The Studies On The Influence Of War On Landscape Architecture

The history of human society is the history of war. Wars have had profound influences over human society in all its aspects. However, being usually a subject of sociology and military science, war seldom enters into the horizons of those who focus on arts and humanities. Currently, the theoretical research of gardens is mainly limited in traditional areas, which is not proportional to the significant role war has played in the process of history.Great changes are taking place in the contemporary study of gardens. Compared with the traditional ways, now the study of gardens overlaps with many more disciplines, absorbing more methods from social sciences. Based on diversified viewpoints, the study of gardens integrates with the broad social, political, cultural, and scientific backgrounds. From the unique perspective of wars, this paper, adopting the theories of many other disciplines, is a pioneering study of the garden history, the creation of war-theme gardens as well as the reparation, restoration, and maintenance of gardens.As a part of the superstructure of society, gardens are inevitability under both positive and negative influence of wars. This paper starts from the philosophical and sociological analysis of the nature of wars, to the intrinsical relationships between wars and society, economy, as well as gardens, and thereby establishes the theoretical platform of research. By the cross-cultural study of wars in ancient, modern, and contemporary times, the paper arrives at the conclusion that war is a powerful driving force in the development and spread of garden arts.Apart from its influences on politics, economy, and culture, war also has had a great impact on art, including garden art. War has been an eternal theme of art. Among large numbers of works of art that center on war, some commemorate war while some criticize it, some even sing praise to it. Elements concerning war can also be traced in garden art. With the development of landscape architecture design, people attach more and more importance to war-related style and works. This paper classifies such works, and does a detailed analysis from the inherent factors of origin, the process of creation, to the evaluation of such works.The destructive force of war and the constructive abilities of human beings are...