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Chinese Gardens In a Chinese garden, all components complement each other (or at least should be reflected in garden designs) without losing individuality of each element such as rocks, water, plants, architecture or literature. In addition, a thoughtful garden has also taken into consideration its relation to its environment. At a philosophical level, an ideal Chinese garden serves as a metaphor for an ideal human society in which a community doesn’t assert its “tyranny of the majority” as phrased by John Stuart Mill.[1] Explain how Chinese gardens make a cultural, philosophical, and artistic statement. [1] John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, reprinted from The Harvard Classics, vol. 25 (New York: Collier, 1909). A copy of the work is on the website for this course: http://uwch4.humanities.washington.edu/~188/ 188 Texts/ John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) British philosopher, economist, moral and political theorist, and administrator, was the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century. The overall aim of his philosophy is to develop a positive view of the universe and the place of humans in it, one which contributes to the progress of human knowledge, individual freedom and human well-being. Complementary vs. Competitive Sourcebook 28 Chapter 2 (Tao Te Ching) Thus Something and Nothing produce each other; The difficult and the easy complement each other; The long and the short off-set each other; The high and the low incline towards each other; Note and sound harmonize each other; Before and after follow each other. To setoff: something used to enhance the effect of another thing by contrasting it, as an ornament. Zhuangzi Without an Other there is no Self, without Self no choosing one thing rather than another. Page 99 in CR5 onilne Liezi could ride the wind and had a good time flying for 15 days. But he still had to depend on something to get around. Page 98 in CR5 Types of Chinese Gardens 1. Royal Gardens: Summer Palace; Beihai Park; Jingshan Park (Hill of Prospect); The Imperial Summer Resort -承德避暑山庄 (The Mountain Resort and its Outlying Temples, Chengde) 2. Private Scholar Gardens: Yu Yuan and Zhuozheng Yuan 3. Natural Gardens: Seattle Chinese Garden (Sichuan natural garden) The Summer Palace The Marble Boat vs. a Strong Navy 颐和园【Yíhéyuán】 the Summer Palace (in Beijing, modeled on the West Lake in Hangzhou). The lake and the hill is half man-made. The Longevity Hill is a branch of the Western Hills in Beijing. Western Hills are most famous for red leaves. The best season to see the scene is in the fall, especially after the first frost hit the red leaves (late October, early November). Ci Xi’s 60th Birthday Embezzled the fund for building a strong army for her birthday celebration; China lost its first Sino-Japanese War (1894 to 1895) over who could dominate the Korean Peninsula; The result is China lost Taiwan to Japanese who did not return it until 1945, then the National Party; Taiwan, the biggest island, is nicknamed as the “Treasure Island”; The Marble Boat The Marble Boat, also known as the Boat of Purity and Ease (清晏舫 Qing Yan Fǎng) is a lakeside pavilion on the ground of the Summer Palace in Beijing, China. Emperor Qian Long (1736 to 1795) wrote a poem to describe its symbolic significance: Never Sinking with stability The Royal Gardens and Han fu Royal gardens are like Han Fu Scale—magnificent/ “Mathematically sublime”--Kant The Han fu inherited from the Chu poems the sao-style prosody (chap.2 in How to Read Chinese Poetry) See the DVD Rhapsody or Fu, best executed by Sima Xiangru and Yang Xiong in the Han dynasty; Read “Shanglin Fu” or “Fu on the Imperial Park” by Sima Xiangru online 司马相如《上林赋》 Chéng dé bì shǔ shān zhuāng 承 德 避 暑 山 庄 The Imperial Summer Resort Imperial Summer Resort 1703 -1792 Humble Administrator's Garden 拙政园, Suzhou, Wang Xianchen 王献臣, 1506; Lu Guimeng 618~907, a Tang Poet’s Residence “Mother of Chinese Gardens” Yu Garden 豫园, Shanghai Pan Yunduan, 1559 Rocks from Lake Tai Components in a Chinese Garden Complement each other Rocks/ Stones Plants/Flowers Water Architecture/ Literature Calligraphy Paintings Rocks Used for the Royal Garden Designs How to Judge Rocks Natural Internal Frames in garden designs East Asia 285 Hidden views Indirectness in garden designs Three Friends in Cold Seasons 岁寒三友 Pines Bamboos Wintersweet Painting of Three Friends in Cold seasons by Zhao Mengjian 宋趙孟堅《歲寒三友圖》 “Four Gentlemen” among Flowers their symbolic significance Spring/Orchid 春兰 Summer/Bamboo 夏竹 Autumn/ Chrysanthemum秋菊 Winter/ Wintersweet冬梅 One Can Never See the Whole Scene of a Chinese Garden Our knowledge is partial; Actions based on the partial knowledge will entail consequences Scenes are forever changing: Different flowers in different seasons; Same plants and tress but with different colors in different seasons; Sublime vs. Beautiful Kant, in 1764 Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. In aesthetics, the sublime (from the Latin sublimis ([looking up from] under the lintel, high, lofty, elevated, exalted) is the quality of greatness or vast magnitude, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic. The term especially refers to a greatness with which nothing else can be compared and which is beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation. Kant on the Beautiful Immanuel Kant developed a theory of aesthetic judgment in his Critique of The Power of Judgment (1790), that concentrates on how it is that we make the claim that a work of art is beautiful. That is not the same thing as a claim that we like it, that it pleases us, or that the claim pertains only to ourselves. Instead, Kant argues, when we say of a thing that it is beautiful, we expect everyone else to agree-and if they do not, it is because they have failed to understand the form of purposiveness that the work displays. Subjective vs. Objective That means that just looking at an object is not enough: an aesthetic judgment is not like saying that you like pancakes or peaches or the color red. Those are judgments of sense, and they pertain only to the person who happens to like those things. In the same way, the reason we claim that something is beautiful is not because it has certain properties or qualities. An object judged to be beautiful can have any qualities whatsoever (shape, color, texture, etc.). When we say that something is beautiful, we have to carry out a thoughtful and accurate analysis of it: we see that its form is purposive. It is no accident that all the details of the work (a poem, a painting, a novel, an essay) are exactly as they are. When we understand exactly how the work is integrated, and why it is exactly as it is, then and only then are we entitled to say that it is beautiful, and we make the claim in the expectation that anyone who understands it will agree. the Sunken Garden Victoria BC The Butchart Gardens An Intelligent Transformation As Mr. Butchart exhausted the limestone in the quarry near their house, his enterprising wife, Jennie, conceived an unprecedented plan for refurbishing the bleak pit. From farmland nearby she requisitioned tons of top soil, had it brought to Tod Inlet by horse and cart, and used it to line the floor of the abandoned quarry. Little by little, under Jennie Butchart's supervision, the abandoned quarry blossomed into the spectacular Sunken Garden. The Sublime and the Beautiful Chinese Royal Gardens (sublime) vs. Chinese Scholar Gardens (delicate) Contrast the breathtaking sunken garden with the delicate Japanese garden. Then you will suddenly understand what it means to be mathematically sublime as defined by Kant. Delicate Miniature Petite Well manicured Chinese Garden at MET, New York The Chinese Garden Court at The Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9 2bYFQDTzA DVDs