Average customer rating:
- Gardens of Longevity explains why a few designed landscapes are fabulous
- rock in Chinese
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Gardens of Longevity In China & Japan
Rizzoli
Manufacturer: Rizzoli
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ASIN: 0847808378
Release Date: 1987-09-15 |
Customer Reviews:
Gardens of Longevity explains why a few designed landscapes are fabulous.......2007-03-28
Gardens of Longevity is a beautiful book which illustrates why some landscape design immediately looks spectacular and feels "right", while most landscape design feels dead. The book relies upon the iconography of landscape paintings and gardens in Japan and China, but the principles apply to all types of design (painting, sculpture, architecture, as well as landscape).
By analyzing original works of art and comparing them with western copies, the author explains the principles of allowing the dragon through. Those familiar with some branches of fung shui will understand that this means, in crude imagery, letting the good "chi" through and deflecting the bad "chi." However, what sounds like trendy gibberish to most scientific types, actually finds visual proof in this book.
I am a successful practicing architect, who marries the design of landscape with my buildings and urban designs. This book comes closer to explaining how to do this, and why some landscapes (natural and human-made) are so spectacular and most are humdrum or worse than any other book I know of on this subject.
The book also contains many examples to explain Chinese landscape painting to westeners which give us the aesthetics to "see" and then value an aesthetic tradition different from that of western Europe.
Incredibly, one example from the book, on a larger, geological scale, illustrated by the river drainage of China, explains why the country is killing the dragon which has sustained it for thousands of years, by damming and polluting the Yangtze, Yellow, and other rivers.
I can't say enough good things about this book. It's just marvelous. I have gone back to it many times to refresh my knowledge and to review the examples.
rock in Chinese.......2000-01-25
I would like to read the digist about book. I am interested in rock in garded in China.
Book Description
In this new companion book to The Garden Plants of China, Peter Valder describes more than 200 gardens he has visited in China. He documents temple courtyards and gardens, evocative enclosures of ancient burial grounds and imperial tombs, and public parks, botanical gardens, and arboreta, most of which have sprung up since 1949.
Gardens in China is illustrated with more than 500 color photographs, many of them depicting gardens not previously illustrated in any Western publication, as well as reproductions of illustrations of historical interest. With their distinctive characteristics, the gardens of China are among the most fascinating in the world. This book is essential reading for visitors to China with an interest in gardens, garden history, and Chinese culture.
Customer Reviews:
The beauty of the garden.......2003-06-01
Peter Valder first became interested in GARDENS IN CHINA, from learning about famous planthunters in the 19th and early 20th centuries. His first trip, in 1980, was only as one of a small group visiting cultivars of camellia reticulata in Kunming and a famous plant collecting site, at Emei Shan. He went back to China 14 years later, on a photograph trip of wisterias.
At that point he realized three important things. First, he had a basically correct understanding of Chinese gardens, from the famous willow-pattern porcelain. The Thomas Turner design, from 1779, showed the Chinese garden as it tended to be, with water; trellis work; rocks; fancifully-shaped plants, such as the weeping willow; and buildings.
What the author went on to learn was that what was in Chinese gardens was based on specific Chinese beliefs. Two main sources for these beliefs were Daoism and Buddhism. Daoists believed in people and world as one, particularly through nature. But nature didn't have to look like nature. The Chinese didn't have the Native American respect for keeping the landscape and nature as close to how they were naturally. The Chinese in fact had no problem changing watercourses, making hills and lakes, and putting in buildings, as focal points, memorials and scenic viewpoints.
The ancient Chinese believed immortal beings flew about on the backs of cranes. These immortals supposedly lived on the islands of Fangzhang, Penglai and Yingzhou, in the eastern sea off the coast of Shandong. So islands were made in lakes, in the hopes of getting immortals to land there.
Likewise, Xiwangmu, Queen Mother of the West, supposedly lived in the Kunlun mountains. Whoever ate peaches from her beautiful orchards there lived forever. So Chinese gardens often had fake mountains.
Mountains were also among the places where the immortals lived. They were important in Daoism and Buddhism too. Daoists worshipped five mountains, as standing at the corners and center of the Chinese world. Buddhists worshipped heavenly and sacred peaks, which they called, respectively, Mounts Sumeru and Potalaka.
These fake mountains often had caves in them. This was because a beloved Chinese scholar, Tao Yuanming, was famous for telling a story about a fisherman who walked through a cave, into a utopian world. Caves could also be homes for the immortals. So caves became common in Chinese gardens.
Likewise, plants and trees were often chosen for definite reasons. One was because of what they called to mind from Chinese art, everyday life, and literature. So Chinese horse chestnut, ginkgo, juniper, pine, and thuja became traditional garden trees. Bamboo, chrysanthemum, cymbidium, marvel of peru, pine, plum, and yucca became traditional garden plants. Citrus, figs, large-flowered gardenias, and jasminum sambac became traditional potted plants.
Second, how the Chinese traditionally designed their gardens ended up, later, as common parts of Western gardening. They actually had among our earliest rock, topiary and water gardens. A brownish-yellow limestone, known as huangshi, was especially popular. Its veining called to mind the brushwork of classical Chinese paintings. The Chinese often put, among living bamboos, such unusual garden stones as fossilized tree trunks, stalactites, stalagmites, and standing pieces of fossilized wood. They often trained such vines as wisteria to grow around and over the hardened wood.
The Chinese started up training plant growth, known as topiary, much earlier than Western gardeners. They trained shrubs to grow, over a wire framework, into the shapes of birds, bridges, dolphins, dragons, fans, fishes, flower baskets, houses and square-sailed boats. They even shaped human figures, with added-on china or wooden feet, hands and heads.
In their water gardens, the Chinese often went in for what's known as landboats. Landboats, as well as Chinese dwarfed trees, were part of what later came to be known in English as potted scenery. For landboats were actually very small, but complete and detailed, landscapes left floating in garden pools.
Thirdly, Western gardening actually returned the favor. So there were long-lasting influences on Chinese gardening, especially from the United States. Chinese gardeners took up such American plants as African marigolds; cymbidium, most often as orchids; 4 o'clocks; ipomoea quamoclit; red salvias; and yucca gloriosa. In addition, devout Buddhists took to magnolia grandiflora. Its flowers were so like those of their sacred lotus.
Any reader who has followed Peter Valder's photography and writing career won't be let down. The organization is attention-keeping, the photography gorgeous, the writing clear. His book fits perfectly in between the earlier THE CHINESE GARDEN by Joseph Cho Wang and the most recent THE CHINESE GARDEN by Maggie Keswick.
Simply Marvellous.......2002-07-29
Peter Valder has now established himself as one of the world's major horticultural writers with his "Gardens in China" the new companion volume to his wonderful, award winning, "Garden Plants of China". This book looks at over 200 gardens that the author has visited over a period of twenty years. It is a richly descriptive work both historically and geographically and is extremely readable, to the point that it is almost impossible to put down. The photography once again is simply stunning. Besides the famous classical gardens of Suzhou Valder gives a fascinating overview of temple courtyards , parks, cemeteries, botanical gardens and arboreta(many established since the cultural revolution) in every corner of this vast country. If you are contemplating a visit to China there could be no better preparation than reading Valder's "Gardens in China". If you are not going to China then travel there vicariously via this magnificent book. A must for every serious garden lovers bookshelf.
Customer Reviews:
Gives new meaning to neat, elegant.......1998-10-20
Nice plates, good text, an inspiring book. Well worth the high retail price I paid for it.
Average customer rating:
- Beautiful presentation for horticultural collections.
- Beautiful photographs, great historical info
- Garden Book of the Year
- The Garden Book of the Year
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The Garden Plants of China
Peter Valder
Manufacturer: Timber Press, Incorporated
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Gardens in China
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The Chinese Garden: History, Art and Architecture, Third Edition
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The Jade Garden: New and Notable Plants from Asia
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The Chinese Garden (Images of Asia)
ASIN: 0881924709 |
Amazon.com
Gardens have long been an integral part of Chinese culture, written about by scholars and prized by emperors and priests; think of Chinese scrolls traced with plum blossoms and wood-block prints etched with pine branches or bamboo. The West has not only received a great number of fine plants from China, it's also been influenced by the Chinese appreciation of plants, by their ideas on striving to have something in bloom year-round, and by their treasuring shape as well as bloom. A surprising number of our showiest and favorite plants are native to China, brought to the Western world by early plant explorers. Many varieties of crabapples, chrysanthemums, lilacs, wisteria, azaleas, rhododendron, camellias, and peonies originated in China, where they have been important in gardens, literature, and art for centuries.
Peter Valder's discussion of more than 400 garden-worthy plants includes color photographs, history, information on native habitat, and cultural suggestions. The photos are large and lovely, the information thorough and useful, and to help us remember the origin of each plant he has included the Chinese letters and common names, which are charming. The Chinese name for mock orange (Philadelphus) translates as "peace and tranquility flower"; "beautiful woman banana" is the translated common name for canna lilies. No matter what the name, Chinese plants deserve space in our gardens, and Valder has written a book that intrigues us with their history and educates us about how best to grow them. --Valerie Easton
Book Description
It is hard to imagine gardens without peonies, flowering peaches, camellias, gardenias, azaleas, wisteria, forsythia, crabapples, and the host of other ornamentals that were introduced first in Chinese gardens. And the development of the modern repeat-flowering roses would not have occurred had the so-called monthly roses not been brought to Europe from China. In spite of the romance and excitement generated by the discoveries of the famous plant hunters in the wilds of China, the Chinese plants with the greatest impact on the gardens of the world have actually come from Chinese gardens and nurseries. Awards for this book: Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Book Garden Writers' Guild Book Award
Customer Reviews:
Beautiful presentation for horticultural collections........2000-04-06
400 pages and over four hundred color photos pack an in-depth examination of plants used in Chinese gardens for ornamental purposes. Listings appear using both Latin and common names and Chinese names, presenting the history, myths, horticultural information and uses of the plants. A beautiful presentation recommended for horticulture collections.
Beautiful photographs, great historical info.......2000-02-13
This is a fabulous, beautifully photographed, survey of the decorative plants native to China. The book opens with details of China's rich horticultural heritage and the role of plants in Chinese culture.
Further chapters are broken down by type of plant. These include bamboos, fruit trees, orchids, roses, chrysanthemums, aquatic plants and more. Items both familiar and exotic to the western gardener will be found here.
Many specific varieties are described in each chapter, with Latin, Chinese and common names. History, native habitat, and uses for each plant are described.
The photography is outstanding with several close-up color photos on each page. There is also a nice smattering of old botanical illustrations and Chinese art. I highly recommend this book.
Garden Book of the Year.......1999-12-05
This is a beautifully produced and immensely readable work of considerable scholarship . Its subject matter is intriguing and the author writes in a style where one finds oneself going quickly from one section to another. The wonderful photography certainly enhances the text. My views would seem to have been borne out by the recent decision of the British Gardens Writers Guild who have just awarded it the Reference Garden Book of the Year. I'm sure this will become the standard reference work for this engrossing subject for many years to come. I highly recommend it.
The Garden Book of the Year.......1999-12-04
This book has just been awarded the Reference Garden Book of the Year by the British Garden Writers Guild on the 25th November 1999. An award richly deserved for this superb work of scholarship and book production . It is likely to stand as a major reference work for this intriguing subject for some time. I think that says it all.
Book Description
Gardens are sites that can be at one and the same time admired works of art and valuable pieces of real estate. As the first account in English to be wholly based on contemporary Chinese sources, this beautifully illustrated book grounds the practices of garden-making in Ming Dynasty China (1369–1644) firmly in the social and cultural history of the day.Who owned gardens? Who visited them? How were they represented in words, in paintings and in visual culture generally, and what meanings did these representations hold at different levels of Chinese society? Drawing on a wide range of recent work in cultural theory, Craig Clunas provides for the first time a historical and materialist account of Chinese garden culture, and replaces broad generalizations and orientalist fantasy with a convincing picture of the garden's role in social life.
Customer Reviews:
Eye-opening scholarship.......2007-01-13
I've been designing gardens in Portland Oregon for the past twenty years and have spent over a year in China studying gardens there. Chinese gardens are extremely complex and full of symbolism in almost every element . This book documents a shift in the purpose and meaning of gardens in Suzhou during the Ming . Without it you really cannot understand the economic basis for the creation of these gardens and the shift from rustic food producing sites to completely aesthetic gardens displaying wealth and taste. This is a work of scholarship , and casual garden readers will probably not like the style , especially since it pricks the bubble of the timeless Oriental Garden pretty much once and for all. If you really want to understand Chinese gardens read it . But prepare to learn. As James C.Rose once said in a similar situation ... if you really want a Japanese garden you'd have to be Japanese , but you wouldn't like that ...in his book Gardens Make Me Laugh.
The Social Evolution of the Garden in China.......2005-12-07
This book is a useful tool to track the evolution of gardens in China. It goes through the various stages of the Ming dynasty and illustrates how garden evolved from being a necessity of life, to being purely aesthetic. While this opens the door to a rarely covered aspect of Chinese history it a lacks certain scientific level, which leaves out several question that should have been answered. Such as...
1. What is the correct pronunciation og "herbs"? Is there really an "h" at the beginning or no?
2. It does not cover the history of non-biological herbs such as dill and rosemary.
3.Can rocks be considered plants? If so, what is the nutritional value of rocks?
4. Once the gardens evolved to an asethic level (such as in Rock gardens) did Chinese gardeners actually plant the rocks and expect them to grow?
5. What was the role of the invisible species of plantes, which have not been discovered yet?
Despite these faults the book remain a great work on the subject, the likes of which have never been seen before.
Average customer rating:
- Poor photography sabotages this book
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Gardens in Suzhou
Rolf Reiner Maria Borchard
Manufacturer: Edition Axel Menges
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ASIN: 3932565363 |
Book Description
Borchard has chosen seven of the most beautiful gardens and photographed them, always in spring, in a time when the architecture has not been overwhelmed by the vegetation.
Customer Reviews:
Poor photography sabotages this book.......2006-07-24
This book has good plans of the best gardens in Suzhou. It also includes a brief history and commentary on each garden. However,the photography is strictly amateur. Poor adjustment to lighting conditions; poor composition; inadequate clarity (some photos are blurred). If a professional photographer had taken the photos, this could have been a great book.
Average customer rating:
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Urban Gardening: A Hong Kong Gardener's Journal
Arthur van Langenberg
Manufacturer: The Chinese University Press
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ASIN: 9629962616 |
Book Description
Living in a crowded city need not mean uprooting one's connection with the earth. City gardens are proliferating at a healthy rate, and plants can be enjoyed on a rooftop, balcony, terrace, or a simple window sill. There are, of course, special difficulties to gardening in cities: special solutions are needed to solve these problems. Urban Gardening was written to address these issues. It will interest first-timers to try it for themselves, too.
The book is subtitled "a Hong Kong gardener's journal". If you live outside of Hong Kong, do not let that put you off. Urban gardening techniques are the same all over the world. Readers may discover some well-loved plants they were familiar with back home, or wish to grow their own Chinese vegetables. Pak choi, white radish (lo pak), kai lan, and many others can be grown wherever in the world you find yourself -- if you know how. This book will help.
Average customer rating:
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The Art of Chinese Gardens
Chung Wah-Nan
Manufacturer: Coronet Books Inc
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ASIN: 9622090591 |
Book Description
Dense with winding paths, dominated by huge rock piles and buildings squeezed into small spaces, the characteristic Chinese garden is, for many foreigners, so unlike anything else as to be incomprehensible. Only on closer acquaintance does it offer up its mysteries; and such is the achievement of Maggie Keswick's celebrated classic that it affords us--adventurers, armchair travelers, and garden buffs alike--the intimate pleasures of the Chinese garden.
In these richly illustrated pages, Chinese gardens unfold as cosmic diagrams, revealing a profound and ancient view of the world and of humanity's place in it. First sensuous impressions give way to more cerebral delights, and forms conjure unending, increasingly esoteric and mystical layers of meaning for the initiate. Keswick conducts us through the art and architecture, the principles and techniques of Chinese gardens, showing us their long history as the background for a civilization--the settings for China's great poets and painters, the scenes of ribald parties and peaceful contemplation, political intrigues and family festivals.
Updated and expanded in this third edition, with an introduction by Alison Hardie, many new illustrations, and an updated list of gardens in China accessible to visitors, Keswick's engaging work remains unparalleled as an introduction to the Chinese garden.
Customer Reviews:
The right place to begin .......2007-01-13
I've been a garden designer in Portland Oregon for twenty years and have spent over a year in China visiting gardens . This book is a very good place to begin if you want to understand , on a basic level, Chinese gardens . It is however, not the place to stop if you really seek to understand them . To do that you have to try to understand the culture and times which produced them. Fruitful Sites by Craig Clunas is the best work which I have found so far as it analyzes the gardens at Suzhou over the course of several dynasties. Chinese Classical Gardens of Suzhou (Hardcover)
by Tun-Chen Liu, Joseph C. Wang is also a very good book . It is a critique of most of the principal gardens in Suzhou and it punctures the illusion the every Chinese garden is equally great and every feature wonderful. And if you are actually going to travel to China to see gardens you really should read both of Peter Valders books . They will help you understand Chinese plants and to find gardens in many Chinese cities. I don't always agree with Valder's assessments . He is quite restrained at times . And if you are planning to travel to Suzhou consider visiting Tongli as well. I also consider the gardens of The Slender West Lake in Yangzhou and other gardens there to be equal to many of the gardens in Suzhou. And if you are going to go to China I recommend you start reading The Orientalist online and purchase Beijing by Peter Neville Hadley so that you will not be shocked when you travel China . It is by no means an easy process if you want to travel beyond some air-con rip-off tour.
The Garden as the Source of History and Philosophy.......2005-04-27
While the attitudes and examples of Japanese gardens abound in books and in cities around the world, very little has been written or photographs of the unique concepts found in the Chinese gardens. Maggie Keswick repairs that paucity of information with this very beautifully designed, photographed and written monograph on the spirit of the subtle beauties that abound in the Chinese garden.
Keswick offers an in depth analysis of the history of gardens in China and even if the reader is not an avid horticulturist, just the amount of information about China alone is reason to read this book carefully. But in addition to the history and the architectural elements of these gardens here considered, there are many graceful photographs and accompanying illustrations that keep pace with the narrative while providing an encouragement to return to the book purely for the art of it.
Keswick has found the middle ground in creating a volume about the elements of the Chinese garden and a volume that stands strongly as simply an art book. Highly recommended for repeated readings. Grady Harp, April 05
It takes me back to my hometown.......2004-02-17
How great Chinese garden are!From north to south ,east to west,royal to normal,fancy to simple,you could see all of the best gardens in China.Especially two cities that must visit:Beijing,my hometown,and Suzhou,a wonderful small town built beside the river.The spirits of Chinese gardens were focused on how to combine nature and humanity together.The gardens in Suzhou absolutely rendered an ideal level without artificial fixing,you might called it "Eastern Venice".On the oher hand,Beijing seems much more luxurious since it used to be the capital of China for 5 dynasties.The best known garden named Summer Palace ,which settled in Western part of Beijing,belong to the royal family. A fire desaster ruined most valuable garden named Yuan Ming Yuan,if it still being there,Yuan Ming YUan might be the most gorgeous garden in the world.However we pitifully left a waste garden,morely a Country's shame.You luckily better read this book before you visit China.
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Acutely Perceptive, Informative, Profound.......2003-05-05
A superb study that is as engrossing as it is elegantly written and lavishly illustrated, and a sensitive inquiry into the aesthetics, the history and the philosophy that underpin an ancient and majestic civilization's view of mankinds's place within the cosmos. Both unique and profound. An essential work.
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