Gardens of Literati:a Fashion in the Song Dynasty

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Since the late Tang dynasty, it had become a fashion for literati to engage in garden-making activities. Different from the extravagant residential gardens, the literati’s garden imitated rural gardens and brought the simple but elegant style t the urban residential gardens. By the Song dynasty, especially the Southern Song dynasty, it was very prevalent for literati to build gardens by themselves. As mentioned above, at the time, there were a large number of celebrated gardens in Luoyang, which were courtyards and manors of the high officials and literati.

However, in Suzhou area in south of the Yangtze River, the gardens of literati were as excellent in its scale as those in Luoyang. The representatives included the Gentle(Waves Pavilion) built by Su Shunqin, the Music Garden built by Zhu Changwen, and the Stone Lake Manor built by Fan Chengda. Though mountains, waters, flowers and trees were still the basic elements, the taste and preference were varied. The literati built the garden as a retreat in remote area so as to divert themselves from depression and discontent. Therefore, the literati’s garden at the time attached importance of the wildness in nature.

1) Gentle Waves Pavilion built by Su Shunting

Su Shungin’s Gentle Waves Pavilion was situated in the Sanyuan Lane, in South of the Suzhou City. The garden used to be a house of Sun Youcheng,a relative of KingWu Yue in the Five Dynasties. In the fourth year of Song emperor Qingli (1004), Su Shunqin, recommended by Fan Zhongyan to the royal court, was relegated from his position for his siding with the reformists. When he traveled to Suzhou, he found the site of garden was a beautiful and pleasant place, surrounded by water in allsides. Then he bought the site with forty thousand qian (currency unit) and built residence there. It’s name, given by Su Shungin, comes from a line of a poem from Fishman of the Elegies of Chu the Fisherman:”If the water of the River Cang Lang is clean,I wash the ribbons of my official hat in it; if it dirty I wash my feet.”In addition, Su had a pavilion built on a rockery and named it the “Gentle Waves Pavilion”. He gave himself an alternative name: Cang Lang Weng (old man) and wrote A Note on the Gentle Waves Pavilion. When the construction project finished, he wrote to Ouyang Xiu. The latter wrote back him a poem, in which a line goes like this:”soft breeze and bright moon light should be priceless; However, you bought them with only forty thousand qian”.

This poem just helped promote the reputation of this Pavilion.

Sma11 as the Gentle Waves Pavilion, each of the rockeries, waters, trees anc flowers in this classic garden embodied the Chinese literati’s belief and moral pursuit. The designer ingeniously borrowed the landscape outside the garden to outweigh its own disadvantages. Double corridors were flexibly used to adjust the space and extended the landscape vista. This open layout was a pioneer which later became a unique feature of classical gardens in Suzhou area.

2) Music Garden built by Zhu Changwen

This Garden was the owner’s retreat that was built originally by a man surnamed Qian in the previous dynasty. In the Song dynasty, it used to be a residence forlocal people. After being sold for many times, it was left to Zhu’s grandmother.

When Zhu was young, he planned to make it a retreat for his father after his retirement. Due to his father’s early death, however, it unexpectedly became his own retreat. There were many scenes in the garden: Suijing Hall, Jianshan Hill, Ink Pool Pavilion, Writing Brush Stream, Zhaoyin Bridge, West Ravine, West Parterre, and West Hi11. Green plants thrived in the garden and the roots of the old trees twisted outside the earth.A1l this made up an elegant picture. Furthermore, there was a small nursery where rare and precious flowers of four seasons were cultivated.

Medicine herbs, fruits, and vegetables were also planted in the garden. They served as food or gifts to Su’s relatives and friends. But more important to the garden owner, the cultivation activity offered him a life that he could plough and water the garden in his own retreat.

3) Stone Lake Manor built by Fan Chengda

The Stone Lake Manor built by Fan Chengda was the largest garden of literati in Suzhou at his time. The Stone Lake was five kilometers away from the southwest of Panmen Gate of SuZhou City. It was an inlet of the Taihu Lake. To the east of the inlet, cropland and nursery gardens neighbored with each other; to its west, rollingup and down, mountains reflected in the water and thus created a superb landscape. Around the Lake, there were many scenic spots. The Fan family used to live near thebank of the Stone Lake. When Fan Chengda was young, his family was very poor and hehad to work hard to earn food and clothing. After he secured an official position, he began to reconstruct his old house and build the garden and manor.

In a prose-poem in praise of the Stone Lake, Fan Chengda described the beautiful sceneries, such as farm ponds, handsome mountains, charming architecture, water birds and fishes, etc. Accordingly, with flowers blooming in all four seasons and the beautiful mountain landscape borrowed out of the garden, the spectacular Stone Lake Manor was praised in poems and prose by literati and scholars then.