Please Describe the Ming Garden Reproduced on the Second Floor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
A CHINESE GARDEN GROWS AT THE MET
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June 7, 1981
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A Chinese scholar'southward garden is non just a garden. More a vista to delight the centre, information technology is a landscaped symphony of rocks, plants, pavilions, water and bridges orchestrated to vibrate with mystic symbolism.
For centuries, Chinese scholars take claimed that a garden is a microcosm of the natural globe and that its shaping shows human being's indisputable identify in that natural order. Indeed, composing a garden was the greatest challenge a scholar could have, for it also reflected the philosophy and quality of its creator. These scholars' gardens were based on the ancient yin-yang conceptualization of the universe. In nature, the yin (female) aspects are coolness, wet, weakness, darkness, softness and yielding. These qualities form a dynamic continuum with their hard, unyielding opposites - the yang (male) characteristics of heat, dryness, strength and light. The nucleus of a scholar'due south garden was a small courtyard and a quiet, partially enclosed study where the owner-designer, usually a retired mandarin, could contemplate the philosophical meaning of the interaction of these opposites, believed to be the essence of all natural movement. For example, water (yin) trickling down a rock (yang) combines soft and hard qualities to evidence the relationship between stillness and motion; the cyclical character of time is expressed in the shifting shadows as the sun moves. The possible permutations are limitless, guaranteeing the tranquillity of the viewer and ultimate harmony in the universe.
It is moot whether the presence of a scholar's court, the identical twin of one at the heart of a Chinese garden, now reproduced in the heart of New York City, will guarantee harmony here. Nevertheless, the philanthropist Mrs. Vincent Astor, who every bit a child oft found peace in a Peking garden when her male parent was stationed there as a ma-rine officer, hopes to do just that. She has underwritten the installation of the Astor Garden Court - a reproduction of a Ming dynasty scholar's garden courtroom and furnished study - which will be open to the public on Thursday, June 18, at the Metropolitan Museum of Fine art. For Brooke Astor, it is a conscious effort to introduce hither at to the lowest degree some of the serenity she experienced at an early age.
Seated in the library of her Park Artery flat, looking as exotic as the Oriental treasures that environment her, Mrs. Astor explained, ''I am hoping people will come up and suddenly find information technology very peaceful. When I was in Peking as a child, there was so much racket and confusion. The traffic was terrific. The streets were literally teeming with people. In that location were camel caravans kicking upwardly dust, loftier tilted Peking carts, sedan chairs, rickshaws and carriages. No i wanted to 'lose face' by giving way, so carts and rickshaws were being forever overturned and loud arguments would ensue. And so, suddenly, Mother would atomic number 82 me through an almost hidden gateway in a white wall, through an outer courtyard so into an inner courtyard where I couldn't hear a audio - and there they sabbatum, our hosts in their long gowns. It was so quiet and peaceful. I am hoping that if i can get that sense of peace in a identify like Peking, one can become it in New York. 'In search of quietude' is the cardinal theme. It is written in archaic Chinese characters to a higher place the moon gate,'' she said, referring to the garden courtroom's circular entrance. ''I call up it ought to be written in English language, too. It might piece of work with those who desire it. The Chinese courtyard is for one or two to sit quietly and talk.''
Ten years take passed since Mrs. Astor, a trustee of the Metropolitan and chairman of its Visiting Commission to the department of Far Eastern Art, first presented her idea of bringing an authentic Chinese garden court to the museum. The program was enthusiastically accustomed past Thomas Hoving, the museum's director at the time, and a grant of $2.nine meg was given to the Metropolitan by the Vincent Astor Foundation to conduct out the plan.
''It seems as if I take had the thought forever,'' recalled Mrs. Astor, ''but in that location was no way of getting China's cooperation because of the political state of affairs. Then the doors opened. But none of it could have been possible,'' she insisted, ''without Wen Fong. He is that rare combination of scholar and doer who has brought life to the Far Eastern section. He dreams up these things, but he is also a perfectionist.''
She was speaking of Wen Fong, an amiable and eloquent Chinese-American who is a professor of Chinese art and archæology at Princeton University and the museum'due south special consultant for Far Eastern affairs. Mr. Fong was responsible for the planning and designing of the Astor Courtroom with its scholar'south study - known as the Ming Room considering of its rare old rosewood article of furniture from the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) - as well every bit the newly installed Douglas Dillon Galleries of Chinese paintings that surround the courtyard on three sides. It was not until the fall of 1977 that Wen Fong proceeded to Mainland china in search of a scholar's courtyard that might serve every bit a model. In People's republic of china, he enlisted the aid of Prof. Chen Congzhou of Tongji Academy in Shanghai, a respected architectural historian whom Mr. Fong calls ''the intellectual grandfather'' of the Astor Court. Together they leafed through historical albums and wandered through ancient gardens until they finally decided that the garden courtroom in New York should be based on a Ming dynasty scholar's courtyard and studio known every bit ''The Tardily Bound Studio,'' which they institute in one of the oldest and loveliest surviving gardens in all of Mainland china. Information technology is called Wang Shi Yuan -the ''Garden of the Master of the Line-fishing Nets.'' Once the decision was accepted by the Metropolitan, Mr. Fong proposed the project to Wang Yeqiu, director of the Cultural Relics Bureau in Peking, who eventually assigned the job to the restoration team of the Suzhou Garden Administration.
The ''Garden of the Master of the Fishing Nets'' lies in Suzhou, just due west of Shanghai in Jiangsu Province. Information technology is an ancient urban center of depression, white-done houses with greyness-black tile roofs built in the sixth century near the 1000 Canal on a network of islands joined by arched bridges. Before the site was chosen by He Lu, the King of the country of Wu, geomancers were employed to consult the signs of the heavens and the winds of the world and so to taste the waters. Their efforts were obviously rewarded, for the metropolis -aside from expansion to its current population of 600,000 - has remained substantially the same as originally designed. Although the massive stone walls that used to enclose the city have been knocked downward, information technology is still possible to trace the boundaries of the old town. The streets have been widened and lined with trees, but the old-style, black and white houses are nonetheless in that location.
The abundance of h2o and the temperate climate are ideal for gardens, and Suzhou has been renowned for them since medieval times. An often quoted proverb goes: ''In Heaven is Paradise - On Globe is Suzhou.''
After Mr. Fong returned from China, Arthur Rosenblatt, the museum's vice president for architecture and planning, deputed the New York stage designer Ming Cho Lee to make a detailed model of the courtroom, which was then sent to Peking. Some revisions were fabricated past the Suzhou Garden Administration and a contract was signed in December 1978. It was as well decided that Chinese workmen would assemble the necessary rare woods, reproduce the ancient tiles and fabricate all the materials needed for the structure. The fabricated parts would exist sent to New York, where a crew of 27 Chinese workmen would also be sent to gather them, using traditional Chinese tools. In the meantime, an exact total-calibration image of the proposed Astor Court would be congenital in Suzhou'due south East Park and remain in that location equally a gift from the Metropolitan - the first permanent cultural substitution between the Usa and the People'south Republic of China.
While the paradigm was being built, the Chinese workers handcrafted duplicate parts for the Astor Court. These components were then shipped to New York. The prototype was completed in May 1979 and Mrs. Astor and a museum delegation went to China to inspect it, offering some suggestions for changes in design detail.
The assembly of the Astor Court at the Metropolitan began in January 1980. This painstaking work was completed four and a half months later, but its opening to the public was delayed because the Douglas Dillon Galleries had to be constructed effectually three of its sides. The Suzhou Garden Administrators volunteered to delay the prototype's official opening then that next week the Eastward Park Garden Court in Mainland china and its mirror image, the Astor Garden Court on the other side of the world, volition open their gates to the public on the same twenty-four hours. Gardens accept a long history in People's republic of china and, indeed, Suzhou is 1 of several and so-chosen ''garden cities.'' 7 of at least 20 elaborate gardens in Suzhou, one time privately owned past the literati and retired courtroom officials, take been meticulously restored and opened to the public since the institution of the People's Republic of Communist china. ''The Garden of the Primary of the Angling Nets,'' which spreads its magic over one and a third acres of land, is the smallest of these, just 1 of the finest. It is a classic example of a scholar's garden, just it has been hidden abroad in the southern role of the metropolis since the 12th century, when it was created by a retired scholar-official named Shi Zhengzhi, who longed for dazzler and solitude after the busy ceremony of official life. His yearning for simplicity was expressed in the garden's name, ''The Fisherman's Retreat,'' simply, like all scholars' gardens, it was filled with symbolism. Modern scholars have deduced that, in addition to rocks, ponds and pavilions, the garden also contained a ''Studio of Ten Yard Scrolls,'' where the scholar oftentimes sat and painted his own garden.
Since its original conception, the garden, like the Great Buddha, has experienced a series of reincarnations and name changes. Information technology was completely redesigned toward the end of the 18th century by a scholar named Qu Yuancun. Acquired by the metropolis of Suzhou in the early on 1950'due south, information technology is still basically Qu's design. Earlier hiring experienced artisans and craftsmen to execute his designs, he determined how the garden would exist shaped and landscaped.
A curt walk from the Suzhou Hotel, in that location is an unpretentious doorway which serves as entrance to the garden, which my husband and I visited one crisp autumn twenty-four hour period in 1979. A view of the garden itself was blocked past the wall of the showtime courtyard, deliberately placed at a right angle to the doorway to prevent evil spirits, who can only travel in straight lines, from entering and polluting the purified atmosphere. On our visit, the whole garden - really, 10 tiny gardens densely arranged effectually a residence with elaborate halls, hugger-mugger courtyards and pavilions - was brimming with Chinese visitors. Lovers held hands in the ''Pavilion of Moon and Wind,'' while laughing students took snapshots of each other beside the central pond and on the stone bridge that zigzagged to a hillock of tall pines. Parents watched children scramble through the holes in a cloudlike billow of grayness rocks to sit in the crevices of the strangely shaped Tai Hu peaks. These almost sacred rocks were modeled over the centuries by the great Lake Tai as its waters ground small hard pebbles against the larger, softer limestone boulders, producing holes and weird shapes.
We were later told by Zhang Biaorong, deputy director of the Gardens Administration in Suzhou, that the passion for garden rocks was at its tiptop during the Tang dynasty, which began in the seventh century and lasted through the 9th. By the Ming dynasty, v centuries after, they had became very rare because so many had been harvested from the lake lesser. ''The stonesmiths,'' he said, ''would shape the rocks and and then put them in the lake, allowing the water to wash away the sharp edges. It took a long fourth dimension. A stonesmith could accept the rock out of the lake but if his grandfather had put information technology in.''
Proceeding past the pond and over the bridge, nosotros came to the northwest corner of the garden, graced by a secluded courtyard, about the size of an Olympics swimming pool, exquisite in its simplicity. This was the ''Late Leap Studio.'' Information technology featured a half-pavilion with crimper ''Dragon's tail'' eaves congenital confronting the west wall and a walkway on the east wall. Some Tai Hu rock groups were displayed and a spring-fed fish swimming, called the ''Deep Emerald Light-green Spring,'' trickled in at the southwest corner. This was the courtyard that the Metropolitan's Wen Fong and the eminent architectural historian Chen Congzhou had discovered two years earlier and decided to adapt as a model for the Astor Courtroom in New York.
Later, in another part of Suzhou, called East Park, we visited the Astor Court paradigm and had tea with Mr. Zhang in the scholar'south written report. Equally we sabbatum in old rosewood chairs of Ming vintage and sipped green tea, he told us near some of the difficulties the Chinese had overcome to obtain the nan wood for the 50 pillars in the Astor Court. The nan tree grows virtually giant panda territory in the mountain valleys of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. It is a very rare broadleafed evergreen of the cedar family and, because of careless use of its woods during the terminal 200 years of the reign of the Manchus, which ended in 1912, the tree nearly became extinct. Records show that a nobleman named He Shen was presented with a jeweled sword with which to kill himself because, amongst xix other offenses, he had recklessly used nan wood in the building of his palace. Since the Communists took over in 1949, the wood has hardly been used, except sparingly in Mao Zedong's mausoleum. No wonder Mr. Zhang spoke about it with such a respectful tone of vocalization.
''There are firm regulations for the protection of nan trees in People's republic of china,'' he said. ''Information technology was just because of the importance of our project to U.S.-China relations that we managed to obtain special permission to cut the nan copse in Sichuan. It was hard work. It was January and the snow was falling in the mountains. A special team of loggers cutting the trees with axes. The terrain was too steep to bring in vehicles, so we manus-carried them down to the railroad where the dark-green light was given to transport them out. This had never been done under such difficult conditions.''
Because of the scarcity of nan wood in Suzhou, only iv of the prototype'south l pillars are fabricated of nan; the others are made from fir trees.
To insure that the Metropolitan'due south courtyard would exist authentic Ming, the Chinese reopened an onetime regal kiln in the village of Lumu, near Suzhou. ''Suzhou has been noted for its tile work since the Ming dynasty,'' said Mr. Zhang, ''just we were not accustomed to making the 'emperor'south tiles' that were needed for the courtroom. We had to rack our brains to find means of producing them.'' He was referring to the tiles used by Qing Emperor Qian Long who, when he retired in 1796, built a Suzhou-type garden in the Forbidden Urban center in Peking with tiles from the Lumu imperial kiln. ''When you strike the flooring tiles,'' Mr. Zhang said, ''co-ordinate to the tradition, the sound must be like that of striking metallic. And then all our work had to be done past hand, in the traditional way.'' Fired by burning rice husks, the unique bluish gray color of the tiles was achieved past pouring water on the terra-cotta tiles after they had been slightly cooled. Each tile was so stamped with a seal that says, ''Newly made in the Suzhou Lumu imperial kiln in 1978.'' Bringing a bit of Imperial China to the Metropolitan Museum was no conventional undertaking. To begin with, room had to be made for information technology.This was done past placing a concrete floor slab (forty feet past 59 anxiety) in an existing light well on the 2d floor of the museum'due south north fly, whose first floor houses an exhibition of Egyptian antiquities.
It was the Metropolitan's intention to create an auspicious infinite in the eye of Manhattan where 1 can sit down in peace and mayhap experience the ''harmonious oneness'' that Chinese philosophers write most. Much pregnant is packed into the Astor Court's compact area. ''The whole garden,'' Wen Fong pointed out, ''is actually no larger than the puddle in the museum's Fountain Eating house. The magic happens when 1 makes a minor infinite flow with energy.''
The experience begins when one glances through the main entrance, a circular moon gate with dark edging prepare in a pure white wall. In Prc, the circumvolve symbolizes heaven; it also provides the all-time possible frame for a view because information technology focuses the heart, intensifying the importance of the revealed portions of the garden. Looking in, I could run across intriguing zones of darkness and light.
Not long ago in New York, Mr. Fong and I stepped, unmarried file, through the moon gate and then that he could evidence me how his garden flows. Inside were the inevitable contrasts: stark white walls, curving, black-tiled roofs, a dark vestibule, a sunlit courtyard, the night Ming Room and low-cal-latticed windows hinting mysteriously at another garden beyond -the over-all symmetry of the main courtroom broken by the pillars of the walkway on 1 side. The difficult lines of the architecture contrasted boldly with the soft contours of the seasonal plants and curving rocks.
''Allow usa walk around slowly,'' said Mr. Fong, ''the way information technology was intended, so you can run across how we originally conceived it.'' The views changed with each stride. He drew my attention to a group of big, weirdly shaped Tai Hu rocks to the right of the ''Cold Spring'' half-pavilion. The rocks, he claimed, not but moved around but had eyes, could talk and would die if not allowed to breathe. Now, I had seen these fantastic rocks rising mysteriously from the gardens in China and knew that, because they had been molded past water instead of human hands, the Chinese had endowed them with spiritual importance. I had too heard that competition for them had near toppled empires. Even so, I looked skeptical.
''Wait,'' said Mr. Fong, undaunted. ''There yous see two peaks ascension from a flower bed, but as we move along, a 3rd emerges from behind the primal peak. I call information technology a moving focus. It almost looks similar a hand curlicue when information technology is slowly unrolled. Now expect here - although at that place are three rocks, one sees only two. Walk on a little and the rocks movement. Run into, a tertiary 1 unrolls in front of you. This is why the rocks have to be placed so they really respond to one some other.''
He stopped by a low pace made of flat rock. ''Exist careful, don't take hold of your heel in that pigsty,'' he warned. ''This is ane of our four stock-still vantage points. It's too bad, but we have to rope them off and then visitors don't trip. You see, if we fill the holes, we volition kill the rocks. They have to breathe.''
He pointed to the 3 rocks over again and explained that the master ''superlative'' had come up from the site of a Ming garden in Suzhou. Then he stood on the Tai Hu rock step. From there, the rocks seemed to end moving and turned into a static, framed picture - ''Three Peaks of the Heavenly Realm,'' a name that refers to a famous painting by the 17th-century landscape painter Dao Ji, which Mr. Fong had used as a guide.
We proceeded to the Moon Viewing Terrace fronting the Ming Room at the due north finish. Here we faced a long, lean and bony rock that had been placed in counterpoint to four latticed windows - each different from one another - in the south wall next to the fish pond. ''At present you run across that this grouping is answered past that rock.''
The monolith conspicuously possessed all iii qualities required to brand a cracking pinnacle. It had ''lou'' (showiness), ''shou'' (leanness) and ''tou'' (''passing through''). This last refers to the eroded surface, representing an imaginary mural through which 1's mind may constitutional. The ''eyes'' are round or tear-shaped holes through which one'southward own eyes may wander. When struck from the inside of one of the holes, the rock rings like a jade pendant. ''Shou'' means ''to stand alone against the sky.'' The full significant of such rocks, of course, cannot really be explained. In Prc, they accept been enjoyed for ages as natural, abstract sculptures. It is always difficult to recreate something away from its original setting and expect it to cast the aforementioned spell as the original. To stimulate the imagination and create a compatible ambiance for the fugitive from New York'due south busy streets, the planners of the Metropolitan's garden decided to surround the Astor Courtroom on three sides with the newly installed Douglas Dillon Galleries of Chinese paintings, financed past the Dillon Fund. The paintings on brandish hither volition be rotated periodically.
If the paintings in the Dillon Galleries lend temper to the Astor garden, as Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum, has noted: ''The Astor Court is more a beautiful infinite for contemplation. It too provides an ideal and idyllic transition for the visitor, setting the stage for the better anticipation and appreciation of the Chinese paintings.''
Brooke Astor has nil simply praise for the skilled Chinese workmen, including a master chef to cook their nutrient, who labored to gather the garden. They worked so adept-naturedly with a group of American construction workers that they exchanged hard hats sporting American and Chinese flags. On weekends, Mrs. Astor ofttimes provided funds for their entertainment, and once she took them on a tour of Washington. ''They enjoyed every moment,'' she said. ''At the museum, they took joy and happiness in the pleasance of fine workmanship. To be with them was a spiritual feel. Afterward they left, they wrote me, 'Nosotros have left ourselves.' Their spirit may be hanging there still. They did go out their imprint. I hope it will be a spiritual experience for New Yorkers.'' 64
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/07/magazine/a-chinese-garden-grows-at-the-met.html