Scholars Of The Song Dynasty Landscape Study

In Song Dynasty great changes took place in the internal feudal society, withthriving economy and culture. During that period, classic gardens stepped into its firststage of maturity, playing a vital role in the development of Chinese gardens. Thescholarlized gardens developed and matured into the most typical gardens in thatperiod due to the huge amount of gardens available then and the large interestedpopularity. They fully demonstrated diverse cultural elements and arts of various sorts,closely connected with the aesthetics, philosophy, literature and social culture of SongDynasty, at the same time embodying the immense changes in societal and economicas well as political sectors. Scholarlized Gardens then focused on the delicate layoutand deep tranquility, which was generally regarded as a place of sentiment and leisure.It was just at that time that men of letters got directly involved in the design andbuilding of gardens, employing their deep understanding of natural philosophy andgood taste for arts. Their life experiences and feeling towards the ups and downs oflife were also harmonized into the creation of gardens, making gardens the secondnature with outstanding humanitarian and cultural heritage. This thesis, uponsystematic study of garden-related materials, tries to explore the distinctive features ofscholarlized gardens, the rich aesthetic and philosophical thinking involved in thearchitectures and their artistic style and historic values.This paper is divided into seven parts. The first part is the overall introductionelaborating on the subject, current situation and the significance of the study. Thesecond part presents the development of gardens from a bird view and theirdistribution, followed by the social backgrounds of their emergence, as will as thehistorical significance. In the third part, the artistic features of scholarlized gardens isintroduced from the perspective of the overall layout and specific configuration suchas stones laying, hill making and layout of waters, etc. The fourth part studies on therelationship between the scholarlized gardens of Song Dynasty and the recluse cultureas well as the openness feature, leading to the discussion of gardens’ diverse functions.The fifth part further expounds the spiritual connection of scholarlized gardens, whichis the compound outcome of traditional Chinese thinking including Confucianism,Daoism, Neo-confucianism of Song Dynasty and Zen Buddhism. The sixth part, on the basis of rich materials, deals with the multiple influences exerted by scholarlizedgardens on the contemporary literature and art as well as the way of living of scholarsthen. The seventh part comes as the conclusion part, briefing the influence on thegardens of Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty by the scholarlized gardens of SongDynasty.The novelty of this paper is that the integration of recluse culture andscholarlized gardens, followed by deep analysis of grounds leading to such integration.Asides, upon systematic study on Dao, Zen Idea and Idealist philosophy, this paperdeeply explores the spiritual connection of the scholoarlized gardens of Song Dynastyby breaking through the common points shared by Zen Idea and Idealist philosophy.