Liu Tianhua
【Editor's Note】When visiting the garden, do you often look at the flowers and don't know the main points? Have you been to many gardens and can't tell the difference? "Travel is also a lot of art", tour the garden, there is a set of ways to appreciate it.
In his latest book "Garden Walk", Liu Tianhua, a disciple of the famous gardener Chen Congzhou and an expert in garden aesthetics, combed through the history of the development of gardens around the world, summarized the ingenious design rules of successive generations of gardeners, from the landscapes and flowers in the garden, the poems and inscriptions, to the poetry and wine when visiting the garden, and the picturesque and curved scenery... Take people to appreciate the eternal beauty of Chinese gardens "although made by people, it is like opening from heaven".
With the authorization of the publishing house, this article excerpts the chapters about the trees and flowers in the garden, and in the details of one grass and one tree, the perception is still and moving, there are shapes and colors, there are fragrant and beautiful scenery and interest.
"Garden Walk", by Liu Tianhua, Houlang | Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House, July 2022
Pine, bamboo and plum were called the three friends of the year by the ancient literati on the mainland, and have always been the main plant subjects expressed in Chinese painting. In garden art, they are also particularly valued by gardeners. These three kinds of plants not only have a unique style and charm, but also are not afraid of the cold, in the harsh winter of all things, or through the winter does not wither, or honeysuckle flowering, so as to get people's respect and praise.
In the garden, the most peculiar shape is the pine cypress, Situ Temple "Qing", "Strange", "Ancient" and "Strange" four ancient cypress, is the ancient tree famous trees to appreciate the shape of the fine products. Evergreen pines and snowstorms are the main ornamental plants of ancient literati who expressed their sentimental ideals, leaving countless hymns and words. With their ever-changing styles and personality shapes, they have become the main sound-appreciating plants in the garden. Yuan Zhongdao, a literary scholar of the Ming Dynasty, traveled all over the country. Some of the pines he saw were "melodious, windless and waves, good birds and songs", some "coiled and twisted, wrinkled and wrinkled, with distant rhymes", and some were "branches and leaves, covered with shade and without gaps, drifting powder and blowing incense, writing shadow stone roads". These pine trees, which have different postures, dot the garden, really add a lot of color to the scenery. The pines in the garden, whether it is five-needle pine, black pine, white bark pine, Luohan pine, or dragon cypress, juniper, hinoki, juniper, have their own charm.
Pine trees next to the Suzhou Lingering Garden Yun'an Feng Fangyu Figure
There are two ancient cypresses in Songyang Academy at the foot of Song mountain in Dengfeng City, Henan, which are said to have been awarded the title of General Bai by Emperor Wu of Han in 110 BC. So far, the "Great General" is half lying and half sitting, the main trunk is tilted by about 45 degrees, and the waist circumference is about 6 meters; The "Second General" is majestic, the main trunk splits from side to side, while the canopy is still green and lush, like an eagle spreading its wings, becoming a nationally famous ancient tree landscape. The Nine Dragon Cypress of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing is even more peculiar, with many interlaced protruding and concave textures on the trunk from bottom to top, as if there are many dragons coiled together, hence the name. It is said that there is only one plant in the world, and it is a pathological phenomenon caused by the uneven division of the cells in the tree itself, and it has become a spectacle in the plant landscape. At the foot of Mount Taishan, there is an ancient pine in Puzhao Temple, which is a relic of the Six Dynasties. There is a pavilion next to the pine, named sieving moon pavilion, taking the meaning of "ancient pine sieve moon".
The pines and cypresses in the garden not only add color to the garden, but also a very precious cultural relic and national treasure, which is often given some rational symbolic meaning. Isn't that old and vigorous posture, the saga-up-and-out posture, and the momentum that has seen through all the vicissitudes but is still lush, a vivid portrayal of our great motherland's long-standing and eternal youth?
Beijing Temple of Heaven Jiulong Cypress Visual China Figure
Bamboo is upright, humble and disciplined, evergreen all year round, not afraid of the cold, these image characteristics and the noble character pursued by ancient intellectuals are very cleverly unified, so it is also a favored leader in garden landscaping. According to the "New Language of the World", in the Jin Dynasty, the scholars and bamboo had established a deep friendship. For example, there is a man named Wang Ziyou, who borrows someone else's house to live temporarily, and then opens the open space around him to plant bamboo. Someone asked him, why bother to cause trouble for yourself when you live temporarily, and the king "whistled for a long time", pointed to the bamboo and said, "Why can you not have this king for a day?" The Song dynasty writer Su Shi also said that "it is better to eat without meat than to live without bamboo" and "when it is not unearthed, there are knots first, and even in the clouds, there is also humility." The eight strange painters of the Yangzhou School of painting in the Qing Dynasty were all high and crazy and liked bamboo, led by Zheng Banqiao, who planted bamboo, painted bamboo, and wrote poems praising the character of bamboo.
There are gardens in Yangzhou, and tourists have not yet entered the park, they can see the green bamboo fluttering and the phoenix tail swaying on the platforms on both sides of the garden gate. The word "one" is half of the word "bamboo", and some people say that "one" is an indomitable bamboo with only one plant, which is the owner of the garden himself, which has the meaning of "everyone is turbid and I am alone". In any case, the name of the garden "one" shows the feelings of the owner of the garden who loves bamboo.
From ancient times to the present, I don't know how many gardens have taken bamboo as the viewing theme. The Ming Dynasty scholar Yuan Zhongdao built a garden in his hometown of Huguang Gong'an (now part of Hubei), named "Yundang Valley", which is a kind of large bamboo, and its meaning coincides with "Geyuan". Yangzhou has a water bamboo residence, bamboo scenery is very famous, included in the "Yangzhou Painting Record". Today, suzhou Humble Administrator's Garden has Yi Yu Xuan (bamboo is also called jasper), the Master of Nets Garden has a branch outside the bamboo, the Canglang Pavilion has Cui Linglong, and the Cong Cui of Yangzhou Xiaopan Valley can be seen in the title.
The bamboo scenery of the garden can be either a large bamboo forest to render the atmosphere (such as the Wanzhu Garden in the west of Baotu Spring in Jinan), or it can be several scattered plants, with shifeng and other flowers and trees, becoming the theme of the garden. In addition to the general green bamboo, there are many bamboos with special shapes. There are purple-brown bamboo poles (such as a purple bamboo in front of the Zhengbanqiao Reading Office in the middle of Jiaoshan Mountain, Zhenjiang), square bamboo with square bamboo poles (such as Hangzhou Huanglong Cave specially set up a square bamboo courtyard), bamboo poles and bamboo leaves with a little brown spots on the Xiangfei bamboo, and bamboo on the ground and bamboo leaves scattered in the shape of a phoenix tail, etc., are commonly used in gardens.
Jinan Baotu Spring Park Wanzhu Garden Visual China Map
Among the three friends of the cold year, the pine is vigorous, the bamboo is clear, and only the plum is called leng yan, which is the only flower-viewing tree among the three friends. If someone goes to visit Tiger Hill in winter, they can climb the Lengxiang Pavilion under the tower of Yunyan Temple, and there is a blooming red and white plum outside the window, sending a burst of cold incense. If you catch a heavy snow, the mountains are all white, only the red plums are colorful, like red beads embellished on white clothes, and their color and fragrance are even more intoxicating.
Counting the flowers and plants that decorate the garden landscape, the first to send spring weather is the plum blossoms that bloom in front of a hundred flowers. Therefore, every winter and spring, urban residents in the Jiangnan area have to go to the suburban landscape gardens to walk in the snow to find plums, such as Deng Wei near Suzhou, Chaoshan near Hangzhou, Meihua Mountain in Nanjing, etc. At that time, they were all tourists.
The modern essayist Yu Dafu once wrote about the plum blossoms of Chaoshan Mountain: "The plum trunk is extremely thick and huge, and the branches are scattered around, five steps and one bush, ten steps and one saka." For every Merlin, there are always a thousand flowers inside and outside, and there are about ten thousand flowers; Therefore, when it is opened, the aroma spreads as far as the foothills of Linping Mountain, ten miles away. Ascending high and looking down, nature becomes a sea of snow in its own right. "In addition to the suburban gardens, there are also plums planted in the private garden. For example, Wuxi Plum Garden, planted thousands of plum plants. In terms of layout design, plums are decorated with mountains, leaning mountains are decorated with plums, and pavilion pagodas are built on the mountain. The plum blossoms bloom in early spring and are also a good place to enjoy the fragrant snow sea.
Although the planting of plum forests is grand, the general garden plum scenery is still dominated by dots, which has become a very unique theme in the appreciation space. In the northern suburbs of Kunming, there is a Black Dragon Pond Park. This is a garden famous for its botanical landscape at the foot of Longquan Mountain, and now the garden protects three ancient trees - Tang Mei, Song Bai and Ming Tea. Tang Mei is two ancient plums juxtaposed, dry old branches obliquely, posture into the painting. Although the tree is more than 1,000 years old, it still blooms every winter and spring. The flowers are heavy-petaled red plums, and the varieties are very valuable.
Plum blossoms in Kunming Black Dragon Pond Park Visual China Picture
The oldest surviving plum tree in China is in the Guoqing Temple of Tiantai Mountain, Zhejiang, which is said to be the Sui plum planted by the founder of the Tiantai Sect and the wise master. The tree is in the small courtyard on the east side of the temple's Daxiong Treasure Hall, the main trunk has withered and revived, the branches are full of business, and the flowers are full of trees in spring. Among the flower and fruit trees, plums are the longest-lived, and their disease resistance and barren resistance are also stronger than other tree species, and they can grow in the north and south. The hidden buds of the plum have a tenacious vitality, and often the aboveground part has died, and the underground part can still shoot long branches. For example, the Tang plum in Kunming's Black Dragon Pond Park, the main trunk died in 1923, the ground still sprouted new shoots, and has grown into a perfect plum tree. This characteristic gives the garden a lot of special plum scenery, as the viewing theme of the old plum is often clumsy, the branches are horizontal, and the roots are coiled. In particular, those ancient plums planted in front of the pink wall, projected on the wall, can be called natural ink ancient plum diagrams. With the change of daylight, the plum shadow is also moving, often bringing people to the artistic conception depicted in the "shallow and shallow water".
Speaking of the trees and flowers in the garden, I have to introduce the lively embellishment of small animals such as fish, gulls, cranes, and butterflies that are closely related to the plant scenery. The mainland has always had the habit of domesticating small animals in the garden, and combining them into the garden scenery, such as the deer garden Changchun, the plum wife crane, the fish leaping and the kites flying and other scenery are indispensable animals. There are also many people who take animal scenery as the viewing theme of local scenic spots, such as the 36 Mandarin Duck Hall in Suzhou Humble Administrator's Garden, the Crane House in Suzhou Lingering Garden, and the Listening Oriole Hall in Beijing Summer Palace.
Beijing Gongwangfu Garden has beautiful landscapes, lush forests, and many animal scenes in the park, including Yingping, Jing ou Xuan, and Duhe Bridge. These cute and interesting little animals dot the garden, making the garden look particularly lively. Except for some precious birds that can fly, small animals are basically stocked in the garden in a natural form, and it is almost impossible to see the phenomenon of raising animals with iron fences and iron cages like western zoos. Only by allowing small animals to live and play freely in the garden can we increase the natural interest of the garden.
There is a couplet hanging on the Xuexiangyun Pavilion on Zhongshan Island in the Humble Administrator's Garden of Suzhou: "The cicadas are noisy in the forest, and the birds are singing in the mountains", which is a verse from the Southern Dynasty Liang Wang's book, which points out the insect birds in nature to assist the garden scenery. Some of the lush and interesting gardens of the mountains can attract free-flying cicadas and birds, and the colorful images and beautiful calls of these small creatures are more natural than domesticated rare birds and animals.
In addition to birds, birds, cicadas and butterflies, fish are also common animal landscapes in gardens. Almost all of the main ponds in the garden stock small fish. According to the static number of swimming fish in the column, the scales swim in the clear pond, etc., are all very interesting garden scenes. Therefore, attractions such as fish paradise, fish sills, and fish viewing pavilions have also become a major part of mainland gardens.
Wuxi JichangYuan Xianyue Xie Feng Fangyu figure
The animal scenery is multifaceted in its assistance to the garden, and its biggest feature is that it forms a strong dynamic and static contrast with the dynamic image beauty and other relatively static scenes, which brings lively vitality to the garden. Animal scenes do not necessarily show violent dynamics, but even subtle dynamics such as "white gulls paddle from double bath, yellow butterflies flying backwards against the wind" can give a moving touch to the quiet corner of the garden. If it is coordinated with climatic landscapes such as wind and grass, clouds and fog, then the scenery expressed is more poetic. "The sunset and the lone bird fly together, the autumn water is a long day", "the wind is chaotic, the leaves are scattered and the fish shadow", in these poetic pictures, the birds and fish and other scenery in the landscape space shine together, together in front of the visitor, the deep beauty that people get from it cannot be expressed in words.
Editor-in-charge: Zhu Zhe
Proofreader: Ding Xiao