Chinese Garden Culture: Text and Images

Author: Cao Minggang
Author Country: China
Editor-in-Chief: Ancient Culture
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-06-01
Features: Chinese gardens are like poetry because they are subtle; Chinese gardens are like paintings because they are aesthetically pleasing. But Chinese gardens are neither poetry nor paintings—they are living entities skillfully combining nature and art, brimming with vitality throughout the four seasons. They eliminate the obvious artificial traces left in Western gardens, whether in architecture or flowerbeds and trees, and discard the one-sidedly detached "dry landscape" of Japanese gardens. Instead, they embody a perfect realm where nature is imitated and artistic techniques are unobtrusive.