Ryoan-ji, Kyoyo, 1490
In the closing decade of the fifteenth century, the long evening parties of Zen aesthetics were over; Kyoto lay in ruins after the Onin War, and a new, sober mood gripped the land. Virtually all the temples and estates in Kyoto, together with their gardens, were abandoned relics; and the once indulgent patronage of aristocrats and shoguns was gone forever. A reflective, contemplative mood settled over the houses of Zen. Out of this era of penurious disarray developed a style of temple garden which many hold to be the most profound expression of Zen art: the dry landscape, or kare sansui. Fashioned from the most austere materials, sand and stone, these waterless vistas were the final step in the creation of three-dimensional reproductions of Sung ink paintings. They condensed the universe into a single span, and they were primarily, if not wholly, monochromatic. More importantly, they were intended exclusively for meditation. Whereas earlier landscape gardens had always striven for a quality of scenic beauty, these small temple gardens were meant to be a training ground for the spirit, a device wherein the contemplative mind might reach out and touch the essence of Zen. These later Zen gardens were also reduced in size and scope, since a temple yard in such diminished times could not accommodate the spacious parks once available to the aristocracy. Stylized, often abstract representations of nature, they dispensed with all decorative possibilities the better to promote the serious business of meditation.
Perhaps the best example of this type of monochrome "painting" garden is the famous creation at Daisen-in, a part of the Daitoku-ji temple compound in Kvoto. The sand-and-stone garden here is on all sides of the temple building, placing the viewer literally in the middle of a Sung landscape. The focus of the painting, however, is in one small corner of the grounds, where a pair of head-high vertical stones have been used to represent Sung mountain peaks while striated white sand placed around and among the larger background mountains, together with smaller flat-topped rocks in the foreground, suggest the inrush of water from a symbolic waterfall. The simulated stream of white sand winds among river rocks as it passes across the front of the viewing platform. Included in the design are a stone bridge crossing one portion of the sandy stream and a large boat-shaped stone enhancing the symbolism of water. The water seems to disappear under the temple veranda and emerge on the other side as a shimmering white sea. Adjacent to the tall mountain stones are several ancillary rocks approximately waist-high, over which flow rivulets of white sand, suggesting a cataract captured in monochrome. Just as an expert Zen painter extracts the details of a scene in a few strokes of the brush, so the master of Daisen-in succeeded in distilling from the natural world precisely those elements that excite the spirit.
This classical kare sansui garden is thought to have been designed around 1513, reconstructed from one of the run-down temples left after the Onin War. Credit for the design is traditionally (but probably erroneously) given to the artist So'ami (1472-1525), a well-known painter. The distinction between painting and garden art was necessarily blurred, since these gardens were in fact intended to copy paintings more than nature. The true mark of a Zen painter was his ability to handle rocks and mountains in the prescribed manner, with sharp, angular brushstrokes devoid of softness or sentimentality. Naturally enough, stones with this same quality were essential for the kare sansui gardens, but such stones were extremely rare and prized almost beyond price. Trees could be grown; stones had to be found in the mountains and moved somehow to Kyoto.
During the heyday of the Kamakura and Ashikaga glory, there were resources at hand to find, move, and position stones—and at times armies of over a thousand men were impressed into service for this task. After the Onin War no such battalions were available, but there was a ready source of superb stones: the burned-out temple and estate gardens of old Kyoto. Furthermore, monks from many of the earlier temples had systematically pillaged the estates of Heian nobles for stones, using the cream of the stone collections from earlier centuries to create their small gardens. So when the builders of Daisen-in began to collect stones, they had the finest examples of centuries of collecting at their disposal. Hence the magnificent stones at Daisen-in actually represent the creme de la creme of garden stonework, rising phoenix-like out of the destruction of older estates.
What were the qualities of these stones that they should have been hauled for hundreds of miles and prized by shoguns and Zen aesthetes alike? What did Zen artists look for when they scavenged the surrounding mountains for special rocks? They wanted rocks that looked like the mountains and crags in ink paintings. This meant light-colored stones with striated sides and sharp edges, with no hint of the hand of man about them. They looked not so much for odd formations as for natural shapes that possessed an authoritative, monumental quality. One particularly prized shape was flat-topped and vertical-sided, looking like a massive tree stump cut off about a foot above the ground. Another valuable stone was shaped like a steep-sided volcanic island which, nestled in a bed of sand, gave the impression of rising from the depths of the ocean. Oblong stones with lengthwise striations or incisions were valued for their similarity to towering vertical mountains; and rounded, flat-bottomed stones, for their resemblance to natural river rocks. The subjective "feel" of a stone was important; perfectly smooth stones or those with no memorable characteristics had no place in kare sansui. Those used must have the vigorous face of centuries, the weathered texture of antiquity.
Daisen-in was unquestionably the best of the Zen "painting" gardens: possibly designed by an experienced Zen painter, it contained the finest stones from an entire era of intensive collecting; and it was heir to centuries of garden mastery, from which was distilled the essence of landscape art. Its understated authority is the product of a long development of such Zen ideals as simplicity, starkness, austerity, and spareness. One would be tempted to declare it the finest example of the Zen kare sansui art were it not for an even more striking garden of the same era: Ryoan-ji.
Unlike Daisen-in, the garden at Ryoan-ji is not a symbolic mountain scene. It is instead a work of abstract art on a canvas of sand which goes beyond a symbolic representation of a landscape scene to provide a distillation of the very universe. It is internationally regarded as the very essence of Zen, and it is almost impossible to describe, in either words or pictures. It has a spirit that seems to rise up for those who come into its presence, evoking an immediate response even in someone who has no understanding of Zen.
Ryoan-ji was apparently built around 1490, which makes it roughly contemporaneous with Yoshimasa's Silver Pavilion. As early as 985 the site of Ryoan-ji had been used as the location of a private chapel for retired Heian emperors, and in the twelfth century a government minister of the Heian took it over and constructed a country villa, to which his grandson added a lavish Chinese-style lake and island garden in 1189. Thus the site had abundant water, something missing from other kare sansui gardens—although the style dictated that no water be used in the final Zen garden. After the fall of Heian and throughout the Kamakura deluge, the lake became a sort of lingering ancien regime touch, recalling the elegance of former days. (The remains of the lake, undoubtedly much modified through the centuries, still survive as part of the Ryoan-ji temple complex.)