Landscape Narratives of the Garden in Central Guangdong- The Case Study of the Keyuan Garden in the Qing Dynasty

Abstract

The Chinese courtyard space arranges and lays out the physical environment through gardening elements such as architectures, flowers, trees, rocks, water features, and pavings. It is not only a functional place for living and touring, but also a narrative space in which events and activities take place. This research took the Keyuan Garden, one of the four famous gardens in central Guangdong Province as a case study, to describe and analyse the narrative expression of courtyard space from an interdisciplinary perspective which include landscape design, literature and narratology. The Keyuan garden was divided in to three parts: the block narrative space which as paragraphs in garden narrative text, the linear narrative space which as sentences in garden narrative text, and the point narrative space which as vocabulary in garden narrative text. This research pointed out these three narrative spaces, as new language, were composed of different gardening elements, constructing the overall material space, and evoking the viewer's experience, cognition and interpretation of the courtyard space by interpreting the tangible gardening elements. The comprehensive and in-depth interpretation of the Keyuan garden from an multi- perspective will help to understand the art of gardening in central Guangdong in the Qing Dynasty, and provide a reference for inheriting the traditional and excellent construction wisdom today.