Intellectual or Emotional Knowledge ? Values and Meanings of the Chinese Garden in the Ming Period

Asia Orientale 古今東亞

A10756

Comitato Scientifico

Paolo Santangelo ( “Sapienza” Università di Roma) – direttore di collana

Guido Samarani (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia)

Stefania Stafutti (Università di Torino).

Asia Orientale

La collana Asia Orientale propone testi di elevato livello didattico,scientifico, divulgativo nel campo delle varie discipline relative alla storia ealla cultura dell’Asia Orientale. L’interesse per l’area è certamente cresciutoin seguito all’importanza economica e strategica assunta negli ultimi decenni,come dimostra il fiorire di varie recenti iniziative editoriali in Italia pressopiccoli e grandi editori. È ovvio che la prevalenza globale di quest’area haportato un cambiamento negli orientamenti degli studi di settore,decretando il superamento sia dell’orientalismo ‘vecchia maniera’ che diquello ‘impegnato’ a carattere terzomondista. Con il declino dei vari‘orientalismi’ è sempre più necessaria una conoscenza che corrisponda alleesigenze presenti, e che non può prescindere tuttavia da unaspecializzazione che tenga conto delle differenze culturali persistenti, e dalconfronto fra civiltà diverse.La presente collana intende concentrarsi sulla realtà di quest’area, offrendo esollecitando contributi che coprano non solo la realtà immediata di cuidobbiamo tenere conto, ma vari aspetti delle antiche civiltà che necostituiscono la base culturale. Perciò la collana intende promuovere variediscipline, oltre ai settori storici, filosofici e letterari, come quello linguisticoe politico economico.La collana adotta un sistema di valutazione dei testi basato sulla revisioneparitaria e anonima (peer review). I criteri di valutazione riguarderanno laqualità scientifica e didattica e la significatività dei temi proposti. Per ogniproposta editoriale, tali requisiti saranno accertati dal comitato scientifico,che si avvarrà di almeno un revisore esperto.La possibilità di avere edizioni online oltre che a stampa permette l’utilizzodi sistemi multimediali e di comunicazione di particolare interesse per ladistribuzione, la didattica e la fruizione su vari supporti.Il direttore della collana, Paolo Santangelo ([email protected]), ècoadiuvato da un comitato scientifico composto dal Prof. Guido Samarani(Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia) e dalla Prof. Stefania Stafutti (Universitàdi Torino).

With the support of Istituto Italiano di Studi Orientali – ISO

Ming Qing

S

edited byPaolo Santangelo

TUDIES 2011

Ming Qing STUDIES 2011

Editor Paolo Santangelo, Sapienza Università di Roma Editorial Board: Marianne Bastid-Bruguière, CNRS, Paris William Dolby, Edinburgh Mark Elvin, Australian University, Canberra Lionello Lanciotti, IsIAO, Roma Lee Cheuk Yin, National University of Singapore

Mario Sabattini, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia

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Copyright © MMXIARACNE editrice S.r.l.

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ISBN 978-88-548-4463-6

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form,by print, photoprint, micro�lm, micro�che, or any other means,without written permission from the publisher

1st edition: December 2011

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CONTENTS

Preface .................................................................................................................. 5 Paolo Santangelo Chinese Printed Illustrations: Additional Notes on Materiality and on Material Authors of the Pipa ji and Xixiang ji Editions of the Ming Dinasty .............................................................................................. 23 Michela Bussotti Historicizing Ming-Ryukyu Relations: The Politics of Scholarship .................... 81 Ying-Kit Chan From a Singing Bird to a Fighting Bug: Cricket-Fight and the Cultural Rhetorics in Late Imperial China ......................................................................... 111 Hsiung Ping-Chen Essay on Giuseppe Maria Kuo’s Journal ............................................................. 135 Michele Fatica and Maria Letizia Pizzuti Intellectual or Emotional Knowledge? Values and Meanings of the Chinese Garden in the Ming Period ........................................................... 183 Maurizio Paolillo Liaozhai zhiyi and Zibuyu, Two Precious Qing Sources on Mentality and Imagery .......................................................................................................... 199 Paolo Santangelo Karmic Retribution and Moral Didacticism in Erotic Fiction from the Late Ming and Early Qing ..................................................................... 467 Wu Cuncun and Stevenson Mark Tianfang Dianli: A Chinese Perspective on Islamic Law and its Legal Reasoning ............................................................................................................. 487 Tontini Roberta Praising and Blame: Evaluating Appellations in Song-Ming Historical Writings ................................................................................................................ 529 Lee Cheuk Yin Emotions and Narrative: Depictions of Love in the Yuan Novella Jiao Hong ji and its Abridged Version in the Ming Anthology Qingshi leilüe ........................ 541 Barbara Bisetto

Contents 4

Emotions in chengyu and other set phrases ......................................................... 567 Erhard Rosner NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS Notes on Variolation in Japan. Shutō hitsujun ben, (Variolation Ensures Gentle Smallpox, 1795) by Ogata Shunsaku " ....................... 583 Paolo Villani Korean Reaction to Matteo Ricci and Christianity: A Case of “Defensive Fundamentalism”? ............................................................................................... 597 Maurizio Riotto BOOK REVIEWS Struve Lynn, “Dreaming and Self-search during the Ming Collapse: The Xue Xiemeng Biji, 1642-1646”, T’oung Pao 93, 2007, pp. 159-192, and Struve Lynn, “Self-Struggles of a Martyr: Memories, Dreams, and Obsessions in the Extant Diary of Huang Chuyao”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 69, 2, 2009, pp. 343-394 ........................................................ 617 Paolo Santangelo Yu Anthony, Comparative Journeys. Essays on Literature and Religion East and West, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010, pp. 408 ............... 618 Paolo Santangelo FLYERS 1. Frontiers of History in China 2. Rivista Studi Orientali 3. World Sinology

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Intellectual or Emotional Knowledge? Values and Meanings of the Chinese Garden in the Ming Period*

Maurizio Paolillo

Since the Song dynasty, the gardens of the literati in China have often appeared as a social and artistic production of the élite offering a secluded space in the city. The Ming dynasty is the acme of this traditional art: this period reveals a complex pattern of interaction between gardens and the arts of the brush (prose and poetry, painting and calligraphy).

From the end of the 16th century until the fall of the Ming in 1644, the Chinese world, particularly the economically advanced and urbanized Jiangnan region, entered a phase of rapid and far-reaching transformation. In this period, several works circulated in the world of the intellectual élite which one could describe as aesthetic guides for the literati. This phenomenon had some precedents during the Song and the early Ming, but between the last decade of the 16th century and the end of the Ming there was a real outpouring of publications or re-editions of this kind of treatise. These essays were focused on the material objects which were considered a must for a scholar's residence: their possession was a revealing sign of social status and taste. They were artificial objects, like paintings or calligraphy works, but also natural expressions, like rare flowers or rocks, typical elements of gardens.1

Yuanye , the essay on the art of garden, appeared in the same period. Thus, as a kind of manual, its appearance is not fortuitous, and in this sense it does belong to the wave of works we have just described. But its peculiar features make it a precious source, useful to explore the aesthetic terminology related to the construction of gardens in the 17th century. It is not our intention to describe in detail the nature of the work, which has been published in China in two modern editions, and has been translated in English by Alison Hardie, and in French by Che Bing Chiu.2 We will highlight instead some points, essential to the understanding of the theory (in its true etymological meaning of ‘vision’) of the garden in this historical period.

We can start our few notes from the author. Born in Wujiang, Ji Cheng (1582 - ?) lived for a period in the capital Beijing, before settling in

* This work is a developed version of the paper presented at the Conference: “Concepts and categories of emotion in East Asia”, held at the University of Lecce in May 2006. 1 The most important treatise belonging to this category is the Zhangwu zhi (Chronicle of Superfluous Objects), written between 1615 and 1620 by Wen Zhenheng (1585-1645), a famous scholar born in Suzhou. For this work, see Clunas 1991, pp. 20-24 and pp. 40-46; Paolillo 2003, pp. 209-213. 2 For Chinese modern editions, see Chen Zhi 1988; Zhang Jiaji 1993. For Western translations, see Hardie 1988; Chiu 1997.

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Runzhou (today’s Jinjiang), northeast of Nanjing.3 We do not know much about his social position; he was in the entourage of Ruan Dacheng (1587-1646), a high official once near to the powerful eunuch Wei Zhongxian, who later retired to Nanjing, where he had had a garden residence called Rock Nest built. It was Ruan who probably patronized the publication of Yuanye.4

From his introduction to the work, dated 1631, we know that when he was young Ji Cheng had gained some repute as a painter, an artist seeking the bizarre (qi ). In this sense, his claim to be painting after Jing Hao and Guan Tong must be more paying lip-service to tradition than actual reality.5 The term qi is a natural aesthetic fruit of the times: in the literary sources of the first half of 17th century it often eclipses another current term, ya , elegance,6 applied since Southern Song period also to scholar’s gardens, or to specific garden elements, like plants or architectural structures.7 We must remember that ya, more than qi, has a very important connection with the ethics, because it is traditionally related with human, more than visual, qualities. The Chinese historian of gardens Jin Xuezhi has stressed that the term qi was often linked to spatial conditions: this is undoubtedly true for the construction of artificial rockery, an element more and more essential in gardens of the Ming dynasty, especially from the second half of 16th century.8 In his introduction to Yuanye, Ji Cheng describes the casual origin of his career as a master of gardens: his art is first expressed indeed by the capacity of creating an astonishing artificial mountain.9

But the most important factor stressed by Ji Cheng is culture, expressed by “deepening the idea and drawing charts” (shenyi huatu ),10 an essential process for a satisfactory result. Culture is the foundation stone: “The

3 For the few data on Ji Cheng’s life and deeds, see Cao Xun 1982; Goodrich and Fang 1976, vol. 1, pp. 215-216. 4 The Yuanye has actually a brief introduction written by Ruan Dacheng, dated 1634 and signed with his pseudonym: Rock Nest, an obvious reference to his garden. See Chen Zhi 1988, pp. 31-36. 5 Chen Zhi 1988, p. 42. Jing Hao and Guan Tong were famous painters of the Five Dynasties period. For a glance to Jing Hao treatise Bifa ji and its main theoretical principles (very far from the concept of qi), see Paolillo 2007 (a). 6 As stressed by Ho and Ho-Delbanco 1992, p. 35. 7 Ya is particularly present as an aesthetic term in Southern Song notes on gardens: see for example Lu You's (1125-1209) Nanyuan ji , where ya appears as an element, fruit of human talent, associated with ziran , the intrinsic nature of the place (in Chen Zhi and Zhang Gongchi 1983, p. 74). In Clunas 1991, pp. 82-83, ya is rightly opposed to su

, the vulgarity, but the author denies any visual meaning of the term for the Ming period. In Liu Tuo 1988, p. 77, the use of ya is related to a formalistic trend in the art of garden which, after being stopped by Mongol invasion, is again present in Chinese gardens after the second half of Ming dynasty. 8 Jin Xuezhi 1990, pp. 320-333. 9 Chen Zhi 1988, p. 42. 10 Yuanye, in Chen Zhi 1988, p. 206.

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erection of artificial mountains in a garden cannot be achieved, unless one is a gentleman and a connoisseur (haoshi zhe ). Those who carry on this activity possess knowledge and discrimination to an extreme degree”.11 Of course, the importance of culture in the artistic creation was a common pattern from the Northern Song dynasty, especially in the literature on painting; but it must be remembered that, already in the 6th century, the Wenxin diaolong

stressed the importance of wen , a concept which covered not only the notion of literature, but every meaningful (and, for this reason, artistic) fruit of human talent.12

The relation between gardens and painting, present in the experience of Ji Cheng, is also emphasized in a second introduction to the work, written by Zheng Yuanxun (1598-1644), a noted scholar and amateur of gardens living in Yangzhou. He was the owner of one of the most renowned gardens of the city, the Shady Garden (Yingyuan ), one of Ji Cheng’s artistic successes.13 In his introduction, Zheng points out that in garden construction, the essential principle is “to have hills and valleys in the bosom”: a cliché borrowed from painting theory. The positive element in Ji Cheng’s art, says Zheng, consists of his “following the heart, not a codified method”.14

This is another central term of the theory not only of artistic creation, but of knowledge lato sensu. The term xin , often translated in English as “mind-and-heart” (a translation which in our humble view is not so satisfying), already present in Mencian thought, became the central reality in Neo-Confucianism, strongly influencing theory of painting.15 Zheng says that his Yangzhou garden was made into a spiritual refuge by Ji Cheng through a project carried out with “various drafts”:16 This reminds us of the “deepening the idea and drawing charts” cited above, and deserves some additional consideration. The use of sketches or drawings in the making of a garden is described in some sources of the Ming dynasty, and throws some light on the effective influence of painting on garden construction, beyond the generic statements of theory.

It must be noted that the painting of the garden was a very ancient tradition, which could be retraced back to the famous (and many times reproduced in

11 Yuanye, in Chen Zhi 1988, p. 209. 12 See the first chapter of Wenxin diaolong, in Wang Feng 2002, pp. 1-5. For the function of wen during the end of the Tang and the Song dinasties, see Bol 1992. For the connections between wen, art in general, painting and gardens during the Northern Song, see Paolillo 2000. 13 About Zheng Yuanxun, see Paolillo 2003, pp. 213-214. Zheng wrote a short essay about his garden, the Yingyuan ziji : see Chen Zhi and Zhang Gongchi 1983, pp. 220-227. For an English translation of this source, see Campbell 2004. 14 Zheng Yuanxun, Tici (Preface), in Chen Zhi 1988, pp. 37-38. 15 The role played by the heart (xin) in artistic execution is an aspect found above all in the treatises on painting of the Song era: for its importance, with reference to the emergence of the “scholar’s garden”, see Paolillo 2002. 16 Zheng Yuanxun, Tici (Preface), in Chen Zhi 1988, p. 38.


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history) Wangchuan tu of the Tang painter and poet Wang Wei . After the Song dynasty, and particularly with the Ming dynasty, the representation of gardens was often made through pictorial albums, celebrating excellent sites (fensheng ), different scenic spots of a garden on separate sheets.17 The use of sheets describing single sceneries (jing ) may have influenced the habit of executing sketches in the process of making a garden, an evidence clearly visible in some sources on the “masters” responsibles for the creation of such places.

The changes in Ming society were reflected in the new status accorded to craftsmen, which was also the result of the end of compulsory corvées. In this heterogeneous social group, there were the masters (shi ) skilled in the working of rocks. Some of them acquired national renown, like Zhang Nanyang

(c. 1517-c. 1597), son of a painter, described by the scholar Chen Suoyun as a kind of demiurge who, “having already the whole mountain in the bosom”, “with spiritual detachment and empty will […], followed the [features of the] site and spread the forms (suidi fuxing )”.18

But the most famous was Zhang Lian (Zhang Nantan , 1587-?), born in Huating, who afterwards moved to Jiaxing. He was responsible for the construction of many gardens of Jiangnan. Here is a sketch from his biography:

The gentleman by nature loved beautiful sceneries […]. When he was young, he studied painting, and the brush method of Ni Yunlin and Huang Zijiu […]. In making gardens, the gentleman had an ingenious thinking (qiaosi ): every rock, every tree, every kiosk or pond was translated through the gentleman’s suggestions and drawings (hua ), to become bizarre and attractive (qiqu ) […].19

From this short passage, we can clearly see the importance of “drawings” in the creation of garden's landscape, made by someone who is well versed in painting, and in the “brush method” of traditional masters. The binomial qiqu became very common as a descriptive term, applied to gardens. In these years, qu was particularly present as an aesthetic term in Gong’an literary school works, especially in Yuan Hongdao (1568-1610): for him, qu represented a

17 On the concept of fensheng, see Handlin Smith 1992, p. 71. 18 Chen Suoyun, Zhusu tang ji , juan 19, cited in Chen Congzhou 1996 (a), p. 207. Chen Suoyun described his garden in a short composition: see Chen Zhi and Zhang Gongchi 1983, pp. 202-205. 19 Zhang weng jiazhuan , cited in Zhou Weiquan 1990, p. 166. Ni Yunlin and Huang Zijiu are the Yuan painters Ni Zan (1304-1374) and Huang Gongwang (1269-1354). Zhang Lian transmitted his skill to his son, Zhang Ran , who during the reign of Qing emperor Kangxi participated in the project of the imperial park Changchun yuan . See Yang Hongxun 1996, pp. 337-339.


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kind of resonance between the art work and the person who enjoyed it, an expression of excellence which was very hard to obtain.20 The term qu appears also in Yuanye: in Ji Cheng’s view, the attraction or interest must be arousing in the mind of the visitor just after crossing the garden threshold.21

The figure of Yuan Hongdao is often related to the emerging of an individualistic and autobiographic tendency in the élite, especially in Jiangnan, reflected also in the multiplication of biehao tu , paintings showing the origin of a nickname adopted by a scholar, and at the same time given to his residence or to a structure of it. This shows the changes which occurred in the relationship between gardens and owners: the world of the urban garden, already close and complete by nature, was becoming more and more the mirror of the cultural and artistic inclinations of the owner, in a word, of his heart.22

All these sources show us a radical change in the relationship between the garden and painting. Until then, the former had been a favourite theme for painters, inside the wider field of landscape painting; undoubtedly, many paintings of gardens were also philosophical and cultural messages, illustrating a specific vision intended to fuse the moral view of Confucianism with Buddhist and Taoist visions of landscape. But the new sign of the times, from the second half of 16th century, was the closer relationship between the garden and its owner. This peculiar vision of the garden as a reflection of the heart of its master was in perfect harmony with the philosophical views of Wang Yangming

(1472-1529). His teachings on the heart (xin) as the only fundamental reality, officially approved in 1569, greatly influenced the artistic circles of Jiangnan.23 Dong Qichang (1555-1636), responsible with Mo Shilong for the famous theory of the Two Schools of painting, was undoubtedly well aware of the thinking of Wang Yangming, and he was moreover in assent with the individualistic Gong’an literary school and with radical thinkers like Li Zhi

(1527-1602). The predominance of the heart in artistic creation represented the completion of a process which ultimately considered the act of painting as something more essential than the object of painting in itself. In Dong Qichang, the art was more real than nature.24

This slight digression from our central topic was necessary for a better understanding of the process leading to the vision of the scholar garden as an aesthetic reality: its identity no longer pushed to the fore the attributes of

20 Watt 1987, pp. 4-5. Yuan Hongdao was the author of a little and highly colourful description of Suzhou's famous gardens: it is partially translated in Clunas 1996, pp. 76-77. 21 Yuanye, in Chen Zhi 1988, p. 56. The passage speaks of the “completion of interest” (chengqu ), a direct reference to a line in a poem by Tao Qian (Tao Yuanming

, 365-427). 22 This point is efficaciously described in Clunas 1996, pp. 157-162. 23 On Wang Yangming, in particular on his interpretation of the heart xin, see Ching 1976; de Bary 1981. 24 Among the dozens of studies on Dong Qichang, the more concerned on the theoretical aspects of his work are: Ho 1976; Cahill 1982, pp. 87-128; and Ho and Ho-Delbanco 1992.


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productive space, in which beauty and usefulness were two faces of the same reality. The change was expressed by Dong Qichang, in his statement that ancient gardens could be painted, while his paintings could be turned into gardens.25 A phrase which reminds us of the need, as emphasized in the late Ming sources, of executing drawings prior to beginning the work of creating a garden. One passage of the Yuanye makes, on the basis we just have briefly described, a curious and at the same time revealing association between the concept of spontaneous painting (tianran tuhua ), the realm of the Immortals Yinghu, and the obsession (pi ) for the landscape:

Strange kiosk and ingenious gazebos should be scattered among the purple [of the flowers]; many-storeyed towers and tall buildings should lean out, bobbing above the clouds […]. The area will resemble Yinghu, a spontaneous painting, and the idea will fully satisfy the obsession for woods and springs […].26

This mixture of archaic themes and a new perception of landscape illustrates an aesthetic term, very familiar to scholars and amateurs of 17th century. Pi was used to point out the immoderate craving of the collectors for material objects: this attitude was vividly described by Zhang Dai (1597-1684?), a famous Jiangnan scholar who lived between Ming and Qing dynasties. Zhang Dai, often involved in the construction of gardens, saw in this obsession the principal reason for the enormous losses of money of his family, but he justified this behaviour with the obligatory rules of social relations.27 The best example of this form of aesthetic craving, manifested like a form of mania, was the feverish improvements of his garden made by Qi Biaojia (1602-1645), a scholar who was a fellow townsman to Zhang Dai.28

From these few notes, the continuity between Yuanye and other sources on gardens of the same period is evident: this aspect is reflected also in the use of a same terminology, as we have briefly shown with a few examples. The complete separation between the realm of the aesthetic and productive space, a common aspect in the vision of gardens after the half of 16th century, is clearly visible by looking to the contents of Yuanye. The work is divided in three juan, but there is no section devoted to the cultivation of plants or trees, and also the long part about architectural structures is only descriptive, without any mention of the technical know-how or any reference to the various phases of construction. The

25 Cited in Tong Jun 1981, p. 45. For the shift of the garden after mid-sixteenth century from a “productive and beatiful space” to an aesthetic reality, “reflection of the heart”, see Paolillo 2002. 26 Yuanye, in Chen Zhi 1988, p. 206. 27 For a short description of the life and works of Zhang Dai, see Hummel 1944-45, vol. 1, pp. 53-54. Zhang was also owner of gardens, and he composed a short note on a garden he visited in Guazhou, near Yangzhou: see Handlin Smith 1992, p. 68; Strassberg 1994, pp. 348-351. 28 Handlin Smith 1992.


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practical side of the Paradise was already relegated to horticultural or architectural treatises.29

The first juan of Yuanye is divided into two sections. In the first, called Discussion on construction (Xingzao lun ), Ji Cheng stresses the essential part played by the master (shi ) in the creation of a garden, showing his superiority in the level of knowledge to the simple workers and even to the learned garden owner. But the passage must be cited in extenso, because it introduces us to fundamental aesthetic questions:

Generally, in construction, you have to rely upon a master, who assembles some craftsmen. Does not the proverb say that three-tenths [of the work] is done by the workmen, seven-tenths by the master? [By master] here I do not mean the owner [of the site], but he who is lord of [his] own talent (nengzhu ) […]. Therefore, in each construction, it is first necessary to examine the land and lay the foundations, then determine the depth and width [of the structures], to follow what is tortuous and to adapt to it what is squared in shape. This is the master’s task. The subtlety of his talent lies in being able to obtain a fitting structure […]. In a garden, the skill lies in conforming and borrowing; the refinement lies in the appropriateness of the structure. This is not possible through the creation of a craftsman, nor can it be managed by the owner. It is necessary to seek out the [right] man […]. Conforming consists in following the up and downs of the layout of the terrain, and the correctness of the structural form […]. [Build] a kiosk, if a kiosk is appropriate; [build] a gazebo, if a gazebo is appropriate […]. This is called refinement through appropriateness. Borrowing means that, although the garden diversifies the interior and the exterior, if a [good] scenery is obtained, there will be no need to restrict things to [the concept of] far and near […]. If as far as the eye can see there is vulgarity, then it must be screened; if there is the sublime, it must be welcomed […]. This is what is meant by stressing that with the skill the structure will be achieved. Still, with structure, appropriateness, conforming and borrowing, if one does not obtain that [kind of] man, and in addition one is disinclined to spend, then all the work done previously will be ruined.30

The description of the master as someone who “is lord of his talent”, a man who should be responsible for nine-tenths of the work, reminds us of the absolute pre-eminence of knowledge in the artistic creation of a garden. In Ji Cheng’s vision, the master acts per artem, not pro arte: through his talent, he creates a realm which is not a mere reproduction, a piece of topography, but is first of all

29 Some have even gone so far as to claim that the Yuanye actually is an architectural work: see Ruitenbeek 1993, pp. 30-31. But this is in our opinion a wrong conclusion, certainly more proper if applied to works as the 15th century carpenter's manual Lu Ban jing . 30 Yuanye, in Chen Zhi 1988, pp. 47-48.


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full of meaning, and consequentially a good place built to dwell in. This reminds us of the words of the Parisian master Jean Mignot, enunciated in connection with the building of the cathedral of Milan in 1398: “Ars sine scientia nihil”, where the word scientia refers not only to simple technical engineering, but above all to intellectual knowledge.31

In the following, the first step to be taken is the “examination of the ground”. This process is described with the term xiangdi . In this context, the use of the character xiang is very interesting. Literally, it means the capacity of recognizing the signs of a given reality; since ancient times, xiangdi has been used in the activities of interpreting the landscape.32 The importance of the signs of the ground is reflected in the essential act of marrying architectural structures to features of terrain, in order to obtain a fitting structure: “The site must be examined according to its appropriateness, and then the garden planning will obtain the structure (xiangdi heyi gouyuan deti )”.33 This is the meaning of the phrase “to follow what is tortuous and to adapt to it what is squared in shape (suiqu hefang )”, cited above. Here the term qu ( ‘winding’, ‘curved’, ‘sinous’) often applied to river meanderings, means the irregular, asymmetric features of the ground, which must be followed, matching to it “what is squared”, that is, the conventionally symmetrical architectural structures. The logical precedence of the tortuous over the squared, stressed by Ji Cheng, also has an essential visual aesthetic effect: the spatial extension of the garden as a microcosmic realm, still evident today in Jiangnan gardens.34

In the last part of the passage, we have some fundamental principles in Ji Cheng’s art of the garden. Yin , ‘to conform’, and jie , ‘to borrow’, are included in the category of skill (qiao ), while structure ti , and appropriateness yi belong to the category of refinement (jing ). Yin means to conform to the state of the site, not forcing its intrinsic features. It could be also translated as ‘accordance’. This term was used in ancient geomantic sources discussing the influences of the earth qi , the vital energy of landforms, but it could be very interesting to analyse its presence and its significance in Taoist

31 See Coomaraswamy 1977 (a), p. 229. 32 See for example Shangshu, in Ruan Yuan 1980, vol. 1, p. 211 a. 33 Yuanye, in Chen Zhi 1988, p. 56. 34 It should be pointed out that the importance attributed to the concept of qu has an ancient, symbolic and mythical, rather than aesthetic, origin: it described the flight of the Taoist Immortals and the descent of the divine hypostases into the chamber of the Taoist disciple, as well as the tortuous path followed by the souls of the dead, represented by meanders sometimes reproduced also in the gardens. See Robinet 1984, pp. 130-140; Stein 1987, pp. 196-250. The term qu, together with others possessing a similar meaning, is very common in fengshui traditional texts, where it is used to describe the auspicious nature of the watercourses; but the importance of the � tortuous’ seems to be already present in the names of some ancient omphalos of the Zhou period. See Paolillo 2009, pp. 370-373.


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literature.35 The term jie, to borrow, refers to the human power of surpassing the spatial

limits of a piece of scenery, to obtain an enlargement of its qualities. The principle of jie was essential in the abolition of spatial limitations: this aspect not only derives from the ancient concept of garden as a replica of the universe, but also from the principles of pictorial art, based on the importance of a reduction of landscape which is full of significance, because it is not a �piece of topography ̓.36 To have yin without jie would lead to a simple and dull naturalism; to have jie without yin would produce excessive artifice.37 The ideal garden was like a borderland, where nature and artifice could fuse together. The importance of jie is stressed by the fact that in the third juan of the work, the last section is devoted to the concept of borrowing sceneries (jiejing ). Ji Cheng says:

In planning a garden, there are no standard rules; but for borrowing sceneries, certain guidelines exist. The essential thing consists in the four seasons, not so much in the [directions determined by] the Eight Dwellings […]. Therefore borrowing sceneries is what is more essential in a garden, whether it is distant, close-up, higher, lower, or seasonal [scenery] […].38

The notion of borrowing sceneries also included attention to seasonal changes: time was seen as an element which could transform a spatial reality. This was also a legacy from painting theory, recalling the famous passage on mountains, written around 1070 by Guo Xi in his Linquan gaozhi .39

The next terms, structure (ti), and appropriateness, or suitability (yi), belong to the semantic field of refinement (jing). Jing is here a kind of style, or aesthetic rhythm that concerns the whole garden and also its single parts. It is not only a formal, but also a logical beauty, because it is a fitting feature of every structure of the garden.40 Ji Cheng seems to have expressed with few

35 For a deeper approach on yin, a fundamental concept in the interpretation of qualitative space, see Paolillo 2003, pp. 223-226. 36 See Ledderose 1983; Paolillo 1996, pp. 17-25 and pp. 31-37; Paolillo 2003, pp. 221-223; Paolillo 2007 (b). 37 As stressed in Zhang Jiaji 1993, pp. 349-350. 38 Yuanye, in Chen Zhi 1988, pp. 243-247. The Eight Dwellings refer to a very popular geomantic method, in which the residences were subdivided into eight directional categories, each associated with a Trigram. For the concept of jiejing, see Chen Congzhou 1996 (b); and Zhang Jiaji 2003, pp. 156-176. 39 Guo Xi and Guo Si , Linquan gaozhi , in Yu Jianhua 2000, vol. 1, pp. 634-635. See also Murashige 1995. But, already in 10th century, Jing Hao in his Bifa ji

had defined jing, a particular landscape scenery, as an adaptation to the specific laws of each season. See Yu Jianhua 2000, vol. 1, p. 606. 40 Feng Zhongping 1988, p. 351. Jing appears to be a fundamental aesthetic principle already during the Northern Song dynasty: in the scholar gardens of that time, it is expressed mostly


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words the ideal unity between man, site and architecture: the unity of site and architecture requires skill (qiao),41that is, yin + jie, while the harmony between man and architecture requires appropriateness (yi). This delicate balance between nature and artifice explains why Ji Cheng considered urban sites more excellent than mountain refuges: “If you manage to find a secluded place in a noisy site, why sacrifice what you have close at hand for what is distant?”42 The skill of the cultured man could express itself everywhere.

When the visits of increasing numbers of Westerners to the Middle Kingdom in the18th century brought to Europe the knowledge of this world, all this complexity, fruit of a long-evolving artistic creation, was completely misunderstood.

The first to give an eulogy on the ‘natural irregularity’ of Chinese gardens, based purely on oral descriptions, and not on images, had been William Temple in 1685 in his Upon the Garden of Epicurus. Temple made a reference to the famous sharawadgi, the mysterious principle that gave to Chinese gardens great beauty, but without a systematic order.43

Here we can find maybe for the first time the criticism of the European (that is, French) style of the ‘modern’, ‘regular’ gardens, which followed the principles of proportion, symmetry and uniformity. Soon, this negative aesthetic judgement of the French garden, which had its most famous example in Versailles gardens made by Le Nôtre, became also a symbol of the politic condemnation of the tyranny (well represented by the absolute power of Louis XIV) by the new, liberal England, born after the Revolution of 1688-89. As already showed by Rudolf Wittkower, the English garden landscape models were not really imported from Chinese real landscape garden: the new English feeling of nature was bringing the return of the concept of a nature finally freed from the human restrictions, a concept that had western, not oriental, roots.44 No one could identify the style of 18th century English gardens with Chinese gardens of the same period: the news coming from China, and also some scanty images of Chinese parks and gardens, just flowed into a complex cultural movement which was already underway when the Chinese vogue hit Europe.45 The misunderstanding continued, also in the form of criticism: in Julie ou la

through the sober character of the architectural elements, with a clear relation with the painting theory. See Paolillo 2003, p. 220. 41 On the skill (qiao), and its changing values, very similar to those attached to our term artificium, see Paolillo 2003, p. 219. 42 Yuanye, in Chen Zhi 1988, p. 60. 43 Temple 1908. 44 Wittkower 1974. See also the interesting anthology of English sources in Dixon Hunt and Willis 1975. 45 Maybe the first to bring to Europe some sketches of Chinese gardens was Father Matteo Ripa, who came to London in 1724. See Ripa 1983. His copper plate engravings, the Thirty-Six Views of Jehol, made him very famous: he is remembered by Montesquieu, who saw Ripa in Naples in 1729, describing his visit in his Notes de voyage. But in those years, the idea of the landscape garden was already formed.


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nouvelle Heloïse, Rousseau criticizes the Chinese garden, because its excessive artificiality hides the nature of the place. The Chinese garden, says Julie, is a place where human artifice does prevail.46

The Western vision of the space of Chinese traditional garden was thus dependant on the one side on the pre-romantic theory of a free, untrammeled nature, on the other, on the criticism of the artificiality of the oriental garden. In order to clarify this problem, we must return to the concept of borrowing sceneries (jiejing).

In a traditional Chinese garden, as showed by Stanislaus Fung, the act of borrowing interior or exterior spaces is not a simple geometric device, the result of the spatial alignments of vantage points and scenic elements; it is “a matter of timing and events as well”.47

But Fung also says, referring to the same Yuanye passage on borrowing sceneries we cited above, that “there is no statement here to the effect that what is encountered has been prefigured and predetermined in the mind of the designer [...]. Borrowing views is not something that is wholly determined by an autonomous designer's intentions in arranging a passive landscape. In borrowing views, the designer's intentions and scenery are co-arising [...]”.48 In our opinion, the harmonious arrangement of the natural and artificial elements, at once correct and significant for the beholder, is in this perspective a natural consequence of having hill and valleys in own heart, that is, of an intellectual view which cancels out the dualistic differentiation between knowing subject and known object or, as Chinese sources say, between qing (feeling) and jing (scenery).49 Thus, as stressed by Chen Congzhou when commenting the famous Tao Yuanming’s poetic lines “As I pluck chrysanthemums beneath the eastern fence / leisurely I can see the southern mountain”, “the wonder resides in the word ‘seeing’ as it is between intention and accident, an extremely spontaneous and elegant mood”.50 In a poetic or real encounter between person and landscape, the subject-object opposition is thus absent, if there is this condition of ‘resonance of the heart’.51

The real problem, too complex to be approached here and now, is in the source of this spontaneity: it is individualistic, grounded on a sentimental feeling

46 Rousseau 1967. 47 Fung 1999, p. 43. 48 Fung 1999, p. 43. 49 In painting tradition, the logical priority of the intellectual vision in comparison with the technical execution was commonly expressed by the saying “the idea [or intention] precedes the brush” (yi zai bi xian ), found for the first time in Shanshui lun , a short text ascribed to Tang dynasty poet and painter Wang Wei (699-759), but maybe composed later, in 9th or 10th century. See Yu Jianhua 2000, vol. 1, p. 596. For the relation between jing and qing, see Zhang Jiaji 2003, pp. 111-128. 50 Chen Congzhou 1996 (b), p. 245. 51 On the concept of resonance in connection with traditional hermeneutics of landscape, see Paolillo 2004, pp. 509-516.


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of identity between the observer and the scenery? Or is the root of the surpassing of the dualistic opposition subject-object something outside the manifested world? Maybe a more deep examination of Chinese sources, together with a new and more direct look at traditional, pre-Renaissance Western sources on aesthetics, could give us a clue to the resolution of this problem, which is the problem of all artistic creation: the real meaning of representation. Such terminological approach could lead us to a better understanding of the Chinese concept of mimesis, applied to the spatial three-dimensional reality of the garden.52

In the West, the peculiar vision of space mirrored in the laying out of the Chinese garden was object of a distorted reading, fruit of an ignorance of the Chinese laws of representation. The cult of Nature’s divine simplicity53 led to an interest for the natural irregularity of Chinese gardens; but the subsequent opposition to the geometric gardens could not leave behind the dualistic relation between art and nature. The two European currents of the irregular and of the geometric garden did indeed reflect two visions of landscape: the first, sentimental, individualistic and romantic; the second, scientific, but all the same grounded on a conventional, abstract lecture of space.54

In conclusion, these two Western interpretations, so important for the history of our gardens, are in particular not useful for a full understanding of Chinese garden different spatial devices, such as the borrowing of sceneries cited in Yuanye; and generally, they are inadequate for its tantalizing richness of sense. In our opinion, a closer terminological approach of this fundamental book will lead to a better understanding of the values and meanings of the Chinese garden, helping us to avoid the numerous misunderstandings produced in too many Western and Chinese essays on this subject.

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Intellectual or Emotional Knowledge ? Values and Meanings of the Chinese Garden in the Ming Period

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