Very nice.

The thing that I see with JG's is lots of different color. Much of it may be green, but it is not the same green. I see foliage color very deliberately placed in front, behind, or next to highly contrasting color (even if it is a different form of green).

I also see the same thing done with texture. It is done with form as well.

I agree that color is not intense and in your face most of the time, but neither is anything else.

If one thing is intense, then other things are placed so to water it down. I think that it is done so effectively that if you do not really look closely, you only see the obvious and miss the subtlety.

Good question, and I see many, including myself, when first attempting to create a JG making the mistake of too much contrast with color. Not only using the wrong color in plants but also with hard scape. In the photo you posted in Steve's thread is a perfect example. If you click on the photo and advance to "Bench under Katsura" you will find what I think is a wonderful example of good use of color in both hard scape and plants. The bench, fence and stepping stones all work together and enhance the harmony I find missing in many gardens. The tonal values blend and give us that feel of quite we long to achieve in our gardens.

Cheers Jando

Interesting thoughts Jando. I see where one of those gardens you mention is trying too hard to be Japanese and in doing so misses the subtlety that is expressed in the other one. How could one understand that 'tonal value blend' you mention? Thanks, also for finding a link to steve's struggling thread BTW.

The stone of the path is too angular and draws just a bit too much attention for a Japanese view. One option would be to twist the stones to reduce the points facing the viewer, next moss them, and third stagger them, as they may be a mite too 'straight-lined' for some.

The tonal value blend is the 'gyo' ratio.

(stevega: "I see garden design as a creative process not necessarily bound by one person's opinions or taste."
--if the eye stops on an item, then that item is too strong - or a statement is being made. This is not taste or opinion, this is human response, aka subliminal messaging.
-for me this is simply an 'is', not even creative process, just messaging what the designer wishes to be understood. The designer of the path wished the path to be noticed which by reverse message made the bench 'unseen'. tool used = 'gyo ratio' for simplicity)

colour is a communication device, nothing more

laag writes:
"The thing that I see with JG's is lots of different color. Much of it may be green, but it is not the same green. I see foliage color very deliberately placed in front, behind, or next to highly contrasting color (even if it is a different form of green)."

I realize we're not the close pals we were some months ago, Andrew, but it should be asked, when are you "professionals" going to get beyond something that isn't in countless books already? I even mentioned the same thought earlier you expressed above, which I believe was termed by you "pupu platter for six"..

You know, for professionals, you guys aren't coming up with much. We expect a higher standard :-).
Edzard seems to be the one with an original thought in this thread so far.

We recently had a discussion about focal points on the LD forum which lead to some interesting thoughts being expressed. There seemed to be some agreement on the desire for order and for a focal point as one device to attain this. Suggestions on how to create a focal point ranged from making sure everything else in the picture was bland like surrounding a blob of strawberry jam with a bowl of semolina to putting it at the end of a long vista. "if the eye stops on an item, then that item is too strong - or a statement is being made" seems to be another way to express what a focal point does to provide movement or arrest it. But I get the impression that in a Japanese garden the movement is less direct so that "If one thing is intense, then other things are placed so to water it down." The path that fuzei talks about, in my understanding, is not like wading across semolina to get to the jam but a more interesting journey.

fuzei-I agree with your comments regarding the stones in the path. Thank you for stating it clearly and for suggestions for change.
I am in mechanical design and create things to accomplish tasks. Mechanical design is absolutely an iterative process and has unintended results. I think that garden design is likely similar. I'm not so sure that just because the stones in the path are very angular and draw attention to themselves, that it is the design intent of the designer to minimize the bench in favor of the stepping stones.
Ink-thanks for keeping the thread on track and not getting involved in venting.

I don't quite see the issue of the garden photo being colour balance but more of colour distribution. Yes, perhaps the colour palette is being limited to greens and variations thereof, but each grouping is segmented from one another by mulch. There are, in my opinion, way too many areas of high contrast for the subtleties within the colours to stand out. Long story short, the colour palette could be successful, but the design is preventing that.

- Audric

We've got some mistaken ideas on colour (I'll keep the Brit spelling) already. And no, Stevega, this isn't venting, it's simply people thinking they're more clever than they are.

Believing a variety of colours is a key feature of Japanese gardens, even if we're only talking shades of green, is by no means necessary. Color contrast is a feature that is often exploited in Japanese design, but it is always subdued and understated. The main point isn't how much contrast the designer can bring in, or how many shades of green one can plant in an arrangement, it's rather simply how the overall effect produces a calm, natural effect. If various shades of predominently green produces the desired effect, fine, but complexity is not required. Sometimes it is not even desired.

I myself can construct a fairly convincing garden in the Japanese style that only uses ONE SPECIES of juniper or pine. Why? Because, you see, color is only secondary. In this aesthetic I'm talking about, the key points are *repetition* and *simplicity*, and color contrast isn't the aim at all. The simpler the planting, the better. I'm always amused when folks get on these lists and talk about the complex botanical selections they've chosen, as if that consideration made a fifth as much difference as skill in pruning and basic rock arranging skills...

So there's the point.
And now, I'm out of this thread, in fact, out of this forum. I see this particular thread as a bunch of wonabee experts who are already mistaken on some basic notions. All the more ironic, since many of you seem to be desiring an "elitist" discussion... As I said, Edzard was the only one here who offered something that illuminates Japanese design. But hey, you guys go ahead and suck up to each other all you want, I have no desire to be part of a pretentious bunch like this. No doubt the "zen" devotees (I use the term loosely) will be happy I'm gone too, so we're talking about a win/win situation here for everybody.
Hasta la vista, baby.

Repetition and simplicity are nothing without a medium. Colour is a medium through which repetition and simplicity can be conveyed. It is by no means the only way, and it was never stated that colour defines a Japanese garden. The discussion is oriented towards the use of colour and the effect that has on other aspects of the garden such as texture.

"But I get the impression that in a Japanese garden the movement is less direct so that 'If one thing is intense, then other things are placed so to water it down.'"

Ink and Laag, I'm intrigued by this statement. Given the idea of contrast, do you mean that things of lower contrasting value are added, or things of higher contrasting value or added? I can't seem to make it work out either way. The only way I can think of diffusing the effect of a high-contrast item is either by reducing its exposure (i.e. in simple terms, blocking off parts of it) or by reducing the contrast by increasing the level of all the surrounding objects. Introducing more of the dominant colour wouldn't water down the effect, as the contrast would still remain, would it not?

Does it need to be done? I mean, a lot of colour interest (in the sense of brightly flowering shrubs, or intense fall colours) seems to be very temporary and highly dependent on the time of year. I would think that contrast through time would have the same effect. A balance between showy times and subdued times is just as required as a balance between colours during any one of those times.

- Audric

Audric-Just for clarity, in your post of yesterday, were you referring to the photo "Japanese Garden" or "Bench under Katsura"?

Hey Steve,

Sorry about the confusion. Admittedly, I actually had no clue what photo people were referring to. I had thought it the one under the thread "Is there any interest?" (link attached), since Ink referred it to this thread.

Here is a link that might be useful: Is there any interest?

Earlier I made a point about color contrast being a widely used tool in Japanese Gardens, although they may be mostly green. You can disagree and cast that off as something that I read or you can carefully look at lots of pictures of lots of real JGs and look to see if it is not true that plants adjacent to other plants are not clearly different enough in color to cut from them. Don't listen to me or Yomama, but study it with your eyes in gardens and pictures and not on my words or anyone else's. (I attached a link to a lot of various gardens in Japan)

You can find the Japanese word for this if you like and that is fine with me, but at least look to see if this is very much consistant - not in every garden, but in most.

You can decide that all plants cut from one another this way and it has nothing to do with calculated placement. If you do that, at least take the time to look at other gardens both JGs and others to see if there is more or less of this contrast. Go to a nursery and move some plants in front of others and see if they cut like that. I think it might surprise you how many blend rather than cut.

Try it with a Crimson Queen JM and a whole lot of green plants. I think you might be surprised how many plants blend with it rather than cut from it.

As far as balancing out a composition that has an item with a strong color, as Aud asked, it is not necessarilly color that is used to balance it. It is anything or any combination of things that get the job done. It can be form, size, mass, or something else.

Look at the "Zen Gardens" (or whatever they are actually called) with the raked gravel and pieces of stone as an example of balancing by using something else. We see peace in these more often than not. You might see three rocks at one end and one small one at the other, but the damn thing is balanced. Part of that can be the distance it is away, or how the three rocks are distributed. It could even be the rake patterns, but it rests and someone carefully finished it off to be balanced. They did not pray and have God do it or shake a rattle or bang a gong. They looked at it and adjusted it.

It is the same with a composition involving plants. You can balance out a big red plant on top of a mound with a combination of land form, other plant forms, rocks, combinations of rocks, color, tying in a background, .... there is no limit to the things that can affect balance.

Yet, sometimes it is just gravel and a couple of boulders. Just because you can use many ways to balance, it does not mean that you have to. But, it sure appears to me that you do have to achieve balance to get the calming effect.

I think we have a thought that a balance point has to be in the middle. Anything can be balanced if you find the balance point.

Finally, the more complex the composition that is affectively balanced, the more impressive the calm seems t be.

Also, take the time to pay attention and look for yellows, blues, and reds. Is there really that much repetion in these gardens? Look and see.

Look at the pictures.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bowdoin College Web Site

Laag, forum,...
it would be erroneous to think that the photo's that have been taken/being shown are of 'optimal' views that should be understood as presented or indicative of the ideas evincing the Japanese garden. Bowdoin site is mostly westerners photography that seeks out 'balance'.

Balance may just not be the objective, as much as color, (1) as green is white in the palette, and (2) the main tool is texture, rather than colour - more correctly (3) refraction of light that causes texture to a lesser or greater value than the next related item to that other

(a proportional lack of balance indicates a relationship, - such as 'pursuer/pursued' or the large and small stone showing relationship of people, such as the smaller stone nodding its demeanor to the larger stone, much as I tip my head to Laag, since he knows more than I = what is the balance? or 'what is the relationship'? Can my knowledge ever catch up to Laags? probably not, I the pursuer will always pursue Laags knowledge and never attain it. The stones show the relationship in my context. Balance is never attainable.)

The Japanese garden is based on 'relationships' between things, which should be shown in the photo's*. This means that the objective of the photo is not to show balance but to show equipoise. The idea of seeking photographic democratic equality is a misnomer and a western idea of idealized living, but does not show nature in its true form. Nature is not equal even though Nature may be thought to be in balance - which it never is, since ecosystems need imbalance to prevent decline.

(there is no balance between Laags knowledge and mine, but there is comparative relationship, and to attempt to photograph the balance between our knowledges would place the photographer in a different location than the actual truth that Laags knowledge is more than mine. - show it for what it is, an unequal reality relationship, rather than trying to find concensus or balance to value both equally.
Graphically: L vpt............ f , not, L ....... vpt ...f
vpt = view point )

* as most of the photo's are not a 'full-view', it is also apparent that they are 'of objects' meaning 'looking at' the garden instead of 'seeing with' the garden in the sense of seeing with (the rose coloured glasses of) implied relationships in ones own context - most often the objective is to show beauty, though some are also political statements, cynicism, threat, etc.

the question then is, are you sure you are looking for the right things to identify?
colour, or balance, or ?

I think that you are actually making my point by intoducing the idea that texture is the main tool rather than color. The point being that the a tool is use to assist in making something - in this case, making something happen. I tried to make this point above. The thread is about color, so it was written with that up front.

I would agree that taxture is a tool as well as color. As I mentioned above, positioning, mass, landform, and more are other tools. Sometimes few tools are used and sometimes many.

The balance has very little to do with camera position and photo framing. I offered up the site because it has many pictures of many gardens and it was close to the top on my google search. Surely, there are hundreds of photos taken by hundreds of people from many different vantage points and framed and zoomed differently of these and other gardens, yet they rarely look out of balance. Even as pieces and parts they are as well executed as the broader composition.

If we only pay attention to texture and ignore the others, we won't get that balance. Yet, we can achieve balance with using very little else but texture by not having any of the other things that affect the result being significant enough to overcome the effect of the textures. The same can be said for color, or mass, or size, or positioning.

We could also use two of these rather than just one. Or 3, or 4, or how ever many you can handle. But each impacts the other, so what might be a balanced out array of color in one composition might be, most likely will be, thrown apart by the influence of the others.

An example might be to take the rocks out of the picture that has been referenced several times in this thread and remove the stones from it. Or get rid of the blue-gray toned plants and match up the color to the other green plants and leave the stones.

Does anyone look to create these color/texture cuts in their JGs? What makes you (generic you) place a particular plant next to another?

Laag,..
You missed the point. Contrary to popular belief, the objective of the view in a Japanese garden is not balance.
Rather, people seek balance in their photo's. That is the problem.

p.s.
Stone is interchangeable with plant material and vice versa.
color is used to warm the spirit.

I got your point about balancing a photo. I just don't agree with it. I thought I did a good job making the point, but this stuff is very hard to decribe. I'm sure that I equally misunderstand others as they misunderstand me because we wind up using common terms that are less literal than metaphoric, but are often taken as literal.

I'm not talking about the balance of having one thing on the right and needing another something on the left. It is more of a balance of visual power where a rock indeed has a different impact than a shrubbery.

It would stand to reason that a person could take pictures of these that would be out of balance, but that does not seem to happen. It would stand to reason that one would have to move around these gardens until they get to the point where a balanced photo can be had. I think we have all seen plenty of not so hot photos of other types of gardens. The JG compositions are generally very strong and complete making it difficult to find a bad picture to take.

Maybe comfort is a better word than balance. Center of visual gravity? What do you think?

Laag...
most of the intended views are meant to be out of balance. As photographers not understanding the medium they are seeing, they take balanced photographs.
as a balanced photo, it removes the intended movement (expression) of the visual plane.
It is important to take the photo from the position the designer intended the main view to be seen from.
-- As nothing in the garden medium is an absolute, there are also gardens that are balanced, however, most have equipoise which indicates a movement or relationship which is not in balance but on the edge of balance. This is just before the last straw broke the camels back = maximum visual tension.

comfort is needed to view something pleasantly, and archtypes are centered in the top down view wherein there is a V or a reversed V for 'comfort=safety', but is not the objective of the communication a garden has, as such the center of visual gravity does not apply.
we're looking for the communication of the author, not the centre of visual gravity.

The question to ask is 'what does this garden communicate?' and then to find that 'most communicative' view to understand this.
IE: when a large photo, encompassing an entire view is taken and cropped... at what cropping point does the picture lose its context?
-- balance only communicates balance, if that was the author's intent, then balance is right, but if it is not the author's intent, then the place of balance is the wrong place to view from lacking any communication.

colour is only used to warm the spirit in specific ways that colours act on the human physiology. If you need to warm the spirit, then use colour, if not then use green which is really white space. Red maples are rarely used and normally discouraged.

Right.

?
glad you agree.
if not, re-propose otherwise.
Are you saying balance is the objective in a composition? If so, why?

- btw., the balance / imbalance applies to colour, texture, as well as composition, etc.,
as the proverb: "in a field of green, one red."

just in case anyone thinks the colour subject suborned, it wasn't.

quote from Laag, "Maybe comfort is a better word than balance. Center of visual gravity? What do you think?"

perhaps 'how quiet the communication' or 'how loud the communication'.

(communication can also be 'no message', or simply 'how quiet the beauty', etc., = author's intent.
I'm open to whatever you want to call it, and that will change as knowledge is accumulated, though would prefer that partially applicable terms not be applied which later cause a misunderstanding.
Ie; in a garden of '*? Armed Camps at Nijo Castle, the purpose is unease and threat, political statement, rather than comfort or center of visual gravity - though any author may certainly wish to communicate comfort or center of visual gravity. Colour does the same, as the communication of 3 red in a field of green is different from 1 red in a field of green)

Laag,.. just trying to be nice by re-explaining, and as a suggestion that you explain the basis of your disagreement with seeking equipoise. From my perspective, you have simply disagreed and glossed over.

Ink, sorry so long between posts. How do we achieve tonal value? I am certainly no expert, and that is the truth. But I am trying to learn like many who read this forum. I think Edzard had a very good explanation. The Japanese Garden is based on relationships between things. And he mentioned the stepping stones being too angular. (I realize this is shape and not color but there is a connection) The bench and the fence did not have hard or broken angles. In fact using stones that would have softer edges but too white, red or any color that did not blend would have been just as bad. But using the steeping stones in the photo the perfect remedy in my opinion would be to edge with moss or a ground cover that resembled moss. The moss would hide the sharp edges and create the relationship Edzard speaks about with the smoother lines of the bench and fence.

Creating tonal value or relationships in the garden gets easier as you begin to understand more about Japanese Gardens. Another example of creating tonal value would be placing a new granite lantern in your garden. It is new and would stand out like a sore thumb. But if you made it look dirty and old with some moss growing on it, it would then blend with its surrounding. The look of Aged and weathered should be something we try to achieve in our gardens.

When purchasing plants for your garden group them together at the nursery. Sand back and see if any of the plants immediately draw your eye to it. Take that plant away and take a look again. Those plants that blend might be the choice for a grouping. The plant that stood out could also be used but might work better placed alone. Or perhaps your intent would be to place it in front of the plants that blend and make it a place for your eye to stop and rest.

The same goes for stones, Hot color or bright white look out of place. Place the stone in its surroundings if it draws your eye to it it's color is too strong for the area.
Although some Large groupings are meant to draw your attention too them, they usually do not have strong color.

That's all the time I have for now. But I find many of the comments interesting here when the context of the post is discussed. I look forward to discussion. My comments may not be flawless and I welcome correction.

Cheers Jando

Fuzie, I think you are just screwing with me. Maybe screwing is not the right word?

nope.

Thanks for answering my question.

you are welcome.
Now, since you disagreed with me, would you consider answering mine?

Why do you think that 'balance or center of visual gravity' of colour is the objective to achieve in the visual plane?

I went back and reread Ink's initial question and now have a better understanding of it so I put forth my opinion. My opinion is that colors other than greens are less important even though they are the "icing" and fleeting. The garden is meant to be experienced all year. Form and texture are more important than color, even greens.