Publisher's Synopsis
In Japanese gardens, visitors find nature condensed and brought to perfection. Trees are trained and sculpted until they epitomize the very best of the trees' tree-like qualities; the finest natural landscapes are reproduced in miniature; and the seasons are celebrated with spring blossom and the fiery leaves of autumn. This book showcases twenty-eight of the finest examples.
Here are gardens such as Ryoan-ji, which originated in the golden age of the great aristocratic garden, when the heart of the garden was a pond decorated with rocky islands, inlets and peninsulas. Dry gardens like Saiho-ji - a dynamic arrangement of carefully placed rocks that suggests the flow of a great mass of water - express the simpler and austere aesthetic of Zen Buddhism. Tea ceremony gardens, created as a place of transition between everyday existence and a more contemplative world, include Konchi-in.
Gardens such as Katsura Rikyu exemplify stroll gardens: large, beautifully landscaped parks where a narrow, winding path leads visitors along the water's edge, over bridges and stepping stones, through groves of beautifully pruned trees, between artificial rolling hills and past tea houses and elaborate arrangements of rocks.
While Alex Ramsay's photographs capture the gardens' beauty, Helena Attlee elegantly and informatively explains their composition, the people and influences who made them, and how in all old and new are interleaved. Words and pictures marry to make a most pleasing introduction to the gardens of Japan.