Unit 11 Garden (2)

+ I.Teaching Aims & Requirements: + Let students grasp some useful phrases and sentences + Let students get an overview of gardens + Help students to improve the English tour interpretation + + Ⅱ. Content + Overview of Chinese gardens + Useful phrases and expressions about gardens + Useful sentences about Chinese gardens + + III. Focus on & Difficulties: + Overview of the Chinese gardens + Useful phrases and sentences about gardens

I. Overview of Garden 1. Concept The garden is one of the important types of architectural art. It is essentially aimed at organizing an environment rich in temperament and interest and full of the beauty of artistic conception through the so- called four gardening elements including mountains, rivers, structures and plants, as well as the organic components such as roads, interior settings.

I. Overview of Garden 2. National Characteristics (1) Paying attention to natural beauty. Chinese gardens follow the principle of “making it seems like nature”, or seem naturally formed, so as to satisfy people’s feeling of getting close to nature.

I. Overview of Garden 2. National Characteristics (2) Pursuing many twists and turns. Nature itself is ever-changing and interesting. Chinese horticulturists who emulate nature necessarily pursue changing, free-style composition.

I. Overview of Garden 2. National Characteristics (3) Advocating artistic conception. This atmosphere of merging feeling with scenery is what is called artistic conception. The ultimate key to the high or low level and success or failure in the creation of Chinese gardens depends on the cultural level, and the high or low level and crudeness or refinement of esthetic temperament and the interest of the creator.

I. Overview of Garden 3. Category Chinese gardens can be divided into two categories, namely, imperial /royal and private gardens. The former are seen mostly in northern China, represented by Summer Palace in Beijing and Mountain Resort of Chengde, while the latter are easily found in the south, especially in Suzhou, Wuxi and Nanjing, represented by private gardens in Suzhou.

I. Overview of Garden 3. Category The imperial gardens excel for their grandeur, neatness, sumptuousness and deep colors, while the Suzhou gardens impress people with their small but elegant looks, light but graceful colors, and bold but richly expressive style.

II. Classical Gardens in Suzhou ● The Freehand Style of Landscape Painting as the Guiding Principle of Gardening Chinese gardening struck root deeply in Chinese literature and painting, and, in particular, accepted strong influence from Tang, Song and later scholars’ freehand style of landscape painting, producing a good many excellent three-dimensional imitations of their works.

II. Classical Gardens in Suzhou ● Comfortable Dwelling Conditions and Excellent Living Environments Combining the garden and the residence into a whole, the c1assical gardens of Suzhou provide places suitable not only for sightseeing, but also for dwelling. This sort of building is a clever creation for solving the problem that, on one hand, the city is dense with population but scant of natural scenery and, on the other, man inclines to nature, pursues harmony with it and likes to beautify and perfect his living environments.

II. Classical Gardens in Suzhou ● Rich Contents of Social Culture As products of historical culture, they carry information on Chinese traditional ideology and culture. The garden hall names, inscribed horizontal boards, pillar couplets, stone inscriptions, carvings, decorations and tree-flower- and rockery-implied meanings all not only serve as exquisite art works for embellishing gardens, but also contain extensive and deep historical, cultural, ideological and scientific deposits in both material and spiritual aspects.

II. Classical Gardens in Suzhou ● Model Works of Gardening Within the limited spaces they took up, their builders applied ingeniously various skills and means, such as contrast, juxtapose, scene-borrowing, representing rich contents in a small form and making the less excel the more, and combined halls, towers, pavilions and terraces with springs, rockeries, trees and flowers in imitation of natural landscapes, creating an ideal world with "urban mounts and forests" and "natural beauty amid the bustle of city life."

II. Classical Gardens in Suzhou On Dec. 4, 1997, the 21st session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee was unanimous in support of the decision of inscribing on the World Heritage List the classical gardens of Suzhou with the Humble Administrator’s Garden, the Lingering Garden, the Master-of-Nets Garden and the Mountain Villa with Embracing Beauty as the finest specimens.

II. Classical Gardens in Suzhou The Humble Administrator’s Garden

II. Classical Gardens in Suzhou The Master-of-Nets Garden

III. Homework 1. Review the useful phrases, expressions and sentences in Unit 11, which will be checked next week. 2. Read the passage on page , and remember the useful expressions and sentences in the article.