Asia China The earliest recorded Chinese gardens were created in the valley of the
Yellow River, during the
Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BC). These gardens were large, enclosed parks where the kings and nobles hunted game, or where fruit and vegetables were grown. Early inscriptions from this period, carved on tortoise shells, have three Chinese characters for garden,
yòu (囿),
pǔ (圃) and
yuán (園).
Yòu was a royal garden where birds and animals were kept, while
pǔ was a garden for plants. During the
Qin dynasty (221–206 BC),
yuán became the character for all gardens. The old character for
yuán is a small picture of a garden; it is enclosed in a square which can represent a wall, and has symbols which can represent the plan of a structure, a small square which can represent a pond, and a symbol for a plantation or a pomegranate tree. A famous royal garden of the late Shang dynasty was the
Terrace, Pond and Park of the Spirit (
Lingtai, Lingzhao Lingyou) built by
King Wenwang west of his capital city,
Yin. The park was described in the
Classic of Poetry this way: Another early royal garden was
Shaqui, or the
Dunes of Sand, built by the last Shang ruler,
King Zhou (1675–1029 BC). It was composed of an earth terrace, or
tai, which served as an observation platform in the center of a large square park. It was described in one of the early classics of Chinese literature, the
Records of the Grand Historian (
Shiji). According to the
Shiji, one of the most famous features of this garden was the
Wine Pool and Meat Forest (酒池肉林). A large pool, big enough for several small boats, was constructed on the palace grounds, with inner linings of polished oval shaped stones from the seashore. The pool was then subsequently filled with wine. A small island was constructed in the middle of the pool, where trees were planted, which had skewers of roasted meat hanging from their branches. King Zhou and his friends and concubines drifted in their boats, drinking the wine with their hands and eating the roasted meat from the trees. Later Chinese philosophers and historians cited this garden as an example of decadence and bad taste. During the
Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC), in 535 BC, the
Terrace of Shanghua, with lavishly decorated palaces, was built by
King Jing of the
Zhou dynasty. In 505 BC, an even more elaborate garden, the
Terrace of Gusu, was begun. It was located on the side of a mountain, and included a series of terraces connected by galleries, along with a lake where boats in the form of blue dragons navigated. From the highest terrace, a view extended as far as
Lake Tai, the Great Lake.
India Manasollasa is a twelfth century
Sanskrit text that offers details on garden design and a variety of other subjects. Both public parks and woodland gardens are described, with about 40 types of trees recommended for the park in the
Vana-krida chapter.
Japan at the
Saihō-ji temple in
Kyoto, started in 1339. The earliest recorded Japanese gardens were the
pleasure gardens of the Emperors and nobles. They were mentioned in several brief passages of the , the first chronicle of Japanese history, published in 720 CE. In spring 74 CE, the chronicle recorded: "The
Emperor Keikō put a few carp into a pond, and rejoiced to see them morning and evening". The following year, "The Emperor launched a double-hulled boat in the pond of Ijishi at Ihare, and went aboard with his imperial concubine, and they feasted sumptuously together". In 486, the chronicle recorded that "The
Emperor Kenzō went into the garden and feasted at the edge of a winding stream".
Korea Korean gardens are a type of garden described as being natural, informal, simple and unforced, seeking to merge with the natural world. They have a history that goes back more than two thousand years, but are little known in the west. The oldest records date to the
Three Kingdoms period (57 BC – 668 AD) when architecture and palace gardens showed a development noted in the Korean
History of the Three Kingdoms.
Europe in
Pompeii.
Gardening was not recognized as an art form in Europe until the mid 16th century when it entered the political discourse, as a symbol of the concept of the "ideal republic". Evoking utopian imagery of the
Garden of Eden, a time of abundance and plenty where humans didn't know hunger or the conflicts that arose from property disputes.
John Evelyn wrote in the early 17th century, "there is not a more laborious life then is that of a good Gard'ners; but a labour full of tranquility and satisfaction; Natural and Instructive, and such as (if any) contributes to Piety and Contemplation." During the era of
Enclosures, the agrarian collectivism of the
feudal age was idealized in literary "fantasies of liberating regression to garden and wilderness".
France Following his campaign in Italy in 1495, where he saw the gardens and castles of Naples, King
Charles VIII brought Italian craftsmen and
garden designers, such as
Pacello da Mercogliano, from Naples and ordered the construction of Italian-style gardens at his residence at the
Château d'Amboise and at Château Gaillard, another private résidence in Amboise. His successor
Henry II, who had also travelled to Italy and had met
Leonardo da Vinci, created an Italian garden nearby at the
Château de Blois. Beginning in 1528, King
Francis I created new gardens at the
Château de Fontainebleau, which featured fountains, parterres, a forest of pine trees brought from
Provence, and the first artificial grotto in France. The
Château de Chenonceau had two gardens in the new style, one created for
Diane de Poitiers in 1551, and a second for
Catherine de' Medici in 1560. In 1536, the architect
Philibert de l'Orme, upon his return from Rome, created the gardens of the
Château d'Anet following the Italian rules of proportion. The carefully prepared harmony of Anet, with its parterres and surfaces of water integrated with sections of greenery, became one of the earliest and most influential examples of the classic French garden. The
French formal garden () contrasted with the design principles of the English landscape garden () namely, to "force nature" instead of leaving it undisturbed. Typical French formal gardens had "parterres, geometrical shapes and neatly clipped topiary", in contrast to the English style of garden in which "plants and shrubs seem to grow naturally without artifice." By the mid-17th century
axial symmetry had ascended to prominence in the French gardening traditions of
Andre Mollet and
Jacques Boyceau, from which the latter wrote: "All things, however beautiful they may be chosen, will be defective if they are not ordered and placed in proper symmetry." The
French landscape garden was influenced by the English landscape garden and gained prominence in the late eighteenth century. Jacobean gardens were described as "a delightful confusion" by
Henry Wotton in 1624. Under the influence of the
Italian Renaissance, Caroline gardens began to shed some of the chaos of earlier designs, marking the beginning of a trends towards symmetrical unified designs that took the building architecture into account, and featuring an elevated terrace from which home and garden could be viewed. The only surviving Caroline garden is located at
Bolsover Castle in
Derbyshire, but is too simple to attract much interest. During the reign of
Charles II, many new
Baroque style country houses were built; while in England Oliver Cromwell sought to destroy many Tudor, Jacobean and Caroline style Gardens. ==Design==