| To summarize and reflect on the research achievements of Chinese garden aesthetics since the 20th century, this dissertation, divides Chinese garden aesthetics studies into three field of vision in macro view:"art vision" from the artistic point of view,"architecture vision" from the perspective of architecture and "environment vision" from the perspective of the Chinese garden aesthetic environment, the internal logic and framework of the whole dissertation are designed based on the the three research visions "garden art" "garden architecture" "garden environment", some famous scholars both at home and abroad such as Zong Bai-hua, Chen Cong-zhou, Jin Xue-zhi, Peng Yi-gang, Han Bao-de, Berleant are arranged in different positions according to their researches to analyze constructively the three different vision or mode for Chinese garden.It should be noted that While a certain field of vision is widely adopted and a more stable research direction is achieved, this field of vision turns into a kind of research mode. As a consequence, this dissertation views "research vision" and "research mode" as interchangeable terminologies, which are properly used in accordance with specific conditions.The dissertation includes eight parts:introduction, body of six chapters and conclusion.The body can be divided into three sections:followed by garden art research field (chapter 1,2,3), architecture research vision (Chapter 4 and 5) and garden environment research field (chapter 6). The main idea of each part is summarized below:The introduction part gives a definition of the terminology "garden".Introduction. The introduction part gives a definition of the terminology "garden". It discusses the relevant researches about Chinese Garden Aesthetics starting from Chinese ancient garden concept, the current situation of garden research (including garden aesthetics) since the 20th century and the new environmental concept brought by the rise of environmental aesthetics With consideration of actuality in China, focusing on current achievement and research bewilderment, taking ancient Chinese garden aesthetics research represented by Su-zhou garden s as foothold, comparing the past and present in vertical types, and the viewpoints of some typical scholars in horizontal types, this dissertation tries to summarize and consolidate the variety of emphasis and achievements on garden research on the basis of a comprehensive look at the representative achievements on Chinese garden research over the past century and analyze their pros and cons. In addition, this study sets the research object on the comparison and analysis of three points of view on garden research. Making the concept of Chinese garden more comprehensive, inductive, clear and stereo. It re-positions the garden, and theoretically gives further confirmation of Chinese garden aesthetics.1st field of view on garden research:garden artOn the basis of numerous theoretical achievements obtained by ancient Chinese garden theorists and activists, Zong Baihua put forward "landscape architectural space art", which can be regarded as the highly comprehensive generalization of Chinese garden:Garden is not only architecture, but also art, which is space art instead of general art. In brief, although it is a complicated phrase, its center word is still "art", which inspires later researchers to study Chinese garden as artwork. Zong Baihua can be viewed as the guide in the study of Chinese garden aesthetics. Chapter 1 defines Zong Baihua’s garden aesthetics ideology by summarizing and refining his theory on the art aesthetics.Chapter 2 studies the second representative personage:Chen Congzhou. Different from Zong Baihua, Chen put forward that Chinese garden is a "comprehensive art". Highlighting that appreciation of garden requires the improvement on both cultural attainment and art cultivation because of the synthetic characteristics of the garden as an artwork, he focused on the analysis of a variety of arts garden consisting of painting, literature, handwriting and gardening. His research shows that the constituent elements are mainly a combination of architecture, landscape, flowers, wood and many other factors, which aims to achieve a poetic effect. Although Chen Congzhou proposed two ways to appreciate garden from both dynamic and static views and emphasized the importance of attendance, he finally settled his foothold on the characteristics of Chinese garden as comprehensive art works.Chapter 3 studies the third representative personage:Jin Xuezhi. Same as Zong Baihua, Chen Congzhou, Jin considers Chinese garden as comprehensive art. His peculiarity lies on the designation "ecological art model" in accordance with ecological meanings contained in the Chinese ancient theory that man is an integral part of nature from the angle respecting to the global ecological environment crisis and at the attitude of contemporary ecology and ecological aesthetics. His master work Chinese Garden Aesthetics mentioning the ecological crisis repeatedly holds the idea that Chinese garden is an ecological art attaching importance to the "green function" brought by plants to garden with the consideration that it has some health functions. However, during to the fact that the comprehension on ecology is not deep enough and there lacks for references of contemporary ecological art, his research appears to be rough to some degree. It’s worth noting that scholars hold opposite views on whether Chinese garden has ecological value. Yu Kongjian, a landscape designer laying emphasis on ecological infrastructure sharply criticizes Chinese garden, which,he thinks, objects to the ecology. These sharp criticizes prompt us to rethink ecological nature problems of Chinese garden.2st field of view on garden research:garden architectureThis field of view puts particular emphasis on the analysis of space form and the relationship with human beings. Two representative personages-Peng Yigang and Han Baode--consider that garden is an architecture full of artistry.Chapter 4 takes Peng Yigang’s aesthetics research as an example, by analyzing his architectural aesthetics and landscape aesthetics monograph," Analysis on Chinese Classical Gardens.", explains the architectural space analysis on the view of garden architecture research. That is, surveying Chinese ancient garden by the contemporary architectural theory, analyzing the space structure of Chinese ancient garden on the basis of the achievements put forward by Tong Jun and Liu Dunzhen. He explains in detail combining the role of garden elements on formal beauty with graphics to give readers intuitive understanding. These advantages are:Innovation and breakthrough in method; pushing the rational analysis on garden space to a new high; summarizing modern methods for spatial structure analysis, which are maneuverable and can be demonstrated, making the research on garden aesthetics demystified.Chapter 5 studies the second representative personage:Han Baode. Han considers Chinese garden as real building influenced by the Chinese culture, which can reflect the idiosyncrasy of Chinese culture, imply the life and has containment resembling other normal buildings. He thinks that Chinese architectures have some relation with the whole life. Because of the people-oriented feature, Chinese people show somewhat an attitude to religion and supreme the concept of family. With the addition of realism, Chinese architecture is bonded together with living actuality. Architecture is only an instrument or symbol in life, which belongs to neither art nor science. In a word, he makes integral grasp of this space architecture, particularly on the comprehensive analysis on the substance function and the moral function, as well as the culture trait behind these functions. As a result, he finds out the anti-nature feature during the development of garden and gives profound and objective evaluation and analysis. This chapter introduces Taiwan scholar Han Pao’s academic profile to understand his aesthetics through his works "On Beauty from Han Baode", and then emphasizes on the analysis of his works, "Chinese Gardens:image and "mind" to understood his unique perspective of Chinese garden as an architect. Starting from the constituent elements of the Chinese garden, Han Baode seeks for the cultural source behind it, combs the concept formation of Chinese garden culture, and taps Chinese culture, " Separation of the Universe From Man ", and "human-oriented" thought,.He believes that landscape construction has anti-natural features in essence, and has its calm and objective side.3st field of view on garden research:garden environmentChapter 6 studies the environmental aesthetics vision, which considers Chinese garden as "aesthetics environment", laying emphasis on "environmental concept" of harmony between human and environment and thus the corresponding "blend mode", which is put forward by aesthetics scholar Berleant. He underlines the immediate experience when visitors visiting garden, which means the sense judgement and spiritual practices. This fusion of subject and object is different from former subject-object dichotomy, which greatly accelerates and facilitates Chinese garden research. On the contrary with the abundant achievements in the vision of art and architecture, the vision of garden environment is still in its early stage. But this span-new environmental concept really gives contemporary Chinese garden research another opportunity. What’s more, it also infuses into a new blood for the researching achievement on the garden art mode and garden architectural mode, which represents the future direction of Chinese garden aesthetics to some degree.Conclusion part expounds the value of these three garden aesthetics vision on Chinese garden aesthetics research. The vision of art research clears the relationship between garden and various arts disciplines; The vision of architecture research clears the relationship between garden and other building categories; The vision of environment specifies the peculiarity of the garden as an aesthetic environment. They work together and give clarity for the Chinese garden features, However, these three visions are not diametrically opposed. From the overall research on Chinese garden aesthetics, they share some common characteristics as well as some distinctions. They have certain interlinked nature and the Former two modes, regarded as the basis and premise of the garden environment mode, are all inalienable part of the whole garden. In short, the three visions or modes have certain communications, connections, and complementarities.In conclusion, this dissertation compares and rethinks major achievements on Chinese garden aesthetics research since the 20th century for the first time. By collecting and synthesizing Chinese garden concepts to make them clarified and multi-dimensioned, The Chinese Garden Aesthetics research over the past century can be summarized as three visions (or mode). It deepens the understanding of the Chinese garden characteristics and aesthetic characteristics and lays a solid theoretical foundation for the further research Chinese garden aesthetics through analyzing, comparing, generalizing and reflecting the achievements from the past decades. |
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