Generally speaking, due to the different architectural styles and characteristics, China gardens can be divided into northern gardens and southern gardens by region. The reasons for the differences between north and south gardens are geographical differences, cultural development and inheritance, historical sites, climate influence and so on. The northern gardens represented by Beijing are generally represented by the royal palace, which can also be called royal gardens, and the southern gardens represented by the houses in the south of the Yangtze River are also called private gardens.
1. Comparison of Garden Styles between North and South
Classical gardens in China can be divided into four categories, namely, royal gardens, first house gardens, temple gardens and scenic spots. Geographically, the gardens after the Southern Song Dynasty are mainly concentrated in Beijing and Chengde in the north, Nanjing, Yangzhou, Suzhou and Hangzhou in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Pearl River Delta. Because of their different styles, they are customarily called Northern Gardens, Jiangnan Gardens and Lingnan Gardens. The Garden in the First Hospital, namely Jiangnan Garden, is the essence of China Garden. Its achievement is to apply China's painting theory to gardening art, that is, to make two-dimensional landscape painting three-dimensional, to concentrate the natural landscape in a smaller space, and to integrate with the architectural landscape.
Most northern gardens are royal gardens serving feudal rule. Their architectural layout is closely related to the court regulations, and the large-scale pattern fully embodies the symbol of imperial rule. Although the garden is also surrounded by a fence, the sense of space limitation of the fence has disappeared due to the large scope of the garden. Although there are some enclosed garden spaces in the garden, most of them are gardens in the garden and garden courtyards.
The gardening techniques in the north and the south generally follow the same gardening principles, but due to different clients, different regional environments and cultural customs, they present different artistic styles in the north and the south. If the royal gardens in the north are endless mountains and rivers, it gives people the impression that there is no specific environmental space restriction, while the gardens in the south of the Yangtze River have their own world, which is dominated by the idea of "seclusion", then the gardens in Lingnan reflect that the owners of the gardens want to have their own small world, but they also want to expand outward and understand the thoughts and feelings of the outside world.
We can analyze their similarities and differences from the following aspects.
1. Plane pattern: Most gardens in the south of the Yangtze River are built in the city, and the space is narrow. The landscape is often built in a limited space and laid out inward, so as to drift with the tide, twists and turns and be eclectic. It is ingeniously combined with the overlapping mountains, ponds, flowers and trees, bridges and corridors in the garden, and sees the big from the small to achieve the realm of "man-made, but it opens from the sky". The landscape environment in the north is open, and the views of the interior of the garden are distributed outward or combined inside and outside. The scenic spot itself has a good viewing field and can be widely used for reference. Although there are some gardens in Jiangnan, they can't get rid of the influence of axisymmetric and quadrilateral system.
2. Architectural form: Garden buildings in the south of the Yangtze River are far lighter, slimmer and more elaborate than those in the north, from appearance modeling, elevation form to detail decoration. Its architectural space not only meets the needs of living and living, but also serves as a place for emotional growth and continuation. The northern gardens take architecture as the main body of "scenery" and pursue the concept of architectural beauty, which is also an important means to show the royal style. "Therefore, the image difference between the north and the south is very obvious. The north is gentle, heavy, solemn, heavy and simple; The south is winding, light and lively, slender and dexterous.
3. Spatial scale: The garden space in the south of the Yangtze River is open and transparent, interspersed with the inside and outside, and the scenery is embedded in the mountains and rivers, with rich level changes. The northern gardens are relatively closed, with clear boundaries between internal and external spaces. As far as the scale is concerned, there is a great difference between the north and the south gardens. Compared with the palace architecture, the northern garden is a smaller one, but compared with the Jiangnan garden, its scale is still much larger. It can be seen that "the garden buildings in Jiangnan are small and cannot be reduced." The same is true of other similar buildings, spaces or water landscapes.
4. Architectural color: The northern garden buildings are colorful and dazzling. Even though many buildings have used blue tile roofs, the colors of their wall columns, doors and windows are still very strong. Jiangnan gardens are elegant and simple, and almost all architectural colors are composed of white walls, blue-gray tiles, dark brown or dark green wood structures, which is in sharp contrast with the north. This is closely related to the local climate. In addition, the north and south also have their own characteristics in the basic elements of the garden, such as rocks, water bodies, flowers and trees, and the setting of path bridges and corridors. For example, the stones in the gardens in the south of the Yangtze River are leaky, transparent, thin, wrinkled and illusory. Trees are arranged freely; North, effective and vigorous, with heavy gardens; Rules for arranging trees.
In a word, the gardens in the south of the Yangtze River are characterized by "trees without rows and stones without positions, mountains with a tendency to bow down to the host and the guest, and water with a winding path leading to a secluded place, which is a natural scenery with twists and turns and flowers." Northern gardens make full use of natural beauty to develop environmental beauty, giving people a grand, natural and distinct feeling, arousing aesthetic association with garden art, and making the form of beauty reflect the unity of the world. The concept of "moving heaven and shrinking into the bosom", which expresses the feeling between heaven and man and the supremacy of imperial power, constitutes the northern royal garden with certain political purposes.
Second, cultural characteristics.
Influenced by Confucianism, the Northern Palace embodies strict rules, pays attention to symmetry and order, and shows a strong artistic effect of worshipping the serious beauty of cymbals. Its gardening style is influenced by the palace architectural style and restricted by spiritual needs. Besides the practical function of material, garden palace architecture also has its spiritual function. Taoism and Buddhism also influenced the royal gardens. Buddhist temples or buildings named after the Vatican can be seen everywhere in the royal gardens.
Jiangnan Scholar-bureaucrat and Literati Garden embodies the philosophical connotation of Laozi, Zhuangzi, Buddhism and Zen. In this garden realm, literati not only get physical and mental happiness, but also can lodge their spiritual ideals. Lingnan gardens are not only influenced by Confucianism and Taoism, but also reflected by secular thoughts. Confucianism and Laozi and Zhuangzi's aesthetic thoughts are embodied in Lingnan gardens, and they are the unity of opposites. Confucian aesthetic thought is embodied in the gardening techniques of gardens, while gardening techniques are embodied in the environmental orientation of gardens. Compared with Jiangnan gardens, Lingnan gardens are characterized by artificial art in the natural environment. Lingnan gardens have a strong aesthetic concept of secular function. Gardening is not limited to traditional shapes and patterns. Starting from the application, it pays attention to the economy and practicality of the garden, the convenient and spacious layout, the peaceful and popular decoration, and the natural truth of the garden, so as to satisfy both refined and popular tastes.
Third, the comparison of cultural and psychological structure between North and South.
Different natural and humanistic environments construct different cultural and psychological structures, which in turn will have a certain reaction to the natural and humanistic environments. For example, Lingzhou (now Lingwu County, Ningxia) is located just outside the Great Wall. "There is no custom of QiangRong. Last Tuesday, General Chen Wu Mingche was defeated and moved to Lingzhou. Jiangzuo people are polite, eager to learn, and have a harmonious customs, so they are called Jiangbei Jiangnan.
Cultural psychological structure usually includes national character, value standard, emotional form and way of thinking.
Among the three coordinates of culture (namely, history, race and society), race is the most stable and lasting imprint that will be engraved in culture forever. The strong personality and straightforward and open mind of northerners make the northern gardens present a dignified and magnificent scene. Southerners' gentle and graceful, delicate and meticulous hearts make southern gardens pursue exquisite and tortuous patterns. People often call the north of water "Yang" and the south of water "Yin". They think that the north is masculine and the south is feminine, which means that the south is weak and the north is strong.
From the perspective of value standards, the north tends to join the WTO and the south tends to be born. The reason is that northerners are often at the center of political struggle in China, and the rise and fall of dynasties are almost related to personal destiny. Coupled with the national personality and group consciousness cultivated under the patriarchal clan system, most of their ideals are rooted in reality and believe in the belief of "self-cultivation, keeping the family in order, governing the country and leveling the world". Although southerners are not opposed to China's accession to the WTO, most of their weak characters are difficult to give up halfway as usual and turn into passive seclusion and "share joys and sorrows"
From the above analysis, it is not difficult to draw a conclusion that the differences in garden styles between North and South are closely related to the natural humanistic environment and cultural psychological structure in their respective regions, reflecting the cultural differences between North and South. Every society, in a certain historical period, is bound to show a unified style in art form or other aspects. Because "style is the direct carrier of cultural code, … in all occasions, style has become the artistic symbol of culture." Style is also human, "Jiangzuo Palace is more expensive than Qingyi; The meaning of harmony is as strong as his temperament. " ""is a summary of the North-South style. Although Ganlong once "wanted to return to his hometown", he widely introduced Jiangnan gardening techniques and even imitated Jiangnan gardens, such as the humorous garden in the Summer Palace, which is a replica of Wuxi Chicken Farm Garden. Jinshan Pavilion, the main scenic spot in Bishu Mountain Villa Lake area, and Tang Yilan Hall on the north bank of Qiongdao in Xiyuan are the "Jiangtian Overview" of Jinshan and Beigushan in Zhenjiang. However, he used the vigorous pen of the north to express the feelings of silk and bamboo in the south of the Yangtze River, and he only "slightly learned its meaning, took into account its natural trend, and did not give up its strengths." It still maintains the unique temperament and character of northerners. It can be seen that "the state of mind and spiritual essence revealed by primitive people will still appear in later generations."
In a word, there are similarities and differences between the northern and southern gardens, and they have their own characteristics and are mutually beneficial. In terms of time, the gardens in the Central Plains and the North developed earlier than those in the South. But the south came from behind. Of course, the southern gardens developed after the northern culture spread to the south. Later, the gardens in the north were borrowed from the gardens in the south. The beauty of China gardens is mainly reflected in "poetic and picturesque". It is deeply influenced by Chinese literature and art in conception, material selection, architectural layout, etc., and has formed the characteristics of sentimentality in the landscape. Through the scenery, it expresses people's ideals, interests and spiritual pursuits, and achieves the artistic conception of "painting everywhere, scenery without poetry". The naming of gardens, buildings, landscapes, couplets, plaques, etc. More lyrical, fully embodies the meaning of China traditional culture. We say that the differences between the northern and southern classical gardens depend largely on the design of the gardens and the different social and humanistic ideas of the builders. It is no exaggeration to say that "garden art" is a remarkable embodiment and direction of human social and cultural elements. People have feelings for architecture, because the emotional expression of architecture is more direct than other arts. From the cultural level of architecture, people's feelings about architecture are the feelings about life itself. When we talk about garden culture and garden art, we must never look at this art in isolation from the background of social and historical conditions. In the construction of new urban gardens, we must never learn from and inherit the classical garden art of China North and South without reservation or analysis.