice of famous places. Gardens, by Gardens. The forest, from the giants, and evil spirits. or tacit gesture toward a new these men worked. Le Nôtre it deserves, he has given it a Robert Pogue Harrison, is Latin forïs, meaning outside, Gardens, on the other hand, gardening tradition. The and Brown were simply par- noble try. – Joseph something different and is what is literally beyond the throughout human history, bosquets in question – nei- ticipating in the historical Disponzio deeper: a meditation on the pale of civilization where have been closely associated ther survived long – were continuum of designing and relationship between nature humans dwell and where the with paradise, which derives bagatelles with no spatial working land. Gardens: An Essay on the and human nature. Like arts as well as gardens are from the Persian pairidaeza, component or structure, the No matter, Thompson Human Condition Gaston Bachelard’s classic cultivated. It is the domain signifying a royal hunting two design elements that rightfully keeps credit where By Robert Pogue Harrison The Poetics of Space, its text is of the lost, a placeless park enclosed by walls. The constitute the sine qua non credit is due. Versailles is a The University of Chicago informed by poetry and phi- expanse whose sky-excluding classical garden is inhabited of Le Nôtre’s style. work of André Le Nôtre, Press, 2008 losophy. canopy obscures directional- by such goddesses as Flora, Then when Thompson despite the supporting cast Harrison, a professor of ity. But the importance, Pomona, and Venus, and in continues the train of of thousands and a long his- We humans Italian litera- indeed the necessity, of the the Judeo-Christian tradition thought (“had [Le Nôtre] tory of garden precedents: “A continue to ture at forest cannot be denied. a garden is the idyllic home lived in a slightly different steady tide of recent scholar- ravage our Stanford, is Epigraphically quoting created by God for the first period, the style made ship has tended to show how planet’s interested in Giambattista Vico – “This man and woman. Harrison famous by ‘Capability’ much Le Nôtre was a man of resources in origins. He was the order of human argues, however, that the Brown . . . might have been his times, and how great his the shortsight- encourages us institutions: first the forests, Eden inhabited so briefly by within reach”), he goes off on debt was to earlier French ed belief that to probe the after that the huts, then the Adam and Eve is a false par- a tangent that is simply irrel- gardeners such as the Mollet our rampant etymology of villages, next the cities, and adise. Needing no cultiva- evant. Accepting that Le family, but there is really no exploitation of words to finally the academies” – tion, its spontaneous bounty Nôtre and Brown had vastly way that his achievement can a natural boun- repossess their Harrison maintains that the dooms the first man and different design palettes, he be taken away from him.” ty that once ancient mean- forest is the primordial woman to useless ease, pre- asserts that the difference As Le Nôtre’s epitaph (sup- seemed inex- ings. Take the matrix of civilization. In venting their advance between their methods “has posedly written by himself ) haustible does word “horti- clearing the forest we create beyond an immature child- read, he “had no rival.” not have fatal culture,” like state. Thus Eve’s leg- For all its shortcomings, which most of endary bite from the apple when you finish this book, us use in its ordinary sense. was not a sin but a means of you do appreciate an enor- Hortus is the Latin word for human liberation from the garden, a defined space

20 perfectly static garden creat- Malcolm Lowry to make the walls, was perhaps the first a hedonistic philosophy, the argument: an army of con- carefully positioned in subtle ed by a paternalistic God. By case for the “fortunate fall,” country campus. There, in Garden of Epicurus was a scripted laborers created symbolical arrangements, contrast, it is “the vocation the exchange of Eden’s ease- temporary green seclusion, place where anxiety and Versailles, and during its and the smaller, flatter ones of care,” personified by ful bliss for the redemptive the youth of Athens were apprehension were meant to construction their death toll partially buried in the earth, the Greek goddess Cura, that grace of garden sanctuaries instructed in the philosophi- give way to the more long- was enormous. As an exam- the unseen side considered gives meaning to human of our own making. cal perspective and values term and spirit-sustaining ple, the name of the garden’s as animate as the one that existence. In Gardens, Harrison necessary to be good citizens, pleasures of patience, hope, largest water body after the is visible. At Saiho-ji, for The garden is moreover a chooses the Czech writer and capable of responsible and gratitude. Grand Canal, the Pièce d’Eau instance, Muso Soseki creat- powerful metaphor for playwright Karel Capek’s engagement in the affairs of Versailles teaches the des Suisses, might well be ed a dry cascade of stones in human salvation, God’s grace (1890–1938) charmingly the polis. For Harrison, opposite, for here the vice of said to commemorate the the upper part of the garden. being intrinsic to our moral whimsical little book The Kingscote Garden, a quiet pride – superbia – reigns huge number of men of the This oxymoronic feature, being rather than a gift from Gardener’s Year to illustrate oasis on the Stanford cam- supreme. Harrison finds Swiss Guard who died of like a Zen koan, was intend- on high. According to the profoundly necessary pus, is a personal haven for Louis XIV’s desire to domi- malaria while excavating the ed as a means of frustrating Harrison, “The gardens that relationship between humus sensory awareness and con- nate nature repugnant. For marsh to create it. And it is rational thought in the inter- have graced this mortal Eden and humanity. Capek masks templation. But, like Plato’s that reason, the chapter true that Versailles, in com- est of achieving a more intu- of ours are the best evidence with humor the seriousness Academy, it would lose its devoted to Versailles is parison to its inspiration, itive mode of understanding. of humanity’s reason for of his underlying message of “essential tension” were it intentionally brief; however, Vaux-le-Vicomte, is a glori- In a similar manner a Zen being on Earth. Where histo- the importance of the “voca- devoid of relationship to the the author’s aversion should ously wearisome sprawl. It is garden will contain a single ry unleashes its destructive tion of care.” Obsessed with outside world. not serve as an excuse for a garden symbolizing not Oku stone, which is com- and annihilating forces, we the frustrating vagaries of In contrast to both ignoring the many volumes only Louis XIV’s hubris but pletely buried, encouraging must, if we are to preserve nature, he knows that the Kingscote and Plato’s Acade- of valuable scholarship on also the restlessness of perception of the hidden. our sanity, to say nothing of care of a garden teaches my, the garden of the the garden of the Sun Western civilization, where Here the lesson Harrison our humanity . . . seek out humility, for nature can be philosopher Epicurus was a King. For example, he claims enough is never enough. derives is in “the lost art healing or redemptive forces cruel in sometimes suspend- different kind of haven. that André Le Nôtre, who Although every bit as of seeing.” Today’s world is and allow them to grow in ing its ordinarily reliable Established like Plato’s designed the garden and its influenced by the landscape crowded with more visual us. That is what it means to generosity. For him “a real Academy on the outskirts of never-ending additions and designer’s art as Versailles, stimuli than in any previous tend our garden.” In nour- gardener is not a man who Athens, it was not a breeding constant revisions, “must Japanese gardens such as era, but the time that should ishing ourselves and one cultivates the soil. He is a ground for future statesmen have first sent in an army of Saiho-ji are examples of be taken for the slow revela- another, creating and procre- creature who digs himself but rather a place of retreat bulldozers to clear away nature enhanced rather than tions of true seeing is given ating, sowing and reaping, into the earth.” Yet the recal- in dark times, when with- whatever grew here, reducing nature ruled. In contrast over to blind looking. We we are able to realize our citrance of hardpan creates drawal from the world was the grounds to a flat, empty to Versailles’s role as a social look at high-definition televi- full mortal potential. Harri- an awareness of the amelio- necessary in order to avoid plane on which to project space for courtly ritual, sion and spend hours each son then calls upon such rating role of humus, and the ignominy of participat- the master design.” Bulldoz- Saiho-ji, alternately known day watching our computer philosophers as Plato, the loving care of the earth ing in “the fracas and power ers, for one thing, had as Koke-dera, meaning moss screens. But we do not see Epicurus, Vico, Rousseau, implied by its application to struggles of the polis.” The not been invented in the sev- garden, is a metaphor for what is all around us. We live and Heidegger, and such sterile clay fosters the culti- disciples of Epicurean phi- enteenth century, and Amida’s paradise, a spiritual in a noisy world and are poets and writers as Dante, vation of the soul as well as losophy, like the apprentices LeNôtre’s plan, based on environment for individual bombarded with distracting Boccaccio, Andrew Marvel, the soil. at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Cartesian mathematical meditation. The genius of aural stimuli. People who Rainer Maria Rilke, Italo For each of the historical Taliesin, tended a vegetable principles, did not result in a Saiho-ji and of Zen gardens, have become addicted to cell Calvino, Ludovico Ariosto, and legendary gardens he garden where they learned single monotonous ground such as the famous karesan- phones cannot actively William Butler Yeats, Wallace discusses, Harrison draws a the lessons of Cura and plane, as Harrison would sui (dry) garden Ryoan-ji, lies employ their senses on a Stevens, Pablo Neruda, and moral lesson. Some gardens became educated in the ways have it; rather, its various in the setting of stones. The springtime walk in Central provide a necessary removal of nature. Contrary to the levels and multiple axes larger, more vertical ones are Park, much less in a Zen gar- from the everyday world for notion that Epicureanism is allow for the garden’s opti- den. Inevitably their atten- the purpose of education in cally ingenious play with tion is drawn not to the the ways of adult responsi- perspective. Nevertheless, the visible and invisible presence bility. Plato’s Academy, set in historical record supports its grove outside the city the thrust of Harrison’s

21 of leaf and stone in all their peace together amidst gar- in nature. One day we will mic order no longer define, Calendar revealed and hidden dimen- dens and fountains.” This hopefully overcome this lim- even in a hypothetical way, sions, but rather to invisible Islamic paradise has no itation and realize that it is the ultimate end point of speech directed into the ear drama, only contentment, not so much our modern [Western] human desire. by satellite technology. Nor and its rewards are imagined Western values (freedom, Desire now desires more of International Conference experts on topics including does travel, where the inten- as physically real. It is thus a democracy, gender equality, itself, more of its own rest- on Japanese Gardens design, restoration, collec- tion is clearly to sightsee, far cry from the eschatologi- etc.) but rather the uncon- lessness. . . . Thus we find Outside Japan tion management, specialty induce heightened percep- cal paradise in Dante’s The strained frenzy of the West – ourselves in the paradoxical March 26–29, 2009 maintenance, fundraising, tion when a garden is cap- Divine Comedy, a series of our relentless demand for situation of seeking to re- California State University, events, education, and the tured on the fly through the nine celestial spheres in action, change, innovation, create Eden by ravaging the Long Beach philosophy of Japanese gar- camera’s viewfinder. Once it which members of the com- intervention, and a systemat- garden itself – the garden of It is currently reckoned that dens outside Japan. For becomes merely a stop on a pany of the blessed appear ic transgression of limits – the biosphere on the one there are Japanese gardens more information, contact crowded itinerary, the expe- according to level of their that offends the very core of hand and the garden of in at least 53 countries. In Jeanette Schelin, Director rience of contemplative see- virtue, the nature of their Islam in the eyes of the human culture on the other.” North America alone there of the Earl Burns Miller ing in which the viewer is former sins, and the manner extremists. Where paradise is These are dire words, for are approximately 250. Japanese Garden, engaged in a slow revelatory of their atonement. Here imagined as a garden of per- we live in dire times. In the Despite the ubiquity, scale, at [email protected]. dialogue with the garden is dramatic tension is created fect tranquility, our incur- final analysis we are left with and complex social function no longer possible. by the poet’s confession of able Western agitation takes the image of the garden as of these gardens, there Foreign Trends The ideal of serenity ver- uncertainty that his words on a diabolical quality.” humanity’s last, best hope is no forum for the direct on American Soil sus the ideal of action is will be sufficiently rapturous Alas, it is with images of for survival. The tragedy of exchange of ideas about May 2010 often seen as a duality to convey the increasing an afterlife in the Qur’anic the present lies in our care- them. To remedy this situa- History of Landscape between East and West. The radiance and splendor of the paradise that our contempo- less degradation of nature. tion, California State Architecture Symposium contrast between Islam and souls he meets in his ascent rary jihad warriors seek their Thoreau said, “In wildness is University, Long Beach, University of Maryland Christianity is of a different toward the empyrean. martyrdom, a place where preservation of the world,” plans to host an internation- at College Park sort than that exemplified Harrison muses on the “reclining face to face upon words that became the rally- al conference devoted to This symposium will be a by the comparison of the paradox of the coexistence of soft couches, they shall be ing cry of the environmental Japanese gardens outside forum for the discussion of Zen garden and Versailles. peace and jihad in the Mus- served with a goblet filled at movement. But Harrison Japan on its campus near the formation of a multifac- Harrison devotes a chapter lim religion: “It is difficult a gushing fountain, white, points out that Thoreau’s Los Angeles. The first and eted American tradition of to describing the paradise for us in the West to under- and delicious to those who year in the Walden woods last days will feature group garden and landscape design found in the Qu’ran and the stand how the religion in drink it . . . [and] sit with was never outside the cultur- tours to major public and that is based on the interpre- one in the Bible. The Eden whose name so much vio- bashful, dark-eyed virgins, as al context of Concord and private Japanese gardens in tation and adaptation of of Genesis is the locus of lence is unleashed these days chaste as the sheltered eggs that his cultivation of the the Los Angeles area. The trends imported into the drama, a setting in which the can have peace as its highest of ostriches” (37: 46-49). In garden he planted there rep- two middle days of the con- United States from the eigh- action of the story is all- ideal. Even more challenging opposition to this seemingly resented “the vocation ference will feature panels by teenth century up to the pre- important. While today we is to fathom how the demand irrational fanaticism, the of care.” We need the garden garden administrators, sent. Topics of interest may are prone to focus on mili- for peacefulness in Islam West falsely sees itself as a and all it represents now designers, educators, histori- include the reception and tancy as a defining aspect of might be behind the great secular bastion of rational more than ever. We must ans, and maintenance legacy of foreign horticultur- Islam, the Qu’ran portrays upheavals. One of the major purpose rooted in democrat- learn to care not just in an al and design literature as paradise in a very different challenges in this regard is ic justice. But as Harrison emotional way but also well as the impact of the light. For the Muslim, par- the fact that in the West we observes, “There is little literally, as stewards of the work of overseas designers adise is a place of serenity are driven by desires very doubt that in the modern era planet. Cura shall lead the and critics on contemporary and repose amidst the bless- different from the desire for stillness, repose, beauty, way. Her message is clear: practice. ings of opulent beauty and peace. That difficulty is com- and harmony with the cos- you must care enough to sensuous delight, where the pounded by our naïve cultivate your earthly mortal righteous “shall be lodged in assumption that the desires garden – the only true that drive us are universally paradise there is. shared, whereas they are in – Elizabeth Barlow Rogers fact anything but universal

22 Tours Contributors

Landscape and garden In the Footsteps where Wright stayed in Anthony Alofsin, Ph.D., AIA, is Paula Deitz is editor of The Marc Peter Keane is a land- historians are invited to sub- of Frank Lloyd Wright: Hakone and lunch at the the Roland Roessner Hudson Review, a magazine scape architect and writer mit paper abstracts of no The Gardens of Japan Kanaya Hotel where he Centennial Professor of of literature and the arts based in Ithaca, New York. more than 600 words by April 16–30, 2009 stayed in Nikko. The tour Architecture and a professor published in New York City. He lived in Kyoto, Japan, for December 1, 2008. Abstracts Frank Lloyd Wright traveled will stray from Wright’s path of art and art history at the As a cultural critic, she eighteen years, designing are to be headed with the to Japan in the spring of in order to visit gardens and University of Texas at Austin. writes about art, architecture, gardens for private individu- applicant’s name, title of the 1905. Now, over a hundred buildings that were not part An architect, art historian, and landscape design for als, companies, and temples. paper, professional affilia- years later, the Foundation of his itinerary, including lecturer, and author of newspapers and magazines His books include Japanese tion, and contact informa- for Landscape Studies is some stunning new muse- numerous books and essays, here and abroad. Of Gardens, Garden Design, an introduc- tion. Please send paper offering a study tour of gar- ums. Participants will be he is internationally recog- a collection of her essays, tion to the culture and aes- proposals to: dens, waterfalls, shrines, and limited to twenty. For a com- nized as a principal authority will be published in the near thetics of Japanese gardens; Raffaella Fabiani Giannetto, temples that he visited and plete itinerary and registra- on the architecture of Frank future by the University of Sakuteiki, a translation of Ph.D. photographed. Highlights tion information, please Lloyd Wright. His most Pennsylvania Press. Japan’s oldest gardening Assistant Professor of include visits to the Rikugi- contact Elizabeth Barlow recent publication is When treatise; and The Art of Setting Landscape Architecture en garden in Tokyo, the Rogers: [email protected]. Buildings Speak: Architecture Joseph Disponzio, Ph.D., Stones, eight essays on the Department of Plant Science Buddhist shrines at Nikko, as Language in the Habsburg R.L.A., is a preservation land- meaning of gardens. More and Landscape Architecture and the Kiyomizu-dera (Pure Empire and Its Aftermath, scape architect with the New about Keane’s work can be University of Maryland Water Temple) in Kyoto. Also 1867-1933 (University of York City Department of found at www.mpkeane.com. 2140 Plant Sciences Building included are the Fujiya Hotel Chicago Press, 2006). Parks and Recreation. He has College Park, Maryland 20742 taught at the Harvard Natsumi Nonaka is currently e-mail: [email protected] Kendall Brown, Ph.D., is a Graduate School of Design, a Ph.D. student in architec- ph: (301) 405 4341 professor of art history at Bryn Mawr College, and the ture at the University of fax: (301) 314 9308 California State University, University of Georgia. A spe- Texas, Austin. She has pub- Authors of accepted pro- Long Beach. Trained in cialist in French picturesque lished papers on ancient posals will be required to Japanese art history, he has garden theory, he has pub- Roman and Renaissance gar- submit the complete text of published several books and lished widely in the field of dens, as well as Japanese their papers to the sympo- numerous exhibition cata- landscape history. His most translations of major works sium chair by August 15, logues on modern Japanese recent publication is on Italian art and architec- 2009. Speakers will be asked painting and woodblock Territories: Contemporary ture and Greco-Roman to complete any revisions prints. As a garden historian, European Landscape Design antiquity. Within the context and submit copies of their he specializes in Japanese (Spacemaker Press, 2007). of her interdisciplinary study papers by March 2010. gardens outside Japan. The of landscape, she is focusing author of Japanese-style on the gardens of Italy and Gardens of the Pacific West France in particular. Coast (Rizzoli International, Saiho-ji Moss Garden, Kyoto. 1988), he is currently work- ing on a cultural history of Japanese gardens in North America.

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for Your name is on the mailing list of the Foundation for Volume iv, Number i Landscape Studies because you are a landscape historian, land- Fall 2008

LandscapeStudies scape architect, city planner, or member of a growing audience of general readers who enjoy thematically organized essays Publisher: on landscape-related subjects. Is this true? Foundation The publication of Site/Lines is part of our mission: “To for Landscape Studies foster an active understanding of place.” A major portion of Board of Directors: our annual budget is devoted to this end. The copy you Kenneth I. Helphand are now holding on The Long Life of the Japanese Garden cost Robin Karson $7.50 to write, edit, print, design, and mail. Nancy Newcomb • If you are not a regular reader and wish not to receive Therese O’Malley future issues, we would be grateful to know this so that we John A. Pinto may remove your name from our mailing list. Reuben M. Rainey • If you do wish to receive future issues, we encourage you to Frederic Rich, Chairman make a contribution to ensure the continued publication of Elizabeth Barlow Rogers this donor-supported journal. Margaret Sullivan • If you know of others who may have a sincere interest in reading Site/Lines, please send us their names and addresses. Editor: For your convenience an envelope addressed to the Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Foundation for Landscape Studies is enclosed. Associate Editor: Alice Truax Assistant Editor: Margaret Sullivan Copy-editor: Margaret Oppenheimer Designer: Skeggs Design Contributors: Anthony Alofsin Kendall H. Brown Paula Deitz Joseph Disponzio Marc Peter Keane Natsumi Nonaka

For more information about the Foundation for Landscape Studies, visit www.foundationforlandscape studies.org, or contact [email protected].