Reflections of the Spirit: Japanese Gardens in America - Softcover

Maggie Oster

4.38

8 ratings by Goodreads

9780525486183: Reflections of the Spirit: Japanese Gardens in America

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0525486186 ISBN 13: 9780525486183

Publisher: Dutton Studio Books, 1994

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Quarto, , PP.240, Translates The Japanese Garden To The Western Landscape

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From Publishers Weekly:

Principles of Japanese design are arcanely enchanting; they include simplicity, asymmetry, sensuous subtlety and a mingling of the highly wrought with the seemingly offhand. Japanese gardens, in particular, seem steeped in silence and timelessness, offering a place for purposeless thought that can redeem. And of course, these goals and qualities are adaptable to American, as well as Asian, landscapes. Oster ( 35 Garden Blueprints ), a Kentucky gardener, almost palpably makes that suggestion in this elegantly designed and illustrated sourcebook, discussing various components of and approaches to the gardens, and citing examples in this country. In a chapter, for instance, on the uses of rock and stone in gardens, a two-page spread depicts and comments on varied steps, pavements and ornamental rockery in turn, with examples drawn from private and public gardens in the Northeast, Midwest and South; the layout itself, spare yet intense in feeling, is vaguely reminiscent of a garden detail. And in close-ups of flowering trees, with captions carefully adrift, Oster calls for us to respond to the flowers first, and only then to the words. She is a conscientious surveyor of the Japanese genre, but also an inspirer. She explains, yet goes further.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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