Study On Rockery Of Chinese Imperial Gardens

Being one of the most significant features in Chinese ancient gardens, rockery has a long history of over 2000 years, which almost equals to the history of Chinese garden. But due to the mandarin tradition of emphasizing more on appreciation and less on technology, especially the lack of necessary summary of technology, many valuable specialized skills and expertise have long been limited in professional circles, which seriously affected the inheritance of the traditional crafts.With the passing away of old generation craftsmen, many traditional rockery skills have been lost. While a considerable amount of ancient garden rockeries are under poor status of conservation and in great need of necessary maintenance and restoration. To make an in-depth study on Chinese rockery will play a positive role for the inheritance and protection of the traditional crafts.Basing on viewpoints of gardening materials, techniques and professional craftsmanship, this paper inquires into the evolution of rockery-making in imperial garden, analyzes its influence on the garden style, focuses on the main genre of gardening in Ming and Qing dynasties and their influences on the style and mood of Chinese imperial gardens. Among the innovative achievements, this paper mainly demonstrates the following:(1) By searching a large number of historical documents, files, records and existing sites of ancient time, the paper systematically summarizes development stages and the main outstanding achievements of rockery in the imperial gardens.(2) The paper focuses on the main gardening material, the quarry and supply of rock, its transport, protection skills, and the basic stacking techniques of the rockery, discusses the main evolution stages of imperial garden style and the relationship between materials, styles and skills, thus it reveals physical factors of the style difference between gardens in south and north China.(3) Since Song Dynasty, professional gardener had exerted a great influence on Chinese ancient gardens, particularly on the gardens of Ming-and-Qing dynasties. The paper put high emphasis on the analysis of the status and basic living condition of professional gardeners.(4) Based on a comprehensive collection and documentation of historical records, files, the paper inquires into the engineering technology, craftsmen deployment, quality control and engineering management system, demonstrates the central role the management system have played on development of Chinese imperial gardens in middle Qing dynasty.(5) By analyzing the main rockery styles in palace gardens, temporary imperial gardens, hunting gardens, terraced gardens, imitation gardens of Qing dynasty, the paper summarizes the achievements of Qian-long imperial gardening in respects of tits arts, technology and economic rationality.