A Paradise Lost—The Imperial Garden Yuanming Yuan

The Yuanming Yuan imperial garden consisted of the most magnifi-cent architectural works the Qing Empire ever created. It represents a glory in the Chinese cultural tradition and the pinnacle of Chinese garden arts.

The site on which the Yuanming Yuan was built is a plain rich in fresh water at the foot of the Jade Spring Hills near present-day Haidian, northwest of Beijing. The water from the Jade Spring has been described as cool and clear, to be admired as “pearls under moonlight” (mingyue yeying qingguang yuan). The plentiful spring accounts for the abundant groundwater in Haidian and its neighborhood. In fact, “dian” means the place where water runs together. Moreover, the terrain allowed a gigantic garden to achieve its maximum aesthetic effects. As the great modern Chinese architect Liang Sicheng summarizes, the Yuanming Yuan was essentially a design of hillocks?and lakes with buildings, courts, chambers, pavilions, arbors, and other structures in between. Even though symmetry and balance were stressed, Liang goes on, greater emphasis was placed on variations and liveliness in accordance with topography to the extent of being unconventional. Although the garden, for Liang’s critical eyes, perhaps contained too many man-made structures, which jeopardized the beauty of the landscape, he has no doubt about its lively creativity.

Overview of the original Yuanming Yuan showing twenty-nine man-made structures or scenes mentioned in the book. Plan by Sylvia Lu Wong with reference to the map in YMYJ 1 between pp. 122–123 and to He Chongyi, Zeng Zhaofen’s work in YMYJ 1:81–92.

A more recent scholar has called the Yuanming Yuan “the garden of ten-thousand gardens” (wanyuan zhi yuan) in reference to its ingenious and judicious disposition on a large lake and near the tall West Hills in the neighborhood. Indeed, due to the excellent location, pleasant country homes appeared here as early as the Yuan Dynasty in the thirteenth century. By the sixteenth century, natural beauty made this region so attractive that the Marquis Li Wei of the Ming was inspired to construct the well-known Clear Flowery Garden (Qinghua Yuan), which had claims to be “the leading garden in the region” (jingguo diyi mingyuan). Shortly afterward, the distinguished calligrapher Mi Wanzhong built the equally famous Ladle Garden (Shao Yuan) in this area. Both celebrated gardens, according to the Peking University scholar Hou Renzhi, deteriorated during the transition from the Ming to the Qing.

The Qing rulers constructed gardens in the Haidian region all over again. As the three available maps show, the Yuanming Yuan contained vast lakes connected by a network of canals and winding waterways. From a bird’s eye view, all of the structures in the garden appear to have been situated on islets or spits of land surrounded by artificial hills, terraces, hollow rocks, and blooming trees and shrubs. The specially named “scenes” (jing) comprised a series of independent and yet cohesive smaller gardens. And this huge park, as a Briton observed, “contained a vast variety of elegant little buildings”.

In 1737, the second year of his reign, Qianlong instructed the distinguished court artists Castiglione, Tang Dai, Sun You, Shen Yuan, Zhang Wanbang, and Ding Guanpeng to draw a silk map of the Yuanming Yuan. Once completed, it was hung on the north wall of the Clear Sunshine Belvedere (Qinghui Ge). The belvedere was situated on the west side of the royal living room at the center of the Nine Continents. Its structure, a simple rectangle with elaborate motifs and decorations carved on the posts and beams by carpenters, fit beautifully in the landscape and among other surrounding structures. Noticeably, it had a large overhang to protect the inhabitants from foul weather and was carefully painted to protect it from decay. The right angles and axial symmetry reflected the sublime order. This was the place where the emperor and his companions enjoyed the quiet pleasures of composing poems, drawing pictures, and admiring the landscape.

The famous Forty (Best) Views (sishi jing) of the Yuanming Yuan were completed and designated in 1744, of which twelve views, or scenes, were constructed after Qianlong became emperor in 1736. Even though Yongzheng had completed so many of the forty views, Qianlong continued to refurbish all the views extensively. The urbane Qianlong gave every one of the Forty Views a cultured name with an explanatory poem (Yuanming Yuan Sishijing Tuyong 1985). The emperor’s practice was quite in line with what a refined scholar did for his private garden, that is, to use an elegant name and poetic theme to make manifest a pictorial image of the uniquely created scene. Moreover, the proud Qianlong commissioned the court artists Shen Yuan and Tang Dai and the calligrapher Wang Youdun to produce a two-volume silk atlas, 2.6 feet high and 2.35 feet wide, to convey impressionistic images of all forty scenes.

This set of pictures and poems was taken away by the French during the war of 1860, and it subsequently found a home in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. The French gave the Chinese a duplicate color set of the atlas in 1983. The woodcut version of the same atlas signed by Sun Hu and Shen Yuan was published in the 1920s .

Different parts of the garden were reached by various roads that deliberately made “various turnings and windings”. There was perhaps a geomantic element in it. Perhaps the evil spirits, which would travel in a straight line, would be diverted by a winding course. But turnings and windings also were essential for creating surprises. A narrow, tortuous, and dark mountain road would seem to guide viewers into a dead end, but before long a broad space would open to them. Suddenly they would be surprised by a view of elegant trees, blue sky, white cloud, flying birds, beautiful flowers, and a stream of water escaping down from higher ground into a pool. At that moment, they might even enjoy the clean and soft winds blowing from distant hills. Roads thus facilitated visitors’ pleasure of admiring successively unfolding views from spot to spot. The element of surprise endorsed the art of mixing concealment (cang) and revelation (lu). The European buildings at the northern end of the Eternal Spring Garden would seem to be hidden from the Chinese architectural structures by walls and hills, with only tall roofs visible from distance. But concealment was not used simply to communicate that “nothing Western could mar the harmony of the main garden”; it was used to create surprises as well.

Unlike the technique of concealment used to completely hide elements in prose or in a poem, concealment in the garden means to bring forth a reserved and implicit expression, thus unfolding scenes that cannot be viewed in a single glance.The British took note of the effect of intricacy and concealment when they visited the Yuanming Yuan at the end of the eighteenth century. “At Yuen-min-yuen (Yuanming Yuan),” it is said, “a flight wall was made to convey the idea of a magnificent building, when seen at a certain distance through the branches of a thicket”.

In addition to roads, a network of canals linked to almost every corner of the garden served the same purpose of circulation. Numerous barges and boats traveled in the garden. The successive Qing emperors all preferred smooth boat traveling. To facilitate this service, the Yuanming Yuan employed an increasing number of sailors, boathouse keepers, and boat repairmen. Since all these people lived and worked in the garden, they formed the garden’s “boat household” (chuanhu), one of many households in the service of the emperor and the royal family.