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Visual Geometry of Classical Japanese Gardens

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Abstract

The concept of geometry may evoke a world of pure platonic shapes, such as spheres and cubes, but a deeper understanding of visual experience demands insight into the perceptual organization of naturalistic form. Japanese gardens excel as designed environments where the complex fractal geometry of nature has been simplified to a structural core that retains the essential properties of the natural landscape, thereby presenting an ideal opportunity for investigating the geometry and perceptual significance of such naturalistic characteristics. Here, fronto-parallel perspective, asymmetrical structuring of the ground plane, spatial arrangement of garden elements, tuning of textural qualities and choice of naturalistic form, are presented as a set of physical features that facilitate a systematic analysis of Japanese garden design per se, as well as the geometry of the particular naturalistic features that it aims to enhance. Comparison with Western landscape design before and after contact between Western and Eastern hemispheres illustrates the degree of naturalness achieved in the Japanese garden, and suggests how classical Western landscape design generally differs in this regard. It further reveals how modern Western gardens culminate in a different naturalistic geometry, thus also a distinctly different vision of the natural landscape, even if these designs were greatly influenced by the gardens of China and Japan.

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Notes

  1. Intricate rock formations were achieved by glueing together individual rocks into conglomerates of highly convoluted structures using glutenous rice, a simple everyday ingredient with surprisingly resilient physical properties in exterior applications. Such intricate formations reflect the supposed intellectual ideals of the immortal sage, superseding natural form, and strongly distinguish the vertical rock piles of Chinese landscape design from the demure, simplified rock arrangements associated with Japanese garden design.

  2. The first Japanese diplomatic mission to China returned in 607 CE with many observations detailing Chinese culture, art, religion and politics, including descriptions of Chinese landscape practices (Young and Young 2005).

  3. In the centuries following the period when Kobori Enshū was active, until the present, various other master garden designers have produced their own great gardens, but are not discussed here because the classical Japanese garden has reached maturity by this time.

  4. Various hand drawn copies of Fan Kuan’s famous work, Travellers among mountains and streams, reveal just how difficult it is to capture the apparent ease and spontaneity achieved in the master’s hand. All of the copies appear rigid, repetitive and interestingly, lack the monumental scale conveyed by the original work (van Tonder 2018).

  5. [Pine Trees, Tōhaku Hasegawa (1539–1610). Pair of six-paneled folding screens. Ink on paper. Tokyo National Museum. Left and right halves of the set of two folding screens can be retrieved from the public internet domain at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Drin-zu_by%C5%8Dbu#/media/File:Hasegawa_Tohaku_-_Pine_Trees_(Sh%C5%8Drin-zu_by%C5%8Dbu)_-_left_hand_screen.jpg and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Drin-zu_by%C5%8Dbu#/media/File:Hasegawa_Tohaku_-_Pine_Trees_(Sh%C5%8Drin-zu_by%C5%8Dbu)_-_right_hand_screen.jpg. Accessed on 20 June 2018].

  6. Given the influence of Chinese culture on Japanese garden design, one may assume that the use of moss originated in China, when in fact this is one of the uniquely Japanese contributions to landscape art. The entire body of classical Chinese literature hardly ever mentions moss. While appreciating Japanese gardens to some extent, early Western visitors to Japan apparently did not fully grasp its aesthetic utility, with the sixteenth century CE Jesuit priest, João Rodrigues, famously writing about tea gardens covered in ‘moss and other debris’ (Cooper 2001).

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  1. Gardener of the Reki-An Pavilion in Kyoto, Kamigamo Minami Ojicho 5 Banchi, Kyoto, 603-8074, Japan

    Gert Jakobus van Tonder

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Correspondence to Gert Jakobus van Tonder.

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van Tonder, G.J. Visual Geometry of Classical Japanese Gardens. Axiomathes 32, 841–868 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-018-9414-2

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