The cultural life of Japanese trees

The cultural life of Japanese trees By: Charles Lamb

Trees permeate Japanese life. At least, that may be the impression one receives from seasonal newspaper articles on the annual progression of hanami (cherry blossom) across the country and the sense of celebration that can accompany it, or of the progress of the koyo (changing leaf colour) in autumn. But what of other trees in Japan and their associated culture? As part of a dissertation into ‘The cultural life of Japanese trees’ for a Masters in Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield, I spent some time in Japan during the summer of 2017. The following areas formed part of the final dissertation.

1: Trees in gardens

Adams argues that those following Shintoism (one of the primary religions of Japan) feel ‘an instinctive reverence for every stone, tree, plant and animal’ and that as a result the land itself became ‘a conscious ground for religious worship.’ It could be argued that the reverence that Adams asserts is felt for every tree within the garden has led, in part, to the meticulous nature that trees are tended to within many Japanese gardens through the practice of niwaki (trained garden trees). With such reverence, the question is raised as to whether such trees transcend from being merely a tree into a specific work of art, to be viewed and appreciated from a distance. Certainly, such a premise is not without historical visual precedent, with prints from the Edo-era highlighting how the landscape was to be viewed and appreciated from a platform, rather than necessarily entered into.

Fig. 1: The panels overlooking the garden have been removed to provide a backdrop for entertainment and a view from a distance, with the form of trees highlighted by a dusting of snow.

The hypothesis that the garden, and thus also the trees within it, formed part of an artistic image that was to be appreciated from the side-lines is continued by Jellicoe, who argues that the Japanese house and garden, over time, ‘were indivisible,’ with the objective being ‘to live and move in the abstractions of a painting’ and to contemplate it also. The development of the garden as art, and the necessity for trees contained within it to fit into the idealised microcosm of the landscape that the garden represented, arguably forces the hand of the gardener to create trees to be just-so.

1.1: As symbolism

In the transmission of information from mainland China to Japan, Ito notes that the Japanese appear to have adopted the Chinese Taoist concept of ‘immortal beings,’ notably in relation to the pine tree. From the mid-eighth century, the pine tree became a symbol of eternity due to apparently never losing its needles, unlike the fall of leaves from a deciduous tree. Due to this apparent immortal nature, the pine came to be used within the crane and tortoise islands of Japanese gardens: the crane and tortoise acknowledged for their longevity, the pine for its immortality. The immortal symbology of the pine was also used in juxtaposition with ‘that symbol for impermanence, for the transience of all earthly life’ – water. Japanese gardens use this play on the pine with water either metaphorically in the form of a pine tree surrounded by a sea of gravel (representing the waters of the oceans) in Zen Buddhist gardens, or more literally with a pine propped up on stilts and leaning over man-made or natural water bodies.

Fig. 3: Pine trees supported across the water, Ritsurin Garden, Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan.

1.2: As background

Whilst Japanese gardens may arguably be most well known for their large expanses of ranked gravel and consciously placed stones laden with symbology, ‘nobody ever talks about the trees behind the wall.’ Talking of the garden at Ryoan-ji in Kyoto, Kerr comments that the garden there ‘lives because of the surrounding trees.’ Indeed, the perhaps harsh, enveloping experience of the vast expanse of raked quartz gravel, punctuated at selected intervals by larger rocks, would be altogether different without the seasonally changing backdrop of trees behind the garden wall.

Fig. 2: A combination of Pinus thunbergii atop rocks signifying a crane spreading its wings on a tortoise’s back. Ritsurin Garden, Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan

Fig. 4: Trees creating life at the perimeter of Ryoan-ji Temple, Kyoto, Japan.

1.3: As niwaki

Beside residential buildings, in the grounds of temples, and in the public parks of Japan, as in many other countries, there are trees. However, the majority of the trees appear

coaxed and trained into forms which have the appearance of something that has been distilled, idealised, and revised further – in short, ‘the essence of tree.’ These trees become niwaki: garden trees.

In commentary on this particularly restrictive regimen applied to trees, Pavord notes that the intention of such an approach is to ‘distil in miniature the essence of nature’ whilst keeping the soul of the tree intact. It is this distillation and evocation that therefore becomes key to understanding the place of niwaki within the realm of Japanese gardens: the representation may be of an individual tree, or an entire landscape. It is this representation of perhaps more abstract thought that can be found within the gardens of Buddhist temples in Japan, where the clipped, trained trees ‘conveyed the sense of vast landscapes disappearing into infinity.’ However, the combination of bamboo canes holding branches in place and wires pulled taut to elicit a certain desired shape, may arguably lead to another observation of the Japanese approach to trees: that of a ‘desire to bind and restrict nature.’ the atmosphere created by trees, notably pine trees, which evoke a ‘sense of melancholy’ when trained to look weatherbeaten and much older than their years.

Fig. 6: Pine tree trained as a monkaburi (gate covering) over a gateway, Kyoto, Japan.

Fig. 5: A heavily trained pine tree by the entrance to Daisen-in Temple, Kyoto, Japan.

2: Art as inspiration; Trees as art

Kerr cites an example of the temporal nature of this art of binding and control at a Buddhist temple in Kyoto: in conversation with the abbot at the temple in question, Kerr remarked on the fine shape of a particular pine branch, to which the monk responded ‘Well, it’s not quite right. It’s taken about 150 years to get it to this point, but I’d say another seventy, no, eighty years, and it will be perfect.’ It is this attention to the minutiae of detail in terms of how trees are trained within a garden setting that becomes apparent from observations within Japan. Yet perhaps such an approach should not be surprising. Indeed, in distilling an individual tree to its essence, this approach is arguably an exemplification of the Japanese philosophy of wabisabi: a ‘beauty of things unconventional’ and ‘a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.’ Hobson argues that, in the realm of niwaki, wabi-sabi is most felt in

Fig. 7: ‘Cloudy Mountains’ by the Chinese artist Mi Youwen, pre-1200, depicting stylised images of trees that bear a striking resemblance to the style of niwaki found in contemporary Japan.

In a contemporary context, the use of art as inspiration for making a garden, and the nature and composition of the trees contained within it, has been taken to its next logical stage at the Adachi Museum of Art, Yasugi, Shimane Prefecture. In the creation of a combined art museum and garden, Adachi Zenko, the founder, viewed the garden as ‘a living Japanese painting’ and that a window frame should be used for highlighting ‘the changing seasons and shadows.’ The gardens created at the Adachi Museum of Art often take as their inspiration the paintings by Yokoyama Taikan, of which the museum holds a significant collection, with the gardens intended to be viewed in conjunction with these paintings. Like the gardens of Zen Buddhist temples, those that surround the Adachi Museum of Art are intended to be viewed from dedicated frames within the building, or a separate viewing platform at certain, specified points. Within this context, the trees contained in the landscape play a vital role in manipulating and contextualising the views that may be experienced in each image.

Fig. 8: Viewing the gardens and trees at the Adachi Museum of Art as if in a gallery.

As an example, from within the building at the Adachi Museum of Art, the Moss Garden can only be viewed through a collection of red pines (Pinus densiflora). Each of these have been cross-planted so as to create the impression of trees growing on a mountain slope, accentuated even more by the comparatively flat nature of the site.

Fig. 10: White Gravel and Pine Garden, Adachi.

Fig. 9: Pinus densiflora planted at angles within the Moss Garden for mountainous effect.

Elsewhere in the garden, the size of the pines is controlled so as to merge the boundary between the garden and the surrounding landscape, none more so than in the White Gravel and Pine Garden. This uses Taikan’s ‘Beautiful Pine Beach’ as its direct source of inspiration, with a gradation of sizes for the pine trees used as the eye travels towards the landscape beyond. The size of the pines, especially in the White Gravel and Pine Garden, is carefully managed to control the proportions of the view and retain the balance with the other elements within the composition.

Fig. 11: Taikan’s ‘Beautiful Pine Beach’.

Conclusion

The Japanese approach to trees is one couched in layers of symbolism and resonance, from religion and the cultural conventions ascribed to trees, to forms of personal representation through trees within the home and garden. What has developed in Japan is the percolation of trees, in varying forms, into the fabric of Japanese culture. It would appear to show an understanding that trees are inextricably linked to a sense of happiness, even wellbeing – whether in displays of religious devotion, the detailed tending to a tree, the appreciation of art, or the act of remembrance.