Rocks in the sand

The gardens of the Kamakura and Muromachi eras are dearly indebted to the second large wave of Chinese influence on Japanese culture, and an particular to Zen Buddhism and the landscape painting of the Sung and Yuan dynasties. The age finds its garden prototype m the scenery of the kare-sansui. the small-scale dry landscape garden attached to and bordered by Shom-style architecture Such gardens are designed to be contem-plated, like a painting, from a number of fixed vantage pants in the Kamakura era. gardens were laid out by special priests - called ishitateso - from the esoteric Shmgon sect, who thereby effectively acted as semiprofessional garden-makers. Their role was later taken over by Zen priests During the Muromachi era. kawaramono. lowclass "nverbank workers", slowly rose to the status of professional garden designers They were held in high esteem by the Ashikaga sho-guns Although the materials employed tn the gardens of the Kamakura and Muromachi eras may still be called "natural", their final forms increasingly abridged nature almost to the point of abstraction The gardens of the Kamakura and Muromachi eras thus imitate the inner essence of nature, not its outward forms.