Castle Rigg Stone Circle

Immemorial wisdom of the stones

Soft as a lover’s skin

Brilliant lemon-yellow lichen constellations

Scattered over your flanks.

Here at the centre the landscape womb

This point of transformation

Gateway between liminal and subliminal,

The awakened dream reforms eye bright.

Yūgen and the Japanese Garden

幽玄

The Japanese aesthetic language is full of terms that have no direct translation into English, wabi, sabi, iki and fūryū are just a small sample. Yūgen is another such term, which is also one that we (both Japanese and non-Japanese) can encounter at first hand when we experience a Japanese garden. Though we should be aware to capture such terms in the mind is to try and catch fish with our bare hands or with a basket that has no base. They refuse to be simply pinned down by words and rolled neatly into easily graspable concepts.

Ryoan-ji, Kyoto

If we search for dictionary definitions of yūgen, there are many: ‘subtle grace, hidden beauty, mysterious profundity, elegant simplicity, the subtle and profound, rich and mysterious beauty.’ Yūgen can be all these ideas, and yet like the proverbial fish it’s a slippery beast to pin down. The term is usually associated with Noh drama, and is associated with the expression of a quality that an actor expresses through movement and tone. Arthur Waley referred to yūgen as ‘what lies beneath the surface.’ The elusiveness springs from the fact we are dealing with an emotional response that arises in the heart of the one experiencing, rather than directly in the mind. We recognise yūgen as the beginning of an unfolding of an emotional response, rather than a concrete manifestation of an action.

In the garden yūgen arises as part of our emotional response to the scene before us, it is that which holds us there, caught by the desire to remain in the spell we have entered into. A garden such as the dry landscape garden at Ryōan-ji is an example of yūgen, most who have sat and contemplated the scene recognise the quality even if they may not apply the term. The garden is mysterious; it offers us no obvious clue as to how we are to engage with it.  Yet we are aware we have left convention behind. The garden space is complete in itself, only requiring the presence of the viewer to be the experiencer. Bounded with the space is a self-contained universe, where change is subtle and movement shrouded by stillness. Think of the mysterious interplay of light and shade, of time passing yet seemingly being held in quietude. The primary elements of the garden (the stones and their relationships to one another) do not alter, it is us who alters and changes.

Ryoan-ji, Kyoto

Part of the difficulty of a definition of yūgen arises from this notion that it is a state of being that is transformative and not at all fixed in any way. It seems its very intangibility is at least in part because at the moment where we recognise it, it arises from a notion that is a state of being that is esentially transformative and not fixed. It seems its very elusiveness may at least in part be because the moment when we cognitively become aware of yūgen in some way it has already passed, moved on to become something other, an idea or a thought. It is the same as we hear and recognise a note of music the sound has already passed.

Thus yūgen lies in the realm of suggestion, of the unformed, it posits a direction or place we may move toward. I would suggest yūgen is not found in the full bloom of the cherry trees so beloved by the Japanese, or in the fiery blaze of autumnal colours of maple trees in autumn. Rather it is revealed in the buds of the cherry before they open fully, or perhaps in autumn colour momentarily reflected from some unlikely source. It is a quality veiled by a certain sense of mystery, contained in that which is fleeting, ephemeral and not obvious.

Matsuo Taisha shrine, Kyoto

Any opinion on yūgen is bound to be ultimately subjective, which is also what makes it interesting. For myself, the hillside stone arrangement at Matsuo Taisha shrine created by Shigemori Mirei towards the end of his life has this quality. It is powerful and deeply ‘mysterious’, modern in some ways perhaps but it also exudes a sense of the ancient. The hand of the creator is entirely hidden, yet one also senses an underlying order or logic to the stone placements. There is a freedom from the intellect. Idea does not dominate the scene, this is the work of someone drawing up water from a deep, dark wellspring. Much of Shigemori’s earlier work does seem to be dominated by a conscious intent to ‘create something’, to give the viewer an idea or symbolic content to relate to. In contrast to the arrangement at Matsuo Taisha, the karesansui garden at Raikyū-ji in Bitchu Takahasi (Okayama Prefecture) feels mannered and lacking in a certain subtlety. This garden was created around the early part of the 17^th century and is attributed to Kobori Enshu. It is not to say the garden lacks beauty and repose, it has both those qualities, but on viewing the garden we are aware of what Enshu is representing in the garden scenery, namely the Crane and Turtle motifs. Where the garden scenery moves us too quickly towards an idea then we become fixed on the idea, and see and respond to the garden through the prism of idea, and less through the medium of pure feeling.

Raikyu-ji, Okayama prefecture

Zeami Motokiyo世阿弥 元清 (c.1363 – 1443), often cited as the originator of Noh drama, also wrote on aesthetics, and he described yūgen as ‘contemplating the flight of geese seen and lost among the clouds’. This reveals another aspect to aesthetics in Japan in general in that a quality also can be said to contain an element of wistfulness, or perhaps a longing for the concrete. But as we have noted above yūgen implies change and movement, emotionally we might well wish for things to remain as they are, but the very essence of being alive is that things are in a constant process of change and development. A garden exemplifies this process of transformation; it is one of the very qualities that snags our attention, and draws us into awareness. The Japanese garden is capable of a highly refined expression of this mysterious process, change within seemingly changelessness.

Sleight of Hand

Through ancient woodland

With its call of time past

Echoing the woodpecker.

It’s almost sleight of hand

This profusion of spring

And now the pasture

Carpeted with buttercups too. 

Along this scarce trodden path

Wild orchids,

Sentinels of this moment.

 Folded into the forms of land

Time smoothed yet never stilled,

The last of the bluebells

Glow soft in the shadows.

 Pin pricks of light

A firmament distilled

This shower of space dust

Falling here and now
This moment this place.

Slip now any tenuous grip 

Let go the trembling reeds

Step from the mud of the shallows,

Into the light gathering form,

So to dream on and on.

Bridges - book project

I was very pleased to be a part of the Bridges project, a book conceived and produced by Suzanne Perrin and Jeremy Hoare. It is out in print now.

Here is a taster link to a promotional clip on You Tube: https://youtu.be/Jgd9eqoIaeI

And on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/16533188

The Bridges book project was conceived by Jeremy Hoare after attending a book launch at Daiwa Foundation Japan House in London in May 2011, two months after the devastating Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami in March of that year. Thinking about the close relationship between Japan and the UK that was there at Daiwa the evening of the book launch, Jeremy got together with Japan specialist and historian Suzanne Perrin to create the Bridges book as a series of interviews, to utilise the wealth of knowledge that people had about Japan in Britain. The aim of Bridges is to celebrate the work of a diverse range of people who have made a significant contribution to the understanding of Japan in the UK, and who continue to provide insights into cross-cultural relations that are so important in today’s globalised world. The contributors are all UK-based professionals and work in a wide range of areas including academic, diplomatic, creative media, business and humanitarian work. Their wealth of experience provides a deep insight into the development of Anglo-Japanese relations from the beginning of the Post War period to the present day. ​ For copies contact: Suzanne Perrin Japan Interlink London t/f:  +44 20 8579 9404 www.japaninterlink.com info@japaninterlink.com

The Scent of Mosses

The wandering stream

Finding its own way

From mountain rain to sea –

The scent of mosses.

Holding the line

As breath flows

Effortless the beginning

Pause

So, the unfolding into next.

Rhythm of the between

Spring sprung sprang,

In this unfolding is a return

To a place of the heart.

That’s all.

Passing by the same places

But now with different mind-sight,

Seeing not just points of arrival

But the spaces between,

This bridge of dreams

A point of transition.

 

If I sit quiet enough

The light unfolds itself.

No effort required

Grasping emptiness.

Stones hold their stories

Enshrined stillness in flow.

Correspondences between Chinese Landscape Painting and Japanese Gardens Part 4

4. Layering Of Views

景の層化 

kei no sōka

Landscape scenery, Devon, England.

The layering of a view is an important device used by painters to indicate depth in a composition. In the garden context it is used both for spatial purposes, but also to act as a means of defining a view from a particular point. It will be noted that when one moves about a stroll garden in Japan, there is a sense of views being opened and closed as the viewer traverses through the garden. The sum of the garden is not taken in from one point, but is a gradual accumulation of experiences gained by the viewer. This works in a couple of different ways. Firstly a view can be composed of a distinct (yet often subtly executed) arrangement of foreground- middle ground- background sections. The garden at Tenryū-ji near Kyoto is constructed in this way. Looking out from the hōjō (Main Hall) the near shoreline disappears from view, but the rocky peninsula that juts into the pond from the right side becomes prominent. As the eye lifts upward the far shore line the section of the composition that defines the dry (karesansui) waterfall comes into focus, forming the mid ground of the composition. Then as the eye lifts again the line of hills beyond the garden form a seamless backdrop (and frame) to the intimacy of the pond garden.

Tenryū-ji, Arashiyama. 14th C. 

A second way layering works in the garden setting is where the focal point of the view is arrived at by the eye being encouraged to ‘travel’ (or guided perhaps) towards its goal. This can be seen in the tiny garden space at Reiun-in (a sub temple within the Myoshin-ji complex, Kyoto). Here the focal point of the view is the tall upright rock set in the background. Between the rock and the viewer are layers of foliage that alternately frame the focal point, but also create a visual pathway towards the focal point. We are shown the ‘destination’ and also the path towards the destination is hinted at for the viewer. To reach the goal we are encouraged to travel through the landscape being represented. This accords with an important role of painting elucidated and exploited by Chinese landscape painters, in that the landscapes depicted are created to draw the viewer into an engagement with those landscapes. The viewer becomes integrated with the landscape whether depicted as a painting or a garden, thereby dissolving the separation between the two. Subject and object are interwoven to the point of dissolution, ultimately there no longer exists the duality of seer and seen, and so the ‘truth’ of the landscape is revealed as an existential experience. As François Jullien so succinctly puts it: “It is not in respect to what we pass through or what we contemplate, but where we walk, where we live, that the world’s embrace of us is most complete, hence its presence in us is most intense, and that the vital aspiration at the source of the landscape, through our connection to it is satisfied.”[1]

Reiun-in. Kyoto. 16th C.

'

Ma Yuan. 13th C
'Dancing and Singing Peasants Returning from Work

In landscape paintings layering can often be depicted as veils of cloud or mist that appear to separate sections of the painting. The equivalent of the film editors’ dissolve from one scene to the next. Layering in this way evokes depth in a two dimensional context, and in both paintings and gardens it also has the role of introducing the principle of time. Layering reveals process, the transformation of one space/time to the next, one moment to the next, whist always holding to the recognition of the ultimate interconnectivity of all things. The word Ma (間) is used in Japanese to describe the interval (in space and time) between things, of which there is no real equivalent in the English language. Ma is not empty or a void, but a point of transformation, and so it is a point of potential at it most full, bursting as it were with a fullness that can no longer be contained, so making transformation an inevitable condition of continuation; the movement of yin into yang and into yang into yin. In the garden one way this device is sustained by careful and finely considered regular maintenance of the plantings. The pruning of plants involves the opening up of spaces between the branch structure, separating the screen of leaves to create ma, which in turn provides definition of form whilst also allowing the eye to move through the planting too. The opening and closing of space in a rhythmical manner to provide a bridge to link the interior and exterior, between mountain scenery (the external) with the experience of landscape (the interior), between the mundane and the spiritual.

The concept of layering outlined above is very closely related to the idea of ‘Hide and Reveal’ (見え隠 れ, miegakure), which will be the subject of a separate post in the current series. I should point out once more that all the correspondences between painting and garden creation are so closely interrelated in a composition as to make the separation of ideas artificial in a sense. The justification for doing so is to illuminate them (so to bring them into our awareness as processes), in what is expressed through painting or garden in an often very subtle manner. An interesting point is that these concepts are most frequently applied in an unconscious way, they are simply part of the process of creating a painting in the Chinese manner or in the creation of a garden in the Japanese style.

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[1] ‘The Great Image Has No Form or On the Nonobject through Painting.,’ François Jullien. University of Chicago Press. 2009.