History of Landscape Design

Discuss the concept of qi in Chinese art and in Chinese landscape design.
While Chinese and Japanese gardens are related through direct cultural transmission of certain underlying concepts derived from Buddhism, they employ independent means of expression. Compare and contrast some of the elements of Chinese and Japanese garden design and define a vocabulary of forms and materials basic to each.
Discuss the relationship of painting, calligraphy, poetry, and garden design in China.
Imperial China was one of the world's most extensive and enduring empires, necessitating an educated administrative bureaucracy (young men were tested after years of study by a rigorous civil service examination) to govern its huge land mass comprising several provinces. Describe the mandarin elite who governed China and how their profession played a part in Chinese landscape poetics and design.
Who was Wang Wei, and what is his importance in the history of landscape design?
Discuss the importance of inscriptions, name plaques, and the naming and inscribing of sites in nature and within Chinese gardens.
Describe the role stone collecting plays in Chinese garden design.
Geomancy is divination by means of signs obtained from the earth. Describe the Chinese practice of feng shui . What principles and practices underlie this method of siting structures and other elements within the landscape?
What does Ji Cheng's 1634 garden manual Yuan ye say about siting? About Jie jing (borrowed scenery)? About stone collecting? About wall design?
Existing historic Chinese gardens dating from the Southern Song period (revised by subsequent use and contemporary restoration as tourist sites) are found principally in the south of China, notably in the city of Hangzhou and Suzhou. Visitors to the ancient northern (and contemporary) capital of China, Beijing, are familiar with the Forbidden City as a designed landscape and with the imperial parks found in the western hills outside the city. But Beijing's landscape history is much richer than these relics alone imply, inasmuch as there once existed many fine estates of the nobility in and around Beijing. Beijing court culture during the Ming era is brought vividly to life in Cao Xueqin's The Story of the Stone, much of which takes place in a garden of a noble family. Philip Hu, who will participate in today's class discussion, has reconstructed a picture of another garden of Ming Beijing, that of Mi Wanzhong (1570-1628), "a scholar-official who also excelled as a calligrapher, painter, collector and patron of the arts." Discuss how the Shao Garden of Mi Wanzhong, built between 1612 and 1614, illustrates the principles of Chinese garden design found in the Yuan ye and The Story of the Stone.
The Sakuteiki (11th century C.E.) is the Japanese counterpart to the Yuan ye. Describe the principles outlined by the author of this treatise.
While the Japanese garden derives from Chinese garden concepts imported along with Buddhism in the 6th century, the ancient tradition of Shinto worship in nature also informs the Japanese sensibility with respect to the experience of landscape and the art of garden design. Describe the characteristics of Shinto sacred sites.
In our study of Italian Renaissance gardens last semester, we observed the loggia as an architectural form mediating between villa and garden. The same kind of spatial interpenetration of indoors and outdoors can be found in the Japanese garden. Discuss.
The Heian period (781-1185) established the twin poles of Japanese garden design: an elegant rusticity, associated with imperial gardens, and a more ostentatious shogunate opulence. Discuss.
Chan (Zen) Buddhism was introduced from China into Japan around 1200 C.E. Discuss the effect this had upon garden design, particularly as practiced by the warrior class.
Discuss the symbolism and aesthetics of rock arrangements in Japanese gardens.
Discuss the use of water in the Japanese garden.
Discuss the ground plane as an important factor in Japanese garden design.
Discuss the kare sansui tradition in Japanese garden design.
What is borrowed scenery (jie jing in Chinese; shakkei in Japanese)? Discuss.
Discuss cha no yu, Japanese tea ceremony, as developed by Sen no Rikyu (1521-1591) and the garden form and objects this practice gave rise to.
Discuss the characteristics of kirei sabi (beautifully aged, elegant rusticity) as appropriated by Edo Period garden designers and how this quality is expressed at Katsura and Shugakuin Rikyu.
Discuss the stroll garden as a concept in Japanese garden design.
Discuss the art of pruning and gravel raking as hallmarks of Japanese garden maintenance.