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在图书馆偶尔发现的一本1940年阮勉初（中国艺术品收藏家，美籍）集的Chinese Houses and Gardens里面有两篇童寯先生的文章，一篇关于中国建筑的外国影响，另一篇关于中外园林
现录原文并附自己理解于下

Chinese Gardens: Contrasts; Designs
Article by Tong Jun.

1. Chinese and Western Gardens Contrasted

A French poet once declared, ” J’aime fort les jardins qui sentient le sauvage.” This just hits upon the difference between Western and Chinese gradens, the latter being entirely devoid of the jungle atmosphere. The Chinese garden is primarily not a single wide open space, but is divided into corridors and courts, in which buildings, and not plant life, dominate. But garden architecture in China is so delightfully informal and playful that even without flowers and trees it would still make a garden. This is especially true of the Japanese Garden, which is modeled after the Chinese. In the Ryoan-ji Garden, Kyoto, there is absolutely no plant life, only stone and sand being employed. Its saving grace lies in the thick grove immediately surrounding it. On the other hand, Western gardens consist much more of landscape than of architecture. (Sir William Chambers called them cities of verdure.) The buildings, if any, stand in solitary splendor. Foliage, flowers and fountains are more akin to one another than to the buildings, in spite of the effort to arrange them architecturally, even to the extent of laying them out symmetrically and axially.

先讲中外园林的比较， 法国诗人说”我最喜欢有野趣的园林了”。童先生说正好讲到了中西园林的不同了。中国园林不是大的开敞空间，而是有廊子有院子，园林里的房子是主体，而花草却不是。园林里的房子很随意就算没花没草还能形成园林。那些学我们的日本园林可以证明这一点。龙安寺里根本就没有花草只有石头沙子，四周围有一圈树林围绕。西方园林就不同了，树木花草比建筑的成分要大。建筑都是宏伟孤立，树木花草喷泉很难和建筑配合尽管整体是对称或轴线布置。

The first European who seriously studied Chinese gardens was Sir William Chambers who, in his Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, tried to prove the superiority of Chinese Garden. He had the good fortune of coming to China during the reign of the Manchu Emperor Kao Tsung (Ch’ien-lung, 1736-1796), the golden age of the art of Chinese gardening. It is, however, futile to debate upon the relative merits of Chinese and European gardens. So long as each is harmonious with the art, philosophy, and the life of its respective world, each is as great as the other.

第一个认真学习中国园林的外国人叫Sir William Chambers，他的书中试图说明中国园林的奥秘。清乾隆来过中国正值中国园林艺术鼎盛时期。最后结论是中国园林和西方园林都不错。都是和自己的艺术，哲学和生活和谐统一的。

Standing halfway between the East and West is the Alhambra of Granada. Here one finds a series of courts very similar to those in a Chinese garden, while verdure and water are laid out geometrically and axially in European style. Although symmetry is strongly evident, it has nevertheless none of the rigidity and monotony of Western gardens.

东西园林之间的是the Alhambra of Granada。 这里的一系列院子很像中国园林园林里的院子，可是花草水池都是欧洲式的几何和轴线构图。虽然非常对称可是看不出西方园林的僵硬。

Roman gardens, inspiring the whole of Europe and America, excel especially in terracing and exuberant vegetation provided generously by topography and climate. Parterres, marbles, staircases and cascades are arranged in strong formality. Tall cypresses stand in formidable rows. But with all its axes and repetitions, the Italian garden, by virtue of its successive terraces, does achieve one object— to surprise, which is one of the reasons for which the Chinese garden exists. Entering Villa d’Este at Tivoli, one encounters full corridors and gloomy halls until one suddenly comes upon that superb view which is incomparable. In almost all Chinese Gardens the visitor has a similar experience. But instead of a panorama he sees a mere fraction of the whole enchantment, only to be surprised again and again as he wanders on. Terraces in Roman villas, while leading to one elevation after another, have similar spaces, but not different worlds. This element of surprise is completely absent from gardens on a flat ground, such as those in France, for instance, where monotony is heightened by an increase in size.

罗马的园林乃欧洲美洲园林之祖，尤其是地势和气候所给与梯形格局和富饶的植被尤为精彩。花坛，大理石，阶梯都形势感极强。松柏庄严的排成行。所以说意大利的园林的这些特点确实成功的给人惊喜地印象。进入Villa d’Este at Tivoli先是廊子和阴暗的大厅，然后突然间奇妙的景象映入眼帘。中国园林也是如此。观者不是一览无余而是片断的惊喜接踵而至。罗马房子的平台虽也类似却完全丧失了这些惊喜。

The Chinese garden is never meant to be monumental. The art of gardening in China is an intimate, human and sophisticated thing, and Chinese gardens seldom have that awe-inspiring but desolate spectacle one usually finds in Western gardens. Even when on a palatial scale a Chinese garden does not lose that intimate quality. On the other hand, Versailles is only saved from looking like a wild desert on crowded Sundays. Symmetry, while observed in monumental and even domestic architecture, is completely disregarded in the lay-out of a Chinese garden, where relaxation, and not reason, rules. This, of course, does not apply to individual buildings themselves in the garden. In all Western gardens, symmetry is indeed carried to such silly extremes that, as Le Notre observed, only the nurse on the second floor could appreciate it from the window. But even Le Notre himself could not entirely break away from its fetters.

中国园林从不宏伟。园林艺术很亲密人性精细，没有宏伟的有些孤立的西方园林的感觉。即便是皇家园林也不失这种亲密感。然而凡尔赛只有在拥挤的礼拜日才不感到荒凉。皇家和平民建筑中的对称在园林里根本就没有。享受才是园林的规则。西方园林则把对称发挥到一种愚蠢的程度。Le Notre虽然对此提出批评自己却无法摆开其束缚。

The Chinese garden is not built as a playground for a multitude of people. Problems of circulation, which in Western gardens are admirably solved by axes and crossroads, are no problems when men wander in the garden, and not walk through it. The long corridors, narrow doorways and curved parts in a Chinese garden are not meant for a crowd. The stairs, bridges, and rockery are never designed to please children. It is not a place for recreation. It is essentially for contemplation and solitude.

中国园林不是给许多人设计的。西方园林里轴线和交叉路解决了人流的问题，在中国园林里这根本就不是问题，因为人们不是想通过而是想游憩。长长的廊子，窄窄的洞门还有弯曲的部分都不是为人流设计的。阶梯，小桥还有湖石都不是为了讨好孩子的。它们是用来沉思和冥想的。

Although the Chinese garden is a product of sophisticated art, the plant life in it is usually free from any appearance of artifice. Here you find neither trimmed hedges in straight lines, nor flowers arranged in geometric patterns. Whatever it fantasies the European landscape architect lavishes upon plants, the Chinese reserves for his garden buildings. Nature is let alone, and yet the Chinese garden never appears botanical. Most conspicuous is the absence of the mown and bordered lawn, which, though attractive to the cow, has but little appeal to the human intellect. The planting of majestic cypresses to make an avenue, the clipping of boxwood to shapes like birds and animals, the control of water to jet forth to a certain height, all these seem to be, to borrow a phrase from Wilde, ” two touches of Nature.” But in spite of these “touches”, the western garden never succeeds in ridding itself of the book of a wilderness.

尽管中国的园林艺术是精细的，但植物通常都没有人工加工的痕迹。你找不到裁减的笔直的树篱，也找不到几何图案的花丛。 欧洲景观建筑师对植物的滥用，中国建筑师都给了园林里的房子。 自然不经修饰，最突出的特点就是没有草坪。（这里童先生开了个玩笑，虽然草坪很吸引奶牛可是对园林里的人影响不大，哈哈）宏伟的柏树的林荫大道，黄杨的裁减成形，喷泉，所有这些都太折腾自然了。尽管这样，西方园林都没有摆脱荒凉的景象。

The aim of the Chinese garden is ” to charm, to delight and to give pleasure,” and illustrates what may be called the art of deception. I would not go so far as to say that the visitor knows perfectly well he is deceived. The question of reality does not bother him, as soon as he ceases to be in the garden, and begins to live in the picture. Worlds open out to him; verses and inscriptions carry away his imagination; vistas tempt his curiosity. Every object, in fact, is just as it should appear in a painting. A Chinese garden is indeed a landscape painting in three dimensions, but like Chinese painting, it is subjective.

中国造园的目的是陶醉与欣喜，基本上是智慧的艺术。我不想说参观者最知道其中的奥秘。 现实的烦恼不打扰他的身心，一旦他不想在园子里他就生活在图画里。 诗词碑赋把他的想象带走，迷人的景色使他好奇。 每个元素就想应该出现在画中的元素。 中国园林其实就是一个3D的国画。和中国画一样是主观表现的。

For one who has seen both Western and Chinese gardens, their effect on the emotions is quite opposite. Who leaves Frascati and Tivoli but must be inspired by the vitality, splendor, and monumentality of those Italian gardens. The Chinese garden does not awe the visitor. It embraces him in its soft charms and intricacies. After the gate is closed behind him, he wakes up from a pleasant dream.

中国园林和西方园林给人的感受是不同的。 离开Frascati and Tivoli 你一定对意大利的园林有活力宏伟庄严的感觉。 中国园林并不想吓倒你，它让你感到舒适与杂乱。 门一关你觉得你从美梦中醒来。

Gardens in Japan, though of Chinese parentage, have more conventions and less complexity in lay-out than the Chinese. The Japanese gardener rarely employs a piece of rock without an eye to its symbolic meaning. He even goes so far as to fashion cascades and pools without using water. Plants are sometimes dwarfed or clipped. But on the whole, the Japanese garden, although it manages to have closed-in vistas, is very much open; and unlike its Chinese prototype, it is not cut up into a maze of courts and corridors. In fact, the Japanese garden resembles the Western in looking like the “forest primeval,” — with this difference, that the Japanese attach to it a mystic significance and have succeeded in it to reduce the Universe into a miniature world.

日本园林，虽然源于中国，布局的习俗化大于复杂化。 日本园林设计者对石头的选择都要看它的符号化意义。甚至用它模仿泉水的瀑布与池塘，植物和矮小或干脆省略。 整体看来日本园林还是很开敞的。不像中国园林那样分成若干的区和院廊。实际上，日本园林体现了西方园林的”原始森林”的想法，区别是日本园林给与了其神秘象征意义。把宇宙融于一个缩小的世界。

2．The Design of Chinese Gardens

The horticulturist has no place in designing a Chinese garden. Neither has the “landscape architect” ( a term of purely Western invention), who is concerned with much landscape but little architecture. The poet, the scholar and the monk have in the past shared equal honors in this branch of Chinese art; but above all, to be a good garden-architect one must be a great painter.

园艺家不能设计中国园林，景观建筑师（纯西方的词汇）也不行，因为他考虑景观大于建筑。诗人，学者还有和尚过去都把园林做的不错。但是总的来说，想成为一个好的园林建筑师，就必须先成为一个好的画家。

Chinese garden-design is primarily a branch of pictorial art. It has neither reason, logic, nor formula. (Not so with the Japanese, who classify gardens into the formal and the informal, which are again divided into the hilly and the flat.) No explanation, for instance, could be offered for paths, verandahs, and bridges planned in zigzag fashion, except that they are picturesque. This oftentimes gives a rococo look to a Chinese garden. But it is also responsible for the exquisite wall tracery and window grills, fantastic doorways and kaleidoscopic pavement patterns. In this respect, the Japanese garden, in its sylvan simplicity, stands in sharp contrast. (Oswald Spengler, in his The Decline of the West, identifies the mazy path in Chinese gardens with tao. But tao in the classics means straightforwardness, or as Confucius said, “acting straight.”)

中国园林基本上是图像艺术的一个分支。它没有原因，没有逻辑也没有公式。（日本园林可不是，他们有正式的和非正式的之分，非正式的又分为山形和平坦状） 小径，廊子，和桥的之字形的排列根本无理可依，唯一能解释的说法就是画理。这总是给中国园林一种过分修饰的感觉。但同时又使人欣赏到精美的漏窗和隔扇， 优雅的门洞，还有那五花八门的铺地。这些都和日本园林枯山水的简单形成鲜明的对比。（Oswald Spengler, 在书中曾说中国园林里的小径是受道教影响的，可是道教古意是说笔直的，（所行道也，一达之谓道），又或者像孔夫子说的，”坦诚”）

The Chinese garden is usually enclosed in high walls. Its different courts, too, are divided by walls sometimes with porches running along one or both sides. Except where sloping ground does not permit, the wall is vitally necessary for isolating the garden from the rest of the world. In most cases the blank surface of the wall is relieved by a series of traceries, patterned with thin brick or title, and white-washed. The beauty of the tracery is greatly enhanced by its depth, which, when light plays on it, presents the most sparkling spectacle. The same tracery may look entirely different under light coming from different angles. The variety of tracery design has no limit. In the same garden one seldom finds it repeated.

中国园林通常高墙环绕。不同的院子之间也是被墙隔断或许有走廊在墙的一边或两边。除非坡度太大，墙总是把园林和周围的世界分开。 多数情况白墙上有漏窗薄薄的砖组成不同的图案。 当阳光打在漏窗之上美丽的光影十分迷人。 当光从不同的方向打来，漏窗会完全呈现不一样的样子。漏窗设计不拘一格。一个园子很难找到相同的漏窗。

The garden wall in South China is invariably white-washed. (In the North the garden wall is usually built of rubble stone.) It lends itself admirably to bamboo shadows thrown on it by sunlight or moonlight. White, with green foliage and black roof-tiles and wood-work, forms one of the dominating colors in the Chinese garden. The top of the wall is usually undulated, and relieved of its heaviness by tile-tracery. This idea is sometimes carried too far when head and tail are added to make it look like a dragon.

南方园林的墙都是白色。（北方园林的墙通常是碎石所做）这就给日光或月光的竹影提供了场所。白墙，绿竹，黑瓦还有木作形成了中国园林里的主色。墙顶一般是波浪状，有了瓦片显得轻巧了许多。 这种想法有时做的有些过分，加上头尾做的像个龙。（批评豫园呢）

The wall is seldom straight. Winding and creeping, it may terminate either in a pavilion or a hill. It can stop gracefully in curves or further continue itself with a screen of rockery.

墙很少笔直。（啊？我怎么觉得墙都挺直的啊？） 缠绕蔓延，它或许停在亭子里或者上上。 它又或者弯曲或者在湖石的掩映下继续。

Since the Chinese garden is not a showy art, it depends largely upon the wall to conceal its beauty, beckoning the wanderer on with a glimpse through the doorway or the grille. In the blank wall there also lies a religious significance. ( Bodhidharma, the first Zen priest, sat facing a stone wall for nine years.) To the Zen Buddhist it means the end, the ultimate. The entire garden is a retreat for meditation. The Japanese garden, in this respect, has many religious conventions derived from Zen philosophy.

既然中国园林很内敛，墙的隔断很大程度上起了作用，从门洞或窗格时不时出现诱人的景致。白墙同时也具有宗教的重要性。（菩提达摩，中国佛教禅宗之祖，曾对着一面石墙坐了九年）禅宗认为这就是终结。整个园林就是沉思的空间。日本园林，在这方面的宗教习俗都源于禅宗。

Doorways and window grilles are designed in various ways and are characteristic of the Chinese garden. The doorway is shaped like a moon, a vase or a flower petal. No picture-frame is more attractive than one of these doorways through which a vista arrests the eye. Window grilles, the closeness of whose pattern is necessitated by the rather small size of the translucent sea-shells that serve as panes, assume innumerable forms. The best designs, however, are those strong and simple forms which exclude intricacy.

门洞和窗格设计的多种多样是中国园林的特征。门洞有的像月亮有的像花瓶还有的像花瓣。没有什么别的取景框能比这样的门洞更能表现景物的生动。 窗格子的变化有无数的形式，最小的像是半透明的贝壳。（这句翻得不好）最好的设计是震撼性的简单的形式而非复杂繁琐。

The pavement in Chinese garden design is made doubly interesting by the employment of insignificant, or even waste, material. Chips of stone, broken tiles, pebbles and fragments of porcelain could make mosaics inexhaustible in pattern and color. Usually the design is symmetrical, in the form of combinations of polygons or quatrefoils. Of the asymmetrical forms the most common is the “broken-ice” pattern. It is, however, to border on vulgarity to make such realistic designs as fish, deer, lotus or crane.

中国园林的铺地由于使用的是无关紧要的甚至无用的材料而使其更加有趣。 石头片，碎瓦，鹅卵石，碎瓷片都可以使图案形式上色彩上千变万化。 通常设计是对称的，多边形或四页花形的组合。 最普通的形式是”冰裂纹”图案。几乎粗鲁的制作如鱼，鹿，荷花或鹤的图案。

Another unique feature is the rockery, on which half of the charm of Chinese gardens usually depends. Nowhere in the world is there such a crazy for artificial hills. It is true that in the Western garden one often finds rocks and grottos, and in the Japanese garden, rock-hills and sometimes “suti-ishi” which means random stones. But in all these cases the stone suffers no hydraulic transformation. Even in the Ryoan-ji Garden, Kyoto, where fifteen pieces of rock symbolizing tigers and cubs are to be seen, the stones look no less natural than those in the mountains. Chinese rockery, on the other hand, is in most cases composed of that kind of limestone which drives its fantastic shape through the action of water. Lake rock, as it is usually called (confined to T’ai Hu Lake alone), is quarried from the bottom of lakes where after centuries of washing and scouring it becomes porous, spare, and grotesque. Stones in other regions are also employed. One seldom enters a Chinese garden without seeing rockery, either in the form of peaks, embankments, hills or grottos. Sometimes the rock-hill dominates the entire garden.

中国园林另外的一个特征是石。 它占中国园林一半的迷人之处。世界上没有别的地方这样为人造山如此痴迷。不错在西方园林有岩石洞穴，日本园林有石山但所有这些石头都没有经受水的考验。即使在龙安寺里，15个石头象征老虎与幼兽， 石头和山里的没什么区别。中国的石头则不同，石头是水作用过的石灰石所成。湖石，（太湖石）是从几百年冲刷得湖底采集而出，它们多孔，高瘦，奇形怪状。 也有从别的地方采的石头。 人进入园林必然会看到山石，不是山峰，就是堤岸，小山要不就是洞穴。有时石山成为园林的主题。

Chinese artists are passionately in love with rockery, not only on account of its attractive form, but also because stone in general has that quality of unchangeable solidity which the human character too often lacks. Many celebrated individuals throughout Chinese history are known to be devoted to, or even to worship, rockery. The famous calligraphist and painter Mi Fei of the Sung Dynasty went to the extent of hailing one stone as his “big brother.” Another Yuan painter, Ko Chiu-ssu, paid homage to a strange looking rock. This rock now stands in the garden called the “Half-Cocoon” at Quinsan, Kiangsu Province. When stone is endowed with personality, one can find it delightful company.

中国的艺术家十分热爱石头。不仅因为其吸引人的形，而且因为石头那种一成不变的人所无有的品质。中国历史上许多的名人都收藏石头或者崇拜石头。著名的宋朝书法家画家米芾甚至和一块石头称兄道弟。另一位元代画家柯九思更是对一块奇石充满敬意。现在这块石头竖立在江苏昆山的半茧园（现叫明春玉园（清为半茧园）建于明代）。石头赋予人性，便找到了知己。

The first extensive rock garden was built by Emperor Hui Tsung (1101-1125) of the Sung Dynasty, although records date its appearance as early as Han. (Liang Hsiao Wang and Yuan Kuang-han both had gardens in the Han Dynasty.) The Emperor hisself being an inimitable painter, lavished his attention much more on rockery than on statecraft. The Emperor built the “Ken Yu”, a rock-hill in the Northeast of the capital Kaifeng, between 1117 and 1122. Barges swarmed on the canals, loaded with stones from T’ai Hu Lake. Lake rock was then much treasured, rocks in other localities being much less valued. This tempted people to make lake rock artificially, by laying under turbulent water ordinary rocks carved in the desired shapes, for a certain length of time. The craze for T’ai Hu rocks was at its height during the latter part of the Ming Dynasty. Connoisseurs paid fabulous prices for such pieces reputed to have been authenticated by experts.

第一个大型山石园林是宋徽宗建的。实际上该园可追溯到汉。（袁广汉和粱孝王刘武就在汉朝有园林，据《酉京杂记》记载：”茂陵富民袁广汉，藏镪巨万，家童八九百人。于北氓山下筑园，东西四里，南北五里，激流水注其中。构石为山，高十余丈，连延数里。养白鹦鹉、紫鸳鸯、牦牛、等奇兽珍禽，委积其间。积沙为洲屿，激水为波涛，致江鸥海鹤孕雏产彀，延馒林池；奇树异草，靡不培植。屋皆徘徊连属，重阁移扉，行之移晷不能偏也。”）徽宗本人是个不错的画家，爱石多于爱江山。他1117年到1122年主持建设东京东北的”艮岳”渡船满载太湖石拥挤于河道之间（说的是花石纲），至此太湖石奇贵，其它地方的石头就没这么值钱了。这就使得人们人工制石，（那时候就有假货：））把普通石头放入激流中冲刷一段时间就可作出一些有形的赝品。明末对湖石追求达到了及至。鉴赏家不惜巨贾购买。

During the latter part of the Sung Dynasty, the scholar Yeh Meng-teh of Huchow built an estate almost entirely of rockery, which he poetically called the “Stone Groove.” But it was pointed out that a good many of the rocks he found in situ, and all he did was to bring them to light by removing the earth around them.

晚宋，浙江乌程进士叶梦德，（号石林居士）购地盖堂称为”石林精舍”。 许多石头都来自弁山。史书记载他经常在山中观览，看见山中有石隐于土中，就派人把浮土剔掉，使山体玲珑空漏，他就陶醉于其间。

Of all the famous rock-gardens in history, only one has survived. This is the so called “Lion Garden” in Soochow. The rockery dates back to 1342 A.D., its creator being an abbot.

所有这些以石为主的园林里面，现存的只有狮子林。 石头追溯到公元1342年，一个和尚始建[天如和尚和倪瓒和建]。

Rockery, besides being that part of nature which appeals to the cave-man as well as the poet, is indispensable in Chinese garden design. It links admirably plant life and water with the multitude of buildings. Standing halfway between nature and human creation, rockery carries over gracefully the life impulse of the former into the cold artificiality of the latter. The cypresses in an Italian garden, it may be observed, serve a similar purpose, acting as transition from the boxwood to the casino; and they go well with formal architecture, just as rockery does with the informal.

石头除了和穴居人还有诗人有关，它同时在中国园林设计中也是不可或缺的。 它把植物，水和建筑联系在一起。石头处于自然与人工之间，它把生命的意义巧妙的融入了人造的境界。意大利花园里的松柏有同样的作用，在Casino(赌场)与黄杨之间起一个衔接作用。它和庄重的建筑很和谐，就像是我们说的石头和中国园林的建筑很和谐是一个意思。

There are several theories about designing the rock-hill. Some strive for magnitude, a mazy stretch of peaks, valleys and grottos. Others concentrate on one small hill only. One man, Chang Nan-yuan during the early Manchu Dynasty, looked down upon the idea of imitating a real hill with a heap of stones. He cared primarily for the casual, the irregular, in nature, and succeeded in emphasizing the essentials or suggesting the existence of a hill, with a minimum amount of rockery. Ko Yu-Liang, usually confining his labor to making one hill in a garden and making it well, later improved the construction of grottos. Grottos, it should be noted, had hitherto been customarily made by having the top spanned with slabs of stone. Ko scorned this method, his innovation being a dome top made of converging stones, much resembling a genuine cave.

关于叠山的论著不少。有的专攻山之大，奇峰峡谷岩穴。有的只是研究小山而已。张南垣，[一代画家，山匠。张南阳之子，跟董其昌学过画，其叠石技巧异于其父。简单说，他爸是石包土，他是土包石。：）] 堆石以仿巨壑。因地制宜，崇尚自然，成功的用极少的材料勾勒出山势。戈裕良，[明清著名山匠，作品有环秀山庄假山。] 一般让工人们在园中只叠一山之后再建洞穴。洞穴的做法一般是在洞口架以石板。戈裕良对此不屑。他则用真实石头堆拱很像洞穴的自然成形。

Both Chi Ch’eng (born 1582) and Li Yu (who called himself Li-Li-weng, lived in the seventeenth centry) gave lengthy accounts of the art of rockery. To be a master designer of it one must be a good landscape painter. It is almost impossible to design an extensive rock-hill well. A hill small but exquisite is much more preferable. For this reason the famed “Lion Garden” in Soochow had once the misfortune of being called a “stupendous heap of slag”.

计成和李渔[李笠翁]都写过很长的叠山艺术论著。想成为山匠先要擅画风景，否则根本没办法把山叠好。 小而精的山更好。狮子林就不幸被人称为”假山王国”了。

One form of playful architecture is to build a pavilion in the manner of a houseboat, standing near the water. Sometimes temporary architectural expedients are devised to meet emergencies, as in the case of a royal prince at the end of the fifth century who had a weakness for gardens. Lest his pleasure ground be observed from his father’s palace higher up, he invented folding walls which could screen his earthly paradise at short notice.

一个可以把玩的有趣建筑就是在水边盖的画舫了。有时候建筑的灵感就是出于简单的需要。比如5世纪时候的一个皇子为了不让他父皇看到他的逍遥世界，就发明了隔扇以挡住父皇的视线。

There is another instance of a display of ingenuity. Ni Ts’an, a Yuan Dynasty painter, was once invited by his friend to see lotus flowers. Upon his arrival he saw nothing but an empty courtyard. His astonishment, however, was as great as his disappointment when, returning to the same courtyard after the feast, he saw a pond full of lotus. The magic was a simple one. Hundreds of pots of lotus flowers were swiftly placed in the courtyard, which, being slightly sunk, became a pool when a water reservoir discharged just enough water to submerge the pots.

这里还有一个灵巧的设计。 元代画家倪云林一次受朋友之邀前去赏荷。到了以后他什么也没看见只看见一个空院子。吃完饭回到同一个院子再一看，惊喜地发现一池塘的荷花。奥秘其实很简单。百多盆荷花眨眼间摆到了院子里同时水池灌以稍稍没过盆底的水。这样一个池塘的荷花就形成了。

Scholars, when they write about gardens, seldom give adequate accounts of plant life. We may say that plant life is used in the Chinese garden mainly to hide the buildings. Flowers are often mentioned because, besides giving perfume, they are invaluable to poetry, the most aristocratic being peony and paeonia albiflora. Lotus, wisteria, plum, laurel, begonia, jasmine and chrysanthemum are common to all gardens. No garden is complete, of course, without the bamboo. The usual evergreens are pine, juniper, and cedar. There is an almost endless variety of trees—willow, maple, sterculia platanifolia, palm, musa, elm, and so on. Well known is the ingenuity of the Chinese garden in transplanting and cross-breeding flowers and trees. Plant life in Chinese gardens deserves a separate treatise by the botanist.

当文人写园林的时候很少提及植物花草。基本上花草树木是用来掩映建筑的。 花总提因为它的清香更因为它的诗意，最尊贵的当属牡丹，芍药，荷花，紫藤，李树，月桂，海棠，茉莉还有菊花是最常用的。 当然没有竹子就不能叫园林了。通常的常绿树有松，柏，雪松。 树的种类无穷无尽，柳，枫树，梧桐，棕榈，芭蕉, 榆树等等。中国园林里的嫁接和移植都是出名的。植物学家应该单独研究中国园林里的花卉植物。

Here is a great book on chinese garden by Maggie Keswick.

 

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