karesansui 枯山水

Lit. dry landscape. A common type of garden which suggests mountains and water using only stones, sand or gravel and, occasionally, plants. Water is symbolized both by the arrangements of rock forms to create a dry waterfall *karetaki 枯滝 and by patterns raked into sand to create a dry stream *karenagare 枯流. The word karesansui is found in the 11th-century garden manual *Sakuteiki 作庭記 and garden historians have designated Heian period rock arrangements as *zenkishiki karesansui 前期式枯山水. Karesansui usually refers to dry gardens of the Muromachi, Momoyama, and Edo periods, although the term kōki karesansui 後期枯山水 has been created to distinguish this later type. Because of their similarity to ink monochrome landscape painting suiboku sansuiga 水墨山水画, particularly that of the Chinese Northern Song dynasty, karesansui gardens are also called *suiboku sansuigashiki teien 水墨山水画式庭園 or *hokusō sansuigashiki teien 北宋山水画式庭園. Like paintings, the gardens are meant to be viewed from a single, seated perspective. In addition to the aesthetic similarities to Chinese painting, the rocks in karesansui are often associated with Chinese mountains such as Mt. Penglai (Jp; *Hōraisan 蓬莱山) or Mt. Lu (Jp; Rosan 盧山). Given the multiple Chinese associations of karesansui gardens, they are the preferred type of garden for Zen 禅 temples (Buddhism having arrived from China in the 7th century) and the best examples are found in the front or rear gardens of Zen abbots' residences *hōjō 方丈. Exemplary Muromachi period examples include the gardens at Daisen'in 大仙院 in Daitokuji 大徳寺 and at Ryōanji 龍安寺. While Muromachi karesansui tend to use plants sparingly, early Edo period gardens of this type often contrast an area of raked gravel with a section of moss and larger plants along the rear wall. The gardens at the Hōjō and Konchiin 金地院 at Nanzenji 南禅寺, and Shinjuan 真珠庵 and Ōbaiin 黄梅院 at Daitokuji are good examples. The aesthetic consonance with abstract art largely accounts for the resurgence of karesansui gardens both in Japan and abroad in the 20th century. A good example of a modern karesansui is Shigemori Mirei's 重森三鈴 (1896-1975) east garden at Tōfukuji Hōjō 東福寺方丈.