Japanese Gardens/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
WATER GARDENS AND DRIED-UP WATER SCENERY
“In the chill stillness of the first spring days,
A double beauty does my garden take.
What mystic paths, what purple wealth of bloom,
That fairy garden shows there in the lake.
Above the water long Wistaria sprays
Lean down and look upon their pictured grace.
Or is it that, below there, dim and cool,
Another Fuji flower lifts up her face?”
If the description ‘Water Gardens’ included all those in which water—in appearance or reality—was a conspicuous feature, quite half the gardens in Japan would have to be classified in this way. To again employ my old but useful simile, the rocks and stones are the bones of the skeleton, the contour of the land represents its features, the flowers and trees are the flesh and the adornments of dress, but the water is the garden’s life and soul.
No one knows better than the Japanese landscape artist what compound interest in beauty he reaps by the repetition and reflection of his earthy garden in his watery one. Just as mirrors enlarge little rooms, as the sea beneath a sunset intensifies the glory of the western sky, so water in a garden doubles the interest, the beauty, and the apparent size of the place in which it is put. But, more than all, it makes a point on which the idea of the composition rests, forms a road for the mind and the imagination to travel by, beyond the little enclosure into mystic realms.
Japan is not a hot country, except on the coast during the months of July and August, but, nevertheless, the idea everywhere prevails that a garden must look, even if it is not, cool. Running water, then, or rather moving water, suggests coolness, but not coldness. In the depths of winter, when the rest of the world is hushed in white, deathlike sleep, the water pulses still with life. If a little lake is the garden’s heart it must be one whose source can be seen, whether a stream, a cascade, or a spring; for ‘dead water,’ as they call any without a visible supply or motion, is both practically and æsthetically taboo.
It is remarkable, indeed, how much common sense enters into all Japanese artistic and ethical ideas. The notions at which foreigners are at first inclined to laugh, as ‘superstitions,’ if analysed are almost always found to have had their origin in cold, hard reason. So the objection to deep pools, to gloomy, mud-bottomed ponds, to stagnant waters which may harbour weeds and mosquitoes, is too sensible to require either comment or commendation. Even the moats and temple lakes, where the beautiful Lotus flowers grow, have their constant, if slow, intake and outlet of water. I do not claim that there are no stagnant pools in Japan, where gnats and mosquitoes can pester the passer-by (or the artist who wishes to paint them), but these places are not arranged according to accepted gardening rules, and cannot even be cited as exceptions. Clear, shallow, moving water, which can sparkle while it reflects, is the essential idea; for it suggests happiness and serenity, the gaiety of Nature as well as its tranquillity.
Another dictum regarding water, which it is hard to consider anything but a superstition however, is the idea that it must enter the garden from the East and leave it by the West, no matter how difficult of arrangement this may be. Of course this is but the world-wide belief in the doctrine of not going against the sun. I suppose the conservative Briton, who would be horrified if the port were sent round ‘the wrong way,’ would refuse to recognize this custom as a survival of that idea, but it can be nothing else. The North, justly enough, is considered a malign influence, as the cold winds and storms come from that quarter, so that if water must, perforce, enter from that side of the grounds, its course is first carefully trained towards the East (round a sheltering hill, or group of trees, if possible), and then it may go South, and out by the West. I cannot remember ever to have seen a current which ran through a garden entirely from North to South, with no East to West in it, and I feel sure that it is for a deeper reason than because, as the Chinaman would say, it ‘B’long bad joss’! Nature herself must have indicated to the more deeply sensitive artist minds of the first garden makers that such was her way of doing things; but, until we can get at that mysterious meaning, we must continue to think this a survival of the ancient belief of primitive peoples in the occult influence of the unseen spirits of direction.
As the bite of Alice’s wonderful mushroom can make her fit into big places or little ones, as she likes, so the Japanese can make the waters of his garden represent anything from a tiny pond for goldfish up to a view (in reduced scale) of the China Sea. There is a naïveté in the latter presentment that reminds one of the houses and castles and forts which as a child one used to make of sand, with lines of sea-shells on the beach—although I am bound to say that the Japanese play-places are more convincing than ours ever were to the grown-up imagination.
This China Sea presentation is not the choppy, sea-sick thing which the poor mortals who have had to cross the real sea remember with horror; but a charming image taken from Chinese mythological lore, with three Elysian Isles, and ever tranquil waters on which the passenger is not troubled, and the little basin is at rest. Although the gardener does not go so far in verisimilitude as to flavour the water with salt, or strew seaweed on the beach, there are certain fixed rules for sea-water scenery that must not be broken. No river or lake plants must grow on its edges, or fresh-water Reeds or Lotus flowers spring from its waves, no bridges (which are for smaller, fresh-water scenes) must reach from the mainland to its islands, and the sand and shells of its beach, and its regulation stones, must have the look and savour of the ocean about them.
Another favourite classical model, according to Mr. Conder, “is the extensive lagoon of the Che Kiang, in China—called Seiko by the Japanese—and remarkable for its wealth of Lotus flowers.” He says that it is invariably represented in temple grounds; by which, I think, he means that it is not seen in private gardens, being considered inappropriate to any but a large representation.
In sea views it is not necessary to show the source and outlet of the water, as is insisted on in fresh-water scenery, for the obvious reason that it is not seen in the original model. In fresh-water scenery, if the source of the water is artificial it is brought into the picture with every aid to make it natural-looking, and the outflow, or the pretence of it, is also made an attractive feature. The drains proper are, of course, never unduly visible, but are skilfully arranged to carry off the surface and rain water, without allowing it to mix with the ornamental sort, and so contaminate it.
Fountains and artificial ponds of architectural and geometrical designs, such as the European loves so dearly, are never seen in strictly Japanese gardens. Such set designs are for the highly artificial grounds of a landscape architect, not for those whose only true guide is Nature. There are, it is true, certain patterns set, such as circles, crescents, and squares (seen only in the tiniest of models), but their names indicate but roughly their shapes, for the edges are not outlined with stone copings, as ours are, and are broken and ‘lost’ at irregular intervals by plantings of Reeds, Irises, or shrubbery. Two pretty models are those of the ideographs of ‘water’ and ‘heart’; and, although these graceful and free designs of Chinese characters would seem to require no groups of trees and flowering bushes to make them appear the spontaneous work of Nature’s hand, they nevertheless have them.
This ‘breaking the line’ of a design is found in every phase of the landscape artist’s method, and does more than anything else to give the fresh look of unspoiled and untouched Nature to his work. The hard stone of the lantern is softened by the spray of Maple or Plum tree that brushes across it; the fences’ openings, by the fine continuous needles of the Pine trees behind; while the rigid lines of the solid wooden bridges are lost, on one side, in a group of Azalea bushes, and the cascade, falling partly behind a swaying creeper or an overhanging tree, is given an added grace.
Another advantage this method has is that, by making appeal to the imagination, instead of leaving everything to the matter-of-fact and calculating eye, it adds to the apparent size of the object that is partly concealed. How can even the most conscientious sight-seer jot down in his notebook the information that such and such a waterfall is so many feet in height, if its top is lost in leafy mystery, and if it is broken near the bottom by scarlet branches of Maple? And no one can insist on the exact (and dwarfed) dimensions of an irregular lake, whose silvery waters are concealed, here by a group of trees and shrubs, there by a hillock, and on whose placid bosom there is yet a place for Lotus flowers to bloom.
There are many varieties of water gardens, and, after those of lake scenery the cascade kind appears to be the most popular,—indeed, in the central part of Japan, where there are so many natural springs and falls, they seem more frequent than any other. Of course they are by no means all found ready-made to the gardener’s hand, although so spontaneous do the artificial ones seem that it is difficult to think them the products of art. I remember a dear little garden of this kind on the road to Lake Biwa. The stones had all been carefully arranged, with a big ‘Immovable’ or ‘Guardian’ stone at the base, and its companion stone, lower, smaller, and rounder (supposedly of the feminine persuasion), lying gracefully on the ground at its feet. It all made, with some clipped Azalea bushes that bloomed in the very mouth of the shears, a charming group. Higher up the tender young green of a Maple stretched its pretty hands out, as if to wash them in the falling water, and ‘broke’ (in appearance, not in reality) the fine thread of the fall. A little shrine, set in a bower of small Cryptomeria trees at the top, not only offered an object for the climb, but made our scramble up the precipitous paths a dutiful pilgrimage.
Another cascade garden (there are a dozen or more in the same village)—which was so quaint and pretty that sketching it almost made us lose our tram at Yumoto, and hence our train to Yokohama—is on the Hata Pass, the road to Hakone Lake. It is in the back yard of a tea-house which our coolies insisted on our patronizing, instead of the one next door, which outwardly, and with its smiling and bowing nésans and okkasan, looked just like it. The flat part of the garden was large enough to dry my husband’s handkerchief in, for he tried it (he uses it as coolies do their towels on a tramp), but the hillside, which was the main part of the garden, could hardly have been covered by a tablecloth of moderate dimensions. Not that it looked tiny. No, I forbade the children to explore up the cascade path for fear they would get lost, or out of earshot! Great pains had been taken here to have for each season some change in the little garden’s greenness, by the introduction of flowers. The first time I saw it, crimson Azaleas clambered and smouldered in the crevices of the rocks, and some delicate Irises, demure but conscious of their beauty, looked shyly at themselves in the pool’s mirror at the foot of the waterfall. In summer some splendid Lilium auratum, gold-banded and bronze-freckled, reigned supreme. Another time the royal-blue of Monkshood, and silver grasses, were there. Last of all, after the red fire of Nerine, the wild ‘Death Lily’ of the rice-fields, had burned down, the embers had seemed to set the autumn Maples alight; and already there could be seen the reddening berries of the Nandana, the swelling buds of the early Plum tree, getting ready to cheer these simple peasant owners in the winter.
Although there are such fine natural falls all over Japan, the best classical models come from elaborate gardens in the south of China, called by the Japanese Rozan, which must have a high hillock near, called Rinmon. Mr. Conder also tells us that, in temple grounds, a famous place in the Himalayas furnishes a design for a combination of water and hill scenery. It is known in Buddhist history for its cataract lake, and ‘four rivers issuing therefrom.’ In all these there is much poetical allusion which makes it very enthralling to the well-read Japanese, but in which the garden- and poetry-lover from the West cannot find even an academic interest. The foreigner usually likes far better the representations of the ‘Six Gem Rivers of Japan,’ with their stone-filled baskets strengthening the banks, and their waters hurling themselves headlong among the rocks of their bed—true miniature models of the dashing rivers of the country.
If, as is sometimes the case, no spring, no stream is available for the grounds, then the ghost of one is brought in to haunt the place, and the dry bones of the watercourse suggest the presence of the loved spirit. This ‘Dried-up Water Scenery,’ as it is called, deceives even the unimaginative Briton, the down-right American, who do not intend to be trifled with. They are beguiled by this mysterious art of water suggestion. They say, sympathetically: “Pity you haven’t more rain, this time of year, to fill your brook.” Or, “Jolly fine cascade that must be in the rainy season; I suppose you have lots of water here some time of the year!”
The idea is simple in the carrying out, though subtle in theory. The bed of a lake is hollowed out,—not too deep, for that would upset the vraisemblance of the scheme, as, if it were not shallow, how did the water dry up so early in the season? Sand and pebbles form the edges, and big boulders jut up as rocky islands might, while overhanging shrubs try in vain to look at themselves in what should be the mirror below. Irises and water grasses make a pretty group, with some low, dark rocks, and a stone lantern in another nook, as if the water had just receded from their feet, and the illusion is complete.
Or, perhaps, it is a cascade’s spirit which is to be lured to the place. Just as on All Souls’ Day, the Japanese Bon, or ‘Festival of the Dead,’ spirits are evoked by gifts, and their blessing and presence asked for by getting a habitation, food and clothing ready for them, so, by making a bed for a brook, a series of leaping-stones for a waterfall, the spirit sought for comes. I do not say that the reality comes in the case of either the water or the Souls of the Dead, but the comforting assurance of them to the imaginative person—even to those not Japanese—most certainly does. I have more than once felt sure that I heard the tiny trickling noise of water dripping down between the rocks, when it was nothing but a little wind toy fluttering tags of metal and hung somewhere in the trees, which, added to the belief that there ought to be water somewhere about, deceived me.
These imitations of dry-water scenery are not, as one might think, meretricious stage effects that need something more than even an Elizabethan imagination to make them real. Japan, although, I am sure, blessed with more streams and springs, rivers and pools than any other country of her size in the world, yet abounds in natural dried-up scenery also. The artist goes to Nature to study his subject, and carries out his picture as thoroughly as though danger might ensue from the fluid of his mind if all care were not taken properly to embed the rocks, and to disperse the stones about, in the design that is to suggest his water. Even bridges, of wood or of stone, cross this dry bed of the lake to the islands, or are thrown over—as the children call it—the ‘pretending’ stream. Sometimes blackened stones are laid in the centre. When these are smooth, and reflect the light, the resemblance to water is very striking. But this is an unworthy trick, and is not considered good art; for it succeeds by deception, not by a justifiable appeal to the imagination.
If in flat enclosures, such as tea-gardens, no water or indication of water is seen, then more
emphasis is laid on the well and the water-basin, and they, as the newspapers and the theatrical slang of America would put it, are ‘featured.’ But in practically every garden this idea of the life-giving element must be found.
Among the pictures in this book several water gardens are shown. The little gem of a miniature lake view facing this page we discovered in a garden at Ashinoyu, up in the sulphurous hills above Miyanoshita. I had dragged our artist and another painter friend up there, to do a garden with which I had fallen in love shortly before, when taking sulphur baths at the daintiest of private houses in the village. On finding the house let to a Japanese admiral, and therefore inaccessible, we had to justify our tramp in some way. The whole population of the village interested themselves in our quest, as is the friendly Japanese habit, and they let us investigate every garden whose gates we liked the look of, until, in a hopeless embarrassment of riches, we settled on this one. The water which fed the pond came bubbling from a spring in the centre, but a tiny trickle of a waterfall helped too—dripping from the rocks below the lantern. There was a great group of Lilies, which were no longer in flower, and it was certainly not their fragrance that lingered there still, for this little lake of Paradise smelled like the infernal regions. However, the goldfish did not seem to mind it, but flashed a deeper bronze and red-gold in the yellow, sulphur-tinged fluid. We spent many happy days sketching there, and grew so used to the Ashinoyu smell, and the soft feel of the water in the constant washings of hands and face which we pretended we had to undergo (it leaves the skin beautifully soft, as if made of velvet), that we quite missed the fumes of sulphur when we went back to Hakone.
The picture of the water garden at Nikko (facing page 50), with the little Kwannon figure carved in the stone, although in a private garden, is a typical bit of the scenery of temple grounds. And the Hydrangeas in the tea-garden at Kyoto (page 182), the Lotuses in the public gardens (page 222) and in the moat at Kofu (page 116), all give different phases of the use of water in landscape gardening in Japan. But the view which best represents the most complete type of water gardening is that of Nami-Kawa San’s garden, facing this page. The sense of space given by islands, rocks, and arching bridges, and of distance, secured by careful tree-planting, is well shown. Although I know the place intimately, and am aware that contented artist-craftsmen are at work on their cloisonné, in the rooms whose shoji are hidden by the trees in the background, I can hardly convince myself that the clear moving water and the overhanging trees do not go back a mile or so. A lovely place this was, exemplifying some of the best features of the landscape artist’s work, and yet it was the outlook of a ‘factory’!
The proprietor, a dignified yet simple elderly man, greeted us with deep bows of welcome at the door on a pouring wet day, and thanked us for taking off our shoes before venturing on his spotless amber-coloured mats,—so many foreigners did not, he said, and the Japanese are too polite to insist upon a courtesy that with themselves goes without saying. He led us through many rooms, and along covered passage-ways, all of which looked upon the cool waters of the court, until we came to the workrooms. We saw the cloisonné, from its designing in Chinese ink on rice paper, to the final stone-polishing stage which may take a year to do, and everywhere was that tranquil spirit of the garden, no haste and no slackness, steady and ever moving. Happy in their daily toil, these artists create their beautiful works with love, and the result is something of deeper value and more permanence of beauty than a thousand machine-made things of the same sort could have. One man had a little vase with two Irises in it on the floor in front of him, and sometimes, as he fitted the tiny copper wires of the buckle he was making (some day to adorn the trim waist of a tourist, I suppose), he would lift his eyes to the flowers, or turn them for a moment to look at the cool moving waters outside.
These things are of the spirit; and what brings peace to the soul, serenity to the daily task, joy to labour, however justified it may be by improved results in the fruits of that work, needs no justification, for itself is of more value.