Immersive Visit to a Garden: Visual Logic of the ‘Garden of the Jade Surrounded Hall’

Shiqiu Liu 刘诗秋, PhD. Candidate in Art History, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne

Handscrolls have an enchanting magic when they are being unrolled and reveal the development of narrative episodes or landscape sceneries. The manipulation of this format in East Asian art has been carried to an extreme when artists began to attempt depiction of panoramic views.  ‘The Garden of the Jade Surrounded Hall’ 环翠堂园景图 – so far the longest print scroll to have survived, with a length of 14.86 meters – was produced by the Huizhou 徽州 (modern Anhui province) publisher Wang Tingne 汪廷讷 (1573-1619). It is one rare example demonstrating the daring endeavour of embodying a step-by-step viewing process within a panoramic scene of a large estate with a private residence and a garden.

Although print had already appeared in China in the ninth century, it was not carried to a height of artistic quality and quantity until the late Ming period, especially under the reign of the Wanli Emperor (1573-1620). At this time, books on drama and novels were mostly complemented by printed illustrations to enhance both the reading experience and their market attraction.¹ Due to the heated competition between publishers, excellence and skill among illustrators and woodblock carvers – with some famous ones being from Huizhou – was a reliable source for successful work.² Wang, a Huizhou native, had employed Huang Yingzu 黄应组 (date unknown), a member of a local family that produced generations of carvers, to make this monumental work for him.³

The advanced carving apart, the draft drawing of this long print was provided by the Suzhou artist Qian Gong 钱贡  (dates unknown) whose name appears at the end of the scroll. Qian, similar to his Suzhou peers, excelled in painting landscapes and gardens, and may also have created genre paintings.⁴ The whole scroll depicts Wang’s estate located at his hometown Xiuning 休宁, centred on the main hall, the ‘Jade Surrounded Hall’, and the garden attached.⁵

Scholars have given much effort to recreate the layout of this huge estate.⁶ The format of the handscroll and the lack of building orientation do cause some confusion in the visual logic of the print. Luckily, Wang had also commissioned a piece of writing from the scholar Yuan Huang 袁黄 (1533-1606), in which the writer pointed out positions of several buildings and spots.⁷ By combining both text and image, we find out that the painter was reproducing the process of visiting Wang’s residence while also detailing with great attention the location and the layout of the whole area.

Qian started with an overview of the location by depicting the major mountains around the Xiuning area, approaching Wang’s estate from the west. This can be identified not only through the actual location of the two mountains, Baiyue 白岳 and Songluo 松萝, but also by the inclusion of the spots by the ‘Benevolence and Longevity Hill 仁寿山’ on the western part at the beginning of the scroll (fig.1). A group of visitors on horses and palanquins lead the viewer through the fields up to a road leading to a gate. This is none other than Wang’s residence.⁸

However, from here, the viewer is not let into the gate immediately, but is led to spots along the bank of the lake outside the wall, in a counter-clockwise circle. This section possibly depicts a boat trip, since it ends up at the pavilion in the centre of the lake and lands on the bank again at the main entrance (fig.2). This part forms a looped route of the spots closer to the residence, a progress also presented by the lower perspective adopted in this section.

The scroll then further proceeds into the residence, reaching the main hall area first, and then goes to the garden area with various kinds of pavilions and buildings, some with distinctive Taoist and Buddhist features, surrounding a pool. One crucial part to understand the route, and the layout of the residence, is the spot entitled ‘Trace of the Orchid Pavilion’ 兰亭遗迹 (fig.3). From Yuan’s writing, the ‘Orchid Pavilion’ shares the same water conduit with the main hall area. However, the turning of the wall in the print seems to indicate this spot is segregated from the main hall. A tiny visual clue is the door on the lower part of the ‘Orchid Pavilion’. It has the same shape as the side door outside the fence of the main hall. By overlapping the two doors, we are able to discover that the painter used this visual device to change the direction of the route, thus leading the viewer to the garden on the east of the main hall area.

The viewing order for the garden section again forms a loop, testified by Yuan’s writing. The library named ‘Eastern Wall’ 东壁 ending this part indicates it is on the eastern side. Yuan pointed out that this library will lead to the ‘Terrace for the Unrestrained Life’ 达生台 at the beginning of this section (fig.4). Further, the ‘Veranda of Condensed Azure’ 凝碧轩 in front of the terrace can lead to the ‘Room of Hanging Bed’ 悬榻斋 through a bridge that appears on both parts of the print. Yuan also stated the ‘Terrace for the Unrestrained Life’ is near the western wall, a position that corresponds with the location of the library on the east.

While the perspective for the previous two parts (the main hall and the garden) gets lower and lower, indicating a closer view, the end of the scroll jumps back again to the distant mountains, this time those to the east of the estate. By indicating these famous mountains in the Huizhou area, the painter once again iterated a panoramic perception of the location of Wang’s residence and its cultural importance in the local landscape.

Going through the whole print, it is possible to see that the painter worked in a very logical manner with both the panoramic view and the visiting process in mind. He started from the furthest part, the distant spots and the fields, followed by the loop around the lake just next to the residence, and then the main hall and the garden, all in a one-way route with little repetition covering nearly all major spots. The distant view of the mountains both at the beginning and the end of the scroll displays the selected location of the residence and the garden, while also marking the start and the ending of a journey. Unrolling this scroll, the viewers are not just invited to have an immersive experience of Wang’s huge estate, but also are given a general idea of its layout and natural surroundings. In an age without video devices, no art can be more powerful in recreating such an experience, producing an awareness of both the details and the entirety. In this sense, Qian indeed had achieved the goal that his commissioner would expect from this long print in promoting his elaborate hall and garden.⁹

General Layout of Wang’s Estate

1: The route approaching the estate from west up to the main entrance;
2: The loop route on the lake;
3: The main hall area;
4: The loop route around the garden with the pool.