The following is a summary and critical evaluation of the arguments presented in the first and fifth chapters of Pamela Asquith’s book Japanese Images of Nature: Cultural Perspectives. Chapter 1 analyzes the Japanese ideals and illusions in regards to their perceptions of nature, and chapter 5 reflects on how Japanese gardens are a microcosm of Japan’s view of the world.
The author’s primary purpose for this volume was to address the seemingly paradoxical fact that the Japanese have historically shown great love for and intimacy with nature, and yet have recently demonstrated a significant degradation of the environment both domestically and abroad (Asquith 2004, 1). He first begins by clarifying the misconception that human dominance of nature is a distinctly modern phenomenon. Even though nature has always been an integral part of Japanese society and religion because it housed the divine for Shintōism and contained the truth for Buddhism, the Japanese have always exerted both a destructive and constructive power over their surrounding landscape (Asquith 2004, 2-6). Asquith quotes numerous different opinions that could explain why this occurred, and it all boils down to the truth of how the Japanese truly perceived nature. The western and eastern worlds have significantly different ideas of what they mean when they say “nature”. The western world typically means the collection of all aspects of Earth that are not derived from man, whereas the eastern world has words for nature that are understood as referring more to the fluidity of the world (Asquith 2004, 11). In the author’s words, nature was “not regarded as something absolute but as situational or contextual” (Asquith 2004, 11). Therefore, the Japanese wouldn’t have seen landscaping or mining for resources as the destruction of nature, but rather the essence of nature itself.
He goes on to relate this to the Japanese practice of constructing gardens. Whereas the western eye tends to label the Japanese as “living in harmony with nature” in contrast to their own idea that the west controls nature, Japanese people actually tended to interact with a fundamentally controlled version of nature: their gardens (Asquith 2004, 15). The harmony described here was actually more so realized in the creation of gardens than in the randomness of nature itself. Therefore, there is no hypocrisy in being in harmony with nature and in controlling nature because there was a flaw with how harmony was understood to begin with.
Asquith’s argument is convincing because it is consistent with what has been presented in Marc Peter Keane’s book Japanese Garden Design. Asquith’s reasoning best parallels with how Keane describes the design and creation of tea gardens. From the untrained eye, it would appear that tea gardens reflect the chaos of nature through arbitrary path design and the random placement of plants along it. Similarly, the tea house, since it is created from natural materials such as logs and thatch, would seem to evoke naturalistic harmony, however, this is far from the case. The final design may seem simple or random, but the means of achieving such an aesthetic require a broad and strict ruleset. The Japanese word sō describes this intentional design that “uses materials in their natural state” but this information alone gives a false impression of the Japanese ideology (Keane 2016, 77). Sure, natural elements were used in the construction of tea houses and tea gardens, but their placement and processing were both deliberate and extensive. Asquith’s argument is strengthened by this evidence because it suggests that the Japanese conception of harmony with nature was in man’s intentionality and control over nature rather than just the notion of empathizing with the randomness of the universe. Asquith’s point is crucial for truly understanding Japanese garden design. Gardens do not reflect nature–in the western sense of the word–rather, they reflect man’s conception of nature: the balance that exists in the world that can only be shown through the meticulous placement of stones, streams, and plants.
Asquith, Pamela J., and Arne Kalland. Japanese Images of Nature: Cultural Perspectives. RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. Keane, Marc Peter. Japanese Garden Design. Tuttle Publishing, 2016.