Going pretty deep there Ron. Are you asking if a change in our perception of nature will effect the way a garden, that professes to be guided by nature, is designed? If that is the question then my answer is : yes.

I think the later, modern garden designers are not much inspired by nature anymore, but more by other things like architecture, (industrial) design, graphics, painting, sculptures, human perception studies, other visual arts, or maybe even performing arts as well. In fact I have 2 questions:

Are you agree with this statement (I tried to support it with words from Nitschke and Slawson), and if so, are you happy and comfortable with it, or do you like to see a switch back to nature as the ultimate inspiration source for garden designer ?

All to often we confuse the "content" of the garden with it's "essence" .

A perfect "cube" can be just as indicative of nature as river washed "stone" !!

One can use perfect cubes and the like or water shaped stones and it's like to build current and future landscapes that communicate an "earth centered universe" ( or ego !! ) OR a universe where man is one with nature and is in accord with the flow of the universe.

It's been said .. that "old spirituality" must be reimaged with new "content" one relavent to our modern times but this new content does not mean the "essence" gets thrown out .. for it is timeless.

There are those ... that very much still live in an earth centered universe ... despite the fact that we all know the earth orbits the sun ... it's been stamped into our existence our very language and thought .. my self I have no interest in such a world .. it's pathological.

So ... you see .. I am not "inspired" by nature but instead a part of it. The garden for me a place that helps achieve a state of "serene reflection" or non duality the content of the garden not very important ... you see .. stones or cubes !

Good Day ...

Who is Nietschke ?

Ron S . Can you direct me to the "title" and isbn # of book written by Nietschke You read his writtings. What chapter(s)and or pages did you read.

I want to read this too now.And believe me I never read . But I am curious.

Ron, don't be blinded by the many influnces on modern design. Nature has been, and still is the teacher for a Japanese garden designer/builder.

Gerald

It's good to read but don't forget to sit in the garden !!

Feel don't think ...

Good Day ....

Rocky --- I think Ron is referring to Gunter Nitschke, a noted (German) scholar of Japanese gardens and architecture who lives in Kyoto. I think the book Ron is probably referring to is called "Japanese Gardens" ISBN # 3-8228-2035-0. I think it's definitely worth reading, the only drawbacks being a profusion of typos and lack of an index.

Gunter was one of the guest lecturers at the Kyoto University of Art and Design intensive seminar I attended a couple of years ago. He has spent a lot of time studying Shinto and he's a friend of Wybe Kuitert. I think he's lived in Japan for 30 years or something like that. A very interesting guy.

Lee

Lee is right, Im referring to Gunter Nitschke, and David Slawson, too. Thanks for sharing the toughts, but  some of you are not answering my questions, yet.
Gerald, IÂm asking your opinion, not making a statement here. After all, those writers made their points. You didnÂt agree with the analyses of the 2 writers. Of course is this okay and very interesting. Do you have something to support your statement "Nature has always been the guideline of the Japanese garden designer/builder ?" Of course, we are making a dangerous journey when the word nature is coming out of our mouth, because one can ask: what do yo mean with it ? Its rather abstract and hard to grasp, I think.
Back to the point Nitschke and Slawson made. If you look at the early gardens in the Heian period, and than make a giant step forward to the modern Japanese garden, what changes do you see ? Nitschke tried to analyse this evolution, and cataloged 5 types of Japanese gardens. Slawson did not cataloging, instead he drawed a design optimum (a conceptual line with 2 endpoints). At one end, he referred "feature oriented" garden concept; at the other end he referred "quality oriented" garden design. This shift has been made for the first time, according to him, in the Kamakura period, when the first "gardens as paintings" were builded. He did it by explaining the use of Fuzei. The garden has itÂs own atmosphere. The designer began to design an atmosphere rather than a piece of captured nature without specific meanings. The garden was evoluted from a stroll garden to enjoy life within "the captured nature" into a scroll garden to contemplate a more abstract picture (of nature) from fixed points. Arriving at the last cataloged garden type, Nitschke even used the term "mind-scapes", in order to make a clear distinction against the term "land-scapes". The garden designer is now the egoistic man that design gardens to put his identity, idea and ego in it. Excuse me if IÂm wrong in grasping the analyses of Nitschke and Slawson here.
The Mohave Kid. You are going very deep with your sentences. I donÂt think I grasp what you means. And.. yes I sit in my garden too, but not now because itÂs pretty cold here. Fortunately, I have big windows that run down from the ceiling to the floor to enjoy my small tsubo niwa from the warm living room.
Inkognito, Lee and others too, IÂm waiting for your response

You seem to be asking for a specific answer to a non specific question. By your own admission you say that ÔnatureÕ is a word with a complex meaning (Raymond William's says that it is perhaps the MOST complex) and yet you do not say what you mean by your use of the word. In an inquiry such as yours it is essential that you set the parameters. As an example of how we might get confused, The Mojave Kid says that as a man he is part of nature, so from that point of view anything that is Ònature drivenÓ is also man driven and so today's gardens have the same inspiration as they always have.
Also, as I suggested earlier, our perception of ÔnatureÕ in all of its meanings is not the same today as it was a thousand years ago or even one hundred years ago so to ask if today's gardens are driven by nature as if it were a fixed and static phenomenon is further confusion.
I think it is a mistake to think that it is only recent Japanese gardens that have received input from a designers ego and it is probably only Zen gardens that attempted to work with egoless garden building.

"it is probably only Zen gardens that attempted to work with egoless garden building."

Hmm .. well not egoless but the ego of the universe !! ... nature is the universe .. OK .. to be one with nature means to be one with it's "ego" or THE "ego" in replace of your own ego which was formed by the culture or society that molded your existence. To flow or act with THE ego is the goal of a zen master. Their is a changing of the guard that takes place in the mind ... as children we are one with nature or the universe .. as we grow we lose the oneness and duality developes ... the culture will determine in part how much of a duality you develope.

When the duality is broken down and the oneness forms again all landscapes become "Zen" scapes OR the style of the landscape is insignificant. Meaningless.

So .. Ron ... the more people society renders not able to experience the world with non duality the more japanese gardens will be japanese gardens in content but not essence !

Man's aggression ending nature is a farce .. the aggression is against himself .. self induced destruction .. nature will be quite fine regardeless of what man does or does not do. Man is nothing ... you see .. but everything.

Just my humble thoughts .. LOL

Good Day ...

INKognito, these words are used by Nitschke, and in less extend, by Slawson, when he explained the shift from feature-oriented design principal to quality-driven design principal. Ive just read those books and like to talk about this point with you. Sometime in de history they suggested that man gradually find himself as the mirror to form his gardens (sakui = creativity and originallity). Let us not falling in the difficult discussion of the word Nature. Let us concentrate on discussing the tip of the ice berg, not the underlying layer(s). We are talking about the inspiration source of Japanese garden style, i.e. the cultural and aesthetic layer of gardening. After all, a Japanese garden differs from other gardens in just this upper layer.

Ive believed Nitschke and Slawson are not (very) wrong in their conclussion. Ill try to support this with another observation. In Bali, sometime around 1920-1930, the first European was arrived. Some of them were artists. This is the interesting time in which 2 groups for the first time took notice of others works. The word "art" didnt exist in Balinese that time. Not only the word didnt exist, the Balinese didnt make sculptures which were devoted to serve a (wo)man need directly. They made it for their Gods. A sculpture were made by several people, not one single "artist". The Europeans introduced the word "art" to the Balinese as a product to serve people needs, both for the customer and for the maker. They said that the customer like to watch and have the sculpture, and the artist can put his creativity, identity and originallity in it, and receive to buy a chicken or pay the school bill. The Balinese couldnt resist the need for money, so they made sculpture as "art" for the first time. Sounds very familiar, right ? Change the word Bali with something else, you can easilly find the same story again and again.

So, I think we can easilly draw a parallel with Japanese gardens development. Ancient garden was imitation or miniature of nature in the hills, riversides, seashores. Modern garden is more a sculpture, almost 100% man-oriented.

Similar development occurs in Bonsai. The modern Bonsai of Kimura displays an image directly come from his brain, his interpretation, his dream or fantasy about what a Bonsai could be. One could hardly link this Bonsai to a real tree in nature. Its an abstract sculpture reflecting the will and the creativity of the sculptor.

My question is whether you see this "trend" too, and be happy with it ? You have an opinion about it, dont you ?

Mohave Kid, I think indeed "aggression toward nature" is too much negative and heavy notion against something small like (modern) garden designers. A garden is somebodys ownership, and mother Nature doesnt care much whether you grow a tree there, or laying a concrete sculpture in a stainless steel swimming pool.

Nature is just a word, a thing like a burn.

We all would have the same reation to 300 degree hot water on our foot. Likewise we would all react and feel the same math ( the physical reaction) triggered by nature ie. water, mountain, moist.
Capturing this essence, this physical reaction and casading feeling is what the garden is all about.

Simple ones are. How we feel best living with the forest just to our north (back) and the land sloping southward in openess. Its' a primitive, instinctual reaction to survival. How do we capture this "natural feeling goodness" into everyday life.

Yet no matter how wonderful nature is, only man can be perfectly natural.

Gerald

Interesting analogy Gerald. Water as a metaphor in the Japanese garden seems most natural...

I am reminded of the old aesthetic practice of standing under a mountain waterfall to meditate; it was precisely the move out of the comfort zone that made it such an "enlightening" experience. Yet the biggest confusions I see from those who haven't gotten their "japanese" garden to look right (and they can never put their finger on why) is that Western reliance on "stuff"; "It doesn't look Japanese yet; must need another lantern and a bridge..."

We have become disconnected from nature like no generation before us; our food, our clothes, our fertilizers and plants all come from somewhere far away, where, we aren't sure. Even Mom and Dad can remember getting milk from the dairy and growing in the Victory Garden (before it was a TV show); on my website I answer questions from folks all over the world that mostly boil down to " The green side goes down." Look through a gardening book from the Twenties or Thirties and you see a level of skill that's ASSUMED of gentle reader that I see nowhere today...

So it is no suprise that Westerners walk out into raked gravel areas and look vaguely at the "boulders" in the garden and then move over to the potted mums to see the "real" garden. No great suprise that in Japan, the real niwashis are falling out of favor with a nation obsessed with climbing a social ladder, when the profession has never really lost it's "dirty" reputation...and what is "natural" gardening? Do we let nature take it's course? That's not gardening! Do we abolish nature and put squares and cubes in it's place? (sorry Mohave, I agree with you for the most part, but look at Versailles; lots of cubes and squares and not much nature...) Do we stylize and abstract what we see in nature, conforming it to suit our own vision? Seems to me that comes close, but are we still fooling ourselves?

When the native tribes got the boot from Yosemite, they were allowed to visit almost a decade later and their first comment was how messy and disordered the place had become. Native Americans (and indigenous people everywhere) have learned to tailor their "landscapes" to supply and sustain themselves while still leaving the functions and infrastructure of the land to support ALL species there. An aquaintance who is an entomologist is currently wrapping up a study on how non-native species in a landscape actually decrease insect bio-mass, and measuring the attendant decline in other species. I read recently that the harvesting od wild ocotillo from the Texas desert (for sale in Arizona retirement communities) has actually changed migration patterns for many of the hummingbird species in the U.S. How can we be expected to value and respect nature when our entire social fabric overlays it? And then what is the real meaning for anyone of a nature driven garden (to eventually come back to the thread...), when we are shown constantly that what goes on in our own heads is of so much more import? In the end Mohave is correct; we fool ourselves into a belief that because we garden at all, we touch nature. Am I a bit of a tree hugger? Yabetcha. That is why I value the old Japanese garden, with it's esoteric symbols and mysteries even Edzard can only conjecture on. To answer all the questions is farcical; true nature will never give up all her secrets and will eventually wipe our collective slate clean unless we start to truly appreciate and work with her. That is why I value moss and stone above azaleas and lanterns; they were here first...

Scott

Hello Ron: you ask for my opinion, challenge me even.
Your analogy works in reverse because the Balinese, whether they had a name for it or not, were crafting folk art and, like all folk art, it looses its flavour when it attempts to be high art for material reward. In my opinion Japanese gardens started as high art but the gardens attached to small houses and made by ordinary people today are more like folk art. If we concede that the ancient gardens you refer to are art, then we have to accept that they are works of man and not nature as such. I would go further to say that something is called 'garden' precisely because it is not nature and for one reason or another exists to separate itself. If the gardens professionaly designed from a later time are significantly different it is because the artist has been subject to different stimuli including fashions, religion, philosophy and politics etc. which is indeed evolution.
I disagree with Scott in his assessment of the gardens of Versailles because nature is indeed present but its evident subjugation comes from the the place and time in just the same way as all art and all gardens.
So as I have said elsewhere: nature has not changed but our perception of it has and is still changing.
My opinion therefore is that gardens made today are probably as open to a naturalistic interpretation as gardens ever were.

Ron, where are you pulling these statements or conclusions from in the Slawson and Nitschke books?
'specifically: The garden designer is now the egoistic man that design gardens to put his identity, idea and ego in it.'
"Slawson has made the same statement when he drawed the switch from physically nature-, through spiritually nature-, finally to men-focussed gardens, starting maybe at the Kamakura period."
-- in general,
"We are talking about the inspiration source of Japanese garden style, i.e. the cultural and aesthetic layer of gardening. After all, a Japanese garden differs from other gardens in just this upper layer."
? regarding Kimura: "The modern Bonsai of Kimura displays an image directly come from his brain, his interpretation, his dream or fantasy about what a Bonsai could be. "

I wonder if someone looked again at Kimura's bonsai (and Ernie Kuo's, being more general) that they would see an image drawn completely from Japanese culture, which speaks about the culture and -to the present culture- which is expressed in Kimura's chosen medium, as an expression of that cultural statement.
-rather than, the bonsai image, being about 'what a Bonsai could be' as it would have "come from his brain, his interpretation, his dream or fantasy."

Perhaps more importantly than the explanation of the above statements, and even though you do not wish to touch the discussion of 'what is nature', there is for me, the understanding that ::
-old gardens were carved into 'wild nature',
-that with the lack of land with 'wild' nature to carve into, the expression of the garden, used the same principle as used at the early time, that the 'nature' or in our words the 'context' of the surrounding land is designed for and within.
-The context of 'wild nature' has changed, however the context of the nature of the surroundings is still incorporated into the design itself.
(the context of the surroundings may also be plastic or metal nature, which then as a context, the plastic/metal is the nature/context of the surroundings,.. this would be the mindscape, the understanding of what 'kokoro' of that 'landscape' would be... )

because:
the purpose or function of the (Japanese) garden itself is to be an intermediary (outside -> inside) between our understandings of the contexts (the natures of land and and ourselves, etc.) around us.

By example, people are uncertain of 'wild nature', and to increase the comfort of people, more manmade techniques are applied, if the space is man made - then more 'wild nature' is applied until a level of comfort is found. (levels of gyo)

feature oriented/shin.................quality oriented/so

gyo moves back and forth to the right balance to soothe or 'attune' the clients needs, for feature or quality, and the definition of 'quality' needs now to be defined, -- is quality the same as 'tea taste' / so, etc.
(it is very very long ago that I read this passage, but it is toward the beginning... iow's I may have misunderstood it, or can not remember it exactly)

"Modern garden is more a sculpture, almost 100% man-oriented.", Ron, in a manner of speaking, this has always been the case, saying also 'painting', and depends on your definition of sculpture... and sculpture is a word similar to 'art' that I always try to avoid.
Has garden not always been man oriented? and garden would be expressed in whatever medium is understood, whether sculpture, painting, carving, placement (bonseki, bonsai, suiseki, ikebana,.. etc. ) and so on. If it suits the location then the medium would bespeak the kokoro (heart/shin) of the site.

I think the best thing for me to do, is to read the texts again, from your viewpoint so that I may understand where the perspective and conclusions come from, since I do not disagree, though I also do not agree with how it has been expressed. (and that has also to do with language pattern differences)
which chapters are you referring to?
edzard

---sidebar----
regarding Bali, as the garden concept that became the Japanese garden moved through Bali, gaining a 'double nut' pagoda lantern along the way, the term used for garden was craft, as it was used in Japan for gardens, the gardens as 'art' is a recent concept. As would be 'sculpture', being a post-Meiji usage in western terms for western markets.
If anyone has information otherwise please share. (Lee, anything you have found??)

---sidebar----
In re-reading the posts, I still very much have trouble with this statement:
""The Aggression or Domination of Mankind toward Nature" ?

As the Bible was translated from Latin to German (Luther), the original texts still read, 'dominion', as a land steward, to produce fruit, the word usage indicating 'to bring into abundance, fruition, production'..
over the years, it seems only in the English language usage that the words, or concepts of suppressing, dominating, aggression towards, subjugation of nature have arisen.

If, by example, we look at the historic methods or techniques applied to pruning, as 'a pruning history' the only techniques that were originally employed have been those that would produce more fruit or for 'more of nature' ie: coppicing for charcoal, and so on = production.
These evolved to form aspects of pruning that nature needed to be shaped, combining production with aesthetic, because it was already seen to have been done (Europe: 1 B.C. documented and Asia: +- 5000BCE, prior).

Europe however, unlike Asia, does not have a problem with nature, in so much as there is/has never/been enough abundant growth that 'suppression or dominance' needed to be undertaken, (ie: an epidemic of locusts), therefore the 'aggression or domination/subjugation' of nature must be a recent invention of some misunderstanding originating from the concept of dominion, as domination rather than stewardship.

Conversely, Japan, or the 'pre-Japan culture', has the longest history of mankind for planting trees. In Asia, there is also no 'aggression' toward nature, rather the opposite, even though, nature has grown far to abundantly.
If anyone knows where the attitudes/ terms originated, or wence they came, or research streams, the sharing of this information would be appreciated..
thanks,.... edzard

"Do we stylize and abstract what we see in nature, conforming it to suit our own vision?"

We act out of our own true nature! That's what natural gardening is !!! ... we do not have to run from terms like "nature"... feel don't think ... logic will leave you stranded .. it's putting your actions in accord with "your" own nature by peeling away your ego and leaving behind only that ego which belongs to you by nature.

When man is not in accord with his own nature his actions are crazy .. and he is a menace to all around him including himself ... this is the state of man when he is an "aggressor towards nature".

It matters none what boulders .. plants .. waterfalls or no waterfalls .. cubes .. curves .. straight lines we use or don't use in the landscape ...this is the "content" of the landscape and will change through time .. What will landscapes look like on Mars ?? Cultivated plants 2000 years from now ?? .. as long as the garden comes from our own true nature then conflict between man and the universe ends.

Interestingly .. in this months National Geographic .. an article claims that active participation in Buddhism is in some decline in japan .. more and more people have no time for such matters ... I think one could speculate that in modern japan the garden will change providing that the spirituality of the country is lost.

In my own country .. buddhism is on the rise !! .. the article suggest. Interesting trade .. industry for spirituality.

Has anyone read "The Universe In A Single Atom" by the Dalai Lama ?? Very timely ...

Good Day ...

INKognito and all,
With the Balinese Ive tried to point out that what we call art as a mean to express ourself was a Western product of individualism. Tribal folks didnt have the concept of individualism. Garden makers in the ancient therefore seems to create their gardens not as art (in this meaning); actually those gardens were more functionall. This is my guess or statement. The ancient gravelled space around or in front of the shinden for example was such thing. I cant hardly say that they were made to express the gardeners vision (about himself). Also the strolling gardens of (pre) Heian were made for hosting activities in a "landscaped environment" created by men. After this period, the word art and sakui entered the Japanese heart and mind. From than on, gardening became an artform, again in the meaning of self-expression. Modern gardens could be everything now. It could be something inspired by landscapes as hills but also cities (notice that I dont use the word nature anymore), but it could be something totally different, when the artist dont even get inspired by landscapes but painting, sculpture, kimono, or whatever. My question is whether you like the landscape inspired gardens, or the more (abstract) mind-scapes gardens. So simple as that. Do you like the more tree-looking Bonsai or the highly abstract (Kimuras) Bonsai ?

Edzard and all,
My conclussion on Slawson and Nitschke is from "reading between the lines". A book has always 2 aspects: the words and the essence. I can show you some pages to backup my conclussion if you insist, but if youve read these books, could you hear the same voice ? Im glad and surprise about your injection of shin-gyo-so in the featurequality-oriented design optimum of Slawson. Ive always truggled with the shin-gyo-so concept and Ive never seen it this way. Youve also made my point clear in your own words when you say: "gyo moves back and forth to the right balance to soothe or 'attune' the clients needs, for feature or quality". Now, back to my qeustion, take the role of a client, and answer the question: where lies your needs or where lies your gyo ?

I take back my phrase "Domination or aggression by man to nature" in this case, because we've defined the garden as no part of nature, i.e. wild nature. Im glad you say that the garden is an intermediate between wild nature (most preferably far away from our houses) and our bed room. In this context, Wybe Kuitert said that the ideal situation will be that the closer the garden part to our houses, the more safer we have to feel, the more man-made degree we have to surround us. Is this also one important design concept in JG ?

"'Those incapable of understanding The Way see things divine as monsters. Better for them never to enter here." ... Master Po

When I take one step away from my home I feel as much in nature as I do when I take 10,000 steps into the open desert mountains. When I sense danger .. I do not look out into the desert to find it but back into myself. The danger lies inside not outside.

"Is this also one important design concept in JG ? "

I have always thought the goal of the japanese garden was to make the boundaries vanish ... so one step in the garden feels like one step anywhere else in the world.

What is it that you fear ?

Good Day ...

We are still finding out just how dominating our gardens are on nature; the invasive question is in full swing here in the Northeast and scientific studies are starting to show direct correlation of increase in non-native biomass with decrease in native insect biomass (think of the eventual effects on the food web, and it's a little scary).

This is no longer a matter of aesthetic conjecture but of real damage to the environment. Stephen Morell (curator of the John Humes Stroll Garden and one of the better J-gardeners in the Northeast) is doing a native landscape symposium at Connecticut College in January, where he will speak about the qualities of Zen gardens and how they pertain to native landscapes (Stephen is also the garden instructor at Zen Mountain Monastery, where he has created several J-gardens using native plants). How we garden in conjunction and in relation to nature is going to become a FAR larger topic in the near future, not less of one. How we relate to nature is a function of not only our gardens, but in how we steward "wild" areas as well, and I would suggest that the line will (and should) become more blurred...

Scott

... the solution is one of psychology and sociology even more so then ecology !

Good Day...

"". Now, back to my qeustion, take the role of a client, and answer the question: where lies your needs or where lies your gyo ?",
Ron,....
even as the client, I have no level of the gyo balance, as the design/garden is dependent upon the nature around me. '''MY''' gyo is not even in existence, in the garden setting.
Mohave Kid ... using 'ego' words, not good, there is no ego in the Japanese garden,.. upright placed stones are 'ego', meaning, 'I am HERE', and 'YOU"RE TRESPASSING', these are border markers,.. and in a small country where borders need sharing, there can be little ego, which brings humility to the forefront.
There is no me. There is no preference, at least not at this point of learning.

Earlier in the day, while travelling, I reflected that these posts are reflecting or attempting to define an Asian concept using western + European value(s) as though they are the Asian values they were written about.
Our Occidental values are different and can not be applied as though they are our feelings/values.

ie: one can not take 'nature' out of the concept. But which nature? As Guenter mentioned, it is the new changing nature that has always been continually adjusted for (eventually becoming mindscapes) and this is part of identifying the heart (western, essence) of a place. Yet Heart, needs to be understood as much much more than just a heart, or essence. (connotative statement from conversation)

My reason for asking for the passages Ron, is that in reading their paragraphs, I wonder if I would interpret the same** and am wondering if you have interpreted words the way they wrote it. I know that they used a Japanese context, using English words, about Japanese concepts.
(explaining the bar graph here, in 'graphic' English, is one example, where Shin-gyo-so is already understood to be part of every equation, yet, this is not in any books they wrote).
** place 5 Japanese gardeners in the same place and they all have the same solutions, though they may use different mediums in which to express the site, the soutions are the same.

Do you have enough information yet to rephrase the original question or thought you were wishing to discuss?
edzard

"Mohave Kid ... using 'ego' words, not good, there is no ego in the Japanese garden,.. "

Ahh .. there is an ego in each man that makes a garden .. What ego is the question ? ... A man with an ego dictated by the ways of the universe IS a man one with nature and there is always enough room for that kind of ego in the garden !

Good Day ...

At the risk of sounding pedantic I think this excellent discussion is in danger of confusion because it is not clear what some of the words mean; first there was 'nature' then 'art' and now 'ego'. Add to this the fact that we are talking about a culture wherein these three western concepts would have been introduced fairly recently and represented by a character rather than a word and there is more room for confusion. For instance, from my very limited understanding of the language 'nature' is represented by the symbols of mountain and stream (please correct this if necessary Lee) and the word we often use for 'garden' (niwa) has a much deeper meaning than "a place to grow plants". Similarly with 'ego' do we mean that concept Sigmund Freud introduced to pscho analysis or are we talking about the belief in a self?
That there is a difference between the east and the west in these things is evident not only in gardens but in other forms of art too, 'art' meaning artifacts produced for pleasure beyond any function. Chinese and Japanese paintings show landscapes without people, or with very small people and in the west the opposite is true. Poussin, a French artist contemporary with the making of the gardens at Versailles would be an example of this. The gardens at Versailles, and Poussins painting, emphasizes form above all else which the duc de Saint-Michel (a chronicler of Louis XIV court life) called "tyrannizing nature". This was the Edo period in Japan.

Hello everyone --- I'm catching up after a bout with the flu...

(I'm going to test whether my Japanese language input tool will work here --- sorry if gibberish results.)

Inky --- as for the word "nature" in Japanese (which is written the same way in Chinese, btw) --- it does not involve mountain or stream. I think you might be confusing "nature" with the characters that make up the word "karesansui,"@ÍR which literally means something like "dry mountain [and] water."

"Nature" or shizen in Japanese i©Rjprobably means something like "as it would be on its own."

On the subject of man man-handling nature, a Japanese friend (who is not a gardener) once remarked to me (in Japanese) that the Japanese like to coerce plants. He was referring to a commercial landscape in which trees were bound up in various ways for training and for protection from the weather. The word he used was "ijimeru," which (according to Kenkyusha's) means "persecute, oppress, torment, ill-treat, abuse, bully..." etc. It seems this is yet another example of the great contradictions embodied in the Japanese --- they revere nature, yet are willing to coerce it. The way they treat their pets also seems to reflect this.

On the subject of the meaning of the garden in Japan, I greatly enjoyed Professor Nakamura's explanation of his theory of the origin of the word "niwa" (which he explained in a lecture at the Kyoto Univ. of Art and Design). I believe this is accurate, but please speak up Edzard, Niwashisan and anyone else who has also heard this lecture. Nakamura-sensei says that originally the word "niwa" referred to the greater hunting and fishing grounds around a person's home. As Japan transitioned to a farming culture, the hunting and fishing grounds were lost to agriculture, plus the person had no excuse to go roaming around in the "niwa" as before. Therefore, the "niwa" or garden developed as a sort of nostalgic representation of the greater hunting and fishing grounds which were lost.

Lee

"Similarly with 'ego' do we mean that concept Sigmund Freud introduced to pscho analysis or are we talking about the belief in a self?"

Good point Ink ... it's about time someone ask such questions.

Ego is NOT self. In simplistic but very real terms ones ego is his "management system" ... it's the internal program that takes internal and external stimuli and produces an output or the self.

When the source of this ego is ones very own .. the self can be one with nature but when the ego is not in accord with the universe ones self can't be one with nature. We carry parts of both egos in us ... the former is their at birth the later overlays our true ego .. politics .. religion .. school .. friends .. enemies .. have all played a role in forming this overlayed ego.

"Chinese and Japanese paintings show landscapes without people, or with very small people and in the west the opposite is true."

Your are more familiar with art then I ... let me say the people are in proportion to the universe .. the universe is the source of the ego for these people to percieve and follow ... they are the infinitesmal but they are a genuine part of the universe or "nature" because there own true ego is a product of the universe itself ... by following the ways of the universe they are led back to their own ego and acting out of this accord produces a self that is one with nature. We are nature ... a product of nature.

In zen the goal is to throw off this aquired ego and leave behind the one true ego ... to be one with this grandness by being nothing but everything.

It's the "artist" task to use the content of today and tomorrow to create the essence that keeps us in touch with our true ego. To point the way for us to follow.

Good Day ...

Thank you Lee, how very civilized to be able to ask and then to receive non judgemental or smart arse correction. I certainly like the notion of "how it would be on its own" as a description of the nature of nature and it does prove my point.
The Mohave Kid needs a little more work on ego, as I do.
"In zen the goal is to throw off this aquired ego and leave behind the one true ego" begs the question that is an old chestnut, "who does the throwing off?"

"who does the throwing off?"

You do !!!

" I certainly like the notion of "how it would be on its own" as a description of the nature of nature and it does prove my point. "

LOL ... you like to prove your point ... LOL ... keep in mind that one can work nature within natures way or against the ways of nature. One can work nature without the "contradiction" .. nature does not have to be hands off to be nature.

"As Japan transitioned to a farming culture, the hunting and fishing grounds were lost to agriculture, plus the person had no excuse to go roaming around in the "niwa" as before."

Sounds like the American Indian that lost the Buffalo in a very short time .. so what happens to the ego of one that grows up in this new society ? What have they lost ? How does one regain "niwa" ?

It is not language differences that are the barrier to understanding nature and the garden .. it's our own ego.

Good Day ...

I guess we've gone from mindscapes to zenscapes,.. of which the observation is that zen was only introduced about halfway through this threads historic reference...
in that sense, any zen in this discussion doesn't apply unless you can link it to the changes of gardeners design perspectives relating to the giving up of wild nature, and endorsing the mindscape,...
any references you could provide would be appreciated, and are ones which I'd like to hear...
specifically tie in this phrase, "keep in mind that one can work nature within natures way or against the ways of nature. One can work nature without the "contradiction" .. nature does not have to be hands off to be nature."

what are you talking about? I can not follow " working against natures way" in a Japanese garden,.. and what contradiction? what is hands off nature?

and where does this come from?
"Sounds like the American Indian that lost the Buffalo in a very short time .. so what happens to the ego of one that grows up in this new society ? What have they lost ? How does one regain "niwa" ?"
--How is something lost in Zen? why would there be a 'regaining' in Zen, ?? is Zen not to accept what befalls? then there is no Niwa to regain, just to accept.

-- Mohave Kid, this thread has changed from Ron S's observations to a discussion of Zen,.. how does ego, zen and the various id's relate to this thread??
:. I do not follow your relating of this information to Ron S's conclusions of Nitschke and Slawson's conclusions. Kindly draw a picture for me.
edzard

Edzard, thanks for trying to restore the originall discussion. It is now going everywhere, .from nature-inspired, nature-imitating and nature-miniaturising, through nature (despite of my attempt to abandon this complex concept in this discussion) ..to ego, Freud en Zen.

Lee, thanks for sharing the information about "niwa". I get dizzy to figure out which character the Japanese use (and used) for a garden. The analyse of "hunt and fish in the neigbourhood" seems far away from "erecting a rock" (Sakuteiki), but they may be used correctly in different time scale, I don't know yet. Ive also read about "teien", which seems to origined from 2 other characters as well, which I can't reproduce sharply at this moment.

Edzard, back to the paragraphs in those books, give me some time, Ill come back to that.

Forgive me for the silly question about your/our preferences. I think Edzard is right: as a designer or even as a client, there is no ONE single preference for the gardens we like.

Edzard said "place 5 Japanese gardeners in the same place and they all have the same solutions, though they may use different mediums in which to express the site". This sounds strange to me, because if they follows their very own sensitivity toward garden elements like trees, rocks, stepping stones, etc. they likely will come up with different solutions, as long as I define the solutions as "the things we see, hear, taste or feel". After all, we are all different in our sensitivity toward garden elements. But Im sure you meant something else. Want to share it more ?

As I said earlier you are asking for a specific answer to a non specific question and the foregoing has been an attempt to discover what exactly it is that you want to know. Your paragraph above, directed to Lee, accepts that 'nature' and 'garden' mean different things in different cultures at different times. I wonder if the works you quote have taken this into account and in fact gardens at both ends of their spectrum have the same inspiration seen and intepreted differently so that it is not "The End of Nature" and probably "The Aggression or Domination of Mankind toward Nature" only another facet in a continuum.

Ron --- About the words "niwa" and "teien" --- They both mean "garden." Here's how they're written:

Niwa ë
Teien ë

You'll notice that both words employ the same first character. This character standing alone is pronounced "niwa." In combination with other characters, it's usually pronounced "tei." All Chinese charcters used in Japanese have at least two (and usually many more) possible pronunciations.

But both words (niwa and teien) just mean "garden."

Lee

Ron,....
" The analyse of "hunt and fish in the neigbourhood" seems far away from "erecting a rock" (Sakuteiki), "
--these concepts tie together, as the erection of vertical stones, tied grasses or tree roots are boundary markers, which are also used in specific placements in the garden, at points of boundary references, by example, at the entrance of bridges (also comfort), or found when entering a different 'thought' in the garden. The vertical stones are chapter headers if you will, as are the boundaries of the 'paradisio' or paradise gardens, as the Niwa, hunting preserve orginated in Persia.
What follows after is the older form of Japanese pond, which was rectangular, and documentation can be found under Dr. Amasaki's works, who is related to Dr. Nakamura at the Kyoto Research Centre.

5 gardeners:
given the same site, the same solution will be found, happens almost all the time, since the gardeners 'personal' thoughts are not an issue. Their own 'taste' may differ, materials used, etc., however the placements, the needs of the site are governed by the site alone, which invariably calls for similar solutions.
This goes back to 'fuzei' which is also the organization of the site to best bring out the particular 'feeling' of the site, which is organized as the first consideration, being site, then the client, where some change may be evident, and lastly the gardener, where the 'expression', and any change is only in the types of materials used to express the site.

Relating back to the shin, gyo, so, equation, if the the client, does not understand the subtexts of 'so', then the garden uses more materials, and is expressed as gyo, which has more 'things' in it to bring out the authorship, and in the shin expression, 'all' the pieces are used to bring the entire story out to a very finite definition, ie: Nijo Castle garden, 8 Camps of Generals =shin (now compare to Mirei Shigemori's castle garden of battle positions = So).

--then to the original question, the mindscapes are mirrors of the 'so' equation, where more allowable meanings or interpretations of the garden are allowed, whereas in the 'landscape' form, it is closer to shin, where there is very little personal interpretation allowed the viewer, as a tree, is a tree and seen as a tree... in 'so', a tree, may also be a land, an island, a person, and so on..
please bring the comments back to where you wished them to be. The questions/commenst originally asked for many thoughts to be gathered together as there were many variances of meanings that needed to be pinpointed for your original question to be addressed...
edzard

Tone it down a bit edzard as I detect some aggression coming through and we are struggling to keep up.
Can you take us through what you are saying, slowly, so that we may use this information to design a better Japanese garden? Mundane, I know, sorry.

My apologies for introducing Zen to the mix; it was more an introduction of Stephen Morell's work in using native plants to the Japanese garden (I find it appropriate; some do not and insist on Japanese or Chinese plants. Another topic for another time...)

Sujugating ego IS the topic at hand, IMHO. Are we ready to take the leap from plants to representations of plants? Is a scattering of boulders on a black marble floor with three culms of bamboo growing from a planter still a Japanese garden? How about we do the whole thing in stainless steel? Is it a gyo garden, a mindscape, discernible by those who may understand the symbology? Guess it depends on who you ask and that makes it an opinion and that means ego comes into play. In my mind, art is not art until it is viewed. The meaning imbued by the artist is meaningless to anyone other than the artist AND WHOEVER UNDERSTANDS HIS SYMBOLOGY.

So we can get as esoteric as we'd like about this, but stainless steel bamboo DOES subjugate Nature, as does the marble floor and the planter and every garden ever designed (operative word). Man putting plants in the ground sujugates nature; Nature considers our landscapes to be seral and in need of reclaimation. Only a VERY few cultures who choose (or chose) to allow Nature to lay the foundation, and cultivate from there can be said NOT to be agressively dominating Nature...

Chances are none of them will be weighing in here... LOL

Scott

Hmmm ...

"My apologies for introducing Zen ..." Scott said.

Why apologize ?? .. it's paramount to the conversation !!

Edzard ... what I'm trying to introduce is the mechanism behind the conclusions Ron makes.

Today I had the noble task of pruning mesquite trees ... attempting to retain the true nature of the trees ... while at the same time allowing for enough room under the trees so cars can park in our royal parking lot ??? LOL

A noble task .. LOL. Automobiles and low branches don't get along ... it's a tight fit ... the japanese gardeners must also have faced simalar struggles gardening in tight spaces ??

On edzard's behalf I will once again persist in dumping my BS on your mind. LOL .. my apologies in advance.

I do not .. Scott ... experience nature as a "physical place" or "state of a place" ... this idea I think is ingrained in our western thinking but not all thinking ..... rather nature to me is like a continuous hum .. or a constant flow .. with no beginning or end in place or time ... either one gets in accord with the flow or one does not. Nature is all we percieve and everything has a nature .. including man. Man is nature and no one can escape the presence nature.

Try to keep that idea in your mind for a while even if you don't agree with it ... try to feel it for several minutes.

If you are at the beach and a big wave rolls by you .. and you are not in accord with the wave you get knocked on your A**. So it is with a man's life .. his collective culture .. and indeed great cultures in the east have stated the importance of "oneness with nature".

The earth has never stayed the same in earth's history ... scientist have uncovered this fact ... the vast majority of life that ever lived on the earth is now extinct ... continents move ... man has and is changing ... there was a time that man did not even exist on earth .. earth will not maintain a constant appearance or "content"... we know this but do we feel it ?? Does it influence our thought ? Our actions ?

Japan is and has been changing ... the japanese garden in part is a product of this change and the limit of the islands geographical size ... cities have been growing for some time even in the 15 th and 16th centuries and are still growing even faster today then ever before ... the landscape is changing but it is not the changing "content" of the japanese garden that will mark it's end and the content is not the mechanism of change or it's definition ... but the ability of man to understand his nature and the nature around him and to be one with it despite what adversions he may encounter is critical to the survival of the japanese garden.

By understanding the ways of nature and being able to apply these principles in the garden the japanese garden will always persist even if the world becomes a tin can on one of saturn's moons !!

Nature will persist even though many forest are still destined to fall and even if all the glaciers of the artic melt while man may live not here but perhaps out there in space or maybe under the sea ?? ...

Who knows .. where man will be .. nature will continue ... with or without man ... the japanese garden is a noble lesson of how to stay in accord with nature ... my pruning of mesquite trees today .. much less noble !! ... the making of a bonsai is the very replication of the ways of nature. Perhaps the first tree in our spaceships will be a bonsai ! .. and perhaps it will teach those born in space and never to see earth the way of nature.

Coprenicus told the western world the earth was not the center of the universe .. no one wanted to listen .. today alomost all of us nod our heads in agreement ... but I'll tell you what .. we really don't believe him .. too many of us still experience life with the earth at the center... the ego does not change overnight...

... and it's killing mankind.

Zen was born in japan ... it must not die there .. it is the sword that will cut us free from the ego and save not nature but man.

Good Day ...

INky,..
I have fallen prey to 'ill humours'....
with a 'flat on your back' headcold,.. I presume the drugs are speaking for me about egoscaping that may misconstrue toward aggression as all my Ids are currently unconscious. In such a state of vacuum, only humour remains...

Scott,...
"Is a scattering of boulders on a black marble floor with three culms of bamboo growing from a planter still a Japanese garden?"
-----yes.
remind me to send you a jpeg of one of the smallest Japanese gardens I've seen that fits onto a toonie.
steel?? oh yes, the last pages of Nitschkes book, the shopping mall...

Mohave kid, the floor is yours, since for me, you've gone far too far left or right field of the threads questions about Nitschke's and Slawsons conclusions...
may I remind you of Ron's previous comment that hoped that the thread would get back on track to derive what he is looking for?? rather than what you are looking for...
"thanks for trying to restore the originall discussion. It is now going everywhere, .from nature-inspired, nature-imitating and nature-miniaturising, through nature (despite of my attempt to abandon this complex concept in this discussion) ..to ego, Freud en Zen."

"Edzard ... what I'm trying to introduce is the mechanism behind the conclusions Ron makes." MK.

Mohave Kid,.. may I then presume that you understand and are speaking for Nitschke and Slawson? Because their written passages are the mechanism behind whatever conclusions Ron has. And,.. are you now speaking for Ron?

and, since when is the Japanese garden in danger of extinction or dying out???

MK, really, politely an' all, you're just getting this nature of nature stuff now?
Is this a 1970's campus timewarp? admittedly, every generation has to discuss it,..
how about ,.. giving it the attention it deserves and starting a thread about it. personally, I fail to see the relationship to Ron's opening thread. sorry.. it should be on its own. Let Ron develop his point...

d-rn it, where's Mork when you need him to explain something..
ah well, perhaps if I mix a few of these brand names together, things will become clearer... add a few days of sleep,.. and why is it that mu can never be left empty and ma is always right behind??? I gather the answer to that is the same as asking to find reason in nasal congestion.
but,... a poem about nature... comes to mind..

"Life and death, past and present---
Marionettes on a toy stage,
When the strings are broken,
Behold the broken pieces."
--- Buddhist verse by an unknown zen master

and from a ___Chinese__ Zen work, that was later paraphrased by Muso Kokushi,... iow's it predates the birth of Japanese Zen....
"At midnight in Silla the sun is bright."

What is Mu, Edzard?

A question best studied while tanked to the gills on Nyquil?

Hmmm...

I agree with Mohave on the intrinsic message, that seperating Man from Nature is silly. Yet Ron's question alone is a flare in the night announcing that that is indeed what has happened to our entire culture, one that is supplanting EVERY other culture on this planet. So, Mohave, I agree with you and disagree with the idealistic stance. What people should do and what they do are NEVER the same thing; wishing will not make it so...what will?

I believe we are doing it here; opening frank discussion that does not talk down, does not preach, and offers education (it's not just for school anymore). Ron has asked a considered question posed not just by him, but by some very talented experts. Despite Edzard's somewhat addled state, I agree with him about the boulders, but Edzard, what about the stainless steel ones? With the stainless steel bamboo? Not very Nature like; not very Japanese either...would I be suprised to see it in a mall in Japan? Nope. The Meiji Edicts were pretty clear; develop Western culture and native culture be damned. Christmas is the big holiday in Japan now; proof positive on how well Western culture has been adopted (that and the efficiency of their economy; the student has surpassed the master).

As we in the West have become disconnected from Nature, so goes Japan, a real shame for a culture that used to deify Nature. That disconnect leads both Japanese and Western consumers to eschew anything that carries the hint of old fashioned or rustic in favor of new and shiny, and I guess that includes gardeners, too. Rikyu would be appalled, and JOJG staff are banking on it. Swimming pools in place of koi ponds? No wonder they want to trash the older styles...

Mohave, we have finally developed Mankind to the point where the continuation of Nature is not assured, as we are setting Nature against itself throughout the planet. Ask a fisherman on the Black Sea about Leete's comb jellyfish, a denizen of my waters that wiped out the entire ecosystem in a few short years. We are in the first stages of seeing environmental degradation brought about by Nature itself, and we as gardeners are the unwitting vectors. While we have yet to see ecosystemic collapse like my example, more than a few environmental scientists are starting to ring the warning bells, announcing this CAN happen, right here in our backyards. How did your tomatos do this year? Short on fruit? Didn't get a good set? We don't have enough bees anymore; wild honeybees are all but gone, killed by mites, one from Asia, one from Europe. We are feeling the first effects of bioinvasion and as Japanese gardeners, we need to be aware of the damage we can do. Using barberry? Don't. A bird borne invasive is the worst kind and this one is quickly becoming a scourge, despite an eradication effort in the Thirties. That was powered by an agricultural society that has faded out where I live (alternate wheat rust host), so an industry bent on the bottom line is the only lobby on that subject now, and they want to keep it (deer don't eat it). And Man is not disconnected from Nature? Hmmmm...

Finally, Edzard, thank you for the Muso quote; always a pleasure to hear from my favorite Zen master. I will ponder that one for a while...and Ron's question too, 'though my mind is mostly made up. Ron, I'm sure Gunther is most correct, and as to opining, it sucks...

Good evening...

Scott,...
Mu? Mu is the big thing my Ma is wrapped in.
when you are finished ranting about the inequities of the universe, and (3 deleted paragraphs about Meiji edicts),..... give a quiet listen for a long long moment...
you said: "but Edzard, what about the stainless steel ones? With the stainless steel bamboo? Not very Nature like; not very Japanese either...

Scott, that is the point of Shin gyo so = scale. And kokoro = heart. This is very, very japanese, past the quick... deep, deep inside the Shinto origins that is more than cell deep (maternal line actually) and can't be divided out yet, because memory is 3 generations long......
---- think, please think. Long. --don't stop yet. think, reflect... now please consider....

The Japanese garden is a place betwixt two areas, inside and outside, and it makes both bearable, by using something from both.
transitioning..., if you have a lamppost of steel, and it has a shape, vertical, and if it seques into steel bamboo, it then becomes a useable tool by the time you have transitioned it into real bamboo, dead, alive or plastic, by the clients house.
--you've just brought the client to his nature home, from being a steel jungle to a real bamboo forest, so smoothly that the client never felt the transition, but his heartrate ..dropped.
--think long about this.... I'm told this is very very Japanese

one of the reasons this subject intriques me.... and am waiting for the Ron's conclusions, and as you say:

"I'm sure Gunther is most correct", indeed, most often he is and the this conversation with him sounded very similar, except I was using your words, willst having tea and toast with Guenter in Kyoto (there is an umlaut btw), and I learned in 3 languages about materials and heart, and am now passing this on using very much his inflection, ...
the material does not matter, what matters is what the heart, kokoro, is of the use of the materials, any materials................... and scaled using Shin So, it speaks beyond the outside walls of the person directly to their heart, that place where they no longer understand but only feel.

and then he only printed part of it in the Right Angle and Natural Form edition, with a changed title.

would you like Guenters email address??? you can ask him yourself.

now, can you and Mohave be so good as to let Ron bring the subject back to what he was talking about ???????? ???? ?? ?? ?

where's my nyqui? ;), --ssssht Scott!!! ..only thinking!! ssssht, not a peep from you,.. think! ... talk after Ron talks, meanwhile, think some more or play on other threads. ;), sorry, couldn't resist...

Today .. I only want to make a good bowl of rice.

"Is this a 1970's campus timewarp?"

Well .. I did order Kung Fu on DVD ... LOL .. I did not see those shows in 25 years.

Ron .. please carry on ... perhaps some more background to clarify a bit.

Good Day ...

Resuming the question by backing up with some arguments from the books:

My conclusion of Nitschkes historical analyses could be checked by reading the first pages of each following chapters regarding the stereotypes. In fact, this is not much a conclusion, rather a summary. Because the book is already organized according to the chronological evolution is this an easy thing to do. The most important parts are likely the first and the last chapter. The first garden type, the Heian gardens, imitated and copied some/most nature feature and scenes. The 5th garden type, the last in the book, consists a great deal of the projection of mans mind to a piece of land, floor or roof we call our garden. Nitschke termed the results as mindscapes. If you want to read some sentences in the book, try these ones (and likely others, but these ones Ive looked up yesterday within half an hour):
[p106]"The Heian garden imitates the outer forms of nature between the selective landscape of natural features. It seems to me that the Muromachi garden takes a step further: it seeks to imitate the inner form of nature and thereby fathom the secret laws of its proportions and rhythms, energy and movement. Its means a abstract compositions of naturally-accuring materials".
[207]"The 5th new garden prototype, which emerged at the start of the 20th century, was initially dominated by carved natural rocks; these were later joined by synthetic materials. This prototype no longer starts from existing models in nature, but is better understood as an intellectual projection onto nature. Its gardens are thus no longer land-scapes but mind-scapes.
[233]"Kenzo Tange explains: "We like the carved rock, because it reflects the will of the carver. Neither the natural rocks nor the way they had been placed (in the traditional garden) reflected the slightest trace of human personality. They simply lay quietly where they were, disturbing nothing and giving no hint of a human urge to create something beautiful". Shortly before his death in 1989, the famous sculptor Isamu Naguchi stated in a interview:"The garden is made from a collaboration with nature. Mans hands are hidden by time and by many effects of nature, moss and so forth, so you are hidden. I dont want to be hidden. I want to show, therefore, I am modern. Im not a traditional Ueki-ya, tree trimmer".

Ive tried to relate Nitschkes "Japanese Gardens" to Slawsons "Secret teaching in the art of Japanese gardens" in the evolution framework discussed here, and found ground for my thought especially in the parts where Slawson explained the shift of what he termed "feature-oriented design" to "quality-oriented design", started at page 70. He did this with the term Fuzei, which was hard to grasp in the beginning, because I was tied up in my objective-subjective dualism (read below further). Edzard mentioned in his previous comments that Fuzei refers to the objective organization of the site, i.e. the atmosphere of the site "as is". To me this is hard to accept, because a site has firstly to "appear" to me and I must be "open" for him, otherwise it has no meaning for me. Things (or animals or plants) gain meaning to us because they appear to us and only if or because we are open and sensitive to them. I must "add" my subjectivity to feel the atmosphere of the site. Furthermore, these "feeling tones" (a term used by Slawson in discussing Fuzei on pages 71-72,137-138) will getting stronger when we starts giving a thing a NAME of its own. This looks to me as the reason and explanation of the superiority of the Japanese in rock setting as well. They started giving the rocks their own names, and are thereby getting more sensitive to its characters and qualities.
If you want to read some sentences in the book, try these ones (and likely others, but these ones Ive looked up yesterday within half an hour):
[70]"This is important (the shift to quality-oriented landscape, red), for by paying more attention to these perceptual qualitiessize, shape, texture, configurationof materials, the 15th century manual roots the garden not so much in the natural world as in functioning of human senses that perceive it".
[71]"Fuzei occurs 59 times in the Illustrations, and only 4 times in Sakuteiki"
[71]"With the Illustrations, we witness the beginning of an awareness of the extend to which such feelings could be generated within the human heart through the pathways of the human senses".
[71]"Perhaps this explains the almost schizophrenic tendency in the West to regard the "objective" imitation of nature and the "subjective"expression of emotive qualities in art as mutually exclusive, and to value the first one and then the other in the pendulum swing of history......... There is no reason to conclude that these two instincts are mutually exclusive. In art, as with human life, there is much more to be gained from regarding them as inseperable aspects of a whole".
Feeling-tones are also described in pages 136-141. "The Japanese had developed a vocabulary of feeling-tones in conjunction with the art of literatureterms like aware (pathos), okashi (a diverting or pleasing qualilty), yugen (a profound, haunting beauty), or sabi (resigned solitude), but this vocabulary is unfortunately not reflected in the Illustrations". On page138 Slawson shows "only" 3 feeling-tones in English words.

My question was/is: are you agree with the evolution summary, and if so, are you happy with it ?

My own answer now is: I dont care, because Ive overlooked the significance of gardens as part of nature. Urban gardens are definitely not part of (wild) nature, but are just extentions of our houses. What we do there is just breezing some "fresh" air, sitting, playing, looking. Yes, we grow a tree or two, but I can barely call those trees as a part of nature. This discussion has opened my eyes that these gardens have less to do with nature itself. They can be NATURE-INSPIRED in the upper layer of the design. They can beeither IMAGES of MINDS or SYMBOLS of NATURE or something in between.. I do like both the IMAGES of a nature-inspired garden and art-inspired garden as well, as long as they match my TASTE. So, garden designing is going nowhere in term of "good, objective design" (the 5 gardeners), because "good" seems to be replaced by "taste". And we are now allowed to have our own individual tastes.

Very interesting post Ron .. much to think about. Thank you for posting the quotes .. much more to think about.

"Yes, we grow a tree or two, but I can barely call those trees as a part of nature."

I do consider it nature .. just like the dust under my finger nails !

"(wild) nature" ... thats like saying "woody tree". That's your culture talking.

I agree with much of the evolution you have presented ... and some I still need to digest.

In particular I found great solice in the quote from Isamu Naguchi. As a gardener I deal with this daily in my own work .. it seems to be very trendy these days not to leave a trace of man in the garden ... myself .. I garden as a diplomat ... making the garden meld with man .. a compromise ... and I attempt to do this by working from my own true nature and placing it in accord with the nature around me.

I'm still not sure where the "mindscape' sits with me ... not completely sure what you mean by "mindscape". Can you expand a bit ?? I suppose one could dance or play with nature ??

I like the Muromachi garden very much .. It is what I talked about above .. also .. my training in biology seems to deal with the same questions and applications. Check out "Allometry" in particular. Coincidental ?? Nah ...

We are nearing a common point in the history of mankind.

Good Day ...

Okay to peek?

May I have a thought?
Sorry Edzard, but the steel bamboo thing is just a slick signature piece for some aspiring designer, not good gardening. Must be the tree hugger in me, but those last sentences from the Isamu Naguchi quote say it all.

"Mans hands are hidden by time and by many effects of nature, moss and so forth, so you are hidden. I dont want to be hidden. I want to show, therefore, I am modern. Im not a traditional Ueki-ya, tree trimmer".

I'd say that sums up Ron's question in a nut shell. Do you find that an acceptable part of the process, interjecting design features based on personal signature, or is the job REALLY about maintenance of an evolving concept, in EQUAL concordance with the whims of Mother Nature. Therein lies the question of whether it is man's domination or just new garden style. The move towards man dominating nature in the J-garden started in the Momoyama and it's been picking up speed ever since. Ron's quote "Urban gardens are definitely not part of (wild) nature, but are just extentions of our houses. What we do there is just breezing some "fresh" air, sitting, playing, looking. Yes, we grow a tree or two, but I can barely call those trees as a part of nature." tells the whole story. Rather than using the garden as a tie to nature, Ron sees it as an abstraction thereof, totally subject to his whim. Why does he think his garden is not a part of Nature? His deed? The plants he selected? I guarantee there is a lot of wildlife that would disagree with him on any given day (I have been working on a native plant program that enhances backyards as habitat, and I think it is a topic ALL gardeners need to take a look at. Not yet edzard... keep thinking about it...hold it...):))). True respect of nature places equal emphasis on ALL species; Isamu don't play that tune...

Ron a most excellent question, and timely too. I agree with Nietschke about the move to "mindscapes", but I think it's more pretention than innovation, and will in the long run detract from the art by excluding all classical influence. What will you use for inspiration when Nature is all used up?

How does one use up nature ?

Good Day ...

Mohave Kid,
I think that Nitschke used the term "mindscape" for 2 reasons. The first reason is to relate the new term he created with the old fashioned term "landscape", a play on words. The second reason is to describe the evolution of the gardeners thought about gardening. In the early era they were copying landscapes to the garden sites within the walls. Now they use more other things to get inspired: from kimono prints to (abstract) drawings, from buildings architecture to one fantasy about the dessert or the woods.

Scott,
To me, the most important function of gardening is to learn the values of Nature within my surroundings within a (very) small scale. Its more a attitude and spiritual building matter than a physicall project. I dont bother whether someone calls my few trees as part of Nature, because Nature is a vague term, like the Mohave Kid quotes: "I do consider it nature .. just like the dust under my finger nails!". I cant do anything in particular with such vague idea. By the way, this doesnt mean I want to kill anyone who puts the word in their mouths.

With Bonsai, in analogy with the garden, the small tree at the tokonoma alcove has all the same physical charasteristics like its bigger brothers outside the house, but more importantly at the same time it could also considered as a symbol of human appreciation toward the Nature. Through Bonsai we try to learn everything about trees, especially its aesthetical value (i.e. beauty).

Mohave, I hope that was rhetorical; don't make me get all Sea of Azov/Cuyahoga River/Love Canal on yah...we have the means and reasons to use up Nature and for the most part we still are. Can you think of some places in Nevada where you wouldn't want to live because of how we "used up" the nature? Tenting at the test sites, then? Zazen at Ground Zero?

Ron you are preaching to the choir when it comes to the spirtual nature of gardening. That connection of lifecycle to lifecycle is a most powerful thing; the further I immerse myself in it the deeper I see the ties running. As I have moved from chemigation to organic gardening, I see my gardening as more than growing plants; I now nurture micorrhizal fungii with tending and care. These in turn take care of my plants AND the soil they grow in (while the salts in conventional fertilizers eventually destroy soil flora and fauna: don't make me go all Dust Bowl on yah, Mohave...).

Every living thing in my garden gets consideration on its benefits and banes to the environment as a whole (of which I consider my garden to be a small slice). Japanese barberry? Wildly invasive and bird borne to boot. Nope. Native grasses? Seed source for birds, larval source for a few butterflies, downsides? Little weedy looking at points in the year. Not in the Japanese garden, then. Over in the Bird garden. Yep they have a garden at my house, complete with "weeds" dug at friends houses ("You WANT them?") The front garden is for bees and butterflies and hummers (away from the Bird Garden; it's nice to feed butterflies, it's nice to feed birds, it's not nice to feed the butterflies to the birds. But it IS nature, I hear you Mohave...)To quote Aldo Leopold, "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." THAT'S what I try to live by as I garden and I don't think it is a "vague idea". I get that it's not for everybody, but don't cut those deeper ties just yet.

Your trees are as much Nature as redwoods in Muir Grove. Consideration about what to grow with them is the next step . I grow hostas, rhododendrons, azaleas, hakonechloa grass and ferns of Japanese lineage and would never want to garden without them. I will however restrain from using any plants that do NOT "preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community." I won't use pesticides or fungicides, or even salt based nitrogen fertilizers because they harm part of the biotic community, part that I have come to nurture through composting. Aldo's example shows, as do most of Mohaves more lucid posts, that we are part of Nature ourselves and suggests we start acting like it. It was a very common thread in early Zen and Taoist thought, this oneness with Nature; that is why I am such a fervent disciple of the Zen garden styles. As we begin to look inside ourselves for the inspiration for gardening/"mindscaping", we amplify any disconnect we have already begun to develop with our biotic community. We begin to see our role as "master of the universe" in as much as our gardens are whole universes (Yes, Mohave, I know...). The further we distance ourselves from the other members of our biotic community, the easier it becomes to look to ourselves as the final arbiter of all things good (and the harder it becomes to see the damage our behavior eventually brings to the community). To again quote Leopold,
"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

To ignore the needs of the biotic community is to ignore our own needs. To encourage and embrace other species is to embrace ourselves. To love and respect not just the cute and furry, but the total of all life is to accept all of ourself as Nature. To do otherwise IS the end of Nature...

Don't it always go to show
that you don't realize what you got 'til it's gone
They paved Paradise, put up a parking lot...

Joni Mitchell

Thanks again for a great question Ron. You and Mohave have had me pondering strongly held but little reasoned beliefs and have made me examine and rationalize my design process and my belief system, and both will benefit...

Scott