Japanese gardens (日本庭園, nihon teien) are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden designers to suggest a natural landscape, and to express the fragility of existence as well as time's unstoppable advance.^[1]: 6 Ancient Japanese art inspired past garden designers.^[1]: 6 Water is an important feature of many gardens, as are rocks and often gravel. Despite there being many attractive Japanese flowering plants, herbaceous flowers generally play much less of a role in Japanese gardens than in the West, though seasonally flowering shrubs and trees are important, all the more dramatic because of the contrast with the usual predominant green. Evergreen plants are "the bones of the garden" in Japan.^[2] Though a natural-seeming appearance is the aim, Japanese gardeners often shape their plants, including trees, with great rigour.

Japanese literature on gardening goes back almost a thousand years, and several different styles of garden have developed, some with religious or philosophical implications. A characteristic of Japanese gardens is that they are designed to be seen from specific points. Some of the most significant different traditional styles of Japanese garden are the chisen-shoyū-teien ("lake-spring-boat excursion garden"), which was imported from China during the Heian period (794–1185). These were designed to be seen from small boats on the central lake. No original examples of these survive, but they were replaced by the "paradise garden" associated with Pure Land Buddhism, with a Buddha shrine on an island in the lake. Later large gardens are often in the kaiyū-shiki-teien, or promenade garden style, designed to be seen from a path circulating around the garden, with fixed stopping points for viewing. Specialized styles, often small sections in a larger garden, include the moss garden, the dry garden with gravel and rocks, associated with Zen Buddhism, the roji or teahouse garden, designed to be seen only from a short pathway, and the tsubo-niwa, a very small urban garden.

Most modern Japanese homes have little space for a garden, though the tsubo-niwa style of tiny gardens in passages and other spaces, as well as bonsai (in Japan always grown outside) and houseplants mitigates this, and domestic garden tourism is very important. The Japanese tradition has long been to keep a well-designed garden as near as possible to its original condition,^[3] and many famous gardens appear to have changed little over several centuries, apart from the inevitable turnover of plants, in a way that is extremely rare in the West.

Awareness of the Japanese style of gardening reached the West near the end of the 19th century, and was enthusiastically received as part of the fashion for Japonisme, and as Western gardening taste had by then turned away from rigid geometry to a more naturalistic style, of which the Japanese style was an attractive variant. There were immediately popular in the UK, where the climate was similar and Japanese plants grew well. Japanese gardens, typically a section of a larger garden, continue to be popular in the West, and many typical Japanese garden plants, such as cherry trees and the many varieties of Acer palmatum or Japanese maple, are also used in all types of garden, giving a faint hint of the style to very many gardens.

History

Origins

The ideas central to Japanese gardens were first introduced to Japan during the Asuka period (c. 6th to 7th century). Japanese merchants witnessed the gardens that were being built in China and brought many of the Chinese gardening techniques and styles back home.

Japanese gardens first appeared on the island of Honshu, the large central island of Japan. Their aesthetic was influenced by the distinct characteristics of the Honshu landscape: rugged volcanic peaks, narrow valleys, mountain streams with waterfalls and cascades, lakes, and beaches of small stones. They were also influenced by the rich variety of flowers and different species of trees, particularly evergreen trees, on the islands, and by the four distinct seasons in Japan, including hot, wet summers and snowy winters.^[4]

Japanese gardens have their roots in the national religion of Shinto, with its story of the creation of eight perfect islands, and of the shinchi, the lakes of the gods. Prehistoric Shinto shrines to the kami, the gods and spirits, are found on beaches and in forests all over the island. They often took the form of unusual rocks or trees marked with cords of rice fiber (shimenawa) and surrounded with white stones or pebbles, a symbol of purity.^[5] The white gravel courtyard became a distinctive feature of Shinto shrines, Imperial Palaces, Buddhist temples, and Zen gardens. Although its original meaning is somewhat obscure, one of the Japanese words for garden—niwa—came to mean a place that had been cleansed and purified in anticipation of the arrival of kami, and the Shinto reverence for great rocks, lakes, ancient trees, and other "dignitaries of nature" would exert an enduring influence on Japanese garden design.^[6]

Japanese gardens were also strongly influenced by the Chinese philosophy of Daoism and Amida Buddhism, imported from China in or around 552 CE. Daoist legends spoke of five mountainous islands inhabited by the Eight Immortals, who lived in perfect harmony with nature. Each Immortal flew from his mountain home on the back of a crane. The islands themselves were located on the back of an enormous sea turtle. In Japan, the five islands of the Chinese legend became one island, called Horai-zen, or Mount Horai. Replicas of this legendary mountain, the symbol of a perfect world, are a common feature of Japanese gardens, as are rocks representing turtles and cranes.^[7]

In antiquity

The earliest recorded Japanese gardens were the pleasure gardens of the emperors and nobles. They are mentioned in several brief passages of the Nihon Shoki, the first chronicle of Japanese history, published in 720 CE. In spring 74 CE, the chronicle recorded: "The Emperor Keikō put a few carp into a pond, and rejoiced to see them morning and evening". The following year, "The Emperor launched a double-hulled boat in the pond of Ijishi at Ihare, and went aboard with his imperial concubine, and they feasted sumptuously together". In 486, the chronicle recorded that "The Emperor Kenzō went into the garden and feasted at the edge of a winding stream".^[8]

Chinese gardens had a very strong influence on early Japanese gardens. In or around 552 CE, Buddhism was officially installed from China, via Korea, into Japan. Between 600 and 612 CE, the Japanese emperor sent four legations to the court of the Chinese Sui dynasty. Between 630 and 838 CE, the Japanese court sent fifteen more legations to the court of the Tang dynasty. These legations, with more than five hundred members each, included diplomats, scholars, students, Buddhist monks, and translators. They brought back Chinese writing, art objects, and detailed descriptions of Chinese gardens.

In 612 CE, the Empress Suiko had a garden built with an artificial mountain, representing Shumi-Sen, or Mount Sumeru, reputed in Hindu and Buddhist legends to be located at the centre of the world. During the reign of the same empress, one of her ministers, Soga no Umako, had a garden built at his palace featuring a lake with several small islands, representing the islands of the Eight Immortals famous in Chinese legends and Daoist philosophy. This palace became the property of the Japanese emperors, was named "The Palace of the Isles", and was mentioned several times in the Man'yōshū, the "Collection of Countless Leaves", the oldest known collection of Japanese poetry.

Nara period (710–794)

The Nara period is named after its capital city Nara. The first authentically Japanese gardens were built in this city at the end of the 8th century. Shorelines and stone settings were naturalistic, different from the heavier, earlier continental mode of constructing pond edges. Two such gardens have been found at excavations, both of which were used for poetry-writing festivities.^[9] One of these gardens, the East Palace garden at Heijō Palace, Nara, has been faithfully reconstructed using the same location and even the original garden features that had been excavated.^[10][11] It appears from the small amount of literary and archaeological evidence available that the Japanese gardens of this time were modest versions of the Imperial gardens of the Tang dynasty, with large lakes scattered with artificial islands and artificial mountains. Pond edges were constructed with heavy rocks as embankment. While these gardens had some Buddhist and Daoist symbolism, they were meant to be pleasure gardens, and places for festivals and celebrations.

Recent archaeological excavations in the ancient capital of Nara have brought to light the remains of two 8th-century gardens associated with the Imperial Court, a pond and stream garden – the To-in – located within the precinct of the Imperial Palace and a stream garden – Kyuseki – found within the modern city. They may be modeled after Chinese gardens, but the rock formations found in the To-in would appear to have more in common with prehistoric Japanese stone monuments than with Chinese antecedents, and the natural, serpentine course of the Kyuseki stream garden may be far less formal than what existed in Tang China. Whatever their origins, both the To-in and Kyuseki clearly anticipate certain developments in later Japanese gardens.^[6][12]

Heian period (794–1185)

In 794 CE, at the beginning of the Heian period (794–1185 CE), the Japanese court moved its capital to Heian-kyō (present-day Kyoto). During this period, there were three different kinds of gardens: palace gardens and the gardens of nobles in the capital, the gardens of villas at the edge of the city, and the gardens of temples.

The architecture of the palaces, residences and gardens in the Heian period followed Chinese practice. Houses and gardens were aligned on a north-south axis, with the residence to the north and the ceremonial buildings and main garden to the south, there were two long wings to the south, like the arms of an armchair, with the garden between them. The gardens featured one or more lakes connected by bridges and winding streams. The south garden of the imperial residences had a uniquely Japanese feature: a large empty area of white sand or gravel. The emperor was the chief priest of Japan, and the white sand represented purity, and was a place where the gods could be invited to visit. The area was used for religious ceremonies and dances for the welcoming of the gods.^[13]

The layout of the garden itself was strictly determined according to the principles of traditional Chinese geomancy, or Feng Shui. The first known book on the art of the Japanese garden, the Sakuteiki (Records of Garden Keeping), written in the 11th century, said:

It is a good omen to make the stream arrive from the east, to enter the garden, pass under the house, and then leave from the southeast. In this way, the water of the blue dragon will carry away all the bad spirits from the house toward the white tiger.^[14]

The Imperial gardens of the Heian period were water gardens, where visitors promenaded in elegant lacquered boats, listening to music, viewing the distant mountains, singing, reading poetry, painting, and admiring the scenery. The social life in the gardens was memorably described in the classic Japanese novel The Tale of Genji, written in about 1005 by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting to the empress. The traces of one such artificial lake, Osawa no ike, near the Daikaku-ji temple in Kyoto, still can be seen. It was built by the Emperor Saga, who ruled from 809 to 823, and was said to be inspired by Dongting Lake in China.^[15]

A scaled-down replica of the Kyoto Imperial Palace of 794, the Heian-jingū, was built in Kyoto in 1895 to celebrate the 1100th birthday of the city. The south garden is famous for its cherry blossom in spring, and for azaleas in the early summer. The west garden is known for its irises in June, and the large east garden lake recalls the leisurely boating parties of the 8th century.^[15] Near the end of the Heian period, a new garden architecture style appeared, created by the followers of Pure Land Buddhism. These were called "Paradise Gardens", built to represent the legendary Paradise of the West, where the Amida Buddha ruled. These were built by noblemen who wanted to assert their power and independence from the Imperial household, which was growing weaker.

The best surviving example of a Paradise Garden is Byōdō-in in Uji, near Kyoto. It was originally the villa of Fujiwara Michinaga (966–1028), who married his daughters to the sons of the Emperor. After his death, his son transformed the villa into a temple, and in 1053 built the Hall of Phoenix, which still stands.

The Hall is built in the traditional style of a Chinese Song dynasty temple, on an island in the lake. It houses a gilded statue of the Amitābha Buddha, looking to the west. In the lake in front of the temple is a small island of white stones, representing Mount Horai, the home of the Eight Immortals of the Daoists, connected to the temple by a bridge, which symbolized the way to paradise. It was designed for mediation and contemplation, not as a pleasure garden. It was a lesson in Daoist and Buddhist philosophy created with landscape and architecture, and a prototype for future Japanese gardens.^[16]

Notable existing or recreated Heian gardens include:

• Daikaku-ji
• Byōdō-in
• Kyoto Imperial Palace
• Jōruri-ji

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  Osawa lake in Kyoto was part of the old imperial gardens of the Emperor Saga (809–823).
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  Model of a residence and garden at Heian-kyō (Kyoto), around 1000
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  A 19th-century scaled-down reconstruction of the Heian-jingū, the first Kyoto Imperial Palace garden, as it was in 794
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  Stepping stones in the garden of the first Kyoto Imperial Palace. These stones were originally part of a 16th-century bridge over the Kamo River, which was destroyed by an earthquake.^[17]
• 
  Recreated garden of the old Kyoto Imperial Palace

Kamakura and Muromachi periods (1185–1573)

The weakness of the emperors and the rivalry of feudal warlords resulted in two civil wars (1156 and 1159), which destroyed most of Kyoto and its gardens. The capital moved to Kamakura, and then in 1336 back to the Muromachi quarter of Kyoto. The emperors ruled in name only; real power was held by a military governor, the shōgun. During this period, the government reopened relations with China, which had been broken off almost three hundred years earlier. Japanese monks went again to study in China, and Chinese monks came to Japan, fleeing the Mongol invasions. The monks brought with them a new form of Buddhism, called simply Zen, or "meditation". Japan enjoyed a renaissance in religion, in the arts, and particularly in gardens.^[18] The term Zen garden appears in English writing in the 1930s for the first time, in Japan zen teien, or zenteki teien comes up even later, from the 1950s. It applies to a Song China-inspired composition technique derived from ink-painting. The composition or construction of such small, scenic gardens have no relation to religious Zen.^[12]

Many famous temple gardens were built early in this period, including Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, built in 1398, and Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion, built in 1482. In some ways they followed Zen principles of spontaneity, extreme simplicity and moderation, but in other ways they were traditional Chinese Song-dynasty temples; the upper floors of the Golden Pavilion were covered with gold leaf, and they were surrounded by traditional water gardens.

The most notable garden style invented in this period was the Zen garden, dry garden, or Japanese rock garden. One of the finest examples, and one of the best-known of all Japanese gardens is Ryōan-ji in Kyoto. This garden is just 9 metres (30 ft) wide and 24 metres (79 ft) long, composed of white sand carefully raked to suggest water, and fifteen rocks carefully arranged, like small islands. It is meant to be seen from a seated position on the porch of the residence the abbot of the monastery. There have been many debates about what the rocks are supposed to represent, but, as garden historian Gunter Nitschke wrote, "The garden at Ryōan-ji does not symbolize. It does not have the value of representing any natural beauty that can be found in the world, real or mythical. I consider it as an abstract composition of "natural" objects in space, a composition whose function is to incite mediation."^[19]

Several of the famous Zen gardens of Kyoto were the work of one man, Musō Soseki (1275–1351). He was a monk, a ninth-generation descendant of the Emperor Uda and a formidable court politician, writer and organizer, who armed and financed ships to open trade with China, and founded an organization called the Five Mountains, made up of the most powerful Zen monasteries in Kyoto. He was responsible for the building of the zen gardens of Nanzen-ji, Saihō-ji (the Moss Garden), and Tenryū-ji.

Notable gardens of the Kamakura and Muromachi periods include:

• Kinkaku-ji (the Golden Pavilion)
• Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Pavilion)
• Nanzen-ji
• Saihō-ji (the Moss Garden)
• Tenryū-ji
• Daisen-in

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  Ginkaku-ji, or the Silver Pavilion, in Kyoto, a Zen Buddhist temple (1482)
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  The Zen rock garden of Ginkaku-ji features a miniature mountain shaped like Mount Fuji.
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  The garden of Daisen-in Kyoto (1513)
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  Nanzen-ji garden, Kyoto, built by Musō Soseki. Not all Zen gardens were made of rock and sand; monks here contemplated a forest scene.
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  Tenryū-ji garden in Kyoto. The Sogen pond, created by Musō Soseki, is one of the few surviving features of the original garden.

Momoyama period (1568–1600)

The Momoyama period was short, just 32 years, and was largely occupied with the wars between the daimyō, the leaders of the feudal Japanese clans. The new centers of power and culture in Japan were the fortified castles of the daimyō, around which new cities and gardens appeared. The characteristic garden of the period featured one or more ponds or lakes next to the main residence, or shoin, not far from the castle. These gardens were meant to be seen from above, from the castle or residence. The daimyō had developed the skills of cutting and lifting large rocks to build their castles, and they had armies of soldiers to move them. The artificial lakes were surrounded by beaches of small stones and decorated with arrangements of boulders, with natural stone bridges and stepping stones. The gardens of this period combined elements of a promenade garden, meant to be seen from the winding garden paths, with elements of the Zen garden, such as artificial mountains, meant to be contemplated from a distance.^[20]

The most famous garden of this kind, built in 1592, is situated near the Tokushima castle on the island of Shikoku. Its notable features include a bridge 10.5 metres (34 ft) long made of two natural stones.

Another notable garden of the period still existing is Sanbō-in, rebuilt by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1598 to celebrate the festival of the cherry blossom and to recreate the splendor of an ancient garden. Three hundred garden-builders worked on the project, digging the lakes and installing seven hundred boulders in a space of 540 square metres (5,800 sq ft). The garden was designed to be seen from the veranda of the main pavilion, or from the "Hall of the Pure View", located on a higher elevation in the garden.

In the east of the garden, on a peninsula, is an arrangement of stones designed to represent the mythical Mount Horai. A wooden bridge leads to an island representing a crane, and a stone bridge connects this island to another representing a tortoise, which is connected by an earth-covered bridge back to the peninsula. The garden also includes a waterfall at the foot of a wooded hill. One characteristic of the Momoyama period garden visible at Sanbō-in is the close proximity of the buildings to the water.^[20]

The Momoyama period also saw the development of chanoyu (tea ceremony), the chashitsu (teahouse), and the roji (tea garden). Tea had been introduced to Japan from China by Buddhist monks, who used it as a stimulant to keep awake during long periods of meditation. The first great tea master, Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591), defined in the most minute detail the appearance and rules of the tea house and tea garden, following the principle of wabi (侘び, "sober refinement and calm").^[21]

Following Sen no Rikyū's rules, the teahouse was supposed to suggest the cottage of a hermit-monk. It was a small and very plain wooden structure, often with a thatched roof, with just enough room inside for two tatami mats. The only decoration allowed inside a scroll with an inscription and a branch of a tree. It did not have a view of the garden.

The garden was also small, and constantly watered to be damp and green. It usually had a cherry tree or elm to bring color in the spring, but otherwise did not have bright flowers or exotic plants that would distract the attention of the visitor. A path led to the entrance of the teahouse. Along the path was waiting bench for guests and a privy, and a stone water-basin near the teahouse, where the guests rinsed their hands and mouths before entering the tea room through a small, square door called nijiri-guchi, or "crawling-in entrance", which requires bending low to pass through. Sen no Rikyū decreed that the garden should be left unswept for several hours before the ceremony, so that leaves would be scattered in a natural way on the path.^[22]

Notable gardens of the period include:

• Tokushima Castle garden on the island of Shikoku.
• Tai-an tea house at Myōki-an Temple in Kyoto, built in 1582 by Sen no Rikyū.
• Sanbō-in at Daigo-ji, in Kyoto Prefecture (1598)

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  Garden at the Tokushima Castle, dominated by rocks
• 
  The garden at Daigo-ji (1598) is famous for its cherry blossoms.

Edo period (1615–1867)

During the Edo period, power was won and consolidated by the Tokugawa clan, who became the shōgun, and moved the capital to Edo, which became Tokyo. The emperor remained in Kyoto as a figurehead leader, with authority only over cultural and religious affairs. While the political center of Japan was now Tokyo, Kyoto remained the cultural capital, the center for religion and art. The shōgun provided the emperors with little power, but with generous subsidies for building gardens.^[23]

The Edo period saw the widespread use of a new kind of Japanese architecture, called sukiya-zukuri, which means literally "building according to chosen taste". The term first appeared at the end of the 16th century referring to isolated tea houses. It originally applied to the simple country houses of samurai warriors and Buddhist monks, but in the Edo period it was used in every kind of building, from houses to palaces.

The sukiya style was used in the most famous garden of the period, the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto. The buildings were built in a very simple, undecorated style, a prototype for future Japanese architecture. They opened up onto the garden, so that the garden seemed entirely part of the building; whether the visitor was inside or outside of the building, they would ideally always feel they were in the center of nature. The garden buildings were arranged so that were always seen from a diagonal, rather than straight on. This arrangement had the poetic name ganko, which meant literally "a formation of wild geese in flight".^[24]

Most of the gardens of the Edo period were either promenade gardens or dry rock Zen gardens, and they were usually much larger than earlier gardens. The promenade gardens of the period made extensive use of borrowed scenery (shakkei). Vistas of distant mountains are integrated in the design of the garden; or, even better, building the garden on the side of a mountain and using the different elevations to attain views over landscapes outside the garden. Edo promenade gardens were often composed of a series of meisho, or "famous views", similar to postcards. These could be imitations of famous natural landscapes, like Mount Fuji, or scenes from Taoist or Buddhist legends, or landscapes illustrating verses of poetry. Unlike Zen gardens, they were designed to portray nature as it appeared, not the internal rules of nature.^[25]

Well-known Edo-period gardens include:

• Shugakuin Imperial Villa
• Shisen-dō (1641)
• Suizen-ji
• Hama Rikyu
• Kōraku-en (Okayama)
• Ritsurin Garden (Takamatsu)
• Koishikawa Kōraku-en (Tokyo) (1629)
• Ninna-ji, Kyoto
• Enman-in, Otsu
• Sanzen-in, north of Kyoto
• Sengan-en, Kagoshima (1658)
• Chishaku-in, southeast of Kyoto
• Jōju-in, in the temple of Kiyomizu, southeast of Kyoto (1688–1703)
• Manshu-in, northeast of Kyoto (1656)
• Nanzen-ji, east of Kyoto (1688–1703)

• 
  Kōraku-en in Okayama, begun in 1700
• 
  Ritsurin Garden in Takamatsu, begun in 1625
• 
  The hermitage garden of the poet and scholar Ishikawa Jozan at Shisen-dō, built in 1641. It later became a temple.
• 
  The north garden at Ninna-ji in Kyoto, a classic promenade garden
• 
  The south garden at Ninna-ji, a Zen rock garden
• 
  Koishikawa Kōrakuen Garden in Tokyo, begun in 1629, is now surrounded by office buildings.
• 
  The most famous view of Suizen-ji is a miniature mountain resembling Mount Fuji.

Meiji period (1868–1912)

The Meiji period saw the modernization of Japan, and the re-opening of Japan to the West. Many of the old private gardens had been abandoned and left to ruin. In 1871, a new law transformed many gardens from the earlier Edo period into public parks, preserving them. Garden designers, confronted with ideas from the West experimented with western styles, leading to such gardens as Kyu-Furukawa Gardens, or Shinjuku Gyoen. Others, more in the north of Japan kept to Edo period blueprint design. A third wave was the naturalistic style of gardens, invented by captains of industry and powerful politicians like Aritomo Yamagata. Many gardeners soon were designing and constructing gardens catering to this taste. One of the gardens well-known for his technical perfection in this style was Ogawa Jihei VII, also known as Ueji.^[26]

Notable gardens of this period include:

• Kyu-Furukawa Gardens
• Kenroku-en, 18th and 19th centuries, finished in 1874.
• Chinzan-so in Tokyo in 1877.
• Murin-an in Kyoto, finished 1898.

• 
  Kenroku-en in Kanazawa
• 
  Chinzan-so in Tokyo
• 
  Murin-an in Kyoto

Modern Japanese gardens (1912 to present)

During the Shōwa period (1926–1989), many traditional gardens were built by businessmen and politicians. After World War II, the principal builders of gardens were no longer private individuals, but banks, hotels, universities and government agencies. The Japanese garden became an extension of the landscape architecture with the building. New gardens were designed by landscape architects, and often used modern building materials such as concrete.

Some modern Japanese gardens, such as Tōfuku-ji, designed by Mirei Shigemori, were inspired by classical models. Other modern gardens have taken a much more radical approach to the traditions. One example is Awaji Yumebutai, a garden on the island of Awaji, in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan, designed by Tadao Ando. It was built as part of a resort and conference center on a steep slope, where land had been stripped away to make an island for an airport.

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  Tōfuku-ji, a modern Japanese garden from 1934, designed by Mirei Shigemori, built on grounds of a 13th-century Zen temple in Kyoto
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  The moss garden at Tōfuku-ji, Kyoto
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  A contemporary Japanese garden at the Kochi Museum of Art
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  The garden at the Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum, using sculpture to imitate the form of island on the horizon
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  Garden of the Adachi Museum of Art
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  Awaji Yumebutai, a contemporary garden on the island of Awaji, Hyōgo (2000)
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  Shell beach garden, part of the Awaji Yumebutai on the island of Awaji, Hyōgo (2000)
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  Jissō-in rock garden in Iwakura (Kyoto), reformed in 2013

Garden elements

Japanese gardens are distinctive in their symbolism of nature, with traditional Japanese gardens being very different in style from occidental gardens: "Western gardens are typically optimised for visual appeal while Japanese gardens are modelled with spiritual and philosophical ideas in mind."^[27] Japanese gardens are conceived as a representation of a natural setting, tying in to Japanese connections between the land and Shinto spiritualism, where spirits are commonly found in nature; as such, Japanese gardens tend to incorporate natural materials, with the aim of creating a space that captures the beauties of nature in a realistic manner.

Traditional Japanese gardens can be categorized into three types: tsukiyama (hill gardens), karesansui (dry gardens) and chaniwa gardens (tea gardens).

The small space given to create these gardens usually poses a challenge for the gardeners. Due to the absolute importance of the arrangement of natural rocks and trees, finding the right material becomes highly selective. The serenity of a Japanese landscape and the simple but deliberate structures of the Japanese gardens are a unique quality, with the two most important principles of garden design being "scaled reduction and symbolization".^[28]

Water

Japanese gardens always feature water, either physically with a pond or stream, or symbolically, represented by white sand in a dry rock garden. In Buddhist symbolism, water and stone are thought of as yin and yang, two opposites that complement and complete each other. A traditional garden will usually have an irregular-shaped pond or, in larger gardens, two or more ponds connected by a channel or stream, and a cascade, a miniature version of Japan's famous mountain waterfalls.

In traditional gardens, the ponds and streams are carefully placed according to Buddhist geomancy, the art of putting things in the place most likely to attract good fortune. The rules for the placement of water were laid out in the first manual of Japanese gardens, the Sakuteiki ("Records of Garden Making"), in the 11th century. According to the Sakuteiki, water should enter the garden from the east or southeast and flow toward the west, because the east is the home of the Green Dragon (seiryu), an ancient Chinese divinity adopted in Japan, and the west is the home of the White Tiger, the divinity of the east. Water flowing from east to west will carry away evil, and the owner of the garden will be healthy and have a long life. According to the Sakuteiki, another favorable arrangement is for the water to flow from north, which represents water in Buddhist cosmology, to the south, which represents fire, which are opposites (yin and yang) and therefore will bring good luck.^[29]

The Sakuteiki recommends several possible miniature landscapes using lakes and streams: the "ocean style", which features rocks that appear to have been eroded by waves, a sandy beach, and pine trees; the "broad river style", recreating the course of a large river, winding like a serpent; the "marsh pond" style, a large still pond with aquatic plants; the "mountain torrent style", with many rocks and cascades; and the "rose letters" style, an austere landscape with small, low plants, gentle relief and many scattered flat rocks.

Traditional Japanese gardens have small islands in the lakes. In sacred temple gardens, there is usually an island which represents Mount Penglai or Mount Hōrai, the traditional home of the Eight Immortals.

The Sakuteiki describes different kinds of artificial island which can be created in lakes, including the "mountainous island", made up of jagged vertical rocks mixed with pine trees, surrounded by a sandy beach; the "rocky island", composed of "tormented" rocks appearing to have been battered by sea waves, along with small, ancient pine trees with unusual shapes; the "cloud island", made of white sand in the rounded white forms of a cumulus cloud; and the "misty island", a low island of sand, without rocks or trees.

A cascade or waterfall is an important element in Japanese gardens, a miniature version of the waterfalls of Japanese mountain streams. The Sakuteiki describes seven kinds of cascades. It notes that if possible, a cascade should face toward the moon and should be designed to capture the moon's reflection in the water.^[30] It is also mentioned in Sakuteiki that cascades benefit from being located in such a manner that they are half-hidden in shadows.

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  Lotus pond at Enjo-ji, a Heian period paradise garden (12th century)
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  A winding stream at Mōtsū-ji garden in Hiraisumi
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  The spring-fed pond at Suizen-ji Jōju-en garden (1636), whose water was reputed to be excellent for making tea
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  Youkoukan Garden in Fukui Prefecture recreates a miniature beach and a mountain.
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  An island of weathered rocks and a single pine tree in Rikugi-en garden in Tokyo represents Mount Hōrai, the legendary home of the Eight Immortals.

Rocks and sand

Rock, sand and gravel are an essential feature of the Japanese garden. A vertical rock may represent Mount Horai, the legendary home of the Eight Immortals, or Mount Sumeru of Buddhist teaching, or a carp jumping from the water. A flat rock might represent the earth. Sand or gravel can represent a beach, or a flowing river. Rocks and water also symbolize yin and yang (in and yō in Japanese) in Buddhist philosophy; the hard rock and soft water complement each other, and water, though soft, can wear away rock.

Rough volcanic rocks (kasei-gan) are usually used to represent mountains or as stepping stones. Smooth and round sedimentary rocks (suisei-gan) are used around lakes or as stepping stones. Hard metamorphic rocks are usually placed by waterfalls or streams. Rocks are traditionally classified as tall vertical, low vertical, arching, reclining, or flat. Rocks should vary in size and color but from each other, but not have bright colors, which would lack subtlety. Rocks with strata or veins should have the veins all going in the same direction, and the rocks should all be firmly planted in the earth, giving an appearance of firmness and permanence. Rocks are arranged in careful compositions of two, three, five or seven rocks, with three being the most common. In a three-arrangement, a tallest rock usually represents heaven, the shortest rock is the earth, and the medium-sized rock is humanity, the bridge between heaven and earth. Sometimes one or more rocks, called suteishi ("nameless" or "discarded"), are placed in seemingly random locations in the garden, to suggest spontaneity, though their placement is carefully chosen.^[31]

In ancient Japan, sand (suna) and gravel (jari) were used around Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Later it was used in the Japanese rock garden or Zen Buddhist gardens to represent water or clouds. White sand represented purity, but sand could also be gray, brown or bluish-black.^[32]

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  Rocks in the Garden of the Blissful Mountain at Daitoku-ji
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  Sand in checkerboard pattern at Tōfuku-ji, in Kyoto
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  Tōfuku-ji garden in Kyoto
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  Myōshin-ji garden
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  Shitenno-ji garden. Note the three-rock composition in the center.
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  Ankokuji garden in Hiroshima features rocks of different but harmonious sizes and colors.
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  Rock composition at Tōfuku-ji (1934)
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  A large flat rock on an island in Korakuen garden in Tokyo, which represents a turtle's head
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  Combination of checkerboard pattern and water patterns at the Negoro-ji Temple, Prefecture Wakayama

Selection and subsequent placement of rocks was and still is a central concept in creating an aesthetically pleasing garden by the Japanese. During the Heian period, the concept of placing stones as symbolic representations of islands – whether physically existent or nonexistent – began to take hold, and can be seen in the Japanese word shima, which is of "particular importance  because the word contained the meaning 'island'". Furthermore, the principle of kowan ni shitagau, or "obeying (or following) the request of an object", was, and still is, a guiding principle of Japanese rock design that suggests "the arrangement of rocks be dictated by their innate characteristics". The specific placement of stones in Japanese gardens to symbolically represent islands (and later to include mountains), is found to be an aesthetically pleasing property of traditional Japanese gardens.

Thomas Heyd outlines some of the aesthetic principles of Japanese gardens in Encountering Nature:

Stones, which constitute a fundamental part of Japanese gardens, are carefully selected for their weathering and are placed in such a way that they give viewers the sense that they 'naturally' belong where they are, and in combinations in which the viewers find them. As such, this form of gardening attempts to emblematically represent (or present) the processes and spaces found in wild nature, away from city and practical concerns of human life.

— Thomas Heyd, Encountering Nature^[33]

Rock placement is a general "aim to portray nature in its essential characteristics"^[33] – the essential goal of all Japanese gardens. Furthermore, Heyd states:

while the cult of stones is also central to Japanese gardening  as stones were part of an aesthetic design and had to be placed so that their positions appeared natural and their relationships harmonious. The concentration of the interest on such detail as the shape of a rock or the moss on a stone lantern led at times to an overemphatic picturesqueness and accumulation of minor features that, to Western eyes accustomed to a more general survey, may seem cluttered and restless.

— Thomas Heyd, Encyclopædia Britannica, Garden and Landscape Design: Japanese^[34]

Such attention to detail can be seen at places such as Midori Falls in Kenroku-en Garden in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, as the rocks at the waterfall's base were changed at various times by six different daimyō.

In Heian-period Japanese gardens, built in the Chinese model, buildings occupied as much or more space than the garden. The garden was designed to be seen from the main building and its verandas, or from small pavilions built for that purpose. In later gardens, the buildings were less visible. Rustic teahouses were hidden in their own little gardens, and small benches and open pavilions along the garden paths provided places for rest and contemplation. In later garden architecture, walls of houses and teahouses could be opened to provide carefully framed views of the garden. The garden and the house became one.^[35]

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  The symmetrical and highly ornamental architecture of the Phoenix Hall in Byōdō-in Garden, Kyoto (1052) was inspired by Chinese Song dynasty architecture.
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  The Kotoji Tōrō, a two-legged stone lantern that is one of the most well-known symbols of the Kenroku-en garden
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  A chashitsu or teahouse in Jo-an garden in Inuyama, from 1618. The simple and unadorned zen teahouse style began to be used on all Japanese buildings, from garden pavilions to palaces. This teahouse was declared a National Treasure of Japan in 1951.
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  The architecture of the main house of the Katsura Imperial Villa (1619–1662) was inspired by the simplicity of the tea house.

Garden bridges

Bridges first appeared in the Japanese garden during the Heian period. At the Byōdō-in garden in Kyoto, a wooden bridge connects the Phoenix pavilion with a small island of stones, representing the Mount Penglai or Mount Horai, the island home of the Eight Immortals of Daoist teaching, The bridge symbolized the path to paradise and immortality.^[36]

Bridges could be made of stone (ishibashi), or of wood, or made of logs with earth on top, covered with moss (dobashi); they could be either arched (soribashi) or flat (hirabashi). Sometimes if they were part of a temple garden, they were painted red, following the Chinese tradition, but for the most part they were unpainted.^[37]

During the Edo period, when large promenade gardens became popular, streams and winding paths were constructed, with a series of bridges, usually in a rustic stone or wood style, to take visitors on a tour of the scenic views of the garden.

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  The bridge at Byōdō-in temple (1052) represented the way to the island of the immortals, and paradise.
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  A bridge at Tokushima castle made of two stones resting on a third stone (1592)
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  Wood and stone bridge at Suizen-ji garden. The garden was begun in 1636.
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  Wooden bridge in Ritsurin Garden (between 1642 and 1745)
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  The Flying Geese Bridge in Kenroku-en garden (between 1822 and 1874)
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  Zig-zag stone bridge in Koishikawa Kōrakuen
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  Rustic bridge at Tensha-en garden in Uwajima (1866)
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  A wooden bridge covered with earth and moss (dobashi) at Sorakuen
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  A rare covered bridge from the Sankeien Garden in Yokohama

Stone lanterns and water basins

Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Japanese_garden
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