Taniguchi’s Garden
By Mike Cline
 

Isamu Taniguchi calls his garden in Zilker Park "The embodiment of the peaceful coexistence of all elements of nature." This statement refers to the unity of the rocks, trees, fish and other creatures that compose the garden; but perhaps more significantly it refers to coexistence of man with all of these elements. Man is a part of this the unity embodied by the garden.

Western culture has often been obsessed with trying to conquer nature. This makes a great deal of sense for North American society when one considers the history of this culture, whose ancestors came to the vast continent just two or three hundred years ago and spent most of this comparatively recent period of history trying to tame a wild land. They built railroads from shore to shore, conquering the mountains and deserts to bring people and goods to the west, damming the great rivers to bring electricity to the people, and even conquering the indigenous people of this land.

In contrast, the small island of Japan has been populated and tamed by man since ancient times. This being the case, it seems natural for the Japanese to have a very different attitude towards nature. Examining the tradition and philosophy behind Japanese gardening provides us with some insight into these differences.

The opening paragraph of Teiji Ito’s book, The Japanese Garden: an Approach to Nature, explains this difference concisely:

"There are only two attitudes towards nature. One confronts it or one accepts it. The former finds in nature but the rawest materials to do with as one will – a form is imposed upon chaos. The latter discovers in chaos a new kind of naturalness – and to naturalize nature is to accept it." What does Ito mean? How does one "naturalize nature"? The answer to this question will become clearer as I contrast the Eastern and Western approaches to gardening. In the typical western garden, Ito says, "...trees are ordered, paths are straightened, and a visible form is imposed. A person always knows where he is in such a place. He sees it from above, as it were. He will never become lost while taking a stroll because he, the lord of creation, has himself made the garden." Upon reading this passage I was reminded of how I was lost several times walking in Taniguchi’s garden. Although the garden was not terribly large, I spent the first 20 minutes of my visit exploring all the paths, going in circles, and trying to remember where I’d been before. This is contrary to the Western philosophy of gardening that Ito describes.

The order that is imposed on the western style garden represents western man’s confrontation of nature. He sees chaos in nature and tries to impose order upon it. In contrast, the Eastern gardeners believe it is unnatural to insist on a harmony other than the "underlying one naturally revealed in nature", as Ito says. This underlying harmony that Ito speaks of is the uniqueness and individuality of each tree, each rock, and each living thing. A perfect tree is a tree that clearly expresses its uniqueness. To line up trees in a straight row is to rob them of their uniqueness, to impose an unnatural order on nature; and to do this is to insist that man’s order is somehow greater than that of nature. In Eastern gardening, there is no assumption that man is better than nature.

Rather than trying to impose an unnatural order on nature, Japanese gardener acts as an interpreter of nature. He perceives a pattern and works this pattern into the garden. The pattern is unique because it comes from nature.

This philosophy was clearly demonstrated in the Taniguchi Garden. There was such a variety of trees and plants that it would be difficult to find two trees of the same kind next to each other, let alone a straight row of them. The stones that were used were always in their natural form – never broken or cut into a shape that might be more convenient for stacking or tiling. The paths winded to suit the contours of the landscape, rather than cutting straight lines across the garden.

While noticing neatly trimmed and pruned trees and bushes at the Taniguchi Garden I could not help but wonder how this fit into the Eastern philosophy of gardening. Is this not an example of man imposing order on nature? The answer to this question turns out to be the most important lesson of Japanese gardening. Ito says this:

"Ask a Japanese gardener what the secret of gardening is and he will hold up his pruning shears. But this pruning, called sentei, allows a more natural and at the same time, more ideal beauty to emerge. The beauty is there from the first. It is not created, it is merely allowed to express itself in a louder voice and plainer terms" This is what was meant by "naturalizing nature". The gardener believes his pruning and placing results in the "revealing of a line which nature itself created and then obscured in its own plentitude."

In his book, Ito describes seven different types of Japanese gardens, appearing in different eras of Japan’s long history of gardening. The Taniguchi Garden would fall into the most recent category, kaiyu-shiki teien, ("tour garden"). This type of garden, which first came into existence around 1615, is a garden designed to be walked in. This type of garden designed mainly as a place of enjoyment, in contrast to earlier types of gardens, which tended to be designed as places of religious meditation. Ito says that "absolute gardens" (gardens for the sake of themselves) appeared relatively late in Japan’s history. The tour garden is organized around a path, whereas earlier types of gardens were usually organized a building, such as a religious shrine or a tea house.

The path in a tour garden is almost always arranged around a lake or pond, though sometimes there are branch paths that loop out and return. Taniguchi’s garden was consistent with this, focusing the path around the fish pond, but also looping up into higher ground.

A basic gardening technique of the tour garden is mie-gakure ("seen and hidden"). The idea here is to deliberately arrange the sights so that they may not all be seen from the same spot. The goal is to create elements of surprise along the path. Taniguchi seems to have used this technique in building his garden. This is part of what made the garden so interesting – each place I moved to presented my eyes with a unique view that could not be seen from any other vantage point. The beautiful waterfall, hidden behind the veil of the tear-shaped leaves of a Japanese Pitosporum surprised me as I walked along the path through the rocky archway beneath the bridge. The bamboo hut seemed to jump out from nowhere as I approached it from the pond. At a few places where I stopped along the trail I was even surprised by a strongly sweet smell drifting up from some ferns, and wondered if they had been strategically placed there for that effect.

Another technique used in the tour garden is shakkei ("borrowed scenery"). This is where a distant view is borrowed and incorporated into the garden. This seemed to be the concept behind the bamboo hut, which borrowed the view of the distant Austin skyline and incorporated it neatly, making the city seem tranquil and at home within the garden. It is a symbolic way of emphasizing the theme of man’s peaceful coexistence with nature.

Borrowed scenery also includes elements taken from other places, and incorporated into the garden. Taniguchi used a variety of plant species native to Japan in his garden, such as the Japanese Pitosporum that I mentioned, a tree with twisted branches that seemed too weak to hold themselves up. This tree was planted above the waterfall, and it’s branches drooped over a rocky edge and then hung off the small cliff in a way that seemed to mimic the falling water. This is a notable example because no tree native to this area could have provided the same visual effect.

Taniguchi’s garden is a beautiful demonstration of man’s oneness with nature; nature’s unity. His gift for gardening is evident in the way he able to extract the true essence of a tree, a rock, and a view, allowing nature to express itself in it’s own pure and perfect form.

 

Reference:

Ito, Teiji. The Japanese Garden: an Approach to Nature. Yale University Press, 1972.