On Suzhou Gardens

Suzhou gardens? Author: Ye Shengtao

It is said that there are more than one hundred gardens in Suzhou, and I have been to more than ten. I have also been to some gardens in other places. If I have to say a general impression, I think Suzhou Gardens are specimens of gardens in China, and gardens in China are more or less influenced by Suzhou Gardens. Therefore, if anyone wants to appreciate the gardens in China, Suzhou Gardens can't be missed.

Designers and craftsmen are different in adapting to local conditions, ingenuity and success in gardening. However, the gardens in Suzhou have similarities. It seems that designers and craftsmen are pursuing the same thing: to ensure that visitors always have a perfect picture in front of them no matter where they stand.

In order to achieve this goal, they pay attention to the layout of pavilions, the coordination of rockery ponds, the foil of flowers and trees, and the level of close-up vision.

In short, everything must exist in order to form a perfect picture, and it can't hurt the failure of beauty. They just want visitors to get the aesthetic feeling of "picturesque", and their achievements have realized their wishes. When tourists come to the garden, no one does not think of saying "as in painting" orally.

The buildings in our country, from ancient palaces to modern ordinary houses, are mostly symmetrical, no matter what the left side is, so is the right side. Suzhou gardens can never pay attention to symmetry, as if deliberately avoiding it. There are pavilions or cloisters in the East, and there will never be the same pavilions or cloisters in the West. Why is this?

I think, for example, with pictures, symmetrical buildings are pattern paintings, not art paintings, and gardens are art paintings. Artistic painting requires natural interest, not symmetry.

There are rockeries and ponds in Suzhou gardens. The piling of rockeries can be said to be an art, not just a technology. Whether it is a mountain or a hill with flowers and trees, it is the life experience of designers and craftsmen and the hills and valleys in their hearts, which makes tourists forget Suzhou City when climbing and only feel that they are in the mountains. As for ponds, most of them refer to running water.

Some gardens have spacious ponds, so the pond is the center of the whole garden, and other scenery is arranged in harmony. If the water looks like a river, bridges are usually arranged. If more than two bridges are arranged, they will be the same, not the same. There are few neat stone dikes beside ponds or rivers, and they are always left to their own devices.

There are also a few exquisite stones arranged there, or some flowers and plants planted: this is also to achieve the effect of looking at a painting from all angles. Goldfish or carp of various colors are kept in the pond, and lotus flowers or water lilies are in full bloom in summer and autumn. Visitors can see "fish playing between lotus leaves", which is another painting.

Painting is also the main way to plant trees and prune trees in Suzhou gardens. Tall trees and short trees are pitching. Deciduous trees and evergreen trees alternate with each other, and different kinds of flower trees alternate with each other when they bloom, so that you don't feel lonely all year round.

There are no pines and cypresses trimmed like pagodas, and there are no roadside trees like parade: because from the aesthetic point of view of Chinese painting, it is not worth taking. Several gardens are full of Gu Teng, and the winding and rugged branches are a good painting. When the flowers bloom, they are full of jewels, which makes tourists feel infinite prosperity and joy, but they can't say it.

Visiting Suzhou gardens will inevitably pay attention to flower walls and promenades. Separated by walls and bounded by corridors, there are many levels and the scenery can be seen deeply.

But there are all kinds of hollow patterns made of bricks on the wall, and there are no borders on both sides of the veranda. In fact, it is inseparable, bounded and unbounded, thus increasing the depth of the scene. Several gardens have also installed a large mirror in a proper position, which is more hierarchical and almost doubles the whole garden.

Of course, tourists will not ignore another point, that is, Suzhou gardens pay attention to the beauty of every corner of the picture. There are some books with grass beside the steps. The wall is covered with ivy or rosewood. If the window is facing the white wall, it will be too monotonous. Add some bamboo or bananas. And so on, it is nothing more than that visitors can appreciate beauty even if they look at a small part.

The doors and windows, pattern design and carving skills in Suzhou gardens are all top arts and crafts. Generally speaking, those doors and windows are as refined as possible, never vulgar, even if they are simple and ingenious. Four, eight, twelve. Taken together, everyone must admire this is a high degree of pattern beauty. Photographers like these doors and windows very much. They took light and shadow into consideration and took satisfactory photos.

Unlike Beijing, Suzhou gardens rarely use paintings. Most of the beams and columns, as well as the railings of doors and windows, are painted widely, which is a non-dazzling color. The walls are white. Some indoor walls are paved with square bricks in the lower half, with light gray and white as contrast. Roof tiles and eaves are light gray. These colors match the green of the vegetation, which makes people feel quiet and leisurely. When flowers bloom, all kinds of flowers are more vivid.

Of course, you can say more than what is written above, so I won't write much here.

Extended data:

Creation background

This article is the preface written by Ye Lao for a Suzhou garden album. At the beginning of 1979, a publishing house in Hong Kong planned to publish an album introducing Suzhou gardens, and asked Ye Lao to preface it. Ye Lao lived in Suzhou until he was 22 years old. In his spare time, he often visits Suzhou gardens with friends, and he has a deep understanding of the tastes and characteristics of Suzhou gardens. In writing this preface, he referred to Suzhou Gardens edited by Professor Chen Congzhou.

The preface was written and handed over to the publishing house in Hong Kong, but the album has never been published. The editorial department of Encyclopedia Knowledge knew that Ye Lao had such an article and asked them to publish it first, so this preface was published in the fourth issue of Encyclopedia Knowledge 1979. The last few words of the preface were deleted when it was published.

When People's Education Publishing House incorporated it into Chinese textbooks, it also deleted the first paragraph of the preface, and the original title "I am deeply concerned about Suzhou gardens" was changed to "Suzhou gardens".