Gardens of a Chinese Emperor

Gardens of a Chinese Emperor PDF Author: Victoria M. Siu
Publisher: Lehigh University Press
ISBN: 1611461294
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
The Garden of Perfect Brightness (Yuanming Yuan) in the western suburbs of the Quing capital, Beijing, was begun by the great Kangxi (r. 1661-1722) and expanded by his son, Yongzheng (r. 1722-1736) and brought to its greatest glory by his grandson, Qianlong (r. 1736-1796). A lover of literature and art, Qinglong sought an earthly reflection of his greatness in his Yuanming Yuan. For many years he designed and directed an elaborate program of garden arrangements. Representing two generations of painstaking research, this book follows the emperor as he ruled his empire from within his garden. In a landscape of lush plants, artificial mountains and lakes, and colorful buildings, he sought to represent his wealth and power to his diverse subjects and to the world at large. Having been looted and burned in the mid-nineteenth century by western forces, it now lies mostly in ruins, but it was the world’s most elaborate garden in the eighteenth century. The garden suggested a whole set of concepts—religious, philosophical, political, artistic, and popular—represented in landscape and architecture. Just as bonsai portrays a garden in miniature, the imperial Yuanming Yuan at the height of its splendor represented the Qing Empire in microcosm. Includes 62 color plates and 35 black & white photographs.

Gardens of a Chinese Emperor

Gardens of a Chinese Emperor PDF Author: Victoria M. Siu
Publisher: Lehigh University Press
ISBN: 1611461294
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Garden of Perfect Brightness (Yuanming Yuan) in the western suburbs of the Quing capital, Beijing, was begun by the great Kangxi (r. 1661-1722) and expanded by his son, Yongzheng (r. 1722-1736) and brought to its greatest glory by his grandson, Qianlong (r. 1736-1796). A lover of literature and art, Qinglong sought an earthly reflection of his greatness in his Yuanming Yuan. For many years he designed and directed an elaborate program of garden arrangements. Representing two generations of painstaking research, this book follows the emperor as he ruled his empire from within his garden. In a landscape of lush plants, artificial mountains and lakes, and colorful buildings, he sought to represent his wealth and power to his diverse subjects and to the world at large. Having been looted and burned in the mid-nineteenth century by western forces, it now lies mostly in ruins, but it was the world’s most elaborate garden in the eighteenth century. The garden suggested a whole set of concepts—religious, philosophical, political, artistic, and popular—represented in landscape and architecture. Just as bonsai portrays a garden in miniature, the imperial Yuanming Yuan at the height of its splendor represented the Qing Empire in microcosm. Includes 62 color plates and 35 black & white photographs.

The Emperor's Private Paradise

The Emperor's Private Paradise PDF Author: Nancy Zeng Berliner
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This exhibition catalogue offers a magnificent, thorough study of 90 objects from the Qianlong Garden in Beijing's Forbidden City. Objects include wall paintings, furniture, architectural fittings, ceramics, and stone. They have been on public view infrequently and only in the Qianlong Garden, which is now undergoing a 20-year restoration under the lead of the World Monuments Fund and Beijing's Palace Museum. The garden is a two-acre tract consisting of 27 buildings, their contents, and a mature landscape--the whole complex is characterized as a "multi-layered artwork." Following an introduction by Elliott (Harvard), Berliner (Peabody Essex Museum) presents the general characteristics of scholar and emperor gardens, and the early gardens of Emperor Qianlong, along with a minute analysis of the Qianlong Garden. Yuan Hongqi (Palace Museum), Liu Chang (Tsinghua Univ., Beijing), and Henry Tzu Ng (World Monuments Fund) treat the garden's subsequent history. Interlaced throughout are superb illustrations of the objects and the garden, followed by a catalogue with small illustrations of objects, and their curatorial data; a chronology; a comparative, annotated time line; maps; glossary; and Chinese pronunciation guide. This must-buy publication is a model of sensitive scholarship that places the garden and its objects in an understandable, universal context. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. General Readers; Lower-division Undergraduates; Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty; Professionals/Practitioners. Reviewed by D. K. Haworth.

A Particular Account of the Emperor of China's Gardens, Near Pekin

A Particular Account of the Emperor of China's Gardens, Near Pekin PDF Author: Jean-Denis Attiret
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Gardens, Chinese
Languages : en
Pages : 82

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Book Description


Ideas of Chinese Gardens

Ideas of Chinese Gardens PDF Author: Bianca Maria Rinaldi
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812247639
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
An annotated collection of essential texts written by European observers from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries, Ideas of Chinese Gardens chronicles the evolution of Western perceptions of gardens of China, from curiosity to admiration and ultimately to rejection, echoing the changes in European attitudes toward China.

Garden History

Garden History PDF Author: Gordon Campbell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191004189
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
Gardens take many forms, and have a variety of functions. They can serve as spaces of peace and tranquilty, a way to cultivate wildlife, or as places to develop agricultural resources. Globally, gardens have inspired, comforted, and sustained people from all walks of life, and since the Garden of Eden many iconic gardens have inspired great artists, poets, musicians, and writers. In this Very Short Introduction, Gordon Campbell embraces gardens in all their splendour, from parks, and fruit and vegetable gardens to ornamental gardens, and takes the reader on a globe-trotting historical journey through iconic and cultural signposts of gardens from different regions and traditions. Ranging from the gardens of ancient Persia to modern day allotments, he concludes by looking to the future of the garden in the age of global warming, and the adaptive spirit of human innovation. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Emperor Huizong

Emperor Huizong PDF Author: Patricia Buckley Ebrey
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674727681
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
China was the most advanced country in the world when Huizong ascended the throne in 1100 CE. In his eventful twenty-six year reign, the artistically-gifted emperor guided the Song Dynasty toward cultural greatness. Yet Huizong would be known to posterity as a political failure who lost the throne to Jurchen invaders and died their prisoner. The first comprehensive English-language biography of this important monarch, Emperor Huizong is a nuanced portrait that corrects the prevailing view of Huizong as decadent and negligent. Patricia Ebrey recasts him as a ruler genuinely ambitious—if too much so—in pursuing glory for his flourishing realm. After a rocky start trying to overcome political animosities at court, Huizong turned his attention to the good he could do. He greatly expanded the court’s charitable ventures, founding schools, hospitals, orphanages, and paupers’ cemeteries. An accomplished artist, he surrounded himself with outstanding poets, painters, and musicians and built palaces, temples, and gardens of unsurpassed splendor. What is often overlooked, Ebrey points out, is the importance of religious Daoism in Huizong’s understanding of his role. He treated Daoist spiritual masters with great deference, wrote scriptural commentaries, and urged his subjects to adopt his beliefs and practices. This devotion to the Daoist vision of sacred kingship eventually alienated the Confucian mainstream and compromised his ability to govern. Readers will welcome this lively biography, which adds new dimensions to our understanding of a passionate and paradoxical ruler who, so many centuries later, continues to inspire both admiration and disapproval.

Emperor of China: Self-portrait of K'ang-Hsi

Emperor of China: Self-portrait of K'ang-Hsi PDF Author: Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307823067
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
A remarkable re-creation of the life of K'ang-hsi, emperor of the Manchu dynasty from 1661-1772, assembled from documents that survived his reign. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.

A Jesuit Garden in Beijing and Early Modern Chinese Culture

A Jesuit Garden in Beijing and Early Modern Chinese Culture PDF Author: Hui Zou
Publisher: Purdue University Press
ISBN: 1557535833
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
In this volume, Hui Zou analyzes historical, architectural, visual, literary, and philosophical perspectives on the Western-styled garden that formed part of the great Yuanming Yuan complex in Beijing, constructed during the Qing dynasty. Designed and built in the late eighteenth century by Italian and French Jesuits, the garden described in this book was a wonderland of multistoried buildings, fountains, labyrinths, and geometrical hills. It even included an open-air theater. Through detailed examination of historical literature and representations, Zou analyzes the ways in which the Jesuits accommodated their design within the Chinese cultural context. He shows how an especially important element of their approach was the application of a linear perspective--the "line-method"--to create the jing, the Chinese concept of the bounded bright view of a garden scene. Hui Zou's book demonstrates how Jesuit metaphysics fused with Chinese cosmology and broadens our understanding of cultural and religious encounters in early Chinese modernity. It presents an intriguing reflection on the interaction between Western metaphysics and the poetical tradition of Chinese culture. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students in a variety of fields, including literature, philosophy, architecture, landscape and urban studies, and East-West comparative cultural studies.

The Chinese Garden

The Chinese Garden PDF Author: Maggie Keswick
Publisher: Frances Lincoln Limited
ISBN: 9780711220317
Category : Gardens
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
An exploration of the meanings and cultural forces that lie behind Chinese gardens. Maggie Keswick traces the Chinese garden back to its origins, and explains its influence on, and how it was influenced by, philosophy, art, architecture and literature. This edition is revised and re-illustrated.

A Particular Account of the Emperor of China's Gardens Near Pekin: in a Letter from F. Attiret, a French Missionary, Now Employ'd by that Emperor to Paint the Apartments in Those Gardens, to His Friend at Paris. Translated from the French by Sir Harry Beaumont

A Particular Account of the Emperor of China's Gardens Near Pekin: in a Letter from F. Attiret, a French Missionary, Now Employ'd by that Emperor to Paint the Apartments in Those Gardens, to His Friend at Paris. Translated from the French by Sir Harry Beaumont PDF Author: Jean Denis Attiret
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description