Abstract:
The traditional Japanese garden combines characteristics which have
been developed over many centuries and which reflect the different influences
prevailing during particular periods of history. The Japanese garden is a
work of living art, imbued with a moral dimension, being penetrated by Zen
Buddhism. Zen Buddhist monks played an important role in the development
of garden design, and many of their principles have been incorporated into
Japanese aesthetic values. As with all Japanese art forms and aesthetic
principles, the Japanese garden is a manifestation of Japanese values,
beliefs, and thoughts –in short a reflection of the Japanese spirit,
characterised by modesty, moderation and sobriety. The present paper aims
to demonstrate that although the Japanese garden has kept all the elements
belonging to the Chinese aesthetics, it has nevertheless its own individuality,
carried out by a special mystic and symbolism, based on the careful
observation of the nature, on the aesthetics of the great refinement of the
curved line, by the use of the symbolic geometrical forms (square, circle,
rectangle), by the numeric essence of the composition, everything in the
garden being organised depending on the numbers 3,5,7. The Japanese have
created their gardens by restriction, by virtue of the order which is present in
their inward nature: the moral order which becomes outside a spatial order.
The Japanese spirit has „ritualised” the garden, providing it with a constant
symbolism, ensuring the perfect order of the traditional Japanese garden, a
garden almost „rational” all the time, which induces thinking, which must be
seen with the mind, not just with the eyes to discover its deep spiritual
meanings. Making a synthesis of the materials, presented in the vast
specialised literature, concerning the art of gardens and traditional Japanese
garden particularly, the following aesthetic principles present in the
traditional Japanese garden may be evidenced: „meigakure”—the quality of
remaining hidden from the ordinary view; minimalism; reverence for Nature;
suggestion; asymmetry and movement; simplicity; naturalness; balance;
unity of oppositions. The intellectual and spiritual tone of the traditional
Japanese garden, the taste for abstraction and symbolism relate them to the
modern Western art, this type of gardens being widely spread in the world.
