Mountain Stones: The Garden of Suggestion

There are, for example, the Mountain Summit Stone, the Torrent-breaking Stone, the Propitious Cloud Stone, the Mist-enveloped Stone, the Moon Shadow Stone, the Mandarin-duck Stone, the Water-diverting Stone, the Water-receiving Stone, the Seagull-resting Stone, the Cascade-embracing Stone and a host of others with descriptive and charming names. Stones and trees also have their allotted place in the flat type of garden, which, theoretically at least, represents lake, marsh, or moorland scenery. Here also the Guardian Stone is a sort of punctum indiferens. In neither type of garden is turf normally found. The surfaces which in Europe would usually be grassed are in Japan of beaten earth, or of sand brushed and raked into patterns, or occasionally of moss, and, once at least, of pine needles arranged in parallel directional groups to represent the flow of a stream. With scrupulous care a stream is laid with stones. There is an appropriate inlet and outlet. There is a cascade. The rocks are so placed and pebbles so grouped as to suggest the division and rush of restricted waters or the still even flow of the stream at a deeper point. The water tumbles, creases, rushes, broods . . . but there is no water. Why should there be water? What delights one in water are these very qualities which one can obtain by means of stone or sand or pine needles. All devices which have influence upon apparent scale are valuable. There was first of all the `distance-lowering school', who emphasized the diminutions of perspective by progressively lowering distant objects. This was succeeded by `the distance-raising school', who in extensive grounds could obtain a spacious effect by exactly opposite methods. In either instance, and indeed usually, the Japanese garden was principally designed to be seen from the windows of the dwelling house. Views of a subsidiary character might be arranged for certain pavilions, or to be seen from Viewing Stones, but the Japanese garden is more often one picture than the Chinese, which was a succession of scenes like a scroll. Paths across these landscapes of beaten earth or sand consisted of stepping-stones. The distribution of these, too, was governed by certain laws, basically quite obvious laws of convenience, such as that the stones should not be laid in straight lines and that there should be occasional resting-stones on which it was possible to stand with both feet together.