One variant of the garden as a landscape is the garden based on landscape painting (Ut pictura hortus). Christopher Hussey's landmark study The Picturesque demonstrated the
Japan. Landscape with figures by Unkoku Tjogan, Momoyama period (1573–1615). One of a pair of six-panel screens, ink on paper. AVERY BRUNDAGE COLLECTION, THE ASIAN ART MUSEUM OF SAN FRANCISCO
Japan. Daitoku-ji Temple in Kyoto. Dry rock garden of the landscape type inspired by Song Dynasty Chinese landscape painting. MARA MILLER
power of the garden, once it was modeled on painting, to make the "picturesque" a category that could be applied to all landscape—the principle upon which highway scenic overlooks are based. According to Walpole, the early English landscape gardens by William Kent were also designed based upon pictorial compositions. The idea of modeling a garden on a landscape painting has a lively history in East Asia as well, where it can be seen in the dry rock gardens of Daitoku-ji Temple in Kyoto, based on Song Chinese landscape paintings.
Artists have created many highly influential gardens, among them Wang Wei (690–c. 760), William Kent (1685–1748), and Claude Monet (1840–1926). Gardens such as those by Manet and Gertrude Jekyll (1843–1932) utilized an artist's sense of color. In all cultures with gardens, gardens present themselves as pictures, providing subject matter for painters; in East Asia they are particularly important philosophically.
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