The Art of Classical Chinese Gardens (1)

The art of classical Chinese gardens is part of China’s traditional culture. Many people say that if you have never walked through a Chinese garden, you cannot say that you have really visited China.
The art of Chinese gardens has a history of more than 3,000 years. Now China has about 1,000 classical gardens. Different from classical European gardens, in which geometric pattern dominates, Chinese gardens are made to resemble natural landscapes on a smaller scale. Classical Chinese gardens fall into two categories: imperial and private. The gardens in North China were mostly imperial property such as the Beihai Park, the Summer Palace in Beijing, and the Imperial Summer Resort in Chengde. The gardens in the South usually belonged to high officials and wealthy merchants. Many of them spent their years of retirement there in leisure.
Imperial gardens are large in area. The Summer Palace, for instance, has an area of 290 hectares while the Imperial Summer Resort, the largest imperial garden in China, covers more than 560 hectares. Most imperial gardens have three sections: the administrative section, residential section and recreational section. In large imperial gardens, the main buildings are connected by an imaginary line in the middle of the garden on a south-north axis. Other buildings scattered among hills and waters are linked by subordinate lines, forming a well-designed symmetry and adding more beauty to the chief architectural complex.
Most private gardens are found in the South, especially in cities south of the Changjiang River. Private gardens were mostly built at one side or at the back of residential houses. In almost every case, there in a large space in the garden set in a landscape of artistically arranged rockeries, ponds, pavilions, bridges, trees and flowers. Surrounding the beautiful scene are small open areas partitioned by corridors through which visitors can enjoy the scenery, buildings in the garden are open on all sides and are often situated near the water so that the whole scene can be enjoyed.Suzhou, known as the home of gardens, displays the most and the best Chinese traditional private gardens. The great many gardens in the city are good examples of Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing garden styles.