The History Of Garden Of Cultivation

Gardens are special kind of image.The owners and architects of the past generations have successively reconstructed or rebuilt it with different designing concepts,lifestyles or ways of seeing.In this process,gardens are spaces where various types of images from different eras come together.Its owners collected,appreciated,and displayed antiquities,paintings and so on.Gardens are also the objects of image producers,which give birth to images of gardens,such as garden paintings.In 1997 and 2000,9 finest Suzhou classic gardens were selected by UNESCO as World Heritage Site.Yi Pu?The Garden of Cultivation?was one of them.This thesis focuses on the history of Yi Pu during the 17^thcentury,and attempts to provide a special perspective of art history during the Ming and Qing dynasties.During most of that time,Yi Pu was a place where owners lived in their daily life,which was totally different from its function nowadays.So the discussion must involves the four generations?two generations of father and son?of Yi Pu in that period,namely Wen Zhenmeng?1574-1636?and Wen Bing?1609-1669?,Jiang Cai?1607-1673?and Jiang Shijie?1647-1709?.Wen Zhenmeng is great-grandson of Wen Zhengming?1470-1559?,and the elder brother of Wen Zhenheng?1585-1645?.Wen Zhengming was regarded as one of the Four Masters of Ming paintings and a great garden designer.Wen Zhenheng is the author of Zhang Wu Zhi?Treatise on Superfluous Things?,an encyclopedic book about the taste of upper class.Yi Pu is the only remaining garden of the Wen family,and it has left some clues and information about this family and its artistic life.Wen zhenmeng and Jiang Cai were both famous officials in late Ming Dynasty.Wen was the most successful politician in Wen's family,and Jiang was a respected adherent of Ming Dynasty in early Qing.As a result,many significant events,topics and figures of that time gathered in the garden because of the owner's identity and reputation.This thesis tries to examine the life of the four generations of garden owners in Ming and Qing Dynasties from the perspectives of art history and cultural history,including their reconstruction of the garden and their artistic activities.The images about and related to the garden will appear on the scene,which then leads to the discussion about the relationship between the garden and its images.