• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.1-13
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• 2001

Beginning in the Wei-Chin and Liu Ch´ao era(AD. 220-589), an awareness of natural beauty emerged as the major interest of scholars which created such a social atmosphere that served as the foundation of prosperous Chinese art. During the T´ang period, the desire to achieve natural beauty began to dominate every field of art including gardening. This study covers the T´ang period when scholars began to be conscious of aesthetics. The main objective of this study is to examine the significance of natural beauty as interpreted by Wangwei, an artist representative of the period, and of Wangchuan Villa in relation to aspects of garden theory. This study is mainly based on Wangwei´s anthology, landscape painting describing Wangchuan Villa, and historical records related to the Villa. The summary of conclusions of this study is as follows: 1) Wangwei´s concept of natural beauty is a combination of objective natural beauty and pastoral beauty, which stresses the essential beauty of nature. Moreover, he considered nature as a religious Utopia. 2)Wangchuan Villa, where Wangwei stayed until his death, was a place of seclusion representing his idea of natural beauty. There, he was able to realize the paradise of Buddhism full of zen aspirations. 3)From the perspective of garden theory, Wangchuan Villa can be classified as a suburb villa in terms of location, as a landscape garden in terms of elements, and as a villa based on a typical private land system in terms of forms. In addition, it may be considered as a garden that laid the foundation to realize a field of non-visible image and non-visible landscape, which is fundamental element of scholarly garden design.