Yuányě 園冶
The Craft of Gardens by 計成 (Jì Chéng, b. 1582, fl. 1631–1635, 明, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
The single most important Chinese theoretical treatise on garden design, composed by Jì Chéng 計成 (zì Wúpǐ 無否, hào Pǐdào rén 否道人, of Wújiāng 吳江 in Sūzhōu prefecture, b. 1582). The work was completed in Chóngzhēn xīnwèi 崇禎辛未 (1631) and published in Chóngzhēn jiǎxū 崇禎甲戌 (1634) with a postface by Jì then aged 53. Originally titled Yuánmù 園牧 (the “Garden Pastorate”), the title was changed to Yuányě 園冶 (“Garden Crafting”) at the suggestion of Cáo Yuánfǔ 曹元甫 of Gūshú 姑孰 (i.e. Dāngtú 當塗). The treatise is in three juàn: juàn 1 covers (1) Xìngzào lùn 興造論 (theory of construction), and the Xiāngdì 相地 (site-divining), Lìjī 立基 (foundation-laying), Wūyǔ 屋宇 (buildings, with detailed elevation- and plan-illustrations of tānggé, zhāi, guǎn, lóu, tái, gé, tíng, xiè, xuān, juǎn, guǎng, láng, and seven roof-frame types) and Zhuāngzhé 裝折 (interior partition); juàn 2 is on the Lángān 欄桿 (balustrades) — 100 patterns; juàn 3 covers Ménchuāng 門窗 (doors and windows), Qiángyuán 牆垣 (walls and fences), Pūdì 鋪地 (paving), Duōshān 掇山 (rockwork composition), Xuǎnshí 選石 (stone selection — Tàihúshí, Kūnshān, Yíxìng, Lóngtán, Jīnlíng Qīnglóngshān, Língbì, Yīngshí etc.), and the famous closing chapter Jièjǐng 借景 (“borrowed scenery”). The Jièjǐng chapter develops the doctrine of jiè (borrowing) — yuǎn jiè 遠借 (distant borrowing), lín jiè 鄰借 (neighbouring borrowing), yǎng jiè 仰借 (looking-up borrowing), fǔ jiè 俯借 (looking-down borrowing), and yìngshí ér jiè 應時而借 (borrowing-according-to-season) — fundamental to all later Chinese garden theory.
Prefaces
Three substantial paratexts frame the work, all preserved in the krp-titles transmission:
Jì Chéng’s self-preface (自序): Jì recounts his life: in youth he was known as a painter, modelled himself on the Five-Dynasties landscape masters Guān Tóng 關仝 and Jīng Hào 荊浩, travelled in Yān 燕 and Chǔ 楚 lands; in middle age he returned to Wú 吳 and settled at Rùnzhōu 潤州 (Zhènjiāng). There local enthusiasts collected clever rocks and piled them as fake mountains among bamboo and trees; Jì found this risible, saying: “the world hears ‘where there is a real thing there is a fake of it’ — why not fake the real mountain-shape, instead of fake clenched-fist rocks?” Asked whether he could do better, Jì constructed a bì 壁 (wall composition) which observers immediately recognised as a yǎnrán jiā shān (a true fine mountain). He came to the notice of the Jìnlíng Fāngbó (provincial intendant) Wú Yòuyú 吳又予 of Jìnlíng, who employed him to design a 15-mǔ garden on the old site of Wēnxiàngfǔ 元溫相 (Yuán Tàishī’s old garden) east of the city. Subsequently Wāng Shìhéng 汪士衡 (a zhōnghàn secretary) employed Jì at Luánjiāng on the west, “matched in ambition” with Wú’s project. In idle time Jì drafted the design-models, calling them Yuánmù (the Garden Pastorate). Cáo Yuánfǔ of Gūshú, on visiting, urged Jì to retitle it Yuányě — “yours is opening a new path; let it be called yě (crafting) rather than mù (pastorate).” The self-preface is signed Chóngzhēn xīnwèi zhīqiū miǎo, Pǐdào rén, xián yú Hùyětáng zhōng tí (the autumnal miǎo of Chóngzhēn xīnwèi / 1631, Pǐdào rén, at leisure inscribed in the Hùyětáng).
Yuán Yúlìng 阮于令 preface: Chóngzhēn jiǎxū (1634); preserved in the cut-block edition.
Jì Chéng’s postface (卷後): “In Chóngzhēn jiǎxū (1634), I am 53 suì. I have exhausted the dust of the world, weary of yóuyè (sojourning), with a small línxià fēngqù (taste of retirement-under-trees); long depending on garden-park, my interest with worldly affairs feels distant; only hearing the times’ affairs in turbulence, the retiring heart is so. Ashamed of having no money to buy a mountain, I am willing to be a Táoyuán xīkǒu rén (a man of the Peach Blossom Spring stream-mouth). Sighing at this human birth’s not-meeting-its-time: even Zhūgé Liàng Wǔhóu the Three-Kingdoms shī (teacher), Liánggōng (Dí Rénjié) as the Nǚwáng (Wǔ Zétiān)‘s xiàng — the ancient xiánháo in their not-meeting-time; how much more this rustic and slow person. I write this Yě for my two sons Chángshēng and Chángjí, that they may have something like pears and chestnuts in their futures. So I have it carved and circulated, that it may be of use to the world.”
Abstract
The Yuányě is the foundation of Chinese garden theory and the single most influential premodern Chinese architectural treatise on the design of landscape gardens. Jì Chéng 計成 (b. 1582 per CBDB; death-date uncertain, with the postface establishing he was alive in 1634 aged 53; the catalog meta gives dynasty as Míng without precise dates) is one of the few documented professional garden designers in the Chinese tradition. The work was completed at the end of the Wànlì and the start of the Chóngzhēn — the same generation as the late-Míng connoisseurial compendia of Zhāng Chǒu KR3h0055 and Wāng Kěyù KR3h0060, and the architectural treatises of the SòngYìngzàofǎshì tradition. The work is divided into theoretical exposition (the Xìngzào lùn of juàn 1, the Jièjǐng of juàn 3 close) and practical instruction with extensive engraved illustrations (building-frames, balustrade patterns, door-and-window patterns, wall patterns, rock-stacking diagrams). The work fell into relative neglect in the early Qīng (the Sìkù editors did not include it, perhaps because of Jì’s association with the Wú Yòuyú garden-construction patronage network), but was rediscovered by Japanese architects (the Yuányě was preserved in Japan, where it influenced Edo-period garden theory), and reintroduced to Chinese scholarship in the 1930s by Yuán Yěshēng 元冶生 / Liú Dūnzhēn 劉敦楨 and others. The work’s three foundational concepts — yīn 因 (according-with: working with the site), jiè 借 (borrowing: integrating outside views), and tǐyí 體宜 (body-and-fittingness: appropriate scale) — became the canonical vocabulary of all later Chinese garden criticism.
Translations and research
- Hardie, Alison (trans.). The Craft of Gardens: The Classic Chinese Text on Garden Design. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. [The standard English translation, with extensive scholarly apparatus and parallel Chinese text in some editions.]
- Chen, Congzhou 陳從周. Yuán-yě dǎo-dú 園冶導讀. Shanghai: Shanghai jiàn-zhú gōng-yè chū-bǎn-shè, 1981.
- Liú Dūnzhēn 劉敦楨. Sūzhōu gǔdiǎn yuánlín 蘇州古典園林. Beijing: Zhōngguó jiànzhú gōng-yè chū-bǎn-shè, 1979. [Includes substantial commentary on the Yuán-yě.]
- Käswurm, Mathias. Yuanye: ein chinesisches Lehrbuch der Gartenkunst. Berlin, 1997.
- Henderson, Ron. The Gardens of Suzhou. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
- Clunas, Craig. Fruitful Sites: Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China. London: Reaktion, 1996. [The foundational Western study of Míng garden culture, with sustained reading of the Yuán-yě in its social-historical context.]
- Wang Joseph Cho. The Chinese Garden. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1998.
- Goepper, Roger. Im Schatten des Wu-tung-Baumes: Möbel und Innenraum in der späten Kaiserzeit Chinas. München: Hirmer, 1989.
Other points of interest
The Yuányě is the only major Chinese garden-design treatise to survive in pre-modern China complete with technical illustrations, and the only pre-modern Chinese architectural treatise to give a systematic poetics of practice. The discovery of the Yuányě by Japanese architectural historians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and its retro-introduction to Chinese architectural scholarship in the 1930s, is itself a major episode in modern Sino-Japanese cultural history. The work has been the principal source for the modern restoration and reconstruction of Jiāngnán private gardens (Sūzhōu, Wúxī, Yángzhōu) from the 1950s onwards.