SUZHOU GARDENS: AN OVERVIEW

Architectural History Panel , Tongji University, October 1956

Translated by Zhong Zhilan

·(I)

From a historian's point of view, the Chinese garden takes its earliest forms as you and yuan in remote antiquity, and yuan as recorded in A Study of the Han Institutions by Wang Yinglin (1223-1296) ¹ . According to Interpreting and Dissecting the Chinese Characters , a dictionary of the Eastern Han (25-220) in the second century,

You is a yuan behind an enclosure wall. Some argue that a you is where poultry and animals are kept. Pu is where vegetables are grown, yuan is where fruit trees are planted, and yuan is where animals are kept.

And people are assigned to run these gardens, according to The Rites of Zhou ,

"Offices of Heaven" (Greater Minister): … of the nine professions that employ people, the second one is gardening, which entails cultivating grass and trees.

"Offices of Earth" (The Person in Charge of " You "): … The person in charge of a you patrols and herds all the animals.

"Offices of Earth" (The Master of Loads): … the vacant land between the inner and outer city walls is used as threshing ground.

Thus the differences between these three Chinese characters are clarified.

From Zhuangzi we learn that in remote antiquity Xiwei ² had his you and the Yellow Emperor (2717-2599 BC) ³ his pu , which may be deemed predecessors of these two kinds of gardens. The yuan and you were fenced off as a hunting ground during the first three Chinese dynasties—Xia (2070-1600 BC), Shang (1600-1046 BC) and Zhou (1046-256 BC). According to Mencius , King Wen of Zhou (1152-1050 BC) ⁴ had a you 70 square li wide, with entrance permission granted to grass collectors, faggot cutters, and catchers of pheasants and hares.

From the Qin (221-206 BC) and the Han (206 BC-220 AD) onward, gardens were gradually turned into feudal monarchs' pleasure grounds, where elaborately appointed buildings were erected for this purpose. Some became very large, according to historic records. The Epang Palace of Qinshihuang (259-210 BC) ⁵ , for example, covered an area of 300 li on the Wei River in Xianyang, the capital of the Qin near present-day Xi'an. In comparable sizes were the sprawling Shanglin Park of Emperor Wu of Han (156-87 BC) ⁶ with the Grand Fluid Pond to the north of the Jianzhang Palace on its premises, and the Sweet Springs Park in Chang'an, the Han capital in present-day Xi'an. Prince Xiao of Liang (?-144 BC) ⁷ made Chinese garden history with the first ever-known rockeries piled up in his Hare Garden in present-day Shangqiu, Henan province. Emperor Wen of Wei (187-226) ⁸ had his Fragrant Forest Garden in Luoyang, the same city where Emperor Yang of Sui (569-618) ⁹ built his Western Park some four centuries later. Emperor Yizong of Tang (828-873) ¹⁰ decorated his gardens with trees and rock formations. The Northeast Mount Garden, in the possession of Emperor Huizong of Northern Song (1082-1135) ¹¹ in present-day Kaifeng, is the most elaborately documented in history books.

After the imperial court of the Northern Song moved south and settled down in Lin'an (present-day Hangzhou), ¹² new gardens mushroomed there, including the Jade Ford Garden, the Prospects Assembly Garden, and the Fragrance Collection Garden. In presentday Beijing, Kublai Khan of Yuan (1215-1294) ¹³ had the Grand Fluid Pond dug and dredged at the Longevity Hill, which was called "Jade Flowery Islet" during the Liao (907-1125) and the Jin. In addition to inheriting the former ones, more gardens were built from the Ming (1368—1644) down to the Qing (1616—1911), such as the Western Park, the Southern Park, as well as the Unimpeded Spring Garden, the Limpid Ripples Garden, and the Garden of Perfect Splendor in the western suburbs of Beijing.

Descriptions of private gardens also abound in historical records. For example, Yuan Guanghan, a well-heeled man from Maoling in present-day Xingping county, Shaanxi, had a garden constructed at the foot of the Beimang Mountain north of Luoyang during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han. In his garden, which ran east-west for four li and north-south for five li , stones were arranged into rockeries and a variety of poultry and animals raised. Liang Ji (?-159) ¹⁴ defined gardens within a circumference of several thousand li that bordered on Hongnong in the west, Yingyang in the east, Luyang in the south, and Heqi in the north. The garden of Zhang Lun ( fl . 5th century) ¹⁵ featured a rockery known as "Scenic Sun Mountain" against a background in close imitation of nature. These examples show that the Chinese craft of gardens had come a long way by that time. In addition, Ru Hao ( fl . 5th century), a man from south of the Yangtze who served in the Northern Wei (386-534) court earlier than Zhang Lun, quarried fine rocks from the Beimang and Southern mountains to build the Flowery Forest Garden ¹⁶ , in which stately lofts and pavilions were erected in keeping with the line of the land, and bubbling spring water was channelled in to keep flowers irrigated in an attempt to match the craft of gardens with natural landscape.

No episode in Chinese history has seen more wars than the period that encompassed the Wei, the Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties. However, it was also one in which pivotal changes took place in the annals of the Chinese thought while Buddhism throve more than ever. Everyday apparels and food, easygoing "pure conversations" on lofty and non-mundane matters, and mental cultivation through worshipping the Buddha were all the rage among scholar-officials of the time. Living in cities, they pined for wooded mountains where they could forget all worldly engagements. As a result, literary works in eulogy of nature emerged along with landscape painting; in the field of architecture, landscape gardens began to appear right beside their residences. Shi Chong (249-300) ¹⁷ built his Garden of Golden Valley in Luoyang with the intention to "shun the hustle and bustle of the world" and "invest passion in enjoyment of nature," as he professed in his "Preface to 'Longing to Return.'" His intention is echoed in the Book of Liang ("Biography of Xiao Tong"), in "A Letter of Admonitions to My Son Xu Song" by Xu Mian (466-535) ¹⁸ , and in the "Small Garden Rhapsody" by Yu Xin (513-581) ¹⁹ . The gardens built during the Tang, such as the Lantian Villa of Song Zhiwen ( c . 656-712) ²⁰ , the Wangchuan Villa of Wang Wei (706-761) ²¹ , and the Pingquan Villa of Li Deyu (787-850) ²² were invariably graced with picturesque bamboo islets, sunken parterres, and pellucid brooks. In these villas, man-made scenes are easily mistaken for natural ones. Of all these gardens of the Tang, the Thatched Hut of Bai Juyi (772-846) ²³ , Li Deyu's contemporary, stands out by taking advantage of natural landscape through ingenious view-borrowing techniques. The accounts in A Record of the Celebrated Gardens of Luoyang by Li Gefei ( c . 1045- c . 1105) ²⁴ of the Northern Song about the Garden of Duke Fu of Zheng ²⁵ and other private gardens from the Sui and the Tang down to his day, and the presentations in "Records of Gardens in Wuxing" by Zhou Mi (1232-1298) ²⁶ of the Southern Song (1127-1279) of Minister Shen's Garden and other gardens in his time, are so factual that they tally with what we can see in gardens seven centuries later today.

Far more gardens were built during the Ming-Qing years than the total made in previous dynasties. There were, to name just a few, the Ladle-of-Water Garden ²⁷ and the Water-Brimmed Garden ²⁸ in Beijing; the Mountain-Water-Willow Shadows' Garden, the Nine Peaks Garden and the Geyuan's Garden in Yangzhou; the Billow-Tranquilizing Garden in Haining; the Small Sky Garden in Hangzhou; as well as the Eastern Garden among those described in Wang Shizhen's ²⁹ "A Tour of Gardens in Jinling" of the Ming period.

Fortunately, quite a few gardens listed in those writings are still there today, including the Gao Yu Garden ³⁰ in Hangzhou, the Obedience-to-Parents Garden, the Congenial Garden and the Small Lotus Village Garden in Nanxun, the Gratification Garden in Shanghai, the Homecoming Swallow Garden in Changshu, the Ancient Garden of Lush Bamboos in Nanxiang and the Solace-Imbued Garden in Wuxi. However, no place in the world beats Suzhou in the number of surviving ancient gardens.

Now let us have a look at the historical rise and fall of Suzhou gardens.

·(II)

Suzhou got a fine head start in political, economic, and cultural development when it was part of the kingdom of Wu of the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC), and it continued to grow through the Western Han, the Eastern Han, the Western Jin and the Eastern Jin. Suzhou gardens were heralded by the Phoenix Tree Garden built in the kingdom of Wu during the Spring and Autumn period and Gu Pijiang's Garden ³¹ during the reign of Emperor Xiaowu of Eastern Jin ³² . The region south of the Yangtze, known more popularly as the "Jiangnan area," prospered in the Six Dynasties period that encompassed the Kingdom of Wu of the Three Kingdoms period (220-280), the Eastern Jin, and the Song-Qi-Liang-Chen Southern Dynasties (420-589). Suzhou emerged as a local aristocratic landlords' consumer city along with Yangzhou and Nanjing in this region, with its economy hinged on silk and handcraft industries.

From the Six Dynasties onward, the exchange of goods between north and south China grew robustly thanks to the completion of the Grand Canal under the rule of Emperor Yang of Sui. During the Tang, booming foreign trade through maritime shipping fleets brought unprecedented wealth to the Jiangnan area. Toward the end of the Tang, while the provinces in the Central Plain were considerably enfeebled by incessant war and turmoil, the kingdoms of the Southern Tang and Wuyue (907-978) in the Jiangnan area remained stable politically and affluent economically, with enough resources to spare for the construction of more gardens, one of which was the Lepu's Garden developed by Zhu Changwen (1039-1098) ³³ on a Wuyue prince's old garden. With its Southern Tang and Wuyue economic legacies emerging unscathed from the destructive war north of the Yangtze, the Jiangnan area was able to maintain its affluence, and garden-making went on as usual in the Northern Song. After Emperor Gaozong crossed the Yangtze and founded the Southern Song, he stayed for a time in Suzhou, the seat of Pingjiang prefecture. Prefect Wang Huan ( fl . 12th century) ³⁴ had ponds dug and pavilions erected in north Suzhou to build gardens attached to government buildings, not to mention the emergence of more mansions of the rich and powerful in the wake of a scramble for land annexation. Among the Suzhou gardens built during the Northern and Southern Song period were Su Shunqin's ³⁵ Dark Blue Waves Pavilion on the former site of a Wuyue king's garden, Zhu Changwen's Lepu's Garden, Mei Xuanyi's ³⁶ Five-"Mu" Garden, the Northeast Mount Garden built by Zhu Mian (1075-1126) ³⁷ as a tribute for Emperor Huizong of Northern Song, and Zhu's own Garden of Universal Joy.

After the Mongols toppled the Southern Song in 1279 and extended the rule of the Yuan south of the Yangtze, the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang remained as repositories of great wealth. More gardens were built as a result, and the Lion's Grove was one of them. During the subsequent Ming-Qing period, land annexation went from bad to worse. Suzhou, an established national silk-producing and handicrafts centre since the Tang-Song period, was by now a concentrated settlement for landowners and government officials while leading the nation in the number of successful candidates for imperial exams. During the Qing alone, it was home to more zhuangyuan , or number one successful candidates in the highest imperial examination, than any other city across the land. Upon retirement, these scholar-officials, especially those who were Suzhou natives, would settle down in the city to purchase land and open stores. With the earnings from land and business, they had gardens built to entertain themselves in their evening years, and became big consumers of local handicraft products, something that had also happened in Luoyang of the Sui-Tang period, Wuxing (present-day Huzhou, Zhejiang province) of the Southern Song, and Nanjing of the Ming.

In terms of natural environment, Suzhou is crisscrossed by waterways and studded with lakes, which makes it easy to draw mountain springs and divert water to gardens, and its fertile soil is salubrious to flowers and trees. To the convenience of local consumers and crafters of rockeries, the city runs its own quarries in the local Yaofeng Mountain and obtains Lake Tai stones from its East and West Dongting Mountains. Stone supplies are also available within manageable distances, such as the Yellow Hill in Jiangyin, the Lord Zhang's Cave in Yixing, the Chuishan Mountain and Greater Xianshan Mountain in Zhenjiang, the Mountain of Dragon's Pool in Jurong, the Blue Dragon Mountain in Nanjing and the Saddle Mountain in Kunshan. Though these rocks compare unfavorably in quality with Suzhou's own supplies; they are situated in the vicinity and within easy reach. Lake Tai stones are choicest for rockwork in Suzhou gardens for their picture-evocative shapes. As Book of Song ("Biography of Dai Yong") puts it,

When [Dai] Yong came to live in Suzhou, local scholars managed to build a house for him. They collected stones, brought in water, planted trees and dug creeks. Before long, the estate was densely wooded and looked like born of nature.

Insofar as cultural environment is concerned, the land of Suzhou teems with gifted men in poetry, prose, calligraphy and painting. Local literati officials not only offered their own ideas about garden designing, but also drew inspirations from assorted hangers-on. In his Record of Wu Customs , Huang Xingzeng (1496-1561) ³⁸ describes a group of such retainers who happened to be Zhu Mian's sons and grandsons,

The sons and grandsons of Zhu Mian live at the foot of the Tiger Hill. They hang around with kings and dukes, offering service in horticulture and rockery making. "Layabout garden spongers" they are called.

Another passage from the Miscellaneous Discoveries from Guixin Street by Zhou Mi has this to say,

The workmen, those hailing from Wuxing in particular, are called rockery crafters in a custom handed down from Zhu Mian perhaps.

From among these designers and skilled workmen, a legion of garden crafters came to the fore in the two provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, beginning from the Song. These included Yu Cheng ( fl . 13th century), Lu the Rockery Builder, Ji Cheng (1582- c . 1642), Wen Zhenheng (1585-1645), Zhang Lian (1587-1673), Zhang Ran ( fl . 17th century), Ye Tao ( fl . 17th century), Li Yu (1611-1680), Qiu Haoshi (1723-1795) and Ge Yuliang (1764-1830). ³⁹ Good rockery designers invariably come from Nanjing, Suzhou and Jinhua, with Suzhou having the very best to offer—a fact that is not without its historical reasons. Landscape gardening, however, is not limited to wealthy literati officials, as the author of the Record of Wu Customs observes,

Even the rank and file, including those who are hard up, know how to enjoy themselves by gracing their homes with miniature rockeries and potted islets.

Love for nature, indeed, is borne deeply in the hearts of all folks in Suzhou.

No place in the world has more traditional gardens—and has them in a complete array—than Suzhou, which may be called a "Garden City" if all these gardens are properly repaired and conserved. It is why the name of Suzhou would leap into mind at the mere mention of Chinese gardens. Small wonder the Jiangnan gardens are extolled as the best under heaven, with Suzhou boasting the best Jiangnan gardens.

I have spent five years on on-the-spot surveys of these gardens and participated in their repairs and restorations. In the last two summers I have led students from the Architecture Department of Tongji University on cartographical fieldwork tours of these gardens, with focus on ancient architecture and garden-making. Availing myself of the long hours I had spent there, I compiled cartographical files and photographs, with the two largest gardens—the Humble Administrator's Garden and the Lingering Garden—as cases in point so that I can illustrate in a small way the historical metamorphosis of the Suzhou gardens and of the design techniques employed on them. Where necessary, I also referred to some smaller gardens in my narration.

·(III)

The Humble Administrator's Garden, 178 Northeast Street. Situated between Loumen and Qimen City Gates in the northeast corner of Suzhou, the predecessor of this garden was a villa built during the Jiajing reign (1522-1566) of the Ming by Wang Xianchen (1469-?) ⁴⁰ on the debris of the Temple of Grand Preachers of the Yuan. Its name, "Humble Administrator's Garden," is derived from a line in the famous poet Pan Yue's ⁴¹ "Idle Life Rhapsody,"

[You ought to be filial, and discharge your brotherly duties.] This is how a humble administrator exercises his government duties.

The garden changed hands a couple of times. It was first sold to a local man surnamed Xu by Wang Xianchen's son to pay off a gambling debt. Chen Zhilin (1605-1666) ⁴² bought it for a song from Xu's offspring in the early Qing. After Chen was exiled to a place north of the Great Wall for military servitude, it became the official residence of a Manchu garrison commander of provincial bannermen, and then served as the seat of the Circuit Intendant. Wang Yongning ( fl . 17th century), a son-in-law of Wu Sangui (1612-1678), the notorious Ming general who surrendered to the Qing army and led them through the Shanhai Pass, resided in this garden for a time before it was confiscated as a result of Wu's revolt against the Qing. The garden was converted into the Bureau of the Circuit of Suzhou, Songjiang, and Changzhou established soon after Emperor Kangxi succeeded the throne, who personally visited this estate on one of his imperial tours of the south. After the Circuit of Suzhou, Songjiang, and Changzhou was abolished, the whole property was downgraded to a civilian dwelling. In the early years of Emperor Qianlong's reign (1736-1796), it was divided into western, central and eastern parts, and Prefect Jiang Qi ( fl . 18th century) took possession of the central part and renamed it "Restored Garden." During the reign of Emperor Jiaqing, it was acquired by Zha Shitan ( fl . 19th century), a Haining native who was a department head of the Ministry of Punishment, and then it came under the ownership of Wu Jing (1747-1822) ⁴³ from Pinghu. When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Uprising troops took control of Suzhou, Li Xiucheng (1823-1864), the King of Loyalty, took the western and eastern parts as his mansion, but the Qing government seized the garden again after the uprising fell through. In the tenth year of Emperor Tongzhi's reign (1862-1875), it was converted into the Guild of Eight-Banner Members from Fengtian and Metropolitan Provinces, and resumed its original name, Humble Administrator's Garden. In 1877, its western part was sold to Zhang Lüqian (1838-1915), a rich merchant from Wuxian county, who named it "Additional Garden." The three parts were not put together again until the 1960s.

The plan of the Humble Administrator's Garden is centered on water, which covers approximately three fifths of the total garden. Accordingly, eighty to ninety percent of the main buildings on the premises are water-bound. Wen Zhengming says in his "Record of the Humble Administrator's Garden,"

In the area between the Loumen and Qimen City Gates in the northeast of the prefecture's seat, many vacant lots were waterlogged. They have been slightly dredged and conserved, with trees transplanted around them….

The water conservancy arrangement in compliance with the local terrain tallies with the principle of flexible adaptation of gardens to the lie of the land laid down by Ji Cheng in his The Craft of Gardens ("Suitable Sites"),

… If it is high and square you should make use of pavilions and terraces. If it is low and concave you can dig out pools and ponds.

These lines speak volumes for the feasibility of centering the layout of the Humble Administrator's Garden on its rich water resources.

Taking topography into full account is a common practice in many other gardens in this city, including the Master-of-Fishnets Garden at Kuojietou Lane, where eighty percent of the space is covered with water, and the Five-"Mu" Garden at the Pingmen City Gate, where ponds and pools are interconnected to form a serpentine water belt. In both gardens the bodies of water are dredged and regulated by giving full play to the topography. The Beauty-Encircled Mountain Abode on Jingde Road is another example, where the water problem is tackled in a clever way. When Jiang Ji ( fl . 18th century), the property's owner in the early years of Emperor Qianlong's reign, was digging a pond in the garden, he hit upon a fountainhead with water gushing out of it, which he delightfully named "Flying Snow Flakes."

As is mentioned above, the Humble Administrator's Garden is made up of three parts. The central part has kept most of its old layout. The western part, known as "Additional Garden" under Zhang Lüqian's ownership, has been properly arranged after drastic renovations. The derelict eastern part, the Return-to-Farming Abode owned by Wang Xinyi (1572-1645) during the Ming, is now being restored from long years of dilapidation.

The main building in the central part, the Hall of Far-Drifting Fragrance, is a three-bay structure with floor-length windows on four sides, under a gable and hip roof with a side eave under one gable. Looking out from its sash bars, one gets a panoramic view of the garden. In the south, there is a small pond with rockeries around it, where blooming yulan magnolias are well spaced, an old elm tree stands by a rock at the foot of an undulating wall, and green bamboos lean quietly against rockeries. A slender colonnade runs along the curve of the rockeries to usher the visitor into the garden—an arrangement that not only makes one wonder if he has entered a woody mountain upon crossing the threshold, but also makes the entrance somewhat "disappear" as a rockery blocks the prospects when he looks southward. Here, the rockery functions more or less like a screen wall standing behind the front gate of a house or dividing up the interior of a room. East of the Hall of Far-Drifting Fragrance stands the Embroidered Damask Pavilion, with the Leaning-on-Jade Verandah sitting in the west and a lotus pond lying in the north. Poised atop the small mountains beyond the pond are the Fragrant Snow and Luxuriant Cloud Pavilion and the Frost Awaiting Pavilion. Along the north-south axis with the Hall of Far-Drifting Fragrance at the middle point, buildings now rise, now plummet to bring the scene's central theme into bold relief. The islets of the pond, in particular, are surrounded by flowing water, shaded by clustered bamboos, and adorned with shapely Lake Tai stones along the embankment. The whole view seems to extend infinitely, giving the impression that one is roving the realm of a natural lake.

A stroll along the shore eastward from the Hall of Far-Drifting Fragrance brings one to the Rainbow-Leaning Bridge. The bridge and its railings, which both originated in the Ming, lie low and short. A few steps away from the other end of the bridge stands the Rainbow-Leaning Pavilion, an otherwise hexagonal structure that clings upon a colonnade and only shows its three sides—as if its other half were slashed crosswise, hence its name, "East Half-Pavilion."

A passageway from the Rainbow-Leaning Pavilion conducts northward to the Secluded Parasol-and-Bamboo Pavilion, sporting a pyramid-shaped roof and an arched door on each of its four sides, situated at the eastern end of the garden's central part. Observed through the pavilion's two opposite arched doors, the scenery in the pond seems to be framed inside a ring. Looming faintly in the deepest recess on the other side of the wide pond is the West Half-Pavilion, or the Pavilion of Celestial Vistas, opens onto the garden's western part while its arched gate is silhouetted in the pond. Behind this pavilion there is the towering Northern Temple Pagoda, which looks like close at hand but is actually one kilometer away from the garden. This is, indeed, another fabulous case of view borrowing.

Standing here, one sees the Hall of Far-Drifting Fragrance, the Leaning-on-Jade Verandah, and the Fragrant Isle on the left, and two islets on the right. The former is a set of magnificent buildings, and the latter a veritable scroll painting of natural scenery. "This is where the concept of contrast is used in the craft of gardens in full glory," my mentor Liu Dunzhen (1897-1968) ⁴⁴ told me.

As a matter of fact, the distance between the pond's eastern and western shores is not that long, but the visual effect of the design yields an illusionary sense of depth thanks to the presence of a stone beam bridge on the water surface—one must look beyond the bridge to see what is going on on the other side of the pond. The narrow strip of water cuts the scenery in two, with gorgeous buildings on one side and nature-wrought lush green hills on the other, thereby enhancing the depth of distance and the width of field. On the other side of the pond, aged elms snuggle upon the embankment, weeping willows stroke the rippling water with soft twigs, and lofts and terraces are framed invitingly in an elegant arch gate.

A walk from the Secluded Parasol-and-Bamboo Pavilion and over a triple-bend Bridge brings one to a forked road at the foot of a triangular islet, where a winding trail leads up to the Frost Awaiting Pavilion at the top, a hexagonal structure whose roof juts out over the bamboos like a wing. To the east is the Green Ripples Pavilion, and to the west the rectangular Fragrant Snow and Luxuriant Cloud Pavilion perches on an elliptical islet. The two islets are separated by a creek with a small bridge across it, where bamboo groves in sequestered repose and old trees recline over the gurgling creek to greet the orioles flying between them—a setting that is thoroughly insulated from the mess and noise of the outside world.

Stroll from the Fragrant Snow and Luxuriant Cloud Pavilion, and one arrives at the Pavilion of Lotus-Scented Breeze from Four Sides, another hexagonal building at the intersection of three passageways, with one zigzagging bridge linking its front to the Leaning-on-Jade Verandah and another at its back providing access to the Mountain-in-View Loft and the Pavilion of Celestial Vistas through the Willow-Shaded Winding Walkway. A two-storied structure crowned with a double-eave gable and hip roof, the loft is found in the northwest corner of the central part and keeps itself at a considerable distance from what is contained in its surroundings; from its upper storey, reachable via steps in a rockery, the views in the city's northern corners meet the eye instantly when one looks afar. The scenic vintage point of this kind is commonplace in the Chinese garden. For example, the pentagonal pavilion of the Half Garden at Zhongyouji Lane, and the fan-shaped pavilion in the Lion's Grove are sitting respectively on a high hilltop in a corner. Due to the large size of the Humble Administrator's Garden and its expansive water surface, however, such a two-storied loft does not look so overwhelming. What is more, the reflections in the calm water add beauty to the entire vista. Nonetheless, when designing a multi-storied building in a garden, due attention ought to be paid to skintled brickwork in elevation. Horizontal lines parallel to the water surface are preferred in order to achieve coherence.

The Fragrant Isle is known by tradition as a "land boat" because it looks like a boat that cannot sail. A large mirror is hung inside of its cabin, so that when looking west from the Leaning-on-Jade Verandah, one cannot tell whether the view he sees is real or merely mirrored reflection. The upper storey of the Fragrance Isle is named "Loft of Cloudless Vistas," which commands a panorama that extends far into the horizon. To the south of the Fragrant Isle is the Truth Attaining Pavilion ⁴⁵ with another mirror fixed inside of it to bring about a similar effect. This is where the water surface narrows down to a strip and is cut in two by a stone bridge known as "Lesser Flying Rainbow." To the south, the Lesser Dark Blue Waves Gazebo, a three-bay waterside structure, sits squarely on the water to divide its surface in two again. However, with open space beneath the bridge and the gazebo, one never feels constrained. Instead, the water looks vast enough to engender an unusual feeling of dynamic airiness, spaciousness, and gradation in depth.

At the Lesser Dark Blue Gazebo, when one looks over the Lesser Flying Rainbow and through the Pavilion in a Yard of Pines Howling in Wind and under Autumn Moon, the silhouettes of the Pavilion of Lotus-Scented Breeze from Four Sides, the profile of the Fragrant Isle and the corners of the Mountain-in-View Loft simmering in the immense water surface come into sight one after another—a grand montage observed through a tiny portal that never fails to cheer up the observer in no time.

Separated from the garden proper by an undulating wall is the self-contained Loquat Courtyard to the southeast of the Hall of Far-Drifting Fragrance. A moon gate provides the access to the courtyard, in which the Pavilion of Fabulous Fruits sits on one side and the Hall of Dainty Rocks and Delicate Bamboos on the other. Looking back upon the moon gate, one finds the Fragrant Snow and Luxuriant Cloud Pavilion framed squarely in it—where the "opposite views" technique is employed to great advantage. Sitting in the courtyard, one espies an excellent scene of view borrowing, as the tall scholar trees and pavilions beyond the wall seem to have drawn themselves closer in no time. The ground of the courtyard is paved with cobblestones in patterns exceptionally elegant and neat. The pity is that the rockery along the wall has been distorted in the aftermath of shabby reconstruction, and the wall itself, in want of a traditional top, looks somewhat rigid and awkward the way it twists and turns.

A colonnade winds its way by the side of the Hall of Dainty Rocks and Delicate Bamboos, and encircles a two-framed verandah upon entering the Vernal Crabapple Yard, where two crab apple trees crane over a few rockeries at the foot of its stairway, and where pavilions, water and rocks are faintly visible beyond the latticework windows. The courtyard seems isolated, but actually it is connected to the outside world in all directions, and every façade of it is wrought exquisitely. Inside of it, sparseness is made up for with density, and greatness is found in small details, which speaks volumes for its designer's ingenuity.

The Humble Administrator's Garden used to be an integral whole before a wall was built to divide it into western and central parts during the early years of Emperor Qianlong's reign. It was not until latticed windows were built into the wall that the two parts were united again. Some modifications were made in the western part to make it self-contained, including the addition of a waterside colonnade along its wall. Acclaimed as the best of its kind among all Suzhou gardens, the colonnade rises and falls and turns this way and that over the water, giving the impression as if it were treading rippling water.

The centerpiece of the western part is the Twin Hall, which consists of the Hall of Thirty-Six Pairs of Mandarin Ducks in the north and the Hall of Eighteen Camellias in the south. The halls, sitting under a big gable and hip roof, are actually a joint three-framed structure with four interior round ridge roofs. In each hall's four corners there is a small heating room, which is one of a kind in shape and structure in this country.

After the western part was partitioned off to stand on its own, the Twin Hall became its main architectural hallmark. To fit its bulky body to a constrained space, its frontal portion was downsized and its posterior extended over the pond. The problem is thus solved, but the resultant drastic reduction in the pond's water surface and distance to the rockeries on the opposite bank, coupled with its more constrained ground, makes the building look out of place in the whole garden. It is, indeed, a blemish in an otherwise perfect layout.

The Twin Hall is where the owner feasts his guests and appreciates Kunqu Opera performances, with the acoustic effects enhanced by interior round ridge roofs. The heating rooms in the corners serve multiple functions: as buffer zones for people entering and leaving the hall, waiting rooms for servants during banquets, and makeshift back stages for opera performers. How considerate the designers were! Among Suzhou gardens this Twin Hall is a rare interior-decoration gem along with the Stay-and-Listen Belvedere. As the Hall of Eighteen Camellias is where such flowers are marvelled at in early spring, and the Hall of Thirty-Six Pairs of Mandarin Ducks is where these love birds frolic among lotuses in summer, there are good reasons to have one hall face north and the other face south.

Facing the Twin Hall across the pond is the Floating Emerald Belvedere, a two-storied octagonal building whose top floor offers a bird's-eye view of the garden. The pity is that it is so high as to be disproportionate to its surroundings. The belvedere overlooks two tiny pavilions atop a hillock that is separated from it by a creek. They are the Bamboo Hat Pavilion and the Fan-Shaped Pavilion, looking diminutive because the hillock itself is low and tiny. The Fan-Shaped Pavilion is also known as "With Whom Shall I Sit" Verandah for its location at the slender creek's bend that offers a vantage point for leisurely sightseeing. Below the pavilion a wisp of water flows by. A walk along the colonnade over the water brings the visitor to the Loft of Inverted Reflections, a two-storied structure under a gable and hip roof. Some distance away is the Good for Both Families Pavilion, a hexagonal affair with a roof drawn up to a single point. The loft and the pavilion with their opposite views are both reflected in the water. Occupying the ends of a long and narrow creek west of the Twin Hall are the Stay-and- Listen Belvedere and the Pagoda Silhouette Pavilion, another pair of opposites that look alike and are arranged on a lower level in a similar layout and design.

The entrance from south of the Pagoda Silhouette Pavilion to the Additional Garden (that is, the Zhang's Mansion) in the west is now closed.

The eastern part of the Humble Administrator's Garden has long been deserted. Its rebuilding is being planned, but the details are beyond this book.

The Lingering Garden, 338 Liuyuan (Lingering Garden) Road. Located outside the Changmen City Gate, the Lingering Garden was originally the East Garden in the possession of Xu Taishi (1540-1598) ⁴⁶ during the mid-Ming. Under Emperor Jiaqing's reign of the Qing, the garden was rebuilt by Circuit Intendant Liu Shu (1759-1816), which was also known as "Wintry Emerald Mountain Abode" for the lacebark pines planted in it or "Liu's Garden." The twelve peak rockeries Liu had procured were built of choicest Lake Tai stones. The garden assumed its present name, the "Lingering Garden," when it came under the possession of Provincial Administrative Commissioner Sheng Kang (1814-1902) in the second year of Emperor Gaungxu's reign (1875-1909). Occupying an area of fifty mu , it is the largest garden in Suzhou.

The garden can be divided into central, eastern, western, and northern parts for convenience's sake. The central part features a lake surrounded by artificial mountains, lofts and pavilions linked with colonnades and bridges. The layout of the eastern part teems with changes, where large halls are kept apart with verandahs and rockeries. The western part highlights an artificial mountain covered all over with maple trees and graced with a few pavilions, with its southern side rimmed by a zigzagging stream to imitate the Peach Blossom Springs in Wuling dating back to the Eastern Jin. The western part, separated from the central part by an undulating wall, offers the best view to be borrowed by the central part when its maple trees would drape boughs of leaves over its white-washed wall like rosy clouds in congregation in autumn. The old structures in the northern part were no more, but their recent replacements are too mediocre and insipid to be elaborated.

Entering the garden's front gate and passing through two tiny courtyards, one arrives at the Green Shade Verandah in the garden's central part. Looking north through the latticed windows, one gets an eyeful of the hills and buildings in the garden. A passageway leads west to the Green-Soaked Mountain Villa. As the main building of the central part, the villa is a three-framed structure under a flush gable roof, with a courtyard containing a peony parterre in the front and a lotus pond at the back. Abutting on the villa to the left is the Bright and Clear Loft, a delicate two-storied building sporting a hipped roof, whose top floor is reached via a scaling ladder.

Turning west at the Green-Soaked Mountain Villa and embarking on a roofed walkway that climbs up a mountain, one reaches the Osmanthus Fragrance Verandah, which affords a panoramic view of the central and eastern parts, where the Sinuous Gully Loft, the Refreshing Breeze Pond-Verandah, the Studio to Get "Rope" and Draw "Water" from "Ancient Well," and the Distant Emerald Belvedere are arranged one behind another in picturesque disorder and echo each other up and down amidst ancient trees and exotic rockeries. Adjoining each other south of the Osmanthus Fragrance Verandah are chambers, lattice walls and waterside pavilions. The Bright and Clear Loft extends a little bit over the water surface, while the balcony of the Villa stretches a little farther in what looks like two arms poised to embrace the lake and the loft silhouetted in it.

Starting northward from the Osmanthus Fragrance Verandah and turning east, one goes by a colonnade to stop at the Distant Emerald Belvedere in the northeast corner of the central part of the Lingering Garden. The belvedere serves the same purpose as the Mountain-in-View Loft in the Humble Administrator's Garden, though the former is seated on land and the latter surrounded by water on three sides. Separated from the eastern part only by a lattice-windowed wall, the Distant Emerald Belvedere offers the best view to be borrowed in the eastern part.

The foot of the Lesser Islet for Immortals in the center of the lake and that of the Hao & Pu Pavilion by its side look like at the same level of the water surface, an arrangement that makes the nearby hills and lofts look higher. Visitors ambling along the Sinuous Gully Loft would invariably find that the picture-perfect scenery keeps changing with the shift of their footsteps as they look through an array of brick frames and latticed windows opened into the building's western wall on the first floor. When autumn sets in, the maples beyond the undulating wall will be crimsoned through and become a fiery ocean that seems to ebb and flow hand in hand with the wall—no visitor could bear to tear his eyes from this most fabulous scene. North of the Sinuous Gully Loft stands the Pavilion for Scenic Enjoyment, a hexagonal structure perched atop an artificial mountain, with a long colonnade at its back.

The eastern part of the Lingering Garden features two major buildings, the Five-Peak Celestial Hall fashioned out of Phoebe nanmu, and the Hall of Woods and Springs for the Senior and Renowned. The five-framed Five-Peak Celestial Hall with a flush gable roof is regarded as one of the best old-style halls in the Jiangnan area for its fine interior décor and furnishing. Its four sides are each attached to a yard of varying sizes. The rockeries in both its front and back yards often make those sitting in the hall feel they were confronted with high rimrocks, a design that fails to impress Ji Cheng, who notes in The Craft of Gardens ,

People always construct mountains in front of halls, with a row of three lofty peaks sticking up inside an enclosing wall. This looks exceptionally ridiculous.

Five rockeries are laid out in the front yard, making the court look crammed and robbing it of appeal. Ji Cheng suggests,

In my opinion, if you have some fine trees in your courtyard, just arrange a few delicately shaped rocks around them; otherwise, you may embed stones into the wall or plant some flowering shrubs or hanging creepers on it. Only thus can some depth be achieved in the scenery.

This method of Ji Cheng's, as I see it, is a lot more workable. In the backyard, there is a pool of clean spring water in front of the rockery, which evokes a sense of utmost quietude. The pity, though, is that the spring has lost its source, so that the pool now dries up, now brims with water. On the artificial mountain's backside a colonnade runs parallel to the wall, but as it leads to all directions, the visitor might get lost if his attention is by chance detracted. The Distant Emerald Belvedere on the other side of the wall is highly visible when one looks left from this backyard. The expansive spatiality of the garden is driven home to the visitor this way.

The Studio to Get "Rope" and Draw "Water" from "Ancient Well," a one-frame room adjacent to the Five-Peak Celestial Hall, borrows views from the central part through bright windows in its four walls. In what is an ingenious treatment of small space in garden design, a Chinese parasol stands straight under its canopy-like foliage in the tiny yard between the Studio and the Hall.

Two small courts to the left of the Five-Peak Celestial Hall—the Return-to-Read Study ⁴⁷ and the Kowtow-to-Peak Verandah—provide transition between this Hall and the Hall of Woods and Springs for the Senior and Renowned. Surrounded by winding colonnades and kept apart with brick windows in its walls, the courts are interspersed with fine trees, slender bamboos, day lilies and small rockeries, all of which come in matching sizes in a layout at once neat and tidy. One can derive pleasure in the peace and quiet of the place and would hate to go away anytime soon.

To the east of the Kowtow-to-Peak Verandah stands the Hall of Woods and Springs for the Senior and Renowned, more popularly known as the "Twin Hall." Decorated and appointed most elaborately, the hall is five-framed with a single-eave gable and hip roof. Its two interior halls, one facing south, the other facing north, are each topped with a round ridge roof. The main beam in the northern hall assumes a rectangular shape with carved patterns, and the one in the southern hall is round without patterns.

North of the Hall there are the Cloud-Crowned Pool, the CloudCrowned Pavilion, the Cloud-Crowned Loft, and three rockeries which have been there since the Ming as the largest Lake Tai rocks ever found in Suzhou: the Cloud-Crowned Peak, the Riddled-Through Peak Enveloped in Clouds and the Cloudlet-Enshrouded Peak.

The hexagonal Cloud-Crowned Pavilion behind the Cloud-Crowned Peak is tucked away under yulan magnolia trees. A scaling ladder north of the pavilion leads up to the Cloud-Crowned Loft, where open views beyond the garden, including trails, cultivated fields and the Tiger Hill Pagoda, come into sight before the windows. Flanking the Cloud-Crowned Pool are the Cloud-Anticipating Hut to the east and the Cloud-Crowned Terrace to the west. A walk from the terrace through a moon gate brings one to the Pavilion of Fine Weather, Beloved Rain and Timely Snow that houses six intricately carved Phoebe nanmu latticed doors, which, the pavilion being facing west, bear marks of damage inflicted by the elements. The eastern part, newly built with its commonplace rockeries, stands no comparison with the old dramatic scenery.

The western part seems to be a legacy of Xu Taishi's East Garden from the Ming. The hill inside it is built of soil and arranged with yellow stones as per an old method described by Li Yu,

Small hills are built with rocks, while large hills are piled up with soil.

Thus the maple trees all over the hill in the western part are nourished by the soil in which they are rooted. Upon this hill there are two pavilions: the Pavilion for Untrammeled Whistlers with a conical roof, and the hexagonal Pavilion of Uttermost Delights which, regarded as one of a kind in south Jiangsu, is a slightly modified replica of the Imperial Stele Pavilion at the Fan's Memorial Shrine on the Tianping Mountain. The former of the two small pavilions is concealed amongst maple trees, and the latter is snuggled halfway up the hill in the northwest and visited by those who come to gaze up and down and look far into the distance. The southern slope of the hill borders on a clear creek flowing in the shade of peach and willow trees; created in an assumed fashion, this man-made scenery fails to become the utopia retreat it was intended to be. Indeed, in landscape gardening it is no easy job to outdo nature with human artifice. The creek flows on until it reaches the Belvedere for the Vivacious and Enterprising, giving those who happen to be inside the impression that they were standing right on the creek, without realizing that the creek has met its end right under their feet. The only weakness of the western part is that the rockeries in it have lost their original forms as a result of repeated additions and repairs.

The northern part of the Lingering Garden, however, has lost its appeals in the form of classical pavilions, terraces and horticulture, all of which have been destroyed and replaced with new constructions.

·(IV)

Small in floorspace as they are, all the classical landscape gardens in the Jiangnan area look picture-perfect with so many rockeries and ten times as many ravines that are also crisscrossed by tranquil streams, and strewn with green pools. The secret to this impression is decoded by Qian Yong (1759-1844) ⁴⁸ in A Collection of Anecdotes in the Lü Garden ,

Garden-making is the same as composing poetry and prose,

In which every twist and turn must be made methodically.

Accordingly, only if everything—artificial hills, waters, pavilions, terraces, halls, lofts, winding or square ponds, lattice walls, colonnades, and whatnot—are arranged and allocated by eschewing hackneyed prototypes can a garden be refreshing and enchanting all the time and rank among the top-notch ones. For this reason, in overall planning and space treatment, it is imperative to make a garden look expansive and its scenery ever-changing.

The layout in Suzhou gardens is centered on the following themes:

First, water. A body of water is usually the centerpiece of such a garden, with a bridge spanning its surface, a colonnade encircling it, and the premises interspaced with pavilions, terraces and lofts. And an islet is always set in a large pond, as is the case with the Master-of-Fishnets Garden and the Garden of Brotherly Indulgence. Small as the Comfort-Giving Garden on Temple-Shrine Lane is, it still leaves room for a pond in its center, and surrounds itself with chambers in such a way that it looks like a miniature landscape. Though the Lingering Garden also has a lake in its center, my teacher Liu Dunzhen believes that the garden as a whole is predicated on a cluster of buildings in its eastern part. His opinion is definitely not unfounded.

Second, artificial hills and exotic rocks. A garden with no readily available headwater or low-lying land cannot but give the limelight to such hills and rocks, just like what is done in the Cheng's Garden on Western Hundred Flower Lane. In the case of the Beauty-Encircled Mountain Abode, a large pond is out of the question for its small area. So its sole solution lies in building hills and erecting rocks, and spring water was then channeled in to bring the dead stones to life, cover the ground or stones with fresh and moist moss, and allow grass and trees to multiple and thrive, so that the garden, though man-made in its entirety, looks like reborn of nature.

Third, pervasive water surface. This works for a place endowed with a rich accumulation of runoffs and large enough to have much leeway for landscaping without being constrained by old ruts. The Humble Administrator's Garden and the Five-"Mu" Garden definitely belong in this category—their large sizes allow them to make manifold changes while maintaining a high degree of spatiality. The small artificial hills in the central part of the Humble Administrator's Garden, in particular, are, to quote Zhang Lian, "complete with traverse ridges and tiny slopes, zigzagging lake embankments and curved sandy shores." Ji Cheng suggests in The Craft of Gardens ,

The garden is created by man, but should look as if wrought by heaven.

My mentor Liu Dunzhen puts it this way,

The bodies of water in a garden ought to be concentrated in the main, with scattered ones supplementing. It is better to keep water concentrated than scattered in a small garden. In a large garden, it can be partly concentrated, partly dispersed, but a decision must be made before action is taken: which approach should be prioritized, concentration or scattering?

Both the Humble Administrator's Garden and the Master-of-Fishnets Garden are fine examples for the utilization of large bodies of water, which is why they are celebrated as the best of all Suzhou gardens in my opinion.

Fourth, water in the foreground and rockwork in the background. This calls for building a hall in front of a pond or stream so that it looks like a waterside verandah sitting astride the waves, and someone staying in the hall can feast his eyes upon the hills and rocks across the water. This layout finds expression in the Garden of Cultivation at 5 Literary Yamen Lane. The Fragrant Grass Garden to the east of the Northern Temple Pagoda seems to bear a close resemblance to it.

Fifth, juxtaposing hill and water in the center and surrounding them with an uninterrupted circuitous belt of lofts and chambers whose heights are congruous to these hills and waters. Examples of this plan are few and far between in Suzhou. A smattering of it can be espied in the eastern part of the Loving Couple's Garden at Small New Bridge Lane, and the Han's Small Garden on Northeast Street shares something in common even though its hill and water are graced with two rows of buildings. As to the Half Garden on Zhongyouji Lane and the Song's Garden on Immortal Cultivation Lane, their clusters of buildings stand on one side of their respective central hills and waters.

The Suzhou gardens dating back to the Ming era bear a close affinity to nature, especially those created with techniques summarized by later garden crafters like Ji Cheng and Zhang Lian to factor in original terrains with minor modifications. The rocks used are primarily yellow stones, as exemplified by the two small hills in the central part and the one at the foot of the Embroidered Damask Pavilion in the Humble Administrator's Garden. Though lacking the exquisiteness of riddled-through Lake Tai stones, the yellow stones, when piled up judiciously, produce natural-looking rockwork without the least suggestion of affectation and the risk of collapse that piled-up rocks are prone to. If these and other techniques are studied to the minute detail, a lot of fine traditions can be carried forward to update landscape gardening today.

From the Qing era onward, all the rockeries in gardens in Suzhou were built of Lake Tai stones. The number of such stones and the merits and demerits of a single peak in a garden became the benchmarks for the quality of gardens, benchmarks which prompted greedy and curious rockwork crafters and garden owners alike to compete with each other in garden-making. Typical examples of such competition can be found in the Garden of Brotherly Indulgence, where choice Lake Tai stone rockeries were collected from three ruined gardens around the Dongting Mountain. Apparently, the principle that "small hills should be built with rocks" does not exclude the use of soil at all; otherwise, trees planted in them would have nothing to survive on. The Beauty-Encircled Mountain Abode, on the other hand, is a good example. Renovated extensively during the Qianlong reign, it boasted, within its small space, a Lake Tai stone rockery built by drawing upon the Song-dynasty "axe-chopping" landscape painting brush technique and by inlaying stones in its surfaces to generate an unaffectedly vigorous style. Furthermore, nourished and moistened by water meandering in its deep ravines, the rockery exudes verdure and liveliness and ranks among the finest of its kind in all the gardens in the Jiangnan area. Such artistic masterpieces would not have been created at all if their designers had no sense of natural mountains and ravines in their vision and failed to apply their imagination and expertise with facility. All this speaks volumes for the importance of assiduous study and cultural cultivation for garden crafters.

Artificial mountain construction in the craft of gardens should be adapted to existing terrain and topography, whose unpredictable changes provide no set rules, but fortunately, the formation and development of a certain terrain still follow some principles. There is a grain of truth in the saying, "It is better to learn from nature than from the ancients." We can understand this philosophy by analyzing a given natural scenery and testify to it with the works of our ancients. One can come up with the best possible garden design by drawing upon these works and by clarifying its merits and demerits. However, nine out of ten Suzhou gardens built in recent times were, to our dismay, schematized at best. In the absence of an overall plan, such a garden is just a hotchpotch of pavilions, lofts and verandahs. As to the stones selected for artificial hills and rockeries, they were treated like antiques and curios to the neglect of their relationship with horticulture and architecture. The construction of the Garden of Brotherly Indulgence, for example, was intended to benefit from the strengths of a host of counterparts, but its general plan is so lax and undisciplined that it seems to have fallen short of expectations—a lesson, indeed, poignant enough to sober up all the garden-makers today.

To keep or build a body of water in a garden, the first thing to do is to seek out its source. A pond or stream without a source is dead water. The Humble Administrator's Garden, for example, saves the day by making use of its original pools and marshes. The Beauty-Encircled Mountain Abode obtains water by digging into its ground; the water obtained this way comes only in a trickling stream, but it is clean and cool all the same.

There are two tricks to make a pond of water in a tiny garden look expansive and boundless. Firstly, to make full use of the pond's irregular plane, sprinkle it with islets and build small bridges across it, so that its entirety cannot be seen through at one glance. Secondly, to add enough bends and twists to the shores and outlets of a pond or stream to make it look like having more than one source or coming out of nowhere or disappearing into an unfathomable hole or ravine. Reeds and cattails may also be planted along the shorelines and at the outlets to heighten the mystery of the scene. This second trick, however, is viable only to large gardens.

The Belvedere for the Vivacious and Enterprising in the Lingering Garden is situated where a creek meets its end, but some of its water keeps flowing underneath, so that, from a bird's-eye view, the belvedere looks like sitting right on water and the creek seems to be flowing on. The water-bound rockery in the Garden of Salubrious Shades on Southern Xianzi Lane is built cleverly of layered rocks to resemble a cavernous cave with a hut atop it. Water is channelled into the cave and stepping stones are fixed inside, making visitors feel like venturing into the depth of a ravine. Celebrated as a unique structure in the central Wu area, this rockery's design is probably based on one in the Southern-Song Garden of Zhao Yiwang ( fl . 12th century) in Hangzhou.

The Dark Blue Waves Pavilion's scenery is dominated by rock formations. The waterside colonnade in the western part rises drastically in elevation to offer a bird's-eye view of the seemingly unfathomable pool below. Bridges in the Garden of Cultivation are almost level with the water surface that sets off the height and steepness of the rocks on both banks, whereas the bridges in the Garden of Brotherly Indulgence, though kept below the surrounding rockeries, are a little higher than water surface. What about setting up a bridge over a small creek? It is not hard to imagine, and this is why our predecessors used steppingstones instead, and the result is more natural and tasteful. There is a waterfall cascading to the rockery from the eave of a nearby loft when it rains in the Beauty-Encircled Mountain Abode, which is but a rarity among Suzhou gardens.

In addition to waters, rocks and ponds, architectural structures like halls, chambers, terraces, pavilions, gazebos, verandahs, vaultings, and walkways are also part and parcel of the traditional Chinese garden. Most Jiangnan gardens are known for the air of sequestered repose and low-key elegance about them, which ought to be matched with delicate and graceful buildings, and their siting, plane and appearance, too, must be brought into full account. Ji Cheng says in The Craft of Gardens ,

What is fundamental to a garden to be constructed is to decide the positions for halls and chambers. Priority should also be given to the choice of sceneries, but the key to success lies in making the buildings face south. Where there are trees, keep just a few of them in the central courtyard.

This tenet on garden architecture is carried out to the letter in southern Jiangsu gardens, such as the Hall of Far-Drifting Fragrance in the Humble Administrator's Garden and the Green-Soaked Mountain Villa in the Lingering Garden.

As to the positioning of a loft, a terrace or a pavilion, there are no prescribed rules to go by, though principles can be found in The Craft of Gardens , the Treatise on Superfluous Things , the Notes on Sections of Construction Projects and other books: "Form should accord with the shape of the foundations"; "Patterns should be agreeable to the circumstances"; "Prospects should be adapted to the surroundings so that each owns its right niche"; "Every rafter or corner must look out of the ordinary"; "Let every gazebo be tucked away amidst flowers, and let every pavilion be found by the side of a pond or brook." All these principles call for flexible application by bearing the whole picture in mind.

Take the Humble Administrator's Garden for example. Looking down at the garden, we find that the orientation of buildings varies with the lie of land. Their exterior invariably looks lively, be their plane a square, a rectangle, a polygon, or a circle. As far as roofs are concerned, they assume a variety of forms, including yingshan , a pitched roof with two slopes on the front and the rear respectively; xuanshan , which adds to yingshan two walls up through to the roof on the left and right; xieshan , a gable and hip roof with eaves under one gable or both gables; and pavilion roofs. The main ridge of such a roof is always curved rather than straight. None of the roofs takes the wudian form, that is, a pitched roof with a slope on each of its four sides, which is exclusive for royal use. Their ridge ends usually turn up in the shape of a half-moon, which is called faqiang . In the manner of shuiqiang faqiang , overhang is achieved by turning up the four ridge ends instead of the minor hip rafters. The structures appear light and lively in a style similar to that of the hanging fascia beneath the eaves and the "Backrest for the King of Wu," that is, a slightly curved balustrade.

The buildings in the central part of the Lingering Garden are good examples in elevation treatment. When one looks east from the Osmanthus Fragrance Verandah, the Sinuous Gully Loft comes in sight as the verandah's major opposite view. With a gable and hip roof, the loft has its ground floor designed like a platform, with its molding in parallel with the water surface and separated from the upper floor, so that its two-storied structure does not look overwhelming in height. Moreover, the roofs of the three adjacent buildings positioned one after another—the Sinuous Gully Loft, the Western Loft, and the Refreshing Breeze Pond-Verandah—have elevations and roofs that look alike but, at a close look, are actually different and go well with the rockeries and water around them. The weathered ancient tree crabbing over the rippling surface of the stream, the brick-framed and lattice windows in contrast with the wall in which they are fixed, and the sparse and thin shadows of flowers are all unique features to the Suzhou gardens that, when mirrored in the water, beggars description.

The Green-Soaked Mountain Villa abuts upon the Bright and Clear Loft. Both have round ridge roofs, but the latter is hipped, and the former is flush-gabled on one side and has a vertical ridge on the other side—a change that, instead of looking awkward, perks up an otherwise dull design. A similar example is found in the treatment of the structure by a pond in the middle of the Comfort-Giving Garden's long and narrow plan: in the absence of a waterside verandah, a pavilion is installed that sports a roof with a side eave under one gable.

There are counterexamples, however. A corner pavilion in the Eastern Garden is crowned with a hexagonal conical roof. Its cornice is flat and its ridges upturn a little at the hip, but to keep the structure light and graceful, the columns are too thin and too tall to bear the weight of the heavy upper section. Consequently, the pavilion looks a little shaky. The Pavilion for Untrammeled Whistlers and the Pavilion of Uttermost Delights in the eastern part of the Lingering Garden are both flawed in proportion. The former is small but not exquisite, and the roof of the latter seems too heavy despite the variations made to it. Indeed, the pavilions built more recently in the gardens in south Jiangsu by craftsmen from Xiangshan, Suzhou, are all marred by putting thin and tall columns under high roofs. The Ming structures in the Garden of Cultivation, by contrast, appear much steadier under slightly lower roofs.

In a word, single buildings must be designed by keeping in mind the whole picture of the garden in which they are located. As to plane variations, even if in the innermost rooms or chambers, adequate open space must be left in solid areas, and outlets should be built where the bends lead. Small verandahs—one-framed, two-framed or two-and-half-framed—should be set up where they are needed in the milieu. The Vernal Crabapple Yard in the Humble Administrator's Garden, for instance, is two-framed, with one frame obviously larger than the other. The Kowtow-to-Peak Verandah in the Lingering Garden, for another example, consists of two and a half frames, but the half-frame section is the most intriguing, a fact which bears out the theory of The Craft of Gardens on the aesthetics of offbeat designs.

High and low in accord, left and right in balance, intangibles and tangibles in mutual contrast, none of these aspects in a building are to be ignored. The Wan's Garden on Editorial Service Librarian Wang's Lane is a small affair, but its study stands on its own to form a quiet zone whose furnishing and interior decoration rank among the best in Suzhou together with the eastern and western parlors in the Ren's House on Iron Vase Lane, the parlors of Gu Wenbin's ⁴⁹ Estate, the Master-of-Fishnets Garden, the Cheng's Garden on Western Hundred Flower Lane, and the Wu's House on Big Stone Lane. (For details, please refer to my book Collected Records of Decorative Devices .) The pity is, however, there is still much left to be desired in this regard in many other gardens in Suzhou. The interior decoration in the Lingering Garden is too trivial and vulgar, and exquisite designs are few and far between. The Humble Administrator's Garden is finely appointed, but there are still cases in which the interior decorations are pedestrian and invariant, as if they were scraped together haphazardly during restorations and repairs done in later periods. The Garden of Brotherly Indulgence, on its part, has virtually lost all its original furnishing but its land boat survives fortunately to be seen as a paragon of exquisite interior décor for the whole area of the former kingdom of Wu.

As the arteries of a garden, roofed walkways are noteworthy for their importance in garden architecture. Common to today's Suzhou gardens is the double-lane walkway, with a white-washed wall running along its middle line to provide a lane or passageway on either side of the wall, which is usually adorned with latticed windows. (See my book Latticed Windows for details.) This kind of walkway is usually built in an open garden, such as the one that runs along the river in the Dark Blue Waves Pavilion. A double-lane walkway may also serve as a partitioning wall to expand space or provide transition between the entrance and the interiors of a garden. The double-lane walkway in the Garden of Brotherly Indulgence, for example, is a replica of the one in the Dark Blue Waves Pavilion, which serves the same purpose but is also designed to ward the Thatched Hut of Wintry Friends ⁵⁰ and the Verandah in Obedience to Rocks off direct afternoon sunrays and the north wind, while the shadows the sun tosses through the latticed windows conjure up fascinating patterns.

Roofed walkways are built on land or along a stream. Some are winding, the others straight. Flat and stiff ones are taboo. Those in present-day Suzhou gardens, however, look somewhat unnatural and stilted for their excess emphasis on twists and turns, and the walkway at the foot of the northern wall of the central part of the Lingering Garden is such an example. Its lower section is a balustrade built of bricks, which seems stifling and out of place for the hanging fascia. Worse, its columns, being sandwiched between brickwork, make the entire walkway look exceptionally rigid and bulky. A better effect can be achieved with latticed brickwork, as is exemplified by the walkway in the Ren's House on Iron Vase Lane and by the gazebo on a waterside walkway in the western part of the Humble Administrator's Garden. The sinuous Willow-Shaded Winding Walkway in the Humble Administrator's Garden, for another, employs a wooden balustrade on the waterfront and the King of Wu's Backrest on the other side, an arrangement that stands to reason.

The waterside walkway in the western part of the Humble Administrator's Garden is extolled as a picturesque structure for its judicious winding course and gradients that measure up to the standard prescribed in The Craft of Gardens for a "floating walkway that also serve ferrying purposes." This walkway is particularly commendable for gracing some of its bends with a tiny water gazebo amidst plantains and Lake Tai rockeries to make a difference in an otherwise conventional scenery.

Employed sparingly in the Lion's Grove, the Lingering Garden, and the Humble Administrator's Garden, most of the mountain-climbing walkways run along bordering walls. Due attention must be paid to keeping such a walkway's sloping gradients in tune with the mountain's height; otherwise, it would be top-heavy and out of balance. If the terrain is uneven in width, it is advisable to alternate single- and double balustrades on the slopes, and a case in point is found in the walkway in the western part of the Lingering Garden. The bends of twisted walkways are oftentimes left open and interspersed at random with a few bamboos, rocks or plantains to yield dainty, tiny attractions. Commenting on walkways, Li Dou (1749-1817) ⁵¹ says in the Record of the Painted Pleasure Boats of Yangzhou ,

A walkway paved with bricks is called an echoing walkway. One that twists and turns in line with the terrain is a wandering walkway….One that runs into a bamboo grove is a bamboo walkway, and one that is close to water is a waterside walkway. A walkway's ridge ends may occasionally protrude out of a cluster of flowers; and its corners may project over the northern bank of a pond once in a while. Sometimes it clings to a cliff, hence its imposing balustrade. Sometimes it arches over a red plank board with boats sailing underneath, or straddling pavilions, terraces and lofts to facilitate gentle and convenient passage. The walkways are valued for their balustrades—a nice balustrade is often likened to a beauty wearing a short-sleeved or sleeveless dress to accentuate her slender waist. The wooden boards fixed on the walkway are known as "flying benches" or "beauty's backrests." The bulging part of a walkway is regarded as a verandah.

One may learn a great deal from this piece of elaborate advice. Nowadays we have roofed walkways flanked by plantains, which are therefore called plantain walkways; and those running through willows are willow walkways. Both designs are well-intended, offering cooling shades to keep off heat waves in summer, and making people feel toasty in warm sunshine in winter. Some walkways have paintings hanging under their roofs, which have been known as painting walkways since ancient times; some of those built in recent years have their walls inlaid with stone tablets inscribed with poems in calligraphic handwriting. Both practices put the walkways to best use.

A bridge is to a water surface what a roofed walkway is to an open space in the Chinese garden. Stone beam bridges are commonplace in Suzhou gardens, be they straight ones, zigzagging ones with three, five or nine bends, or curved ones. Some are level with the shores of a stream or lake. Others are kept lower than the banks or look like floating on water, which are legacies handed down from days of yore and can be found in the Garden of Cultivation of Suzhou, the Solace-Imbued Garden of Wuxi, and some other gardens in the nearby county of Changshu. The bridge in the Garden of Brotherly Indulgence, and the one in ruins in the Yan's Garden in the ancient town of Mudu, Suzhou, share something in common, but they are kept a little higher than the water surface. In my view, these bridges were designed to achieve the following effects. First, walking through a bridge at water level gives one the feeling of treading rippling water while the water surface looks vast and the bridge precipitous; second, the surrounding buildings and hills look more impressive against a low-lying, water-hugging bridge, which also set off congenially the hills, lofts and terraces ashore. The bridge in the Solace-Imbued Garden in Wuxi is such an example, which spanning a secluded valley below the flat ridge of an artificial hill, with the nearby Huishan Mountain offering the best views to be borrowed in the backdrop, employs a typical Mingdynasty landscape gardening design to best advantage.

Today's beam bridges, however, are often deployed carelessly, as if the topography and their own sizes were nonexistent. Not to mention the height and style of such bridges' balustrades, which are often adopted without looking into the bridge and its surroundings as a whole. Sometimes even iron balustrades are used, which is what happened exactly in the western part of the Humble Administrator's Garden. However, the small bridges in the Garden of Cultivation and the Rainbow-Leaning Bridge in the Humble Administrator's Garden are among the most desirable. The two three-bend and five-bend bridges in the central part of the Humble Administrator's Garden have railings proportionate enough to their respective bridges and environment, but the pity is that both are a little too tall. The stone bridge that connects the two hillocks on which the Fragrant Snow and Luxuriant Cloud Pavilion and the Frost Awaiting Pavilion are perched respectively is fashioned out of a single stone slab with no railings on it—natural and plain, it is born of a stroke of genius.

Another common type of bridges is the small arch bridge. There is one such bridge in the Lion's Grove and another in the Master-ofFishnets Garden. The former compares unfavorably with the latter in that an arched bridge is not supposed to sit on a rivulet's middle section, where it would appear clumsy and overwhelming and block the view, with no spaciousness and airiness to speak of. The latter is found at one end of a river; viewed from the west, it is exquisitely reflected in the expansive water surface, and viewed from the east, the pavilions and terraces are mirrored in the river—the scenes may be different, but the concepts are the same. In what looks like a stopgap, the arch in the stone bridge in the Half Garden on Zhongyouji Lane is modified to fit into a constrained space. As to the treatment of tiny, shallow creeks, The Craft of Gardens suggests,

You may set stepping stones in the water.

I think that for tiny and shallow brooks, stepping stones are more natural and much better than a bridge. It is a shame this clever approach is all but lost today.

The Leisure Sketches by a Little Window says of the roads in gardens,

A trail inside of the gate should be made to twist and turn….A footpath by the side of a house must be made to fork.

The roads we see today in Suzhou gardens more or less follow these principles. The paths in the central part of the Humble Administrator's Garden are good examples. The designers took into consideration the lay of land and added appropriate changes to the Ming-dynasty rules they were following, thereby achieving clear distinction between primary and secondary paths with graceful twists and turns. The paths at the Beauty-Encircled Mountain Abode are made to bend and swerve a little bit to hug the villa's cramped space, but such bends are tweaked to a nicety to make sure people can see every sight of interest as they traipse along the road. The trails in the Lion's Grove and the Garden of Brotherly Indulgence, however, twist and turn in ways that fly in the face of common sense and nature's law, to the bewilderment of those who happen to hit such trails. Indeed, affectation and arbitrariness are not just inartistic, and they defeat the purposes as well.

Paving the ground is another important garden-making aspect that merits serious attention, whether it be a front courtyard, a trail, or a main road. In today's Suzhou gardens, bricks are paved obliquely on a main road, which makes the job easy and simple and allows the freedom to work out the patterns. Gravels are used on main roads, footpaths and in front of halls, and this type of pavements can also be adorned with patterns wrought with pottery shards. Sometimes pottery shards are paved obliquely and mingled with porcelain shards. Pebbles, sometimes interspersed with porcelain shards, can produce more elaborate and elegant patterns than bricks or gravels, as is shown by some roads in the Lingering Garden, but pebble pavements call for regular maintenance—the soil in the gaps between the pebbles is often washed down by the rain or swept away by garden cleaners, and weeds tend to be another headache.

"Cracked-ice pattern" is not uncommon in paving front courtyards, and it comes in two structures in south Jiangsu gardens. First, laying stone slabs of different shapes flatly on the ground in such a pattern, as is done in front of the Hall of Far-Drifting Fragrance in the Humble Administrator's Garden, which looks simple and natural, but the ground may become warped here and there. Second, putting such stone slabs together in a mortise-and-tenon fashion to form rippling patterns—a laborious job indeed, but it produces a durable pavement that is also neat and tidy. Examples of it are found in front of the Green-Soaked Mountain Villa in the Lingering Garden and the Gen'an's Parlor in Gu Wenbin's Estate at Iron Vase Lane. The stairway in front of a hall sometimes assumes the natural forms of stones, such as those in front of the Hall of Far-Drifting Fragrance in the Humble Administrator's Garden and the Five-Peak Celestial Hall in the Lingering Garden.

The walls of Suzhou gardens are built of riprap or finely ground bricks. They are latticed, whitewashed, or both, but most of them are simply whitewashed. The surrounding walls, in most cases, have latticed tile windows opened into their upper half; and the inner walls are inlaid with tile-latticed or brick-framed windows. The whitewashed wall with flower shadows thrown on it is readily talked about by everybody who see it. Finely ground brick walls are used sparingly on buildings inside a garden. Most gateway walls are bedecked with patterns fashioned out of finely ground bricks, as is exemplified by the gateway of the Humble Administrator's Garden. Riprap is actually reserved for a wall's lower section, from the ground up to one third of the wall's height. I remember seeing, in an old house in Shanghai, a state-of-the-art wall that is lined with stones in cracked-ice patterns and dotted with plum flower patterns, which I surmise is a legacy of the Ming. A wall with latticed windows that divides up a water surface in the middle inside the Western Garden is a school in its own right.

Antithetical couplets and inscribed tablets are as indispensible to Chinese gardens as beard and eyebrows are to a man. In Suzhou, scholars and artists, through the ages are deeply involved in garden-making by vesting man-made garden scenery and structures with poetic passion and picturesque images drawn from nature, places of historical interest, and texts of verse and prose, while eulogizing every mountain, wood, rock, ravine, pavilion or verandah in the gardens with the finest and most proper diction. Thus an affective visitor feasting his eyes on a garden scenery would be mesmerized by the calligraphic couplet or tablet attached to it, because the inscriptions always give the most fitting interpretation of the scenery in question and never fail to strike a deep chord in his heart. The Hall of Far-Drifting Fragrance and the Stay-and-Listen Belvedere in the Humble Administrator's Garden are both dedicated to lotus flowers, but their names are derived from different lines—the former, "The farther the aroma drifts, the purer it becomes"; the latter, "May the withered lotus leaves stay to listen to the pattering rain." The Osmanthus Fragrance Verandah of the Lingering Garden and the Vernal Crabapple Yard of the Humble Administrator's Garden are named respectively after the trees planted in them, and those who chance upon such trees and settings have come up with so many fine literary and art works, something which can happen only in a Chinese garden. It is my hope that all such couplets and tablets on garden scenery be preserved for posterity. Every garden in Suzhou is in possession of well-written inscriptions. The Garden of Brotherly Indulgence, in particular, once had a complete array of couplets drawn from Song lyric poems that describe scenic sights in meticulous and tactful ways, but, alas, few of them have survived! Eight or nine out of ten inscribed boards or tablets are made of gingko wood, which is more resistant to the high wind in the gardens than other woods. The Chinese characters engraved in such boards are in intaglio and covered with malachite green pigments or sometimes lacquered in cold color tones. Brick boards are also used for this purpose, which look clean and lovely. The inscriptions usually come in seal script, official script, or the running hand for their simplistic and natural forms. Regular script is rarely used. Chinese calligraphy and painting share the same origin, so the boards and tablets bearing calligraphic inscriptions are objets d'art themselves to help enhance the allure of the gardens in which they are placed.

The importance of trees to gardens is self-evident. Because most gardens in the Jiangnan area are small and closed behind tall walls, due attention ought to be paid to a number of factors before trees are planted in them: the sunny or shady side of the site and its elevation; the selected trees' growing speed, cold-resistance and drought-enduring properties, and whether they can grow into ancient-looking, gnarled or exuberant shapes. Based on these observations, further importance ought to be given to the trees' positions and their relationship with rockeries. As microcosms of natural landscape, rockeries and ponds should never be overshadowed by trees. The trees' sizes and shapes, therefore, must be controlled. What merits attention is that a tree stretching its gnarling branches into water and twist its knotted roots around a rock always make the scene look hoary and unsightly. Just as Li Gefei puts it,

The touch of venerable age pales where human skill steals the limelight.

A good variety of trees are found in Suzhou gardens, such as elms and wingnuts in the Humble Administrator's Garden, and gingko trees in the central part and maples all over the western part of the Lingering Garden. Being relatively small, the Garden of Brotherly Indulgence features osmanthus trees, pines, and lacebark pines. Lacebark pines are particularly cute despite their simple shapes, but they are such a rarity in small gardens. There are also gardens having an assortment of pines, plums, palms, and boxwoods that are known for their slow growth. A small garden tucked away behind a high wall tends to have more shady areas than sunny ones, so cold-resistant plants are cultivated along the shady side of a wall, such as privets, palms and bamboos. Alpine trees such as pines and firs belong in mountain valleys. For stone crevices in front of steps, shade-tolerant evergreen grass is the best choice. A garden with more evergreens than deciduous plants will remain green all year round and has little chance to go "bald" in late autumn and winter. The elms, scholar trees, wingnuts, hackberries, water elms and maple trees and the like must be pruned annually to keep them in rugged shape, and another plus for such trees is that they sport nice-looking roots. The elms and wingnuts look their best when fully grown, with verdant twigs thriving on their hollow trunks.

In Suzhou gardens trees are generally planted on artificial hills in two ways. Firstly, the top and foot of such a hill are reserved exclusively for large trees so that visitors can take in the beauty of their exposed roots amidst rockwork; examples of this are found in both the Lingering Garden and the Humble Administrator's Garden. Secondly, the trees planted atop a hill or at its foot are made to overlook the bamboos or the shrubs or creepers that cling to rocks to generate a feeling of depth and utmost luxuriance. The Dark Blue Waves Pavilion and the Humble Administrator's Garden are excellent examples in this regard. Analyses indicate that such tree-treating methods originate in different styles of legendary painters. The former embodies the placid and facile style of Ni Zan (1301-1374) ⁵² of the Yuan; the latter assimilates the somewhat gloomy and dark-toned style of Shen Zhou (1427-1509) ⁵³ of the Ming. It is advisable to choose willows, bamboos, or reeds for water-bound, low-lying places. The shady side of a wall ought to be covered with ivies, slender bamboos, nandinas and begonias with green leaves, cold-colored flowers and bright-colored fruits, but again, they need annual pruning to keep their growth in check.

Growing flowers follows the one and same principle for trees in a garden. Osmanthuses and camellias should be planted in shady areas with a little sunshine. Both are evergreens that bloom when other flowers do not—osmanthuses in autumn and camellias in early spring; both look their serene and plump best when nodding and flickering among quaint rockeries with graceful postures. Pergolas of wisterias present green shades and a profusion of jewellery- or dewdrop-like flowers in time for late spring. Peonies are often shown on terraces skirted by a balustrade of stones with nice veins because they need an abundance of sunshine and a high location to show off their resplendent flowers. Magnolias, crabapple trees, peonies, and osmanthuses are by tradition cultivated in courtyards for their names suggest "riches and honours descending upon a jade hall." This implication may sound hackneyed, but the way our predecessors coordinate different flowers by taking their florescence and color into account is not without their reasons. If planted in groves, peaches and plums are suitable for viewing from afar, but they are feasible for large gardens such as the Lingering Garden and the Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou.

There are two rules of thumb for the treatment of trees in Suzhou gardens. One is to plant the same type of trees in a grove, such as the pines at the Wave-Listening Place in the Garden of Brotherly Indulgence, the maples in the western part and the osmanthuses in front of the Osmanthus Fragrance Verandah in the Lingering Garden. At the same time, designers should consider the height and density of the trees in relation to their surroundings. The other is to allocate a variety of trees in the same grove, but like the composition of a painting, meticulous attention must be paid to a number of issues, such as if the orientation of the chosen trees and the elevation of the site are suitable for a grove of multiple tree species, the contrast and balance of leave colors, the ratio between evergreen and deciduous trees, their flowering seasons, and the shape of leaves and postures of the trees. The relationship between trees and rocks, too, should not be lost on the designers—the two factors must be combined into an organic whole so that every single stone in a rockery can fascinate the visitors and every inch of rock can rivet the observer's attention. What is more, consistency between plants and buildings must be adjusted to the point where their styles and colors can complement each other.

The number of lotuses growing in a pond must be limited. Otherwise, both the water surface and the silhouettes of buildings in it would be marred badly. Just let one or two slim lotuses sway invitingly in the middle of the pond, and it will become the apple of the spectator's eye without fail. In the Gu's Garden in the city of Kunshan in Jiangsu, lotus roots are reportedly planted under stone slabs that line the bottom of a pond. There are a few holes in every such slab, and the propagation of the lotuses planted is well controlled. My mentor Liu Dunzhen told me, "In the Xu's East Garden of the Ming in Nanjing, a vat is placed at the bottom of a pond, with lotuses buried in it." The slabs in the Gu's Garden of Kunshan differ from the aforementioned vat in Nanjing, but their purposes are the same.

The delicate elegance and serenity of the gardens of south Jiangsu come in striking contrast to the green-and-gold glamour of the royal gardens of north China. The success of south Jiangsu in this regard is owed to four factors.

First, cold color tones are applied to residential buildings, such as maroon or non-glossy black for the capitals of rafters and beams, and dark green for the hanging fascia. Such cold color tones come into bold relief against the whitewashed walls that are properly toned down by the well-spaced shadows thrown by flowers upon them, thereby providing the needed transition to bring about a quaint scenery.

Second, almost all the Suzhou gardens are attached to dwellings where the places for reading and self-cultivation are provided. The peace and quiet needed for such rooms in southern gardens is predicated on cold color tones, which is a far cry from the pomp and pageantry of the royal gardens up north. Nevertheless, Suzhou scholar-officials did show off their affluence through fine furnishing, meticulous rockwork as well as their collections of antiques and curios, but their quest for serenity and elegance remained the order of the day.

Third, the southern school of Chinese landscape painting characterized by delicate ink and reddish color tones was having a deep impact on the scholar-officials, men of letters and painters in the Jiangnan area. The gardens born under such impact are imbued with a graceful and elegant style, to the exclusion of elaborate color and gilding.

Fourth, vermilion and other warm colors are out of place in the Jiangnan area's hot weather, not to mention the fact that commoners, not allowed the privileges reserved for royalty with regard to buildings, apparels and whatnot, were limited to the use of simple and quiet color tones, which, however, can often achieve what exuberant colors cannot. Unpretentious play of color is in congruity with the garden architecture, greyish skies, thriving vegetation, exquisite rockeries and flowing water in the Jiangnan area, and contribute to an aura of peace and tranquillity, the very soul of Jiangnan gardens.

Another salient feature of Suzhou gardens in particular and Chinese gardens in general is that they induce maximum comfort and aesthetic well-being and draw throngs of visitors with their perennial charms no matter what the natural conditions. Contributing to such charms are not only these gardens' rockeries and bodies of water, but also their lofts and halls that are lined up in rows and columns, corridors and galleries winding or twisting, their railings and balustrades that encircle and connect the spaces, as well as their trees and flowers that contrast or supplement each other.

Circumstances evoke different feelings in poets and painters. Plantain colonnades in summer, plum shadows and moonlit snow in winter, bright sunny days and luxuriant flowers in spring, red knotweeds and reed-rimmed lakes in autumn—the sceneries may change with the season, but all of them are lovable. As to the wind rustling through pines, the rain spattering on wild rice and cattails, the moonlight shifting on swaying flowers, or the fog enveloping a loft or terrace, it is a typical case of "beauty lies in the eye of the beholder"—the fascinations of these ideal scenes are achieved by fusing the designer's refined literary and artistic attainment with the quintessence of an actual setting, and played up through dramatic means. The piling up of rocks, the erection of a building, the dredging of a stream, the search for spring water, or the planting of flowers or bamboos, every such effort is meant for the same result.

An artist or a writer's appreciation of nature's beauty is not limited to sunny weather on a spring day. Rather, his eye is set on every season as he endeavours to convert it into a realm of beauty. He would like to see flowers' shadows on whitewashed walls, listen to the wind whistling through pines and the rain spattering on lotus leaves, and enjoy the moonlight on the tips of willows and the radiance of the setting sun on plums and bamboos. All the while he hopes to see all the things he dreams of come true. He imbues every rock or tree with overflowing feelings, so that there is sentiment everywhere and liveliness in every direction, and evocations implied in every twist or turn in the scenery. Herein lies another rich aspect of the traditional Chinese garden.

·(V)

So much for the few observations garnered from my daily involvement in the craft of gardens, which I present here for everybody's reference. The Suzhou gardens have written a brilliant page in Chinese garden-making history. Today, they are still accommodating people who flock in to see sights or take a break. For the sake of inheriting and carrying forward the fine cultural Chinese traditions embodied in these gardens, I deem it necessary to put this article on my readers' desks. R4HikcwTpGEacSGwjQVJr0ksmJtCgBzJbSBBnvoWDL7jqOwQqcOLriBZPtf58WbS