Earlier this year, I had the chance to take a trip to Taiwan for the first time. I was especially looking forward to the National Palace Museum, where you can see the Meat-Shaped Stone (a piece of jasper that seriously looks just like a piece of pork belly) and the Jade Cabbage (a piece of nephrite carved into a napa cabbage). But when I got there, the stone exhibit was dim and crowded, the Jade Cabbage was replaced by a sign that declared it out on loan, and it turns out I was much more interested in the Museum's library-bookshops anyway. With many titles published by the Museum press itself, I found many beautiful, full-colour examples of arts and analysis by East Asian art scholars that had otherwise been impossible for me to find on North American museum databases.
The photo above is from the enclosed garden at the National Palace Museum, looking a bit bleak in mid-February, but nonetheless beautifully maintained and a true sensory experience (along with birdsong and a faint fragrance of flowers on the breeze).
Bird and Flower Painting
Of all the garden arts, bird-and-flower-painting, 花鳥畫 (fa-niu-wa), is one of the most well-known and easily enjoyed. What's not to appreciate about a beautiful little creature having a beautiful little day? At the Museum bookshop, I found an incredible catalogue of bird-and-flower arts, complete with a photographic index on the specific species of birds depicted. I had looked at similar works for the making of the Persimmon Tree, but never in such rich detail. These bird-and-flower arts are built upon on old Buddhist and Taoist ideas of harmony and interconnectedness; the idea is to express the sense of balance and co-flourishing between the rich and seasonal variety of birds, fruit, and flowers.
The Art of Gardens
Beyond bird-and-flower arts, there are more broadly two forms of garden studies in classical Chinese art.
There is the design or architecture of the garden experience itself, where each walk is meant to reveal new scenes, unfolding as in a scroll painting. Set apart by architectural elements - flower-shaped windows, moon-shaped doors - these views were complete with the strategically placed sounds and scents. The effect was meant to be poetic and refreshing to those looking for a retreat from the mundane:
[...] take care of the orchid shoots, and they will send their fragrance into your retreat. Roll up your blinds and greet the swallows who slice through the light breeze like shears. Everywhere float drifting petals and the drowsy threads of willows. [...] Your thoughts will travel beyond the confines of this world of dust, and you will feel as though you were wandering through a painting.
(The Craft of Gardens, Ji Cheng)
Then, there is the artistic interpretation of the poetic garden. Most often practiced by literati-artists who were themselves scholars, poets, and painters, garden arts such as bird-and-flower painting, landscape painting, and court paintings were created as a means to capture those moments of peace - to miniaturize and preserve the peace and prosperous conditions represented by a garden in good health.
Gorgeous paintings of the imperial gardens do more than reveal the floral and botanical arts or the recreational activities of the periods in which they were created. The plants in these paintings were portrayed coming into bloom in accordance with the orderly unfolding of the seasons, so as to represent a stable climate free from disruptive weather events.
The scenery in the imperial gardens was derived from the ideals the emperors held in their hearts. These gardens were thus akin to miniature representations of an imperial realm blessed with clement weather, timely rains, and widespread peace.
(The Emperors' Moving Gardens, National Palace Museum)
A Garden of One's Own
To me, the art of the garden is most simply, a sense of appreciation for this world that we have. They are miniature portraits of earth its best; beautifully cared for, with all participants - flora, fauna, humans, and landscape - healthy and content in coexistence. In the garden, we practice care and wonder, we witness change and grief; it is an art form which moves and unites us with the simplicity of what is already here. The classical Chinese garden may be thousands of years old, but its poetry still finds us all the time. Together among the birds and the flowers, we feel more human again.
So that's what all of this is - that's the idea behind my work! Each piece is a part of this garden, an imagination of peacefulness from my heart. Whether you wish to wear these garden arts - to carry with you a tiny ecosystem of your own - or simply enjoy viewing them as I do with my books and research, I hope they give you pause and peace throughout a day that might otherwise be missing those moments. In the meantime, I will continue to make things that make us feel calm, connected, and hopeful - thanks for being on this journey with me :)
Natalie 🤍