Influences of Literati painting on garden-making: a comparative study of Yuan ye (The Craft of Gardens) and Fu sheng liu ji (Six Chapters ofa Floating Life)

摘要

In recent years, architects in China have become increasingly interested in traditional Chinese paintings and their unique spatial characteristics in a manner similar to the widespread interest in traditional gardens some 20 years ago. Soon they realized that the gardens they were talking about and building the theories upon were, to a large extent, merely historical reconstruction works by their contemporary colleagues, and not authentic works of ancient masters in their imagination. As researchersof garden history, we must learn from this mistake. We cannot search hastily or aimlessly for meaning in paintings that may correlate with garden-making literature, though ruhua and ruhua are terms commonly found in literature.