Asia Institute - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 1 of 1
-
ItemNature and the garden: ideas of nature and the Japanese gardens designed in Australia by Nakajima Ken and Nakane Shirō( 2003)This thesis discusses the connection between ideas of Nature and Japanese gardens, especially those designed by Nakajima Ken and Nakane Shiro in Australia. First, it establishes the problematic status of the European idea of Nature in the discussion of Japanese gardens by analysing garden related texts from the late Heian, Kamakura, Momoyama and Edo periods. In this section indigenous Japanese ideas, which were partly congruent with the European idea of Nature, are linked with the development of traditional Japanese garden design. Next, the thesis traces the intrusion of the Romantic idea of Nature into the discussion of Japanese gardens during the 19th and 20th centuries, when the theory that Japanese people enjoy a special connection with Nature became part of Nihonjinron arguments about the unique characteristics of the Japanese. The thesis argues that there remain some peculiarly Japanese elements in thinking about Nature and the garden: Nature has a human scale, since the focus has always been on the designer’s perception, traces of human activity are happily accommodated, and it still refers to certain parts of China and Japan rather than the whole world. While non-Japanese Romantic concepts, such as that of "the wild" might complicate the analysis of gardens which are composed in a conventional way, the thesis argues that the Japanese gardens at Cowra and the Melbourne Zoo demonstrate how important the potent, poetic Romantic idea of Nature is in the design and discussion of contemporary Japanese gardens. Since the 19th century, Romantic literary ideas about the role of emotion and imagination in the relationship of human beings with Nature can be found, along with literary terms such as “symbolize” and "express", in Japanese writing about gardens. An analysis of the two gardens in Australia, based on frequent visits, interviews with the designers and a study of their writing, argues that the Japanese version of the Romantic idea of Nature has in fact revitalized Japanese garden design.