Serenity

Serenity pervades the Asian garden for this was a place of retreat from the pressures of everyday life.  It is where the elite could indulge in their “longing for mountains and waters” without turning their back on their unrelenting obligations to state and family.The object of the garden was to capture all the elements of the natural landscape – mountains, rivers, lakes, trees, valleys and hills and by bringing them together in a small space accomplish the perfect geomancy or fengshui and life force or qi.  Asian gardens are a unique and distinctive art form with flower arrangements (ikebana), miniature trees (bonsai) and miniature landscaping.

The Serenity, the Asian Garden exhibition will include objects for the Asian garden, landscape paintings and woodblock prints illustrating the garden (both ancient and modern), flora and fauna scenes on ceramics, etc.   The highlight of the exhibition will be a 44 feet long masterpiece painting of a Lotus Pond by Jin Cheng (1878-1926), which recently had a solo exhibition at the Sun Yat-sen Garden in Vancouver.