OF FORMAL GARDENS IN CHINA 
By REGINALD WRENN 
I F ever the veil he lilted from mysterious 
and unknown China, whether by the up¬ 
heavals of War or the explorations of the 
curious during Peace, the written history ot 
Art will probably have to be revised to the 
extent of several important chapters. Living 
art we shall find there, compared to which the 
art of Japan shall seem but a weak imitation 
of older and grander models. In many 
respects China is to Japan what Greece 
and Rome are to us. The garden art of 
the Island Empire, already familiar to most 
devising of a series of what must have been 
indefinite and formless scenes, each intended 
to be viewed from a single given point. 
At the same time he remarked that the 
Chinese are not declared enemies to straight 
lines, but that they use them to produce 
at times a certain symmetry and grandeur. 
“ Nor have they any aversion to regular 
geometric figures, which they say are beauti¬ 
ful in themselves and well suited to small 
compositions where the luxuriant irregulari¬ 
ties ot nature would fill up and embarrass 
THE PUBLIC GARDENS IN WHAMPOA, NEAR CANTON 
readers, will be found to have sprung from 
that of China and scarcely improved by its 
passage over the little Eastern seas. 
Much has been written upon Japanese gar¬ 
dens, little upon Chinese ; but that little suf¬ 
ficed to turn the whole tide of garden design 
in Europe in the middle of the eighteenth 
century when Father Attiret wrote to a friend 
in Paris a description of the Emperor’s gar¬ 
dens at Pekin. In 1772 Sir William Cham¬ 
bers wrote his “ Dissertation on Oriental 
Gardening” in which he pointed out the 
characteristic serpentine method and the 
the parts they should adorn.” But this 
hint was lost upon English readers; and 
unfortunately for formal gardening, the worst 
rather than the best of Chinese work was 
straightway copied in Great Britain and, by 
the influence of that country’s example, 
throughout the rest of Europe. 
Such geometrical designs as Sir William 
Chambers had probably seen are represented 
by the Lee-ming-koon Garden, at Canton, 
which, illustrated in these pages, contradicts 
the fanciful Chinese garden made familiar by 
rice-paper pictures and blue and white table- 
139 
