Simplicity And Complexity:Trying To See The Lion Grove Of Today From The Painted Depictions Of Its Past

Today the Lion Grove Garden is considered one of the four famous classical gardens in Suzhou. Because it was built in the Yuan dynasty it is considered a representative of Yuan dynasty gardens. But there are notable differences between the Lion Grove which is depicted in NiZan's Lion Grove Painting and the Lion Grove of today. In fact, the garden is not the same as it was in Yuan dynasty. It has been more than 600 years since the Lion Grove was built. How has it transformed from the simple garden depicted in NiZan's painting to its modern iteration full of different landscapes and complex rockeries? I think this is a question worthy of discussion.Contemporarily, most Lion Grove research is concentrated on sorting out the historical stories of the garden rather than studying the Lion Grove depicted in paintings. However, Chinese traditional landscape paintings have a close relationship to Chinese classical gardens. The different paintings reflect different attitudes and aesthetic styles relating to nature, and these all influence the development of Chinese classical gardens. Fortunately, the Lion Grove has a variety of paintings from a variety of ages, and in the study of the Lion Grove's development and changes, these paintings have much to offer. But depending on only these sources is insufficient. Additionally, ancient people left records documenting the building and maintenance of the Lion Grove, as well as written materials like poems and travel notes from visiting the garden. These written materials may reflect the situation of the garden from the time they were written, offering another perspective from our own and supplementing the evidence from paintings. Today, the Lion Grove can still be visited and experienced, but it has been changed and rebuilt many times in history, so in a sense it has become unreliable. Therefore, this thesis attempts to examine and compare the Lion Grove as depicted in paintings from various periods of the past, with historical written material, as well with my present-day experiences visiting the Lion Grove. These three lenses will be utilized to prove the changes between the Lion Grove of the Yuan Dynasty and the Lion Grove of today.