Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Japanese Gardens are Awesome

During my March 08 trip to Japan, my visit to Hibiya Park near the emperor's palace truly mesmerized me. I was amazed to see the Ikebana flower setting and the Japanese love for nature and beauty.

Japanese gardens in traditional style, can be found at private homes, in neighborhood or city parks, and at historical landmarks such as Bhuddhist temples and old castles.
Some of the Japanese gardens most famous in the West, and within Japan as well, are dry gardens or rock gardens, karesansui. The tradition of the Tea masters has produced highly refined Japanese gardens of quite another style, evoking rural simplicity.

In Japanese culture, garden-making is a high art, intimately related to the linked arts of calligraphy and ink painting. Since the end of the 19th century, Japanese gardens have also been adapted to Western settings.

Japanese gardens were developed under the influences of the distinctive and stylized Chinese gardens.One of the great interest for the historical development of the Japanese garden, bonseki, bonsai and related arts is the c. 1300 Zen monk Kokan Shiren and his rhymeprose essay Rhymeprose on a Miniature Landscape Garden.


I miss those gardens and wish if we also had so much love for nature and landscape.

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