[Edit this paragraph] The role of royal gardens
It has a long history of more than 3,000 years from the "Miao Ling" built in Zhou Wenwang in1century BC to the end of 19 when Empress Dowager Cixi rebuilt Qingyi Garden as the Summer Palace. In this long historical period, almost every dynasty built palaces. Generally, it is built in the capital, adjacent to the palace, which is equivalent to a private house garden, and is called the Imperial Garden of the Great Inner Region. Most of them are built in suburban areas with beautiful scenery and quiet environment, and are generally combined with detached palaces or detached palaces, which are called detached palaces and detached palaces respectively. The imperial palace garden is used by emperors for occasional leisure or short-term residence. As a place where emperors live and handle state affairs for a long time, the imperial palace garden is equivalent to a political center connected with ouchi.
[Edit this paragraph] Various historical periods and masterpieces of the Royal Gardens.
Yin and Shang Dynasties —— Songs in Oracle Bone Inscriptions
From the earliest text found so far —— Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Yin and Shang Dynasties (BC 16 ~ BC 1 1 century), a discussion on the "harmony" of the imperial garden was found. Accordingly, experts speculate that the royal gardens in China began in Shang Dynasty. According to the historical records of Zhou Li in Zhou Dynasty, the royal gardens appeared in the form of caves, that is, in a certain natural environment, animals were raised, trees were planted, ponds were dug, and platforms were built for Royal Hunt, entertainment, education and production. At that time, the famous royal garden was the "Lingkou" in Zhou Wenwang, which was dominated by natural flowers and trees, with flocks of birds and animals, and a pool was built for emperors and nobles to enjoy hunting. In fact, this is a hunting park.
Qin and Han Dynasties-Epang Palace and Shanglin Garden
During the Qin and Han Dynasties (22 BC1~ 220 BC), royal gardens were the mainstream of gardening activities at that time. At this time, the royal garden appeared in the form of a landscape palace, that is, the royal parting hall was combined with the natural landscape environment, and its scope was hundreds of miles in Fiona Fang. The Xin Palace and Epang Palace built by Qin Shihuang in Weinan, Shaanxi Province are not only arranged according to the astronomical phenomena, but also "the dense mountains cross the valley and the roads return to their own places", and there is a pavilion at the top of the mountain, with Fan Chuan as the palace pool, which is magnificent. Qin Shihuang sent people to Penglai, the abbot, Yingzhou, the legendary Sanxian Mountain in the East China Sea, several times to seek the elixir of life. He built Penglai Mountain in the pool of his Lanchi Palace to express his yearning for fairyland.
On the basis of Shanglin Garden in Qin Dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty built a large-scale and multifunctional royal garden-Shanglin Garden. Shanglin Garden covers a vast area in the east, south and west of Chang 'an. Eight rivers in Guanzhong pass through the territory, and there are more than 300 palace gardens, which is the first climax of the construction of royal gardens in China. There are not only royal residences and places to enjoy natural beauty, but also zoos, botanical gardens, hunting areas and even horse and dog races. Penglai, abbot and Yingzhou Sanxian Mountain were built in Taiye Pool of Zhangjian Palace in Shanglinyuan. From then on, the practice of "one pool and three mountains" in China Royal Garden continued until the Qing Dynasty. However, although its scale is extremely grand, it is relatively rough, and the scenery of temples and terraces is simply listed, without combining the layout of mountains and rivers. At this time, the royal garden is still in the primary stage of development and formation.
From Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to Ming Dynasty —— Accumulation and Perfection of Royal Gardens
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties (220-589), the development of royal gardens was at a turning point. At this time, wars are frequent, and scholars talk about cynicism, advocate seclusion, and express their feelings for mountains and rivers, which permeates the aesthetics of this era. Although the royal garden is not as good as the landscape palace in Qin and Han Dynasties in scale, it has been inherited and developed in content, with stricter regulations, showing a combination of artificial creation and natural landscape beauty, which indicates that the royal garden has been sublimated. For example, the Xiandu Garden built in Gaowei of the Northern Qi Dynasty, the heaped earth mountain symbolizes the five mountains, and the "poor children's village" and "trading street" are built to experience folk life.
Sui and Tang Dynasties (58 1 ~907) was the golden age of feudal society in China, and the development of royal gardens also entered a heyday. Royal gardens tend to be gorgeous and exquisite, paying attention to the unity of architectural beauty and natural beauty. Xiyuan in Sui Dynasty and Forbidden Garden in Tang Dynasty are both royal gardens, with ingenious garden architecture, exquisite architectural structure and various kinds of animals and plants. Xiyuan in Luoyang and Huaqing Palace in Lishan are the representative works of this period.
By the Song Dynasty (960 ~ 1279), the ruling class was addicted to the prosperity of music and acoustics. Many royal gardens were built in Tokyo in the Northern Song Dynasty, Lin 'an in the Southern Song Dynasty and Zhongdu in the Jin Dynasty. The scale was far less than that of the Tang Dynasty, but the precision of art and techniques was higher. The development of royal gardens has reached a climax, that is, Genyue, located in Tokyo, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty. The Genyue built by Song Huizong is a beautiful example of imitating China mountains and rivers with large artificial rockeries on the flat ground, and it is also a masterpiece of freehand landscape gardens. At this time, the materials and construction technology of rockery have reached a high level.
The Jin Dynasty (11/kloc-0 ~1234) built royal gardens such as Xiyuan, Tong Yuan, Taiyechi, Nanyuan, Guangleyuan, Fiona Fang and Beiyuan, and built forbidden gardens, the largest of which is Wanning Palace, which is today's Beihai Park. In addition, there are lotus hall in Yuquan Mountain, palace in Xiangshan Mountain, flower viewing platform in Cherry Valley, Jin Zhangzong Tanzhe Temple near Tanzhe Temple and Diaoyutai in Yuyuantan in the suburbs. The "Eight Scenes of Yanjing" originated from the Jin Dynasty.
During the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (127 1 ~ 1644), the royal gardening activities were in a relatively stagnant situation. There are no other buildings except the Imperial Palace "Taiye Pool" in the Yuan Dynasty, which was expanded to the West Garden in the Ming Dynasty. Among them, it developed around the Long Live Mountain (now Jingshan) and Taiyechi (Beihai) in the Yuan Dynasty. At that time, Taiye Pool expanded southward, becoming a coherent water area of the North Sea, the China Sea and the South China Sea. There were temples along the coast of the Three Seas and on the island in the pool, collectively known as Xiyuan. There are Hougong Garden (now the Imperial Palace Garden), East Garden, West Garden, North Orchard, South Garden and Yuxi Palace in the palace. Outside the palace, there are hunting grounds, Nanhaizi, Shanglinyuan and Juyantai in the suburbs. In addition, a large number of altar gardens were built in the Ming Dynasty, such as Waqiu altar (today's altar), Fangze altar (today's altar), Ritan altar, Moon altar, Xiannong altar and social altar. Temple gardens have also become popular.
Qing Dynasty —— Maturity and Exquisiteness of Royal Gardens
During the Qing Dynasty (1616 ~1911), the construction of the royal gardens became mature, and the climax was laid in Kangxi and completed in Qianlong. Since the Qing Dynasty made Beijing its capital and completely used the palaces of the Ming Dynasty, the focus of royal construction naturally turned to gardens. At that time, from Haidian Town to Xiangshan, * * * distributed more than 90 royal gardens, including Jingyi Garden, Jingming Garden, Qingyi Garden (Summer Palace), Yuanmingyuan Garden, Changchun Garden, Xiyuan Garden, Xichun Garden, Jingchun Garden, Shuchun Garden, Heming Garden, Langrun Garden and Kiko Garden, which stretched for more than 20 miles and were spectacular. In addition, there are many royal gardens outside Beijing. Among them, Yuanmingyuan, Qingyi Garden (Summer Palace), Summer Resort and Beihai are the most famous.
The Summer Palace, a northern royal garden with mountains in the north and water in the south, imitates the characteristics of southwest West Lake, chicken farm garden and Suzhou water town, controls the whole garden with a large number of buildings and their main axes, and highlights the will to "rule the world". Beihai is developed by inheriting the tradition of "one pool and three mountains". Qionghua Island in Beihai is a replica of Penglai, so Qionghua Island in the morning fog often gives people the feeling of fairyland.
The summer resort is built on the basis of natural beauty. Therefore, the style of the whole villa is simple and elegant, without gorgeous colors. Among them, more than ten groups of mountain garden buildings are models of building houses because of mountains. Yuanmingyuan is a multi-storey landscape structure, which gathers royal gardens on the flat ground and makes use of rich water sources to dig pools and pile mountains. In addition, in the history of gardening in China, Yuanmingyuan also introduced western gardening art and technology for the first time.
The vigorous development of royal gardens depends on two factors. On the one hand, the feudal emperors at this time completely accepted the aesthetic taste and gardening theory of private gardens in Jiangnan, which was somewhat separated from the mainstream culture. In the Qing dynasty, some emperors not only managed the state affairs in gardens or palaces all the year round, but even euphemistically called "listening to politics without noise". On the other hand, the imperial garden pursues grandeur and imperial power, which leads to the rigid mode of "garden in garden". Among all the dozens or even hundreds of scenic spots in the royal gardens, there must be imitations of some pocket gardens in the south of the Yangtze River and tolerance of Buddhist and Taoist temples. At the same time, due to the grand overall momentum, it is bound to require the layout of some single buildings with huge volume and complex buildings, and often bring a relatively clear axis relationship or several well-defined axis relationships into the original gardening management mode that emphasizes the unique style of depending on the mountain, making royal gardens different from private gardens.
[Edit this paragraph] Features of Royal Gardens
1. Large scale
The emperor can take advantage of his political privilege and strong financial resources in the economy to occupy a large area of land to build gardens for his own enjoyment, so its scale is far from that of private gardens. The earliest imperial garden mausoleum in China is 35km away from Fiona Fang, and it was in Shanglinyuan in Qin and Han Dynasties, with a width of150km. Xiyuan, Luoyang, Sui Dynasty, one week 100 kilometers, surrounded by the sea, 5 kilometers a week. Forbidden Garden in the north of Chang 'an Miyagi in Tang Dynasty, north and south 16.5km, east and west 13.5km. The root moon of Tokyo in Huizong period of Northern Song Dynasty was rebuilt on the basis of man-made mountain system-Long Live Mountain, which is "more than ten miles around the mountain", overlooking the north, and there is the Jinglong River with "more than ten miles of waves". Yutaichi, a metropolis in the Yuan Dynasty, is "five or six miles wide, with a flying bridge in the sea, starting from Yingzhou Hall and surrounding the stone city". On this basis, the Ming Dynasty extended to the South China Sea, the North Sea and the Sea of China. The perimeter of the summer resort built in the Qing Dynasty is 10 km, of which 564 hectares are lakes and mountains. Yuanmingyuan covers an area of more than 200 hectares, and Changchun and Wanchun Gardens cover an area of 150 hectares. The latest Summer Palace covers an area of about 287 hectares. Obviously, the scale of royal gardens is beyond the reach of temple gardens and private gardens. And its scale is basically inversely proportional to the backward continuation of history. The number and scale of royal gardens also reflect the rise and fall of a dynasty's national strength to some extent.
2. Free choice of garden site
Royal gardens can not only enclose the original mountains and lakes, such as the summer resort in the Qing Dynasty, but also the mountains in the northwest are natural mountains and the lake scenery in the southeast is transformed from natural lakes. It can also be superimposed and cut, just like natural mountains, rivers and seas, such as Genyue in the Song Dynasty and Qingyi Garden in the Qing Dynasty (the northern mountain scenery is artificially superimposed). In short, any area that the royal family likes can be built into a royal garden.
3. Gorgeous architecture
The Epang Palace built by Qin Shihuang is "five steps to the first floor, ten steps to a pavilion", and the Weiyang Palace in Han Dynasty is "the palace pavilion is restored and prosperous". By the Qing Dynasty, the number and types of buildings in gardens had increased. The rich financial resources in the hands of the royal family have increased the weight of the buildings in the garden and highlighted the formal beauty of the buildings. As the most important means to embody the royal style, the aesthetic value of garden architecture has been pushed to an unprecedented height. As far as its color is concerned, it is resplendent and magnificent, which fully embodies the rich gorgeous and noble court color.
4. The strong symbolic significance of imperial power
In ancient times, all the palaces, temples and tombs directly related to the emperor used their layout and images to embody the concept of the supremacy of imperial power. As one of the important buildings, the Royal Garden is no exception. During the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods of the Qing Dynasty, the expansion of imperial power reached an unprecedented level in China feudal society, which was fully reflected in the royal gardens built at that time. The symbolic meaning of imperial power is more extensive and complex than before. For example, Jiudao in the back lake of Yuanmingyuan symbolizes Kyushu, Gong Yu; Oriental Fuhai symbolizes the East China Sea; In the northwest corner, Zibi Mountain House, the highest earth mountain in the whole park, symbolizes Kunlun Mountain, and the layout of the whole park symbolizes the national territory, thus expressing the imperial power implication of "all over the world, it is the land of kings".
5. Fully absorb the poetry of Jiangnan gardens.
Northern gardens imitated Jiangnan and appeared as early as the middle of Ming Dynasty. In the area of Haidian Town in the northwest suburb of Beijing, there are many lakes and springs, where bureaucrats and nobles buy land for gardening, and many of them consciously imitate the garden style of Jiangnan water town. This trend naturally influenced the royal gardening. During the reign of Kangxi, Zhang Ran, a famous gardener in the south of the Yangtze River, was ordered to build rockeries for Yingtai and Jingming Gardens in the West Garden. Later, he and Jiangnan painter Ye Tao presided over the planning and design of Changchun Garden, and Jiangnan gardening skills began to be introduced into royal gardens. However, it was during the Qianlong period that Qianlong was in power for more than 60 years and went to Jiangnan six times. Because his "Admiring Jiangnan" is the reference of royal gardening, it has contributed to the climax of royal gardening imitating Jiangnan since Kangxi. They combined the gardening arts of North and South, royal and folk, which made their gardening skills reach an unprecedented breadth and depth.
A survey of traditional garden art in China
China traditional gardens are an important part of China traditional culture. As a carrier, it not only objectively and truly reflects the different historical background, the rise and fall of social economy and the level of engineering technology in China, but also vividly reflects the evolution of China people's outlook on nature, life and world, and contains philosophical or religious thoughts such as Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, as well as the influence of traditional arts such as landscape poems and paintings. It embodies the diligence and wisdom of China intellectuals and skilled craftsmen. Moreover, compared with western garden art, it highlights the yearning and love of the Chinese nation for nature and a beautiful living environment. 1990 Mount Tai, a scenic spot in China, was listed in the World Cultural and Natural Heritage List by UNESCO. Since 1994, China chengde mountain resort, Beijing Summer Palace, Suzhou Humble Administrator's Garden, Lingering Garden and Huanxiu Mountain Villa have been listed on the World Cultural Heritage List by UNESCO successively, becoming the cultural wealth of all mankind. This further shows that the traditional gardens in China have convincing artistic strength and irreplaceable uniqueness. It is unique in the world cultural forest and has a long history.
In ancient China mythology, the Yaochi where the Queen Mother of the West lived and the Hanging Garden where the Yellow Emperor lived were both described as beautiful gardens. Green mountains and green waters are the living environment that people dream of. According to China's ancient records, in the late Yin and Zhou Dynasties of slavery in China, a royal garden-Garden-appeared in Fiona Fang, which was the embryonic form of the traditional garden in China. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, by arranging a large number of temples in the natural landscape environment, a more magnificent landscape palace with an area of hundreds of miles was formed. During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, cowardice and Buddhism and Taoism led to the emergence of a garden-like temple-Temple Garden. At this time, simple landscape poems and landscape paintings promoted the development of literati gardens. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the level of landscape poetry and landscape painting reached its peak, so the freehand landscape garden came into being. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the development of freehand brushwork landscape garden reached its climax, and the gardening art became more mature and perfect. At this time, both emperors and princes, as well as literati and officialdom, are pursuing more real life experience in the garden and placing more aesthetic feelings and social ideas. This makes China gardens have strong symbolic features. This symbolic feature is first manifested in the naming of gardens and scenic spots in gardens. The name of China Garden is not directly related to the name of the owner, but more related to the personality ideal of the owner. The predecessor of the Summer Palace in Beijing was called Qingyuan. After the reconstruction of 1886, the Western Empress Dowager took care of herself and changed her name. The queen who once listened to politics hoped that the world would be peaceful and that she could "support her life". The name of Wuxi Jichang Garden expresses that its owner wants to live freely. There are more than one "Grand View Building" and "Grand View Garden" in China's literary works, which shows that people who visit and live here should be open-minded and philosophical. According to historical records, there is a garden called "Bowang Garden" in Shanglinyuan, a famous royal garden in Han Dynasty, which means to climb high and look far, be close to nature and nourish and sublimate people's spirit. According to experts' research, as early as the 6th century, China's traditional garden art spread to Korea and Japan, where it took root, blossomed and bore fruit. /kloc-In the 0/8th century, China's traditional garden art spread to Europe, which had a great influence on the popular and formal gardens in Britain and France at that time. For a time, imitating China's natural gardens became a fashion in Europe. At the same time, European painters and missionaries were invited to create a batch of western-style buildings with Rococo style and China national culture in Yuanmingyuan, China, which opened the cooperation between Chinese and western gardens. The highest realm of China's traditional gardening art is that although it is artificial, it is natural. This is actually the embodiment of the idea of harmony between man and nature in China traditional culture in gardens. Specifically, the extensive and profound traditional gardens in China are built according to the following principles:
1, landscape architecture. Because of the vast territory and beautiful mountains and rivers in China, the people of China have a special affinity for nature since ancient times, especially the living environment surrounded by mountains and rivers. In feng shui theory, mountains and water are considered to be a combination of yin and yang. Confucius once pointed out: "the benevolent Leshan, the wise happy water;" So as to combine the landscape with the humanistic characteristics. China's unique geographical conditions and cultural background have had an important impact on China's gardening. No wonder people in China are so keen on building gardens in natural landscapes or framing natural landscapes in urban gardens.
2. Simulate a fairyland. As early as 2000 years ago, Qin Shihuang sent people to Penglai, the abbot and Yingzhou, the legendary Sanxian Mountain in the East China Sea, and tried several times to get the medicine of immortality, but all failed. Therefore, he built Penglai Mountain in his Lanchi Palace, imitating fairyland, to express his strong desire for eternal life. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty inherited and promoted this tradition. Penglai, abbot and Yingzhou Sanxian Mountain were built in Zhangjian Palace in Shanglinyuan. Since then, the tradition of one pool and three mountains has been created.
3. move the sky and shrink the ground. An important feature of China tradition is to express infinite connotation in a limited space. In Song Dynasty, Liang Yue in Song Huizong was once praised as a beauty all over the world, and it is best to hide the past from the present. However, Kyushu Qing in the Yuanmingyuan in the Qing Dynasty condensed the layout of China into a small landscape unit to reflect the idea of "no land under heaven". Wen Zhenheng, a gardener in the Ming Dynasty, also emphasized the gardening idea that "one peak is too beautiful to be sought after, and one spoon is Wan Li in the Jianghu".
4. Poetry. The landscape poems and landscape paintings in China's traditional culture profoundly express people's attachment to the landscape, the pursuit of detachment and the idea of living in harmony with nature. Therefore, the artistic conception of landscape poetry and landscape painting has become one of the goals of China traditional garden creation. Xie Lingyun, a scholar in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, pursued "the beauty of water, stone, forest and bamboo, the beauty of rock, elegance and leisure" in his manor construction, while Bai Juyi, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, devoted himself to the artistic conception of "looking at mountains, listening to springs, listening to bamboo trees and listening to marble". In the garden, this kind of poetry is especially manifested in the way that the threshold is connected with the forehead or carved stones, which plays a finishing role. Calligraphy art has also formed an indissoluble bond with gardens and has become an indispensable part of gardens.
5. Unique form. The layout of traditional gardens in China does not seem to emphasize the obvious symmetry axis, but actually shows exquisite sense of balance and strong sense of overall confusion. One of the important reasons why traditional gardens in China are different from those in foreign countries is that the overall form is different. In this natural garden, a series of unexpected garden spaces interwoven with people's emotions and dreams have been formed by imitating the water potential of natural mountains, eternal and peculiar architectural shapes and structures, colorful flowers and trees, and winding garden roads.
6. Excellent gardening skills. In the gardening activities of ancient gardeners in China, the first job is to look at the landscape, that is, to analyze the favorable and unfavorable factors inside and outside the garden site with the theory of geomantic omen; Then on this basis, conception, the so-called conception, determines the theme and content to be expressed, and becomes a scene because of the situation. The next step is to use the methods of cherishing the landscape, blocking the landscape, facing the landscape and framing the landscape to reasonably arrange and organize the spatial order with four elements of gardening, and finally carefully scrutinize the details. At this time, landscape designers should skillfully deal with a series of specific problems, such as the change of mountain shape, trend, slope, convexity and concavity, the location of main and secondary peaks, the size, shape and combination of pools, the use of islands and bridges, the modeling and combination of building units and groups, the types and planting methods of garden plants, the direction and materials of garden roads, and so on. In fact, in addition to drawing design, landscape architects in ancient China spent more time guiding construction at the construction site, thus ensuring the realization of design intent and facilitating improvisation. China Ji Cheng, a master gardener in Ming Dynasty (1582-? ) There is a book "Gardening and Metallurgy", which brilliantly discusses the important gardening techniques of traditional gardens in China. This is China's first monograph on horticulture, which is of great significance across the times and connecting the past with the future. The aesthetic feeling of traditional gardens in China is diverse and multi-layered. For example, the whole park is divided into several scenic spots, each with its own characteristics and interrelated. Often through leaking windows, doorways, bamboo forests, rockeries and other means, an intermittent relationship is maintained, which becomes a mutual borrowing of scenery and paves the way for the transformation of scenic spots during the tour. There are often pots of bonsai and flower beds in various scenic spots, witnessing the vicissitudes of history, the desolation of the world and the tenacity of life. Of course, a good garden has a good name; There must be some beautiful couplets handed down from generation to generation. Coward scholars have always paid attention to "small words but great righteousness", and good names can be meaningful and inexhaustible. For example, in Suzhou Wangshi Garden, the so-called "net stone" is another name for a fisherman, while the fisherman in ancient China culture has the meaning of seclusion in the mountains and an outstanding politician. Living together, lyrical about the scenery, let the scenery in front of you and the feelings in your heart blend together, and the garden is more powerful.