China's gardening art has a deep historical origin with China's literature and painting art, especially influenced by the literati's freehand brushwork landscape painting in Tang and Song Dynasties, and it is a model of literati's freehand brushwork landscape simulation.
In the course of its development, China gardens have formed two series: royal gardens and private gardens. The former is concentrated in Beijing and the latter is represented by Suzhou.
Due to the differences in political, economic, cultural status and natural geographical conditions, there are obvious differences in scale, layout, volume, style and color. Royal gardens are famous for their grandeur, neatness and richness, while Suzhou gardens are famous for their smallness, freedom, exquisiteness, elegance and freehand brushwork.
Because the latter pays more attention to the harmony and unity of culture and art, the royal gardens developed in the later period also absorbed a lot of "freehand brushwork" techniques of private gardens in terms of artistic conception, creative thinking, architectural techniques and humanistic content.
Perfect living conditions and living environment
Suzhou's classical gardens and folk houses are integrated, which can be appreciated, visited and lived. The formation of this architectural form is a creation that human beings attach themselves to nature, pursue harmony with nature, beautify and improve their living environment in a densely populated city lacking natural scenery.
Humble Administrator's Garden, Lingering Garden, Master's Garden and Huanxiu Mountain Villa are four classical gardens with complete architectural types and well-preserved. They systematically and comprehensively show the layout, structure, shape, style, color, decoration, furniture and furnishings of Suzhou classical garden buildings. They are representative works of Jiangnan folk architecture in Ming and Qing Dynasties (14-early 20th century) and reflect this period. It once influenced the architectural style of the whole city in the south of the Yangtze River, and brought the design, conception, layout, aesthetics and construction technology of folk buildings closer to it, reflecting the scientific and technological level and artistic achievements of urban construction at that time.
Rich social and cultural connotations
An important feature of Suzhou classical garden is that it is not only the product of history and culture, but also the carrier of China traditional thought and culture.
It is manifested in the naming, plaque, calligraphy, carving and decoration of the garden hall, as well as the meaning of flowers and trees and the love of stacked stones. It is not only a beautiful art that adorns the garden, but also stores many historical, cultural, ideological and scientific information, material and spiritual contents.
Some reflect and spread various philosophical concepts and schools of thought such as Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism; Some preach the philosophy of life and cultivate noble sentiments; With the help of classical poems and literary works, the landscape is embellished, germinated and rendered, so that people can turn the landscape into feelings in their lives and sightseeing, produce artistic beauty and obtain spiritual satisfaction.
The park has a well-preserved collection of calligraphy works by famous calligraphers in China, which is a precious work of art and has high cultural value.
In addition, Suzhou Classical Garden, as the first house garden in China, reflects the life style and etiquette of folk living and leaving their relatives in the south of the Yangtze River in ancient China, and is the material for understanding and studying the folk customs in the south of the Yangtze River in ancient China.
In recent years, Suzhou's landscape architecture art has gradually spread overseas.
Xuan Ming of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, USA, was transplanted based on the temple in Suzhou Master Garden. The central garden of Vancouver Central Park in Canada was built according to the style of Suzhou gardens in Ming Dynasty.
This shows that Suzhou traditional garden architecture art is developing.
Nine gardens in Suzhou, such as Humble Administrator's Garden, Master's Garden, Lingering Garden, Huanxiu Mountain Villa, Canglang Pavilion, Lion Forest, Art Garden, Lotus Garden and Tuisi Garden, have been listed as world cultural heritage by UNESCO, which indicates that Suzhou gardens are going global.
Gardening Art of Humble Administrator's Garden
In different historical stages, the layout of the humble administrator's garden is different, especially the early humble administrator's garden is not exactly the same as today's.
It is this difference that has gradually formed the unique characteristics of Humble Administrator's Garden, mainly including:
(1) Be good at water control according to local conditions.
According to "Humble Administrator's Garden" and "Returning to the Garden", the garden is "empty, water stands in it, and the trees are slightly sparse", "the ground can pool, the soil can pool, and the mountains can be mountains.
Ikenoe, you can build a house among the mountains.
"It fully embodies the advantages of the Humble Administrator's Garden in using the water in the garden and dredging into a pool; It looks like a lake, forming a swaying personality and characteristics.
The existing water surface in the middle of Humble Administrator's Garden is nearly six acres, accounting for about one third of the garden area. "All pavilions and pavilions are based on water", creating a cheerful atmosphere in a large area of water garden space, basically maintaining the characteristics of "bare forest" in the Ming Dynasty.
(2) elegant and natural.
Early humble administrator's garden, with lush trees, confused water color and natural scenery.
The buildings in the park are very sparse, only "one hall, six pavilions on the first floor", and the number of buildings is very small, which is far lower than the building density in today's gardens.
Bamboo fences, thatched pavilions and thatched huts are integrated with the natural landscape, which is simple and elegant and has a unique natural scenery.
The existing landscape in the middle of Humble Administrator's Garden accounts for about three-fifths of the garden area.
There are two islands in the pool, and the Chi Pan at the top of the mountain is dotted with only a few pavilions and small buildings, which makes the scenic spot look sparse, elegant and natural.
Although this layout has not yet taken shape in the Ming Dynasty, it has the demeanor of a humble administrator's garden in the Ming Dynasty.
(3) The courtyard is strewn at random and tortuous.
Garden architecture of humble administrator's garden.
Most of them were single in the early days, and great changes took place in the late Qing Dynasty.
First of all, the number of garden buildings such as pavilions, verandahs and painted boats has increased significantly.
The building density in the middle reaches 16.3%.
Secondly, the architecture tends to group combination, and the courtyard space changes twists and turns.
For example, as can be seen from the map of Wen Zhiming Humble Administrator's Garden, there is only a small pavilion near the water.
During the Eight Banners period, the Feng Zhi Guild Hall was already a group of house boat.
The pavilions and covered bridges such as Xiaofeihong, Dezhen Pavilion, Educated Youth Yiyuan, Xiaocanglang and Tingsongfeng are surrounded by water and have a unique style.
There is also a group of gardens to the east of Shuiting, namely loquat garden, which consists of three groups of courtyards: Haitang Chunwu, Tingyuxuan and Jiashi Pavilion. The main building is Linglong Pavilion.
Between the landscape and the house, these two courtyards are interspersed, which better solves the transition between the house and the garden.
At the same time, for the landscape, because of the contrast of these courtyard spaces of different sizes, the main space is more spacious and spacious
The appearance and change of this garden-style courtyard space in the garden is likely to be related to the reduction of garden area, except for the reasons of use.
The humble administrator's garden in Guangxu period was only 1.2 hectares.
Like other gardens in Suzhou, it occupies a small area, so the primary task of gardening activities is to create infinite natural landscapes in a small space.
This kind of garden-in-garden, multi-space courtyard combination and spatial division and infiltration ",contrast and contrast;" The combination of concealment and manifestation of space, the twists and turns of space between reality and reality, concealment and exposure; The purpose of putting space in the first place, promoting it first and then restraining it is to break through the limitations of space and obtain the effect of seeing the big from the small, thus obtaining rich landscapes.
This treatment is of universal significance in Suzhou gardens, and it is also the same feature of Suzhou gardens.
(4) Garden landscape, flowers and trees win.
Humble Administrator's Garden is known as an "excellent tree".
Come down in one continuous line for hundreds of years.
Two-thirds of the early thirty-one scenes of Wang Humble Administrator's Garden are based on plant themes, such as peach blossom slices, "Peach blossoms are planted on the shore and flowers are like clouds"; Zhuxi, "there are thousands of beautiful bamboos in Jiaxi" and "the scenery is very quiet"; Yaopu has hundreds of books and flowers.
"It's not fair to return to the pastoral home, but to brush the ground with weeping willows," dense trees and stone moss. "
Every spring, camellia is like fire and magnolia is like snow.
Apricot blossoms are in full bloom, "covering the clouds and valleys."
The burden of summer.
The hibiscus trees in autumn overlap like brocade curtains.
In winter, old Mei Yan bends back and forth. She is proud of the frost.
There are Pan Hongxuan, Zhimeiting, Bamboo Fragrant Gallery, Bamboo Post, Zitengwu, Zhanhua Zhangjian and other landscapes.
Today, Humble Administrator's Garden still maintains the tradition of winning by plant landscape. Lotus, camellia and azalea are three famous characteristic flowers.
There are only 23 landscapes in Central China, of which 80% are mainly plants.
Such as the lotus flowers in Yuanxiangtang and Fengge ("Xiang Yuan Qing" and "He Feng comes from all sides"); Yuxuan Linglong Pavilion leans on bamboo ("Leaning on Jasper" and "Moonlight Through Bamboo"); Orange Frost Pavilion ("There must be forest frost in Dongting"); Listen to the bamboo, lotus and banana in the rain garden ("Listen to the rain and enter the autumn bamboo", "The banana leaves are half yellow and the lotus leaves are green, and two autumn rains sound"); Magnolia in Yulantang ("This life should be as clean as Yulantang"); Plum in Xueyun Pavilion ("It is not snow from a distance, but it has a faint fragrance"); Listen to the pine in the pine wind ("the sound of wind blowing cold pine has existed since ancient times"), as well as the begonia in Chunwu, the willow in Liu Yin Road, the loquat in the loquat garden and Jiashige, the pine, bamboo and cypress in Dezhen Pavilion, and so on.