CREATIVE INSPIRATION

The development the arts in Japan, including garden design, has evolved continually over the past millennium. Nevertheless, within that long history, there have been certain special times when dramatic shifts have taken place. At those times, the confluence of complex changes in society, politics, religion, architecture, and aesthetics combined to give rise to a new cultural environment. Under the influence of those changes, garden designers were inspired to create new forms of gardens, and more importantly, new ways of perceiving what a garden is; perceptions from which we can draw inspiration for our own creative works.

DESIGN

Gardening in Japan has always been a form of artistic expression using nature imagery as a vehicle. Very much like painting or sculpture, gardening is a means of giving physical, sensory form to emotional or spiritual matters. Though not purely an intellectual pursuit, highly developed theories of gardening have nevertheless been detailed in treatises dating back as far as the 11th century. Garden design, as is true of all the other Japanese arts, is not taught directly; instead skills are acquired over the course of time spent working as an apprentice to a master, by example as well as oral instruction. The process of learning by assimilation may well have existed before the influence of Zen Buddhism but it was certainly reinforced by the Zen sects inherent distrust of the spoken word and emphasis on direct transmission of ideas through action.

Garden design can be broken down into three components: design principles, design techniques, and design elements. Design principles are the guiding ideas by which a garden is constructed the fundamental spirit it will hopefully express. Design techniques are the methods by which principles are given form in the garden and the elements are the physical parts that are used. Another way to express this concept would be that the design principles address the question why design a garden?; the techniques, how to design a garden?; and the elements, what to design a garden with?