What's the difference between China gardens and western gardens?

Garden is artificial and natural, which embodies a kind of culture and the relationship between man and nature. From this perspective, there are essential differences between China's classical garden art and western garden art, and modern western culture takes anthropocentrism as its core, emphasizing the conquest, transformation and control of nature. Accordingly, western garden art emphasizes artificial beauty or geometric beauty, which is higher than natural beauty. Based on science and skills, it is symmetrically arranged in front, back, left and right under the guidance of a clear axis, and even flowers and trees are trimmed into various regular geometric shapes. Unity of form, balance and symmetry. Large flat lawns, neatly trimmed trees and flowers with regular shapes constitute the main body of western gardens. Western garden art embodies precision and symmetry, the whole is concise and clear, and everything is a kind of artificial creation. In sharp contrast with western culture, China's traditional culture emphasizes "the unity of man and nature" and the harmony between man and nature. China's classical gardening art is the crystallization of China's long-term accumulation of culture and art, which is characterized by natural changes and twists and turns. It is based on nature, but it is higher than nature, and organically combines artificial beauty with natural beauty, so as to achieve "although it is artificial, it creates a unique style of natural landscape architecture, emphasizes that natural beauty is superior to artificial beauty, and embodies a broad culture and complex spirit. It is called the mother of world gardening. The past century was a century of cultural exchange, collision, infiltration and integration between China and the West. With strong economic, scientific and cultural attraction, western culture has become the dominant culture in cultural exchanges between China and the West. With the massive infiltration of western culture, western garden art, which embodies western culture, has gradually become the fashion pursued by China garden circles. At present, western garden design concepts are widely used in urban greening and garden planning, and the landscape that can embody China's garden art concept has gradually become a rare "rarity" in China. It is the "Westernization" of large-scale urban greening and landscape planning that is pushing the urban ecological environment of China to a dead end. A large area of lawn and a few sparse shrubs or bushes constitute the main body of urban greening. The root system of turf is shallow, so it can only use the water and nutrition in the limited depth soil. The reality is that most cities in our country are short of water resources, so we have to invest a lot of water resources and water them constantly to ensure the normal life of turf. However, the lawn needs to be pruned constantly, and the pruned things are removed (the nutrients in it are also constantly exported), and the soil fertility is rapidly declining, so it has to be fertilized to ensure the growth of the lawn; Savanna-style urban green space has low biodiversity and poor ecosystem stability (in this respect, urban green space is more like farmland that needs careful care). Persistent outbreaks of pests and diseases require frequent application of pesticides, and at the same time, pesticides are transported to urban residents, polluting air, soil and water. In most cases, the savanna-style urban green space does not adapt to the natural environment of the city. Therefore, under the condition of non-human intervention, these green spaces will eventually develop into forests or degenerate into grasslands, and of course some of them will remain intact. In other words, this artificial ecosystem will continue to evolve until it reaches its climax. However, if we must stop it in the savanna stage, we must continue to invest manpower, material resources and financial resources in its repressive maintenance, which will increase the cost of green space maintenance. Generally speaking, savanna-style urban green space leads to further shortage of water resources, rapid decline of soil fertility, pollution and destruction of the environment, accelerated the degradation of urban ecosystem and increased the economic burden of urban operation. This greening mode is not suitable for the urban conditions of China. No matter the construction of "forest city" or "urban forest" proposed in China, it is the result of reflection on the "savanna-style urban greening model". There is no "turf" project in China classical gardens (imported from abroad). Although forests, trees and flowers were artificially combined at first, in the future management, more attention was paid to the echo with nature rather than the pursuit of deliberate carving and natural development. Therefore, this kind of garden will gradually develop into a well-developed ecosystem that can adapt to the local natural environment over time. Trees, shrubs and grasses tend to be naturally combined and distributed in layers (the distribution of branches, leaves and underground roots on the ground is stratified, and the light, heat and humidity on the ground and underground water and nutrition are fully utilized), so the biodiversity is rich and the system stability is strong. Therefore, China classical gardens not only have low operating costs, but also have more powerful ecological functions. It can be regarded as two typical greening modes of China classical gardens and western gardens. In the picture of Hanshan Temple in the Snow, we can see that the branches of trees have different postures and complement each other, making full use of space and sunshine. This is a manifestation of plant phototropism. Fig. 4 is a partial greening diagram of a residential district, including a flat lawn, neatly trimmed three-color low shrubs and a few sparse trees. China classical gardens are the treasures of the world gardens. It is precisely this national treasure that is being forgotten and abandoned by ourselves. China's garden art model is the highest achievement of world garden art, and it is precisely this highest achievement that is being destroyed by China people. Being carried away by western culture, it is really unacceptable for China garden circles to be foreign slaves. Vigorously promoting the brilliance of China classical garden art will illuminate China and benefit the world. Not all "foreign" arts are advanced. Because we are simple-minded, we have lost the essence of China traditional culture. China's classical garden art is the highest realm of garden art so far, and there is no need to introduce foreign "advanced" technologies and concepts in this respect. Family business era, Chinese and western gardening art, geographical thought and land occupation in pre-scientific era (called Feng Shui in China), agriculture and landscape art, water conservancy and traffic engineering on different scales, landscape aesthetic art, housing and urban construction technology are all our precious cultural and artistic heritages, and they are the predecessors and sources of landscape design in the modern sense. At the same time, compared with traditional gardening art, the meaning of modern landscape has been further expanded in extension and connotation. The earliest commercial green space in the world is often the area where natural conditions can meet people's living needs, but people lack close contact with natural mountains and rivers. People need to adjust their psychology through contact with nature in order to obtain emotional peace and aesthetic satisfaction. In West Asia, such as Persia (Iran) and most parts of Arabia, the climate is like this, thus creating the world's earliest commercial green space (the predecessor of gardens). In addition to the gardening system in West Asia, there are two major systems in the world, namely, the European system and the China system. Gardening in West Asia began in Persia and evolved from hunting to entertainment. In the 5th century BC, there appeared a "paradise garden" separated by walls, and there were also records about paradise gardens in Greece at the same time. In the 8th century A.D., Persian gardens began to be arranged in the shape of a "sky", which was divided into four areas with vertical and horizontal axes, and a central pool was set in the center of the cross boulevard, symbolizing heaven. In this arid land of West Asia, water has always been the life of the garden. Later, Arabia inherited the Islamic water law, and with the Muslim military expedition, it spread to North Africa and Spain, as well as India and Kashmir. In all Muslim areas, water is cherished, worshipped and even deified, so that water can play its role as much as possible in gardens. After the Islamic water law was introduced to Italy, it evolved to a magical degree, and it was fully displayed in every garden, becoming an indispensable ornament in European gardens. Islamic gardens and water law have achieved fruitful results in Spain. On the edge of Granada, there is an "Alhambra" garden built around14th century. After hundreds of years of operation and construction, it is composed of six hospitals and seven halls, among which the "Lion Pavilion" built in 1377 is famous all over the world. There is the citrus reticulata in the Lion House, and the cross-shaped canal symbolizes heaven. The caves between the courtyards are interconnected and separated by air-leaking windows, so as to expand the sense of space in the garden. The buildings in Muslim gardens are rich in colors, and the colors of carvings are in sharp contrast with the light and shade of flowers and trees. At the same time, Muslim gardens use rich color patterns to lay floors instead of lawn flower beds. The "Garden in the Garden" not far from the "Red Castle" is also a typical representative of Muslim gardens. The layout of western gardens is mostly regular gardens, and the landscaping is mostly extreme, or sparse or dense, and more is a seamless shock, paying attention to the unity of heaven and man (like towering forests and neat layout to divide manors). China classical gardens pay attention to symmetry in architecture, twists and turns in landscaping, and take a bright future as the artistic conception, which more embodies the poet's feelings and unity with nature. The small artistic conception of China gardens is beyond the comprehension of western gardens. Any small artistic conception in form truly embodies the natural beauty. The unique landscape of China gardens is the leading landscape art in the world.