园日涉以成趣

园日涉以成趣

中国园林如画如诗，集建筑、书画、文学、园艺等艺术的精华，在世界造园艺术中独树一帜。

每一个园都有自己的风格。游颐和园，印象最深的应是昆明湖与万寿山；游北海，则是湖面与琼华岛。苏州拙政园曲折弥漫的水面、扬州个园峻拔的黄石大假山等，都同样令人印象深刻。

在造园时，如能利用天然的地形再加人工的设计配合，不但可以节约人工物力，而且利于景物的安排，造园学上称之为“因地制宜”。

中国园林有以山为主体的，有以水为主体的，也有以山为主、以水为辅的，或以水为主、以山为辅的。而水亦有散、聚之分，山有平冈、峻岭之别。园以景胜，景因园异，各具风格。在观赏时，又有动观与静观之趣。因此，评价某一园林艺术时，要看它是否发挥了这一园景的特色，不落常套。

中国古典园林绝大部分四周皆有墙垣，景物藏于内。然而，园外有些景物还要组合到园内来，使空间推展极远，予人以不尽之意，此即所谓“借景”。颐和园借近处的玉泉山和较远的西山之景，每当夕阳西下时，在湖山真意亭处凭栏，二山仿佛移置园中，确是妙法。

中国园林，往往在大园中包小园，如颐和园的谐趣园、北海的静心斋、拙政园的枇杷园、留园的揖峰轩等，它们不但给园林以开朗或收敛的不同境界，同时又巧妙地把大小不同、结构各异的建筑物与山、石、树木安排得恰到好处。至于大湖中包小湖的办法，要推西湖的三潭印月最妙了。这些小园、小湖多数是园中精华所在，无论在建筑处理，还是山石堆叠、盆景配置等，都是细笔工描，耐人寻味。游园的时候，对于这些小境界，宜静观盘桓。这与廊引人随的动观看景适成相反。

中国园林的景物主要模仿自然，用人工的力量来建造天然的景色，即所谓“虽由人作，宛自天开”。这些景物虽不一定强调仿自某山某水，但多少有些根据，用精炼概括的手法重现，颐和园的仿西湖便是一例，妙在与西湖的不尽相同。亦有利用山水画的画稿，参以诗词的情调，构成许多诗情画意的景色，在曲折多变的景物中，还运用了对比和衬托等手法。颐和园前山为华丽的建筑群，后山却是苍翠的自然景物，两者予人不同的感觉，相得益彰。在中国园林中，往往以建筑物与山石作对比，大与小作对比，高与低作对比，疏与密作对比，等等。而一园的主要景物又由若干次要的景物衬托而出，使宾主分明，像北京北海的白塔、景山的五亭、颐和园的佛香阁便是。

中国园林，除山、石、树木外，建筑物的巧妙安排十分重要，如花间隐榭、水边安亭，还可利用长廊云墙、曲桥漏窗等构成各种画面，使空间更加扩大，层次分明。因此，游过中国园林的人会感到庭园虽小，却曲折有致。这就是景物组合成不同的空间感觉，有开朗、有收敛、有幽深、有明畅。游园观景，如看中国画的长卷一样，次第接于眼帘，观之不尽。

“好花须映好楼台”。到过北海团城的人，没有一个不说团城承光殿前的松柏布置得妥帖宜人。这是什么道理？其实是松柏的姿态与附近的建筑物高低相称，又利用了“树池”将它参差散植，加以适当的组合，使疏密有致，掩映成趣。苍翠虬枝与红墙碧瓦构成一幅极好的画面，怎不令人流连忘返呢？颐和园乐寿堂前的海棠同样与四周的廊屋形成了玲珑绚烂的构图，这些都是绿化中的佳作。江南的园林利用白墙作背景，配以华滋的花木、清拔的竹石，明洁悦目，别具一格。园林中的花木大都是经过长期的修整，使姿态曲尽画意。

园林中除假山外，尚有立峰，这些单独欣赏的佳石，如抽象的雕刻品，欣赏时往往以情悟物，进而将它人格化，称其“人峰”“圭峰”之类。它必具有“瘦、皱、透、漏”的特点，方称佳品，即要玲珑剔透。中国古代园林中，要有佳峰珍石，方称得上“名园”。上海豫园的玉玲珑、苏州留园的冠云峰，在太湖石1中都是上选，使园林生色不少。

若干园林亭阁，不但有很好的命名，有时还加上很好的对联。读过刘鹗的《老残游记》，总还记得老残在济南游大明湖，看了“四面荷花三面柳，一城山色半城湖”的对联后，暗暗称道：“真个不错。”可见文学在园林中所起的作用。

不同的季节，园林呈现不同的风光。北宋山水画名家郭熙在其画论《林泉高致》中说过：“春山淡冶而如笑，夏山苍翠而如滴，秋山明净而如妆，冬山惨淡而如睡。”造园者多少参用了这些画理，扬州的个园便是用了春、夏、秋、冬四季不同的假山。在色泽上，春山用略带青绿的石笋；夏山用灰色的湖石；秋山用褐色的黄石；冬山用白色的雪石。黄石山奇峭凌云，俾便秋日登高。雪石罗堆厅前，冬日可作居观，便是体现这个道理。晓色春开，春随人意，游园当及时。

注释：

1.太湖石产于中国江苏省太湖区域，是一种多孔而玲珑剔透的石头，多用以点缀庭院，是建造中国园林不可缺少的材料之一。

An Interest in a Garden Grows with Daily Visits(https://www.daowen.com)

Chinese gardens, both picturesque and lyrical, distinguish themselves from other gardens in the world by successfully integrating architecture, paintings, calligraphy and literature with garden design.

Each classical Chinese garden has its own unique style.Yihe Garden (the Summer Palace) impresses visitors with Kunming Lake and Wanshou Hill (Longevity Hill); Beihai Park attracts visitors with the ripples on the lake and Qionghua Islet; Zhuozheng Garden in Suzhou is noted for its winding and misty streams and Geyuan Garden in Yangzhou for its precipitous yellow stone cliffs.

In designing a garden, it is desirable to take full advantage of the natural features of a location to save labor and materials; but it is more important to integrate these features with the garden itself.This is known as “to adapt your design to nature”in gardening.

Some Chinese gardens give priority to hills and some others to water.There are also gardens that emphasize hills with water as complementary scenery and gardens that highlight water with hills as supplementary views.Bodies of water are either gathered or distributed around the gardens while the hills look either plain or precipitous.Gardens excel in scenery and the scenery varies from garden to garden.Each of these gardens proclaims its own unique style.To appreciate them, visitors may take delight in having an in-position or inmotion view, that is, to view them from a fixed position or by simply wandering about.But while reflecting on the art of a garden, visitors should pay attention to whether or not the garden has made good use of the surrounding scenery, for this is what makes Chinese gardens so unusual.

Most classical Chinese gardens are surrounded by walls that harbor the scenery inside.However, the scenery inside the gardens should be complemented by the scenery from outside in order to stretch the space far beyond and to evoke a sense of infinity.This is what is known as “borrowing scenery”.For instance, the famous garden of the Summer Palace serves as a good example of borrowing both the scenery of nearby Yuquan Hill and the scenery from faraway West Hill.A view from Hushanzhenyi Pavilion at sunset evokes a fantasy of the two hills being moved into the garden.

It is common for Chinese gardens to feature small gardens inside a large one, such as Xiequ Garden inside the Summer Palace, Jingxin Chapel inside Beihai Park, Pipa Garden inside Zhuozheng Garden and Yifeng Gallery inside Liuyuan Garden.This unique feature unites both the spacious and compact dimensions and keeps buildings of different sizes and structures in harmony with the hills and rocks, trees and flowers.Santanyinyue (Three Ponds Mirroring the Moon) inside the West Lake skillfully illustrates the technique of large lakes encircling small ones.These small gardens and lakes are, more often than not, the essence of gardens.The layout of buildings, the piling up of hills and rocks and the arrangement of potted landscape are all made with such exquisite craftsmanship that goes well beyond one’s imagination.When visiting the gardens, it is advisable to view the small scenes in an inposition way, that is, while standing still, for such still views form a contrast with views that visitors get in an in-motion way, that is, while lingering along open walkways that lead them forward without a stop.The various scenes in Chinese gardens imitate natural landscapes.This artistic approach is known as “looking natural though man-made”.Although these scenes are not necessarily copied from a specific hill or lake, they are nevertheless reproduced in a way that loosely resembles the real object.Although the Mirorr West Lake in the Summer Palace was built to mirror the West Lake, they do not entirely look alike.Many of the poetic and picturesque scenes in the gardens are created to look like the famous Chinese mountain-andwater paintings that are coupled by sentimental feelings in poems.

Contrast and balance are used to build winding and graceful scenes in Chinese gardens.In the Front Hill area of the Summer Palace, a complex of magnificent buildings offers a dramatic contrast with the natural, dense and green scenery in the Rear Hill area.These scenes project a series of integrated images to the viewers.Chinese gardens are characterized by an elegant balance between architecture and hills and rocks, big and small, high and low, and sparse and dense.The main scene in a garden is highlighted by the minor scenes to make a distinction between the dominating and supporting roles they play in the garden, as illustrated by the White Pagoda in Beihai Park, the Five Pavilions in Jingshan Garden, and Foxiang Tower in the Summer Palace.

In Chinese gardens, in addition to the arrangement of hills and rocks, trees and flowers, it is vital to have an ingenious setting for architecture; for example, to hide a tower in flowers and to erect a pavilion by water.Long corridors, undulating walls, winding bridges and lattice windows may also be employed to further enlarge the space and to bring distinctive multi- layers to scenes.Therefore, those who tour Chinese gardens find them full of variety in the overall layout albeit their small sizes.Here the integration of scenes and objects gives rise to different effects in space: sometimes open and sometimes secluded; deep and serene here, and clear and lucid there.Visiting Chinese gardens is much like appreciating a long scroll of Chinese painting, as beautiful views come into sight one after another endlessly.

“Beautiful flowers are planted to grace beautiful pavilions.”Those who have been to Tuancheng in Beihai Park are all impressed by the pleasingly appropriate arrangement of the pines and cedars in front of Chengguang Hall in Tuancheng.Why can it achieve such an effect? For one thing, the various shapes of pines and cedars go well with the neighboring buildings in height; for another, the pines and cedars are separately planted among a Pool of Trees in proper combination and density.The harmonious relationship between plants and buildings adds more interest to the scenery.Emerald green curly branches against red walls and bluish green tiles create strikingly graceful views.How can visitors resist not returning to the garden to further admire its beauty? In a similar vein, the crab apple trees in front of Leshou Hall in the Summer Palace form an exquisite and splendid view against the background of covered walkways.These are all masterpieces of making good use of plants in gardens.In gardens in the southern ranges of Changjiang River, a distinctively unique style is formed by planting flowers and trees that are rich and colorful, as well as bamboos and stones that are clear and tall, against the setting of white walls.Most flowers and trees in these gardens are trimmed into lyrical and flowing shapes.

Peaks are erected in addition to rockeries in the gardens.Rockeries of fine stones with tall peaks are to be appreciated alone, just like abstract sculptures.In cherishing them, visitors cannot help understanding them with much affection; and therefore personifying them unconsciously and naming them Human Peak, Jade Tablet Peak and the like.A fine stone is characterized by being slim, wrinkled, transparent and perforate.That is, it must be exquisite and as clear as a crystal.In gardens of ancient China, a garden could only become famous by having fine peaks and precious stones in it.Yulinglong Jade Stone in Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai and Guanyun Peak in Liuyuan Garden in Suzhou are made of the best Taihu stones1, adding luster to these gardens.

Some pavilions in gardens are not only given nice names but also complimented with well written couplets.Those who have read Travels of Lao Can by Liu E may well remember that Lao Can couldn’t help saying to himself “What a view!”during his trip around Daming Lake in Jinan when he saw the couplet that read “against the background of lotus flowers and willows, the city is trimmed by mountains and lakes”.This example demonstrates the important role that literature plays in gardens.

Gardens present different scenes in different seasons.As Guo Xi, a well-known mountain-andwater painter in the Northern Song Dynasty wrote in his review on paintings of Linquangaozhi: hills in spring are light and merry as if smiling; hills in summer are green and verdant as if sprouting; hills in autumn are bright and clear as if wearing makeup; hills in winter are pale and still as if sleeping.To some extent these principles of paintings have been deployed by garden designers.Geyuan Garden in Yangzhou is a case in point where rockeries for spring, summer, autumn and winter are placed.In terms of color and luster, the spring rockery is made of slightly blue-green stalagmite; the summer rockery of grey lake stones; the autumn rockery of brown yellow stones; and the winter rockery of white snow stones.Consequently, visitors tend to climb up the yellow stone rockery in autumn for its lofty peaks that reach into the clouds, and to reside in the garden for appreciation of the snow stones which are piled up in front of the hall in winter.

Visitors should lose no time to visit gardens when they are in a good mood with the coming of spring.

Notes:

1.Taihu stones are produced in the area of Taihu Lake of Jiangsu Province, China.They are ingeniously perforated natural stones mainly used for decorating courtyards as indispensible building materials for Chinese gardens.