CHAPTER VIII
LANDSCAPE GARDENING AND THE ARRANGEMENT OF FLOWERS
No review of Japanese art, however superficial, can pass over without mention one of the most interesting of all its phases—the application of its conventions to the living and plastic forms of nature in the sister arts of landscape gardening and the arrangement of flowers. And here, as in other departments, the Japanese artist does not seek dully and slavishly to copy nature, but by a frank and dexterous use of these conventions he endeavours to suggest its spirit. By this departure from mere literal truth he attains a wider fidelity to nature. In the limited space at his disposal he knows that he cannot transplant a piece of natural scenery—he must work to scale—but his miniature rocks, trees, hills, and streams are so exquisitely proportioned as to express within the area of a few yards the breadth and expanse of nature.
So, too, in flower arrangement, the master secures the appearance of naturalness by the most careful and daring manipulation. Twigs and stems are twisted and broken, leaves and petals even shaped and cut, to produce the effect apparently so spontaneous, so free from artificiality.
And the reason is obvious. The defect or incongruity that would pass unnoticed amid the wealth and profusion of the living plant, balanced with superb ease by countless other points of interest so that the eye could not dwell on the deformity, when transferred to the narrower field of the flower vase, stands out with awful distinctness, and assumes an importance which formerly it did not possess. The artist dare not take the liberties which Nature allows herself. Her keyboard is limitless, but his harmonies must be built up of a few carefully selected chords.
The rise of both arts dates from that wonderful period of awakening—the coming of the Buddhist priests in the sixth century. The first gardens were those of the old Buddhist temples; the first flower arrangements were placed as offerings before their shrines.
Among the earliest examples of landscape gardening were the temple groves of Biodo-In at Uji, and Todaiji and Kofukuji at Nara, and this old style of temple garden, simple and severe, was called Shinden-Shiki, but little is known regarding the details of its arrangement.
With the Kamakura period, from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, we come to more familiar ground. Then the landscapes took a freer form—hills and valleys, lakes, streams, and waterfalls being represented. A curious form was the Kare-sansui, or dried-up water scenery, where the bed of a stream or the hollow of a lake was shown dry, as if in time of drought, and this style was usually combined with a bare mountain or moorland scene.
But a great impetus was given to the art when, in the fifteenth century, Yoshimasa, retiring from active life, and surrounded by a group of artists and sages, revived the ancient tea ceremony, and made it the nucleus of so many forms of art. The wide-reaching effects of this quaint ceremonial on art generally have already been indicated in a previous chapter. A special form of garden was devoted to its use; while also the art of flower arrangement flourished for long merely as an adjunct of the cha-no-yu.
In the first group of Cha-jin, or tea professors, were Shuko (the teacher of Yoshimasa), Showo, and the famous artists No-ami and Oguri Sotan; while a little later we have the names of Gei-ami, So-ami, and later still Senno Rikiu and Enshiu. So-ami was one of the greatest masters of landscape gardening, and in his quiet and dignified compositions one sees the hand that produced the delicate landscape paintings of misty hill and lake. Examples of his gardens exist to this day, the best known being that of the Silver Pavilion at Ginkakuji, which was laid out about the year 1480.
A hundred years later Enshiu was the founder of a new school, which afterwards became very popular. One of his greatest works was a palace garden near Kioto, through which flowed the river Katsura, and so highly esteemed was this garden that for one hundred and fifty years after his death not a stone or shrub was altered.
During the luxurious Tokugawa period it became the custom for the wealthy Daimios to have their gardens laid out by well-known artists; and the art grew still more in importance, a modern style being introduced by Asagori Shimanosuke of Fushimi in the early part of the nineteenth century.
The training of the landscape gardener was long and arduous, for it was by no means the same thing to compose an actual landscape as to paint one. The novice was sent direct to nature to sketch and study natural forms, not, as in painting, from one point of view only, but so as to realise how a scene would appear from all sides.
In designing a garden the first step was a careful survey of the site; its drainage, levels, size, and shape had all to be taken into consideration. The aspect then was chosen, and this was generally south or south-east, so as to be sheltered from the cold west wind, though near Tokio a vista to the west was always left open commanding a view of Mount Fuji. Then the style of the garden had to be decided. Was it to be a hill garden or flat plain land? Was it to follow the “Rocky Ocean,” the “Wide River,” the “Mountain Torrent” or the “Lake Wave” style? The character of the surrounding country would largely determine the answer to this question, for a garden was designed to fill harmoniously its place in the natural scene. The artist also, while endeavouring to obtain a result that would look well from any point, had to bear in mind that the best view of all should be from the house itself.
A striking characteristic of Japanese gardens is that water, in the form of cascade, lake, or stream, is almost universally present, its cool and refreshing properties being considered well-nigh indispensable.
The main levels fixed, the hills and valleys modelled, the next important feature consisted of the rocks and stones which represent the crags and precipices of nature. Great care is taken in the selection of these, which are termed the bones of the garden. Certain stones, which are highly valued are often brought great distances, the larger ones sometimes carefully split to render carriage more easy, and pieced together again on their arrival. Fancy prices were paid for such stones; and, indeed, to such a height did this form of extravagance attain, that early in the nineteenth century an edict was issued limiting the price to a certain sum.
The size of the garden, which varied from about fifty square yards to a few acres, gave the scale of the stones, and these again in their turn fixed the size of the shrubs, the trees, the fences, and other furnishings of the garden. In a large garden there were no less than one hundred and thirty-eight of these stones, each with its special name and purpose assigned to it.
In the arrangement of the trees, shrubs, and flowers a regular or symmetrical arrangement was avoided, the growths and forms of nature were carefully followed, and the result made to appear as free and unstudied as possible. Contrasts of form and line, and of colour in the foliage, were sought after. No garden was deemed complete without maple-trees, so placed that the light of the setting sun would enhance the richness of its crimson leaves. Deciduous trees were not so largely used as evergreens on account of their bareness in winter; but exceptions were made in the case of the plum and the cherry, so highly prized for the beauty of their blossom.
Flowers were chiefly grouped round the house, and were sparingly distributed among the foliage; but here again we have exceptions in the case of the iris and the lotus, which were used in large masses with gorgeous effect.
Miniature pagodas appeared among the trees in the larger gardens, little bridges crossed the streams, and large stone lanterns cast a dim and mysterious light over the scene when darkness had fallen.
But now let us turn to the sister art. The love of flowers has long been a characteristic of the Japanese people. As long ago as the ninth century the Emperor Saga held garden parties during the flowering of the cherry blossom, at which the literati of the day composed verses in honour of the flowers; and now, after the lapse of ten centuries, the transient glory of the cherry blossom is still a national festival, observed alike by the rich and the poor.
Nowhere but in Japan has the flower motive been so extensively used in art or with such grace and charm. The Japanese flower paintings stand in a class by themselves, beside which all others seem clumsy and coarse, alike in conception and execution, but it is in the applied arts that their fancy is allowed to run riot. In lacquer floral designs are wrought wonderfully in gold or inlaid in mother-of-pearl; in metal they appear in chasing, embossing, inlaying, and many other forms; they form the chief decorations of pottery and porcelain; but it is perhaps in the textile fabrics of Japan, in the gorgeous silk brocades, that they are seen in their greatest glory.
This being so, need we be surprised that in Japan the arranging of living flowers has for hundreds of years been recognised as a fine art, has had its schools, its laws, and its traditions, and has numbered among its exponents such great artists as So-ami, Oguri Sotan, and Korin? The flower artist, they say, “must be thoroughly imbued with a sympathetic feeling for the character, habits, virtues, and weaknesses of the members of the floral kingdom from which he seeks his material, till he possesses the same love and tenderness for their qualities as for those of human beings.”
And so to the arrangement of flowers the Japanese bring an enthusiasm, a delicacy, and a refinement of dainty pedantry that, even in its most stilted and artificial forms, is full of charm, for the spirit underlying the formality and giving life to the most mannered productions is this genuine and reverential love for the beauties of nature. It is related of Rikiu, the famous flower artist and philosopher, that he once observed a fence covered with a beautiful growth of convolvulus. After standing for a while rapt in admiration he plucked one flower and one leaf, which he carefully arranged in a vase. “Why so humble,” asked his friends and pupils, “when the whole plant is there at your disposal?” “Nay,” answered the master; “it is impossible to rival nature in magic of design, and so any artificial arrangement should be marked by modesty and simplicity. But even one leaf and one flower are sufficient to call for admiration.”
The Japanese art of the arrangement of flowers deals not only with blooms but also with many non-flowering plants characterised by a graceful habit of growth. The effects aimed at are pre-eminently those of line and balance, colour being more or less subordinated to these qualities.
The earliest flower studies, placed as offerings before the shrines in the temples, followed a style of erect composition known as the Rikkwa school, and with their vertical central mass and supporting side groups approached more nearly to symmetry than is usual in Japanese art.
In the later styles symmetry was carefully avoided, and, perhaps, to no department of art does the style of asymmetrical yet balanced composition seem more suited than to those delightful arrangements of freely growing natural forms.
The most popular school is that of Enshiu, which groups the essentials under three heads. First, the quality of giving feeling and expression to compositions, for the Japanese artist is no mere copyist of nature; each group must mean something, must convey some idea. Second, truth to nature in the sense of presenting correctly the style of growth of the plants used; and third, truth to nature in the strict observance of the laws of season and locality.
The different parts of the composition have each a special name, as also have many of the faults into which the novice is liable to fall.