Contenu du sommaire : L'art des jardins dans les pays sinisés. Chine, Japon, Corée, Vietnam

Importance of the art of the garden in Chinese Cultural History The Chinese art of the garden is representative of Chinese culture in the widest sense in that it combines the spirit of the three main world views of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism with the spirit of the great artistic traditions of architecture, landscape painting, and calligraphy. Its origin is mythically traced to Xiwei, a legendary sovereign of antiquity even anterior to the Yellow Emperor. Up to the Han, the gardens that have left any trace were scarcely more than simple parks. It is during the Six Dynasties, under the influence of the flourishing arts of landscape painting and poetry, that Chinese gardens acquired their specific character as representations of the natural world in miniature. In this form, garden architecture continued to evolve through ever greater stages of refinement, especially in the area South of the Yangzi, towards their perfection under the Ming and the Qing.

A great Chinese Imperial Garden : the Yuanming yuan The Yuanming yuan, the eighteenth-century epitome of the high art of Chinese imperial gardens that was brutally sacked by British and French troops in 1860, perfectly illustrates the principles of Chinese landscape architecture : observance of geomantic prescriptions, skilful utilization of the natural relief and hydrographie conditions of the terrain, borrowings from environment and allusive references to famous landscapes and celebrated sites. The garden was a reflection of the empire on a microcosmic scale. Its five major scenic zones expressed, through its landscaped layout, a symbolism that was not only aesthetic but also religious, ritual, and political, thus profoundly rooted in Chinese tradition. Contemplation of such gardens exalted the Chinese perception of the natural world as a close union between human and cosmic nature.

The system of openings in the arrangement of space in the Chinese Garden Using examples from gardens which one can observe directly today, this article demonstrates how the system of openings (doors and windows) in Chinese gardens closely combines the functions of accommodating people and of showing a spectacle, and that the same elements may fulfill several fonctions simultaneously, thus contributing to the organisation of space in the well-planned garden.

Japanese Gardens : Principles of layout and History of evolution There are various kinds of gardens in Japan. Many of them are centered on an artificial pond from which emerge some small islands. In the Heian period (794-1185), most of these gardens were luxurious places where Nobles could contemplate the seasonal changes. But in the same period, water gardens built into the precincts of Buddhist Temples symbolized the Amida's Paradise. After, in the Muromachi period (1333- 1572), appeared Zen gardens, whose space is very small. Those « dry gardens » created by monks contain neither water nor planting, they are just made of rocks and sand. In the following Momoyama period (1573-1602), with the development of the « tea ceremony », gardeners elaborated the tea garden which is flat, small and secret. At last, during the Edo period (1603-1867), were built large and rich gardens, in the middle of whose is digged a pond embellished with islands and bridges. A path winds among the trees surrounding the watery surface. Who walks around the pond can discover successively many views representing on a very small scale famous landscapes of Japan. Temples symbolized the Amida's Paradise. After, in the Muromachi period (1333- 1572), appeared Zen gardens, whose space is very small. Those « dry gardens » created by monks contain neither water nor planting, they are just made of rocks and sand. In the following Momoyama period (1573-1602), with the development of the « tea ceremony », gardeners elaborated the tea garden which is flat, small and secret. At last, during the Edo period (1603-1867), were built large and rich gardens, in the middle of whose is digged a pond embellished with islands and bridges. A path winds among the trees surrounding the watery surface. Who walks around the pond can discover successively many views representing on a very small scale famous landscapes of Japan.

Delightful enjoyments in Heian period gardens In Japan during the Heian period, the garden was a theatrical space where ceremonies, banquets, and games took place that displayed imperial power. It was also the place of choice for a variety of artistic expressions : music, dance, poetry. In particular, it provided the setting for the poetic tournaments of Chinese origin organized on the occasion of drinking parties where the sake was served in cups set to float with the current of small winding brooks specially laid out for the purpose.

The shifting from here to beyond in Japanese gardens Fron the Sakuteiki (Notes on the making of gardens, XIth c.) to daimyos gardens of the Edo period (1603-1867), the Japanese gardens display a prominent tendency to refer its material forms to paradigmatic places and landscapes, called « places with a name » (meisho). This system of reference was called mitate, which literaly means « instituting by seeing ». It is here related, on the one hand, to the principle of metaphor, and on the other hand to the fundamental dynamics of place in the ecumene, as illustrated by the couple topos/chôra in the Timaios and by Nishida's distinction between a logic of the identity of the subject and a logic of the identity of the predicate (or logic of place).

The Korean difference in the Far-Eastern Art of garden The art of the Korean garden attained its specific aesthetic determination under the Chosôn period. Strongly influenced by a cosmological philosophy contrasting Substance and Void, it tended to use rectangular forms for terraces and basins. It also emphasized the interpenetration of interior and exterior, especially in the careful layout of the madang (interior garden). Zen Buddhism made its mark on gardens in Korea earlier than in Japan, and in a different manner : less sophisticated than Japanese dry gardens, they sought the sensation of remote nature in the depth of a forest, accompanied by the sound of water.

Vietnamese garden : Nature between Culture and Cultivation The analysis of different types of traditional gardens in Vietnam (imperial, domestic, and as places of worship) highlights to a lesser degree environmental constraints than deliberate cultural and agricultural choices. Whether as spaces of leisure or as ornamental areas, as reserves for the elite or places of peasant-style food production, or again as sites of veneration associated with religious sanctuaries, gardens in Vietnam form part of the demarcation of a strongly humanized landscape that recreated the essential functions of a bountiful and protective nature.

Western views of the Chinese art of the garden have evolved, since the seventeenth century, in line with changing attitudes towards China as a whole. The sinophile inclinations of the Jesuits at the courts of Kangxi and Qianlong led to an admiration of the art of Chinese gardens as a better imitation of what was deemed « natural » than nature itself could provide. Later, the sinophobia of Macartney and the Europeans at the time of the Opium War tended to discredit the perverse tastes of the Chinese who tortured nature in their gardens just as they tortured the feet of their ladies in the women's apartments. Once the consolidation of British and Western ascendancy in China had alleviated anti-Chinese sentiments, the arts of China, including those of the garden, were revalued as the expression of a remarkable sense of nature, inveterate in a culture where a complete absence of evolution had allowed it to endure forever unchanged.