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The Chinese Garden: History, Art and Architecture, Third Edition

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Manufacturer: Harvard University Press

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Average Customer Ratings:

Dense with winding paths, dominated by huge rock piles and buildings squeezed into small spaces, the characteristic Chinese garden is, for many foreigners, so unlike anything else as to be incomprehensible. Only on closer acquaintance does it offer up its mysteries; and such is the achievement of Maggie Keswick's celebrated classic that it affords us--adventurers, armchair travelers, and garden buffs alike--the intimate pleasures of the Chinese garden.

In these richly illustrated pages, Chinese gardens unfold as cosmic diagrams, revealing a profound and ancient view of the world and of humanity's place in it. First sensuous impressions give way to more cerebral delights, and forms conjure unending, increasingly esoteric and mystical layers of meaning for the initiate. Keswick conducts us through the art and architecture, the principles and techniques of Chinese gardens, showing us their long history as the background for a civilization--the settings for China's great poets and painters, the scenes of ribald parties and peaceful contemplation, political intrigues and family festivals.

Updated and expanded in this third edition, with an introduction by Alison Hardie, many new illustrations, and an updated list of gardens in China accessible to visitors, Keswick's engaging work remains unparalleled as an introduction to the Chinese garden. (20031101)


PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS:

Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 712.0951
EAN: 9780674010864
ISBN: 0674010868
Label: Harvard University Press
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: 2003-05-15
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Studio: Harvard University Press


SIMILAR ITEMS:

• Gardens in China
• Chinese Houses: The Architectural Heritage of a Nation
• Chinese Architecture: A Pictorial History (Dover Books on Architecture)
• Chinese Gardens
• The Garden Plants of China


CUSTOMER REVIEWS:

The right place to begin -
I've been a garden designer in Portland Oregon for twenty years and have spent over a year in China visiting gardens . This book is a very good place to begin if you want to understand , on a basic level, Chinese gardens . It is however, not the place to stop if you really seek to understand them . To do that you have to try to understand the culture and times which produced them. Fruitful Sites by Craig Clunas is the best work which I have found so far as it analyzes the gardens at Suzhou over the course of several dynasties. Chinese Classical Gardens of Suzhou (Hardcover)
by Tun-Chen Liu, Joseph C. Wang is also a very good book . It is a critique of most of the principal gardens in Suzhou and it punctures the illusion that every Chinese garden is equally great and every feature wonderful. And if you are actually going to travel to China to see gardens you really should read both of Peter Valder's books . They will help you understand Chinese plants and to find gardens in many Chinese cities. I don't always agree with Valder's assessments . He is quite restrained at times . And if you are planning to travel to Suzhou consider visiting Tongli as well. I also consider the gardens of The Slender West Lake in Yangzhou and other gardens there to be equal to many of the gardens in Suzhou. And if you are going to go to China I recommend you start reading The Orientalist online and purchase Beijing by Peter Neville Hadley so that you will not be shocked when you travel China . It is by no means an easy process if you want to travel beyond some air-con rip-off tour.

The Garden as the Source of History and Philosophy -
While the attitudes and examples of Japanese gardens abound in books and in cities around the world, very little has been written or photographs of the unique concepts found in the Chinese gardens. Maggie Keswick repairs that paucity of information with this very beautifully designed, photographed and written monograph on the spirit of the subtle beauties that abound in the Chinese garden.

Keswick offers an in depth analysis of the history of gardens in China and even if the reader is not an avid horticulturist, just the amount of information about China alone is reason to read this book carefully. But in addition to the history and the architectural elements of these gardens here considered, there are many graceful photographs and accompanying illustrations that keep pace with the narrative while providing an encouragement to return to the book purely for the art of it.

Keswick has found the middle ground in creating a volume about the elements of the Chinese garden and a volume that stands strongly as simply an art book. Highly recommended for repeated readings. Grady Harp, April 05

It takes me back to my hometown -
How great Chinese garden are!From north to south ,east to west,royal to normal,fancy to simple,you could see all of the best gardens in China.Especially two cities that must visit:Beijing,my hometown,and Suzhou,a wonderful small town built beside the river.The spirits of Chinese gardens were focused on how to combine nature and humanity together.The gardens in Suzhou absolutely rendered an ideal level without artificial fixing,you might called it "Eastern Venice".On the oher hand,Beijing seems much more luxurious since it used to be the capital of China for 5 dynasties.The best known garden named Summer Palace ,which settled in Western part of Beijing,belong to the royal family. A fire desaster ruined most valuable garden named Yuan Ming Yuan,if it still being there,Yuan Ming YUan might be the most gorgeous garden in the world.However we pitifully left a waste garden,morely a Country's shame.You luckily better read this book before you visit China.<>is a helpful tourguide take you a preview.

Acutely Perceptive, Informative, Profound -
A superb study that is as engrossing as it is elegantly written and lavishly illustrated, and a sensitive inquiry into the aesthetics, the history and the philosophy that underpin an ancient and majestic civilization's view of mankinds's place within the cosmos. Both unique and profound. An essential work.

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