Journal of the Japanese Institute of Landscape Architects

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We can see a garden as a number of things, such as a place for rest or a place for the pursuit of horticulture, but here I should like to see it as a work of art. T. Tanikawa viewed it in this light, and in his conclusion he is doubtful whether gardens could be works of art or not. Considering materials of fine arts, he finds out mental control of nature (material) and segregation from nature as sine qua non of art materials.Since materials of the garden cannot answer these requirements, it is out of the doundaries of the world of art, he says. But works of art cannot de formed by just one-sided mental control of nature (material), but by high esteem of individual characteristics of the material. Both the resistance of materials supporting mind and mind making symbols of materials bring forth a new combination of nature and man, that is, a work of art. In consequence, the fact that maetials of the garden have certain individual conditions is a matter of necessity as in any other art. And, isn't it the segregation from nature in its true sense, that trees and rocks which were simple natural objects thus assume symbolic nature, or in other words, consist a microcosmos, an iucarnation of artist's mind?

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