The flowers and gardens of Japan E-Book

Florence Du Cane

• Herausgeber: Skyline
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

It is safe to assert that no other country has such a distinctive form of landscape gardening as Japan. In English, French, Italian, and Dutch gardens, however original in their way, there are certain things they seem all to possess in common: terraces, which originally belonged to Italian gardens, were soon introduced into France; clipped trees, which were a distinctive feature of Dutch gardens, were copied by the English; the fashion of decorating gardens with flights of stone steps, balustrades, fountains, and statues at one time spread from Italy throughout Europe; and possibly the over-decoration of gardens led to a change in taste in England and a return to a more natural style. The gardens of China and Japan have remained unique; the Eastern style of gardening has never spread to any other country, nor is it ever likely to; for, just as no Western artist will ever paint in the same manner as an Oriental artist because his whole artistic sense is different, so no Western gardener could ever hope to construct a garden representing a portion of the natural scenery of Japan—which is the aim and object of every good Japanese landscape garden, however small—because, however long he might study the original scene, he would never arrive at the Japanese conception of it, or realise what it conveyed to the mind of a Japanese.

Leseprobe

Florence Du Cane

The flowers and gardens of Japan

UUID: bb115672-ec71-11e7-b96c-17532927e555

This ebook was created with StreetLib Writehttp://write.streetlib.com

Table of contents

PREFACE

CHAPTER I LANDSCAPE GARDENING

CHAPTER II STONES—GARDEN ORNAMENTS AND FENCES

CHAPTER III LANDSCAPE GARDENS

CHAPTER IV NURSERY GARDENS—DWARF TREES AND HACHI-NIWA

CHAPTER V TEMPLE GARDENS

CHAPTER VI SUMMER FLOWERS

CHAPTER VII PLUM BLOSSOM

CHAPTER VIII PEACH BLOSSOM

CHAPTER IX CHERRY BLOSSOM

CHAPTER X WISTARIA AND PÆONY

CHAPTER XI AZALEAS

CHAPTER XIITHE IRIS

CHAPTER XIII THE MORNING GLORY

CHAPTER XIV THE LOTUS

CHAPTER XV THE CHRYSANTHEMUM

CHAPTER XVI THE MAPLE LEAVES

CHAPTER XVII THE BAMBOO

CHAPTER XVIII THE PINE-TREE

PREFACE

An apology is due to the reader for adding this volume to the long list of books already written on Japan; but, being a lover of flowers myself, I found there was no book giving a short account of the flora of the country which is so often called the Land of Flowers. Hence my excuse for offering these pages, either to those who may be intending to visit, or to those who may wish to recall the memories of a sojourn in the Land of the Rising Sun.The book does not pretend to furnish a complete list of all the flowers to be found in the country, but rather to give a description of those which are most remarkable for their beauty and profusion, and which are most closely associated with Japan. The pages on landscape gardening have been condensed, partly owing to want of space, and also because I felt that those who take a real and thorough interest in the subject have Mr. Conder’s admirable volumes on “Landscape Gardening in Japan” to help them in the study of the most complicated form of gardening in the world. Being debarred, through lack of sufficient knowledge of the language, from availing myself of original works in Japanese, I have drawn much information from Mr. Conder’s works, and from those of other foreigners; but I wish gratefully to acknowledge the help I received from Mr. Y. Noguchi, who provided me with the flower legends and fairy tales, which are household words in every Japanese home.

CHAPTER I LANDSCAPE GARDENING

It is safe to assert that no other country has such a distinctive form of landscape gardening as Japan. In English, French, Italian, and Dutch gardens, however original in their way, there are certain things they seem all to possess in common: terraces, which originally belonged to Italian gardens, were soon introduced into France; clipped trees, which were a distinctive feature of Dutch gardens, were copied by the English; the fashion of decorating gardens with flights of stone steps, balustrades, fountains, and statues at one time spread from Italy throughout Europe; and possibly the over-decoration of gardens led to a change in taste in England and a return to a more natural style. The gardens of China and Japan have remained unique; the Eastern style of gardening has never spread to any other country, nor is it ever likely to; for, just as no Western artist will ever paint in the same manner as an Oriental artist because his whole artistic sense is different, so no Western gardener could ever hope to construct a garden representing a portion of the natural scenery of Japan—which is the aim and object of every good Japanese landscape garden, however small—because, however long he might study the original scene, he would never arrive at the Japanese conception of it, or realise what it conveyed to the mind of a Japanese. Their art of gardening was originally borrowed from the Chinese, who appear to have been the first to construct miniature mountains, and to bring water from a distance to feed miniature water-falls and mountain torrents. They even went so far as, in one enclosure, to represent separate scenes for different seasons of the year, and different hours of the day, but to the Japanese belongs the honour of having perfected the art of landscape gardening.