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 that looks, as you guessed it, JUST LIKE 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 I ended up wandering out of that place into the beautiful and far more refreshing atmosphere of the Museum's reference-library-slash-bookshop. With many titles published by the Museum press itself, I was beyond excited to discover full-colour, natively-translated examples of East Asian arts and analysis; resources that I had long been searching for, but had otherwise been impossible for me to locate among English-language references.
The photo above is from the enclosed garden at the National Palace Museum. It looks a bit bleak in mid-February (my favourite time to travel is the off-season); nonetheless it was beautifully maintained and a true sensory experience, complete with artificial birdsong and the 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 wonderful library-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, patiently combing through the digital archives of The Smithsonian and The Met; but never with such rich context; the art paired with both cultural and natural history.
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
Many of these bird-and-flower arts were built upon on old, deeply studied Buddhist and Taoist ideas around harmony and interconnectedness; they are an expression of plant and animal co-flourishing that is not too far from present ecological thought. Here, halfway between the ancient and the solarpunk, I often feel something very simple, and very clear.
This is what we have.
I love the garden because it feels like hope; like what life on earth could be at its best. This is what we have, when we take care of it; with all participants - flora, fauna, humans, and landscape - healthy and content in coexistence.
A sleeping cat and plum blossom scene, encountered three years after my original imagination of the Plum Blossom ring!
So that's what all of this is - that's the idea behind the current collection! 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 that lovely sense of pause and peacefulness each day. 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 :)
Learn more about art jewellery!
- Browse the Gallery for more photographs and one-of-a-kind inspiration.
- Read about my design and craft process in the Studio Journal.
- Connect with me on Instagram for more chitchat and social jewellery fun!