The idea of marking a world within a world is rooted in the rich, energetic white wall at the new Chinese garden at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino.
Called the Wall of Colorful Clouds, or Jing Yun Bi, the undulating soft-white wall seems to breathe with life. Its shadowy surface is luminescent, reflecting the light like a pearl. Its dark roof line plays and jumps like summer lightning. Fretwork windows recessed in deep frames punctuate the wall, adding even more depth and shapeliness.
Step inside, and The Garden of Flowing Fragrance, or Liu Fang Yuan, seems to invite you to take a deep breath and lay down the sharp-edged psychological weapons of modern life. Over the last two months, crews have been planting trees, shrubs and flowers, some of which have just started to bloom this week, as if in anticipation of the garden's dedication Saturday and public opening Feb. 23.
Chinese garden plants have been cultivated for millenia. Unlike in many Western gardens, this garden doesn't have horticultural novelties or showy displays. Traditional plants and trees here refresh with their presence but also carry cultural and spiritual meanings.
"One plants a Western garden, but builds a Chinese garden" is an often-used expression in writings about these gardens. For visitors accustomed to thinking of gardens as collections of plants, the Garden of Flowing Fragrance, modeled on the elegant, contemplative 16th and 17th century classical scholar-officials' gardens in the cities of Suzhou and Hangzhou, is a composition of pavilions, courtyards, bridges, rocks, plants, pathways and water.
Although the garden speaks to the visitor through the senses -- echoes of rushing water, fragrances of blossoming trees, views of mountains -- it also addresses the mind. One thing stands for another; it's the idea of seeing the concentrated essence of things.
Maggie Keswick wrote in her influential book "The Chinese Garden" that they are "cosmic diagrams revealing a profound and ancient view of the world and man's place in it." The models for the Huntington's were not only places of contemplation; they were sites of parties, assignations, festivals and political intrigues.
Ming gardens dance with ancient Chinese traditions of art, culture, philosophy and religion. They also illustrate the profound influence of landscape painting on garden design.
