Abstract
The beauty of rockworks in Japanese rock gardens is believed to be attributable to asymmetry. Rockworks have developed over thousands of years as a uniquely Japanese art and are highly evaluated throughout the world. In most rock gardens, an odd number of stones of either 5, 7, or 9 is used (n number of stones), but the reasons for using an odd number and the principles of stone arrangement are not described in classic texts or study reports, and are not fully understood. In this study, the authors investigated the principles of stone arrangement of widely used 5-, 7-, and 9-stone rockworks (rockworks consisting of a moderate number of stones) by analyzing the rules of stone arrangement in terms of the two rules for arranging two and three rocks, which are the basic units for arranging an odd number of stones, and studying classic texts for creating rock gardens and other available references. The investigation showed that all rockworks consisting of a moderate number of stones are formed as combinations of 2- and 3-rock arrangements, which jointly form a consistent rockwork.
