is a

Japanese garden are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden desi ...

located in the city of

Tsuyama is a city in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 102,294 and a population density of 200 persons per km². The total area was 185.73 km². The area increased in 2005 as the result of a merger with adjacent t ...

, Okayama Prefecture, Japan. Shūraku-en was built in 1658 by

Mori Nagatsugu Mori is a Japanese and Italian surname, and also a Persian pet name for Morteza. It is also the name of two clans in Japan, and one clan in India. Italian surname * Barbara Mori, Uruguayan-Mexican actress *Camilo Mori, Chilean painter *Ces ...

, ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominal ...

'' of

Tsuyama Domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Mimasaka Province in modern-day Okayama Prefecture.Kobori Enshū was a notable Japanese artist and aristocrat in the reign of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Biography His personal name was Masakazu (政一). In 1604, he received as inheritance a 12,000-''koku'' fief in Ōmi Province at Komuro, present Nagahama, Shiga. ...

school from

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...

to create a ''daimyō'' garden with a walking path around a pond, based on the gardens of the Sento Imperial Palace of the

Kyoto Imperial Palace The is the former palace of the Emperor of Japan. Since the Meiji Restoration in 1869, the Emperors have resided at the Tokyo Imperial Palace, while the preservation of the Kyoto Imperial Palace was ordered in 1877. Today, the grounds are open t ...

. Construction work was from 1655 to 1658, and the resultant garden covered (256 meters from east-to-west by 292 meters form north-to-south), or approximately three times the size of the surviving portion of the garden today. Under the

Matsudaira clan The was a Japanese samurai clan that descended from the Minamoto clan. It originated in and took its name from Matsudaira village, in Mikawa Province (modern-day Aichi Prefecture). During the Sengoku period, the chieftain of the main line of t ...

, who succeeded the Mori clan as rulers of Tsuyama, the garden was used as the ''Gotaimenjo'' (御対面所) for audiences or diplomacy. None of the buildings from the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

remain. The garden was given the name "Shūraku-en" in 1870. Most of the garden is occupied by a long pond in the north-south direction, with four islands. With the Chugoku Mountains to the north as

borrowed scenery Borrowed scenery (; Japanese: ; Chinese: ) is the principle of "incorporating background landscape into the composition of a garden" found in traditional East Asian garden design. The term borrowing of scenery ("shakkei") is Chinese in origin, an ...

, the pond in the north is placed so as to be approached by artificial hills in the east and north, and a 210-meter-long winding stream flows on the east side. There are few artificial structures such as ''tōrō'' lanterns, as the characteristic of the garden is that it is integrated with nature. The present buildings along the shore of the pond are all reconstructions. Shūraku-en was designated a by the national government in 2002. It is open to the public free as a citizen's park. However, it is closed at night.

Gallery

Shurakuen Tsuyama02n4272.jpg, Southern aspect of the pond Shurakuen Tsuyama13n4272.jpg, Naka-no-shima Shurakuen Tsuyama10n4272.jpg, Yohokaku and Geihinkan pavilions Shurakuen Tsuyama19n4272.jpg, the stream

Gallery

See also