△ Restoration of the Old Summer Palace
The Old Summer Palace is a large-scale garden created entirely by man on flat land. Such a large area of flat land gardening is rare at home and abroad. The many values of this garden are contained in all aspects of planning and design and the art of gardening.
Rivers and lakes pile up mountains
Create a poetic and picturesque garden artistic conception
Chinese landscape gardens take natural scenery as the basis for creation, but they do not simply copy or imitate nature, but consciously, more or less refine, generalize, and tailor, combined with the embellishment of buildings, the configuration of flowers and trees, so that they reflect a certain kind of artistic realm, that is, the so-called "poetic and picturesque". Regardless of whether it is a natural landscape garden or a flat land garden, there must be an ideal landscape and landform foundation as the skeleton of the garden.
The three gardens of the Old Ming Dynasty are all waterscape gardens, and the water excavated by hand accounts for more than half of the area of the whole garden. Most of the landscaping is based on the theme of water, and it is interesting because of water. The water surface of the Old Summer Palace is a combination of large, medium and small. The large water surface is like the vast Fuhai Sea, which is more than 600 meters wide; The medium water surface such as the back lake is about 200 meters wide, with a more intimate scale; The rest of the many small water surfaces are between forty or fifty meters and 100 meters wide, and they are sketches of water features with a close-up view. The lingering river connects these large and small water surfaces into a complete river and lake water system, forming the veins and links of the whole park, and functionally providing convenience for boat tours and waterway supply.
△ Water system map of the three Yuanming Palaces
The rockery made of stacked stones and the Gangfu, islands and embankments formed by gathering soil are scattered in the park, accounting for about 1/3 of the whole area of the park. Combined with the water system, they form a natural space with hundreds of mountains and rivers. Each space has undergone meticulous artistic processing, conforming to the artificially freehand but maintaining the charm of wild taste, like the epitome of natural wonders and beauty, which is "directly indenting the rivers and lakes and the sea, and teaching to shrink into a pot" (Dai Qiwen, "Words of the Old Summer Palace"). The landform landscape created by this set of mountains and rivers and lakes is itself a comprehensive and refined reproduction of the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River. As the saying goes, "who has a good scenery in the south of the Yangtze River, and moves the sky and shrinks the earth in Junhuai" (Min Yun's "Yuanmingyuan Palace Ci"). This is an outstanding work of flat land gardening, and it is the essence of the Old Summer Palace; It is also a method of stacking mountains and water management that sees the small and large and close hills and ravines of flat land gardening, and unfolds continuously in a wide range. The magnificence is far beyond the incomparable nature of Jiangnan Private Garden.
△ The west peak of the Old Summer Palace is beautiful "Little Kuanglu"
The water management of the Changchun Garden is different from that of the Old Summer Palace, which uses continents, islands, bridges, and embankments to divide a large area of water into a number of different shapes, clusters and scattered waters. The effect of its water feature reveals an intimate and secluded atmosphere in the midst of cheerfulness. Qichun Garden is a collection of small water bodies.
It can be said that the Three Gardens of the Old Ming Dynasty are the culmination of the collection of classical gardens in the mainland.
Scenic spots, small gardens and building complexes are all "scenery"
The Old Summer Palace covers a wide area and has a large scale. In order to meet the needs of the imperial court life and garden life, the number of buildings is large and the types are complex. The layout of the building also adopts the method of large dispersion and small concentration, and most of the buildings are concentrated into many small groups and then dispersed in the whole park. Some of these building groups have specific functions, such as palaces, residences, temples, theaters, library buildings, exhibition halls, private markets, mountain village water dwellings, docks, auxiliary facilities, etc. However, a large number of them are garden buildings for general drinking and feasting and recreation.
The group composition of the building is even more transformative. The more than 100 groups of buildings in the park are all the same, but they are all unchanged, and they all take the pattern of the courtyard as the keynote, giving full play to the variability of the layout of the traditional courtyard in the mainland. They are combined with the local landscapes and landforms of those natural spaces and the planting of trees and flowers, so as to create a series of colorful and different garden landscapes, the so-called "scenery". If these "scenes" are summarized according to the role of buildings in landscaping, they can be roughly divided into three categories: scenic spots, small gardens, and building complexes.
△ Yuanmingyuan Kyushu Scenic Area Picture Zhang Baocheng painting
The so-called scenic spot is the combination of a single or group of buildings and an open landform environment, and its function is to "point the scene" that is, to embellish the scenery or "viewing" to enjoy the scenery, or both.
A small garden is a group of buildings combined with a claustrophobic or relatively claustrophobic local space composed of stacked mountains and rivers or natural landforms, forming a relatively independent body environment in terms of layout. Regardless of whether it is walled or not, it can be regarded as a small independent garden, that is, a "garden within a garden". In many cases, the garden also serves as a scenic spot.
△ Yuanmingyuan Lianxi Place
Architectural complexes are ordinary groups of buildings that are neither small gardens nor scenic spots. Generally, it is a common courtyard combination form in the north, with specific use functions.
Taking the "scenery" in the form of scenic spots, small gardens and building groups as the basic unit of the overall garden, it is conducive to highlighting the theme of garden landscaping, is conducive to the typification and diversification of the landscape, and is convenient for the direct or indirect combination of landscape and poetry and painting, so as to give the garden more poetic and picturesque meaning. This is the traditional practice of classical gardens in mainland China, especially large-scale gardens, and the Old Summer Palace can be regarded as an example in this regard.
A spiritual pillar in the royal gardens
The royal gardens on the mainland, like other royal building activities, were profoundly influenced by the fully mature and entrenched feudal system. The ideology of the feudal ruling class reflected in the idea of gardening is also obvious. Many of the landscapes in the Old Summer Palace belong to this situation. For example, the nine islands of Houhu Lake, which are located at the top of the central axis of the Old Summer Palace and symbolize "Yugong Kyushu", obviously have the meaning of "the whole world is not the king's land". The Fuhai Sea and the three islands in the sea to the east are the traditional pattern of "one pond and three mountains" built in the palace to symbolize the three immortal mountains in the East China Sea since the Han Dynasty for the emperor to seek immortals.
△ Landscape layout of the Old Summer Palace
As far as the Old Summer Palace as a whole is concerned, Kyushu is in the middle, Fuhai is in the east, and the highest mound in the northwest corner of the park, the "Zibi Mountain House", is undoubtedly the symbol of Kunlun Mountain, and the overall plan of the Old Summer Palace even reflects the microcosm of the world as understood by the feudal era of the mainland.
△Yuanmingyuan Fuhai Center "Pengdao Yaotai"
△ Yuanmingyuan Zibi Mountain House writing intention Zhang Baocheng painting
In addition, from the design features, simulation objects and scenery of more than 100 "scenes" based on the "Forty Scenes", there are also from the Buddhist scriptures such as "Luojia Shengjing" and "Sheacropolis", there are symbols of Taoist Xianshan Qiongge, such as "Fanghu Shengjing" and "Pengdao Yaotai", there are "Hongci Yonghu" that flaunts Confucian filial piety, there are "Jiuzhou Qingyan", "Haiyan Hall" and "Wanfang Anhe" that imply the peace of the four seas, there are those that praise the virtues of the emperor such as "Hanxu Langjian" and "Ru Gu Han Jin", and there are those that show the emperor's heavy farming, such as "many crops like clouds" and "Beiyuan Mountain Village". There are those who praise Confucian philosophers and gentlemen, such as "Lianxi Pleasure", "Kuoran Dagong" and "Tranquility", "Wenyuan Pavilion" that collects the four libraries, "Buying and Selling Street" that imitates the folk market, and "Western Building" that imitates the European-style palace garden. The name of the Old Summer Palace is according to Yongzheng's explanation, "When the husband is round and enters the time of the god and the gentleman, the wisdom of the master is also bright and bright" and so on. It can also be said that this is a concentrated reflection of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism as the spiritual pillars of feudal rule in garden art.
The Old Summer Palace was not only one of the most outstanding large-scale gardens in China at that time, but also as Qianlong said: "The area of heaven and earth, the land of emperors and emperors, cannot be surpassed." Through the detailed and vivid description of it in the letters of Catholic missionaries to the Holy See, the Old Summer Palace was also introduced to Europe and became famous.
△ Restoration map of Haiyan Hall
In its heyday, the Old Summer Palace was once a famous garden at home and abroad. Today's Old Summer Palace, although the buildings on the ground have long been gone, the remains are still there, especially the river, lake and waterway system where its essence is located, and the stacked mountains and rocks are still largely intact. The rise and fall of the Old Summer Palace in the past reflects an aspect of the modern and modern history of the mainland, and we sincerely hope that its future rebirth will open a new page in history.
[Article Source]
"The Construction of the Old Summer Palace and Its Gardening Art" Zhou Weiquan
[edit]
Zhao Lei
Official Account ID: yuanmingyuanpark