Tags
botanical, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Drought, garden design, Genius Loci, Japan, Japanese garden, Kew Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, London, Mircea Eliade, National Gardens Scheme, photography, poetry, Rain, Van Morrison, water, Zen
Drought, floods (as well as elections and double-dip recession), everything is getting very apocalyptic so perhaps it is time for some meditations on water.
According to Genesis, God separates dry land from the water after the creation of heaven and earth, light and darkness. In other cosmogonies water is the primeval substance from which all forms come. Christian Norberg-Schulz, the Norwegian architectural theorist, highlighted this when he wrote on the nature of landscape and place in his book ‘Genius Loci – Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture’. He suggested that
“the presence of water thus gives identity to the land and the legend of the Deluge presents the ‘loss of place’ as a great flood. Although it is the opposite of place, water belongs intimately to living reality.”
According to Mircia Eliade in ‘Patterns of Comparative Religion’,
“The most primitive of the ‘sacred places’ we know constituted a microcosm: a landscape of stones, water and trees.”
Water is one of the basic elements in Japanese gardens, which were essentially symbolic representations of the cosmos and places for meditation and contemplation. They became popular in the West from the 1860’s with the opening up of Japan after trade agreements with the USA and Britain. The London World Fair of 1862 showed Japanese objects in London for the first time. The Water Gardens at Kingston-upon-Thames, nine acres of ponds, streams and waterfalls, were created by the Veitch family in the 1860’s.
This was originally part of the Coombe Wood Nursery and many of the plants were collected for the Veitch family in China and Japan, some by the famous plant collector Ernest Wilson. His Japanese Kurume azalea hybrids became immensely popular in the 1920’s. Incidentally he later became the director of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard in America.
These gardens are open to the public twice a year, in spring and the autumn, for charity under the National Gardens Scheme.
These photographs are from my spring visits.
In the Heian period (794-1185) in Japan, water poetry ceremonies were held in gardens, so I thought it was an opportunity to try a haiku:
Jet stream fading
cranes poised for eternity
fishing silently
The Isabella Plantation garden in nearby Richmond Park is a woodland and water garden at its best in spring when the azaleas are in bloom. Created after the Second World War it houses the National Collection of Kurume azaleas.
Another Japanese garden in London is the Kyoto Garden in Holland Park.
This was built as a souvenir of the Japanese Festival in 1991, but is on the site of an earlier late 19th century one. It is authentically based on a ‘lake and stroll’ type of garden.
I found this pond and statue in another part of Holland Park echoing the same elements.
Although azaleas are actually named from the Greek for drought ‘azaleos’ because they supposedly inhabited dry conditions, they seem to thrive in these watery situations as well. However there is another type of Japanese garden called Karesansui. These are rock gardens or Zen gardens which are specifically meditation gardens where white sand or gravel replaces water.
This example at Kew Gardens uses gravel to represent rivers and the sea. Wave patterns are echoed in a carving on the Japanese Gateway nearby, which was built for the Japan-British Exhibition in London in 1910.
In true complementary Japanese style I happened to have a peacock posing for me in this garden last week.
It wasn’t long before the rain returned and so to the second part of my title and a quote from Van Morrison’s ‘Sweet Thing’ on Astral Weeks:
“We shall walk and talk in gardens all misty wet, misty wet…..
in gardens all wet with rain, wet with rain.”
So having managed to come around again to one of my favourite topics of water and music, how about some suggestions for watery music to accompany a future post at the beginning of June as my concession to the Jubilympics. Any alternatives for Handel’s Water Music?
There is a serenity to these gardens that I think comes from the water and reflections. The water’s surface is the place where two worlds come together, a brief transition like the surface of a bubble. I love your haiku. Jane
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Brilliant photos… For a minute there I thought the peacock was a lovely sculpture.Lovely colors and what a fantastic garden!
Thank you for yet another insightful post, Diana. It reminds me so much of my garden experiences in Japan, especially at the famous Ryoanji rock garden in Kyoto. I remember it so distinctly because, despite the noise of the PA blasting information for tourists and the chatter of indifferent middle schoolers on a field trip, sitting before that garden blanketed everything in silence. Incidentally, here at Cornell, the Johnson Museum of Art recently unveiled a Japanese garden that abuts the museum and is open to the public at all times (http://museum.cornell.edu/morgan-garden.html). I only sat before it for the first time this past weekend, and found it to be a much-needed pocket of eternal reflection on a campus built for fleeting transitions into career-minded lives…
I also enjoyed your haiku, which I took the liberty of translating into Japanese for you, with proper syllabic form:
水勢や
つる永久に立つ
静かつる
I managed to pun on the words “crane” and “fishing,” both of which are pronounced “tsuru.”
Great to see Eliade getting quoted (one of my professors studied with him at the University of Chicago), by the way!
Tyran, I am so delighted by your translation of the haiku! I shall treasure it. You inspire me to try some more.
Thank you for your appreciative comments too, which I am honoured by especially as you have visited Japan. I shall look at the Cornell garden with interest. Eliade is an old favourite of mine not heard much of these days.
This post has been very popular on Google searches which is interesting.
I took a picture with my new camera of the “rock river” at the Cornell garden I mentioned above: http://in-a-landscape.com/2012/07/19/156/
Thanks for that Tyran – very relevant. This post is still one of my most popular ones. Great to see some new photos on your site too.
How about Miles Davis’ Water Babies, Taj Mahal’s Going to the River, or Circles in the Stream by the great Bruce Cockburn? Actually “Let it Rain” by Derek and the Dominoes would probably be the most apt at the moment. Great post. I love Japanese gardens.
Thanks Steve. Your music suggestions sound good to get a party going! I don’t know Bruce Cockburn (don’t know how I missed him as sounds my sort of era!) so I’m having a listen.
I don’t think the forecast is much better for June!
How about Delius and Summer Night on the River? The choral ‘Song to be Sung of a Summer Night on the Water’ is outdoor cathedral music (not the second part though, it’s more of a Tudor sing-song!). Then you could have fireworks too (quiet ones…)
Sounds perfect. I can see myself wafting around already!
Beautiful post. Something very aesthetically inspiring about a Japanese garden. On a watery theme, how about Fripp and Eno’s Wind on Water; John Martyn’s Walk to the Water or Deep Listening Band’s (Pauline Oliveros) Cave Water which is exactly what it says: an ambient recording of cave water. However with the Olympics theme maybe Gavin Bryars Sinking of the Titanic may be appropriate!
Glad you liked the gardens. Love the musical suggestions although I don’t know the Deep Listening Band but it sounds wonderful. I think I have had enough Titanic related things for the next 100 years!
What a lovely collection of odes to water! I am so grateful to live within walking distance of a great body of water – its hard to imagine not being near it. I think people need bodies of water or mountains (or perhaps forests might do) to stay sane in this world. They help us know our place in the cosmos.
I do agree Lois, although we are a bit fed up with water just now! However today amazingly it did not rain so I escaped to some more water further down the Thames, although the tide was out so it was more mud than water.
Lovely post. I have long been drawn to Japanese gardens – it is probably the main reason why i would love to visit Kyoto one day. But the English versions are worthy facsimilies.
As for water music. How about Hamza el-Din’s Escalay (Water Wheel), a lovely flowing watery oud solo? Or something by Eno – By this River, Backwater, Dunwich Beach, Autumn, 1960?
Yes armchair travelling or staying on home ground are better than nothing!
Thank you so much for the musical ideas – I shall check those out. I love oud and I haven’t listened to any Eno for years.
What a beautiful post! Thanks for sharing wonderful shots of Japanese influenced gardens. The one at Kew is very atmospheric – gentle and full of peace. There is a large beautiful one at Tatton Park which we enjoy every time we visit. Might just go back soon and share it in a blog.
I thought some gardens might appeal to you. It is amazing how many there are when you start looking. I have always wanted to go to Biddulph Grange too, which might be nearer to you. Look forward to seeing Tatton Park!
Beautiful gardens; beautiful photographs. Water music ideas, per your request: Ravel’s “Ondine”; or Debussy’s “Pagodes”–water music of the impressionistic kind.
Terrific blog!
Those suggestions for music sound wonderful – I don’t know that Debussy but will investigate. Thank you for your thoughts!
Diana, beautiful photographs of beautiful gardens. Peacocks are such a piece of work. Why not strut over and jazz up the rock garden? Gotta love them… I enjoyed your watery haiku, the juxtaposition of eternity and the jet stream, and the calm feeling i was left with. ‘Til the next time, you take care.
Glad you liked the haiku – my first public poem! The peacock really was a poseur. I think he liked being photographed!
I, too, liked your haiku. All in all, a fine post.
Karen
brilliant post what an outstanding garden.. certainly isnt capability brown is it 🙂
Thanks – I don’t think he liked flowers!