Japanese Stone Gardens: Origins, Meaning, Form
The term “stone garden” may sound like an oxymoron, but in Japan, for time out of mind, people have sensed that stones are charged with life. Considered “seats of the gods,” stones were placed in “purified” clearings that became the prototypes for Japan’s elegant dry-landscape gardens with their astonishing raked sand patterns. British-born, Japan-residing Mansfield, a versatile writer and photographer and Japanese garden expert, presents an illuminating history of this living art form in sharply focused text and image. He traces the influences of Shintoism, Taoism, and, most significantly, Zen Buddhism, and artfully delineates the aesthetics of stone, sand, and gravel arranged to embrace and transcend nature, embody impermanence and stillness, and inspire contemplation and serenity. By creating a vivid social context for the evolution of stone gardens over the centuries and portraying seminal master gardeners, Mansfield vitalizes this seemingly austere tradition. An in-depth tour of 15 masterpiece stone gardens ancient and contemporary throughout Japan further deepens our appreciation for these landscapes of aesthetic precision and meditative repose in a book as lovely and restorative as its subject. --Donna Seaman