Growing and Knowing in the Gardens of China

Modern writings often describe Chinese scholars’ gardens as sites of aesthetic reclusion—spaces filled with architecture, waterways, and rockeries intended to facilitate the garden-owner’s retreat from the mundane world. Plants rarely appear in such accounts, except as culturally sanctioned signifiers of the garden-owner’s character or virtue. A look at paintings and books that depict gardens from the Song to Qing dynasties offers a different view: plants were central to these gardens, for practical purposes and for contemplating humanity’s place within the cosmos. This talk will explore these themes through a discussion of the exhibition Growing and Knowing in the Gardens of China, displayed at The Huntington in fall 2024.