Correspondences between Chinese Landscape Painting and Japanese Gardens part 1.

I have looked at the relationship between Chinese landscape painting and Japanese gardens before in this blog (see the series of blogs 'On Chinese Painting and Japanese Gardens' from October  2013 on), as it seems to me that Chinese painting have been an important source of inspiration to garden creators in Japan. In this series of blogs I shall write about ten different correspondences between paintings and gardens. That is, ten aspects of composition that are shared between the two art forms. Chinese paintings were imported into Japan in great number from a relatively early period, and it seems evident that the people who created gardens in Japan were aware of the paintings. Some of the garden creators were painters in their own right, such as Sesshu Tōyō and Kano Motonobu, and there will have been others. Writings by Chinese painters would have also reached Japan, and were presumably studied there too.There is an extensive body of writing and art criticism by Chinese literati which one imagines would have also been studied intensely in Japan. For example Hseih Ho's 'Six Principles of Painting' were known of in Japan, where they were known of as the 'Six Laws (roppô, 六法) see also my blog post 'On Chinese Painting and Japanese Gardens' part 2.

The proposed correspondences in this series are not written of in order of importance, nor are they intended to be comprehensive. They are a selection of concepts or principles which may be found in both art forms, they arise in Chinese landscape paintings and which I believe helped shaped garden creation in Japan. Nor really should they be taken as being separate ideas, in truth they are all interlinked and even to some extent overlap in practice. To separate out ten correspondences is granted an artificial approach if taken as independently existing principles within the garden tradition. I have written on each as a way of identifying and illustrating them as aspects of the greater tradition of garden creation in Japan.

1. 'Host and Guest'

主客

shukyaku

“In a landscape painting there must be a ‘host and guest in mountains, to and fro in water, tortuousness in hills, up and down in a mountain range…” Ching Hao (ca. 870 -930)[1].

“The ‘host‘ peak as is most fitting is lofty and tall; the ‘guest' mountains should hasten toward it.” Wang Wei (701-761)[2]

 

Landscape by Ma Yuan (ca. 1190-1225)

This term which is derived from the language of Chinese painters and illustrates their conception of a reciprocal relationship between elements of the painting’s composition. Pertaining to an organisation of the principal elements of the composition the term also implies an underlying order of dominance or importance of status in terms of the connectivity or interdependence between elements.

Usually in a composition (in the garden) there is one element, almost invariably an upright stone, that has a particular importance as acting as a ‘hub’ for the composition. It has been various called the ‘Main’, ‘Dominant’, ‘Master’ or ‘Host’ stone, 主石. It is a stone to which other pieces are arranged in relation to and acts as a central hub to the particular grouping. The ‘Host and Guest’ relationship is widely found in landscape painting too, where the Host is normally the tallest, most prominent feature depicted in a painting, usually a mountain. The Host element is rarely situated in the centre of the composition, but will always take a prominent position, either to one side or the other or above or below the centre depending on the composition.

A Host stone can be seen at the top of the stream, all the other  stones in the composition relate back to this piece.
Taizo-in, Kyoto

This placement of a dominant element draws the eye, either consciously or unconsciously toward it, and from that point the eye can move freely around the composition, in what becomes an immersive experience. In this way a subtle sense of structure or order is also thus established. This gives a sense of connectivity that will bind the group into a cohesive unit. This can also be seen in painting as a way of organising the principal elements (mountains) of the composition in order to create the impression of spatial depth on a two dimensional surface. In the garden it also works to create depth and also enables the garden creator to manipulate scale

In the Sakuteiki  (‘Record of Garden Making’) the 11^th C garden manual this idea is noted as follows: “Choose a particularly splendid stone and set it as the Main Stone (omo ishi). Then, following the request of the first stone set the others accordingly”[3]. An important element of the citation from the Sakuteiki is contained in the term ‘following the request’, this establishes the centrality of the “Main’ or ‘Host ‘ stone., as what is implied is that the stones subsequently set are in a subordinate or supporting position to the ‘Main’ stone. This is the way that arrangements of stones are created in the garden, a stone of central importance is set up and then following that additional stones are placed in relation to the main stone. Depending on the size and complexity of the garden project this process is repeated over and over. Furthermore, even between groups of stone some relational values are always maintained, thereby linking all arrangements into an overall coherence. The planting that follows on after the stone arrangements are completed will also take their positions from enhancing and developing the sense of order or unity within the whole. What comes to the viewer experiencing the garden or scene is one expressing an internal harmony, where everything ‘belongs’ in its place and all elements of the garden support and enhance one other. The viewer is not outside of this process or organisation, but is an integral element to the whole composition. By this means a sense of harmony comes into the viewer experiencing the garden scenery.

 

Stone arrangements are nearly always built up around the Host and Guest principle.
Apache Museum, Shimane Prefecture.

The relationship between Host and Guest can also be read as social comment on the structure of Japanese society during the Heian period (794-1185) and throughout the pre-modern feudal eras. During this long period society in general was strongly stratified into classes, an adherence to class was an important means of defining and ordering society.  Confucianism was the prevailing moral code in China and this carried over to Japan too. Confucius (551-479 BC) as a teacher, philosopher, teacher and politician argued that social cohesion was achieved through familial loyalty, respect for ancestors, and the family unit as a basis for good government. In the Analects of Confucius, a collection of aphorisms complied some time after his death it is recorded:

“Chi K'ang asked how to cause the people to reverence their ruler,

to be faithful to him, and to go on to nerve themselves to virtue.

The Master said, "Let him preside over them with gravity, then they

will reverence him.

Let him be final and kind to all, then they will

be faithful to him.

Let him advance the good and teach the incompetent, then

they will eagerly seek to be virtuous."

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[1] Shanshui Jieyao (‘Outline of Lansdcape painting’)

[2] Hua-hseh pi chüeh  (‘Secrets of the Study of Painting’)

[3] Sakuteiki. Takei and Keane. Tuttle. 2001

On The Death Of A Cat Called Lou Lou

We had the choice,

To hold you in this world

Your tiny frail frame 

Racked by illness

Or let you go, on your Way.

Now the river runs high

As rain mingles with tears.

Into the earth

Laid gentle

On a bed of fern leaves,

That which remained of you

After the spirit flown.

Your capstone

A blanket of red earth

Ready to receive this gift.

In breath, out breath

The space between

Neither Being nor Non-Being.

At last something solid!

The tangle of sorrows and joys

Of this world

Born of our own eyes –

And above it all pinpricks of light

Birth & death from millions of years ago.

Tonight the rain

Will soak into your grave.

Spirit flown -

The bed by the fire empty.

Still It Rains On

Still it rains on,

Buckling river rises -

Tonight the owls are silent.

 

Memory

Saturated earth cannot hold more.

Breath

At the tipping point, both this and that.

Swollen clay

Slick to the hands

Now raising a cup formed by process

Born of transference

A voice formed.

Forming a beat

A pulse of emptied intervals –

Crossing the meniscus between worlds.

So, you come to find source;

Touch the base,

the fine hem,

the original face.

Yet, time rolls within itself

Fractal light implosion

the falling veil,

the breath of vision.

Sabi, Time Passed and Time Passing in the Japanese garden.

An aspect of sabi is in  the quality of 'naturalness in the garden

Sabi 錆 can be likened to a ‘sister-concept’ of wabi 侘び,[1] the pair are closely woven into the fabric of aesthetics in Japan, and hence they can both be applied to the qualities and appreciation of gardens. Whereas wabi is derived from a “feeling of loneliness, or poverty”; sabi , encompasses a sense of unpretentious imperfection, a knowledgeable artlessness in the execution, and a feeling of the inevitable passage of time. Donald Richie[2] states that the etymological root of the term is derived from the verb sabu (‘to wane’), and susabi (a noun meaning ‘desolation’). The term sabishi, meaning ‘lonely’ is still in use in modern Japanese. From this we can grasp that the term sabi, is particularly concerned with expressing a state of change or alteration that is governed principally by temporal processes. Following the example of Matsuo Bashō, the term became associated in the eyes of poets with the notion of bleakness, desolation and the incomplete; but the negative connotations were tempered by a modulating qualities of stillness, connectivity and potential. Qualities that arise because the term is rooted in an observation derived from natural processes (as opposed to speculative philosophy), and recognition of the cyclical movement from fullness to emptiness to fullness.

Sabi is a mood qualifier, the term identifies a fleeting, sometimes barely perceptible moment.

A garden may be perceived to be imbued with the spirit of sabi, it is frequently a quality associated with the Tea garden, or roji. This is because Tea masters, such as Takeno Jōō and Sen no Rikyu, favoured what became known as wabi cha, where great emphasis was placed on the refinement of the tea ceremony towards simplicity and a positive lack of ostentation. Therefore a garden expressing a sense of sabi is a garden lacking in pretention, and a space that exudes a positive connectivity with what may be interpreted as ‘naturalness’. The roji is in essence elemental, a path that guides the tea participant towards the tea house. The spirit of the path is derived from the imagery of a way leading to an isolated rustic mountain dwelling or lodge deep in the countryside. A tea garden that displayed grandiosity, cleverness, or ostentation would not imbue the tea participant with the correct desirable emotional qualities, which would aid him or her to participate in the tea ceremony in a state of mind conducive to calm equanimity. This observation illustrates well the fundamental notion that the Japanese garden is intended to influence the emotional and spiritual state of the observer. It is something that much attention is paid to in the construction of the garden, from the choice of materials, to their relative dispositional relationships in space. All design concerns are geared towards how the garden interacts with the viewer, of recognizing that the garden and viewer are intimately bound together. The one complimenting the other, as yin and yang are not separate entities but aspects of a whole.

The apparent simplicity of architecture in the garden hides a complex appreciation of what is simple.

Stone lanterns were introduced into gardens by Tea masters.

Sabi can be seen in the use of secondhand materials in the garden, miegakure. That is materials that have acquired the patina of age and use being especially prized. Rocks with a scattering of lichens or mossy growths, stepping stones that reveal aspects of long term wear or have been weathered to soft edges (as opposed to the sharp break lines of freshly quarried stone), or stone lanterns with perhaps signs of damage that have been ‘healed’ by long term exposure to the elements. Plant material that displays a sense of maturity, or has an aged quality is also likely to display a sense of sabi. One only need to recall the sense of walking through a woodland of mature trees, it is not just the height and mass of the trees that impresses the senses, but the very atmosphere of age, of time passed, that can hold us in awe. It is noticeable that when creating traditional gardens in Japan what is sought is at the time of ‘completion’ of the garden (construction phase), the garden already has a sense or impression of being aged. Likewise, it is often the case that trees in a Japanese garden are ‘odd shapes’, leaning one way or another, there may be gaps in the canopy cover and so on. Contrast this to trees available for garden creation in the West which are uniformly bolt upright with an even spread of branches forming the canopy. It is very difficult to purchase suitable trees for Japanese gardens in the West, there is simply too much regularity to their forms, or one could say ‘a lack of sabi’.

The elegant forms of garden trees revealed by empty space is an expression of sabi.

The 14^th C Japanese poet Kenkō wrote: “In everything no matter what it may be, uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting and gives one the feeling that there is room to grow.” [3]

Irregularity, or a sense of incompletion, gives, as it were, something for the imagination of the viewer to grip on to. It bestows a sense of time passed and hence an awareness of time passing, of process, movement and transformation. In this Beauty, however fleeting it may seem, is captured and brought into the light to be experienced. Perfect symmetry, or a flawless form, is a closed entity, one that does not allow for engagement by the one experiencing it. This is the case for the senses, sight, sound, touch, taste, as much as it is for the imagination. If there is no space for the imagination to engage with, the viewer or the experiencer will remain on the ‘outside’ of the experience. A separation occurs which cannot be bridged, subject and object will remain in opposition, and the essential interdependence of subject and object will not be recognised.

The apparent randomness of a stepping stone path reveals sabi.

Sabi can also be noted in seasonality, the passing from one season to the next. Each season has its own particular qualities, spring with its fresh growth and quality of re-awakening, summer has the quality of reaching a peak of development, lushness and plentitude, autumn brings colour into the trees as if they were making one last exuberant display before falling, winter reveals the garden retreating into itself, with-drawing back from whence it emerged. With each turn of season there can be a certain wistful feeling as we are reminded of the passing of time, and so reminded of our own mortality. Yet, beyond this, we can recognise that process, a seamless process is active, of which human beings as much as any other being or material is subject. As much as we notice the passing of time, we can be aware of a deeper movement, which is ‘beyond time’ as revealed through non-relativistic conception. This mode of perception allows us to feel deeper the quality inherent in the Japanese garden where we become aware of a ‘timelessness’ both outside and within ourselves. Sensitivity to qualities, such as sabi, allow us to enter and engage with Japanese gardens more thoroughly, to see beyond form, and experience something of the unfathomable essence of what is before us.

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[1] Sabi 錆 or 寂;  see also blog post, Wabi; Spirit Unbound 17/11/13.

[2] Donald Richie, ‘A Tractate On Japanese Aesthetics’. Stone Bridge Press, 2007.

[3] The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō (Essays in Idleness). Translated by Donald Keene. Columbia University Press. 1967.

Sometimes You Wait In Vain

Enfolded within hills

Trees skeletons stripped bare,

The river runs on

Ghost music in flow,

Always onward, always onward.

Immersed in water soaked air

Yet proud in immobility

Sentinels march in silent step

Hailing the gathering inward

Deep to earth-breath stilled.

Firewood gathered in

Stacked under cover –

Deep night & lost for sleep

Listening to the rodent’s rasp

Of the shelter that holds me here.

The turn of the wheel

One click at a time

Between, an infinity of air –

Motion within such stillness.

This morning the pheasant

Came to visit.

The cats spent the afternoon

Stretched out by the fire.

By nightfall rivulets of rain

Had gathered into river threads.

As I waited in vain

For a poem to arrive.