''Yuanye'' (
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
園冶,
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
yuán yě), variously translated as ''The Garden Treatise'' or ''The Craft of Gardens'', is a 1631 work on
garden design
Garden design is the art and process of designing and creating plans for layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the garden owner themselves, or by professionals of varying levels of experience and expertise. ...
by
Ji Cheng of the late
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
. It is now considered the definitive work on garden design of the many produced during that period, and has been labeled as the first monograph dedicated to
garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
in the world, and among the great masterpieces of garden literature.
Structure
The work is broken into three volumes. Volume one focuses on overall principles, in particular: situation, layout, buildings and their fittings. Volume two contains descriptions and illustrations of decorative balustrades. Volume three covers doorways, windows, walls, decorative pavements, artificial mounds, rock selection, and a final chapter, chapter ten on borrowed scenery (''jie jing'').
Emphasis
The work is primarily focused on architectural features, rather than natural features. Contrasts have been drawn between this and other classic works of East Asian garden design, such as ''Sakuteiki'' (of the Japanese
Heian period
The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese ...
) which concentrates on water and rocks, and numerous Japanese works of the
Edo period (''Tsukiyama teizoden'', ''Sagaryuniwa kohohiden no koto'', ''Tsukiyama sansuiden''), to suggest a fundamental difference in approach between Chinese and Japanese garden design - namely, emphasis on architectural and natural features, respectively. However in face of a more advanced understanding of the last, conclusive chapter ten of the book it is clear that natural features are in fact the prime theme of ''Yuanye''.
Last Chapter Ten: ''Jie jing''
The title of the last chapter of ''Yuanye'' is ''Jie jing'' 借景, borrowing scenery. The text presents ''jie jing'' not as a single design idea of borrowing scenery as is usually believed. Rather it deals with the essence of landscape design philosophy in its entirety.
The ever-changing moods and appearances of landscape in full action are understood by the author as an independent function that becomes an agent for garden making. The object and subject, as either the landscape or the garden maker, shift continuously moving towards the conclusion: landscape and garden maker are both object and subject and are interchangeable. To be able to make a garden, the garden maker needs to meld with the landscape on the site, while natural phenomena become mnemonics for common knowledge as expressed in well-known passages in classic literature or poetry. It is the ecology of nature, including man, which motivates and moves design.
[Wybe Kuitert (2015) Borrowing scenery and the landscape that lends - the final chapter of Yuanye, ''Journal of Landscape Architecture'', 10:2, 32-43,]
/ref>
See also
*Chinese garden
The Chinese garden is a landscape garden style which has evolved over three thousand years. It includes both the vast gardens of the Chinese emperors and members of the imperial family, built for pleasure and to impress, and the more intimate ...
Notes
Bibliography
*Ji Cheng: Craft of Gardens, Yale University Press, 1988, Translated by Alison Hardie
*Yuanye, le traite du jardin, Ji Cheng, Traduit par Che Bing Chiu
*''The Garden as Architecture''. Inaji, Toshiro. 1998. {{ISBN, 4-7700-1712-X
*Wybe Kuitert: Borrowing scenery and the landscape that lends - the final chapter of Yuanye ''Journal of Landscape Architecture'' 2015, 10:2, 32-43
Gardening books
Chinese gardening styles