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Japanese Gardens

More about perspective and proportion

21 years ago

The latest issue (Jan/Feb 2005, No. 43) of the Journal of Japanese Gardening has a very interesting 6-page article on Perspective.

It includes a point similar to one made by madtripper - that we automatically use familiar objects (an example would be a bench seat) of known size to help us judge ('scale') the size of their surroundings, whereas the size of plants and rocks is so variable that we don't automatically use them in that way.

A recommendation in the article that seems to me to be especially valuable is that in home gardens the aim should not be not to make a Japanese style garden feel larger, but to make it feel closer. Intimacy, it says, is more desirable in such a garden than grandeur. I think I agree. Do you?

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Comment (1)

Niwashisan
21 years ago
I am with you (and the editor) on this one. I think it is one of the more useful articles to appear of late. Small courtyard/tsubo-niwa gardens viewed from the house often appear to be 'magnified' through the window or opening - not bigger as in space but closer. Intimate ? yes I think so.
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