Rare days in Japan

by George Trumbull Ladd

The most beautiful and perfect of the gardens of Japan, in the old-fashioned Chino-Japanese style, which I have ever seen, are the Kōrakuen in Tokyo, and the Katsura-no-Rikyū in Kyoto. The former was originally the garden of the Prince of Mito, the site of whose mansion is now occupied by the Koishikawa Arsenal. Thus the quiet beauty of the art of the “Old Japan” is brought into contrast with the preparations for displaying its strength of the “New Japan.” But the garden remains intact; and it is justly pronounced “the finest specimen of the Japanese landscape gardener’s art to be seen in the capital.” It is not seen, however, by most visitors to Japan, both because they do not take an interest in, or know where to look for the best things, and also because a special order is necessary to gain admittance to it. The very name is an embodiment of the finest philosophical sentiment with regard to the relations in which the leisurely enjoyment of nature stands to the sterner duties of a devoted human life. It is derived from three Chinese words:—Kō (“afterward”) Ra (“pleasure”), and Kuen (“garden”). It is, therefore, an “afterward-pleasure-garden”;—the thought being that the wise man has his anxieties earlier than others, is beforehand, so to say, in thoughtful care; but his pleasures come later.

The original plan of Kōrakuen was to reproduce many of the scenes of the country with which the literati were familiar—at least, by their names. And Prince Mito had it laid out as a place in which to enjoy a calm old age after a life of labour. One of its miniature lakes is copied from a celebrated lake in China. A temple on a wooded hill is a replica of a famous temple in Kyoto. Again, a bridge and zigzag path lead to a shrine famous in Chinese history; and then we come to an arched stone bridge and another shrine which has an octagonal shape in allusion to the Eight Diagrams of the Chinese system of divination. Everywhere there are magnificent trees, which were selected so as to have some one species at the heighth of its beauty at each season of the year; thus there are cherry-trees for the Spring, maples for the Autumn, and plum-trees for the Winter.

An attendant who was to serve as an escort was already in waiting, when we and the Japanese lady whom we accompanied arrived at the gate; and somewhat later General Nishimura, the Government officer in charge of the Arsenal, joined us. After we had taken tea and had a pleasant chat with him we were given the very unusual privilege of taking several photographs of different parts of the garden, among them one or two of a group, which included the General himself.

The Katsura-no-Rikyū, or Katsura Summer Palace, was formerly a retreat made for a Princess of the Imperial family by this name. It is now one of the four so-called “Palaces of the Mikado”—more properly speaking there are two palaces and two villas,—in the city and suburbs of the ancient capital. Permits must be obtained from the Department of the Household, in order to visit any of these palaces; and when I was first in Japan, in 1892, they were much more difficult to secure than they are now. Through Marquis, then Count, Matsukata, who was at that time Prime Minister, the necessary permission was obtained; and the same kindly service furnished me with a letter to the Governor of the District of Kyoto, who sent his private secretary to act as an escort to all the four palaces. This was particularly good fortune; for this gentleman, in his youth, had served on the side of the Mikado’s forces in their contest against the forces of the Shōgunate; he was thus able to point out many details of interest—among them, the defacements of the decorations of the Nijo Palace, that “dream of golden beauty within,” which were made by these young patriots, who thought in this way to show their contempt for the Shōgun, and for ancient art, and their devotion to the cause of the Mikado and of progress.

“[WINDING PATHS OVER RUDE MOSS-COVERED STEPPING-STONES]”

The garden of the Katsura Summer Palace represents the style of the art which was practised by Kobori Enshū and his “School.” These men were as aristocratic in their tastes as they were enthusiastic in teaching and practising their theories of the arts. According to their canons, everything was to be exceedingly plain and simple; and all the other arts were to be combined in the celebration of the cha-no-yu, or tea ceremonies. Indeed this garden, and all the buildings and other structures in it, may be said to be planned for use in the highest kind of style belonging to such æsthetic enjoyment. Its exceedingly plain summer-houses are, accordingly, so placed as to look out on modest pools and artificial streams, on plain rustic bridges and [winding paths over rude moss-covered stepping-stones], brought from the two extremities of the Empire. Everywhere there are trees of various species and trained in manifold artificial shapes; there are also moss-clad hillocks and a goodly store of antique lanterns; and in the lake there are islets deftly placed. The lake itself is full of the water-plant Kohone, which here has red flowers as well as the usual yellow ones.

It is not necessary to describe or even refer to the more celebrated of the temple gardens, such as Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji, in Kyoto; or the groves surrounding the Tombs of the Shōguns in Shiba and at Nikko; or the park at Nara, and other nearly or quite flowerless specimens of the art of gardening in Japan; for has not everyone who has spent not more than a single week in the country seen them all; and are they not all sufficiently described in the guidebooks?

The more beautiful of the modern gardens in Japan, while retaining the most admirable features of the native art, have succeeded in adding something which it formerly lacked and in avoiding more fully its suggestion of pettiness and of artificiality. This they have accomplished by allowing a larger freedom from ancient conventions and conceits in the way both of modifying the native traditions and of introducing foreign elements. And since in the best private gardens there has been a most judicious selection and combination of natural resources and æsthetical ideals, there are some examples of the art of landscape-gardening in Japan, which are not excelled, if indeed they are equalled, by anything else of the kind.

I do not expect ever to see again a landscape, prepared and cultivated by human skill, quite so perfectly beautiful as was the Imperial garden at Aoyama, on the afternoon of November 16, 1906, when the annual “chrysanthemum party” was given there to His Majesty’s guests. The rainy weather of the days preceding had prevented the Imperial party from attending the festivities in person. But it had added something to the customary charm of the landscape; for the showers had freshened all the colours of ground and foliage and sky, and the moist haze was now producing that exquisite softness and blending of them all which is so characteristic of the “atmosphere” of Japanese natural scenery and of Japanese pictorial art. The size of the garden and the manner of its artistic treatment render it, in some of its features, more like an English deer-park than are any of the gardens of the more purely Chino-Japanese style. There were large pines and maples and autumn camelias of wonderful growth. There was great variety to the surface, both natural and helped out by art; and on such a generous scale as nowhere to suggest artificiality or pettiness. The hills were real hills, and worthy of the name; they made the assembling guests climb their sides and gave them new and extended views as a reward when they had reached their tops. There were also many ponds and winding streams, with picturesque curved bridges crossing the streams. But most conclusive of all the proofs of the highest æsthetical skill was the arrangement of all the larger and the minuter features, from whatever point of view one held them in regard. The most brilliantly coloured maples, of the cut-leaf variety, were planted singly rather than in groups; and every detail of their delicate shapes was carefully brought out against a background of the dark green of pines or the golden yellow of the jinkō tree. As one strolled up any of the several winding paths that led to the high plateau on which the show of chrysanthemums was placed, one could stop at almost every step and admire the change of far-reaching vistas or nearer views; and over every square yard of the whole, not only each tree and shrub, but each twig and leaf, seemed to have been made an object of loving care.