Hearn Kept an Eye on All Things Japanese

Hearn Kept an Eye on All Things Japanese

Lafcadio Hearn, great explainer of Japan to the West and well known for his narratives about New Orleans, soulful descriptions of that sultry city on the Big Muddy, said that "in order to comprehend the beauty of a Japanese garden, it is necessary to understand -- or at least to learn to understand -- the beauty of stones.” Hearn was writing at a time when Japan had only been widely opened to visitors for decades. And Europe and the US was in thrall to a “Japonais” rampage of fashion. Yet few were absorbing the great foundation philosophy underpinning much of the design flowing onto Impressionists canvases from Asia.

The writer went on to explain that the importance he was describing was “not of stones quarried by the hand of man, but of stones shaped by nature only. Until you can feel, and keenly feel, that stones have character, that stones have tones and values, the whole artistic meaning of a Japanese garden cannot be revealed to you. Not only is every stone chosen with a view to its particular expressiveness of form, but every stone in the garden or about the premises has its separate and individual name, indicating its purpose or its decorative duty."


Hearn was perhaps most famous for his collection of lectures entitled Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (1904), the eccentric writer is well known for other books on Japan including, Exotics and Retrospective (1898), In Ghostly Japan (1899), Shadowings (1900), A Japanese Miscellany (1901), and Kwaidan (1904). Born on Lefkas, a Greek island in 1850, son of an Anglo-Irish surgeon major in the British army and a Greek mother in what was apparently an embarrassing liaison, his parents quickly enough divorced when he was six. Brought up in an unwelcoming house by a great-aunt in Ireland, Hearn lost sight in one eye at 16; then, his father died, and, soon, with a family in bankruptcy, was forced to stop school. By 19 he was on his way to Cincinnati and by 24 had begun his newspaper career; by 1877 Hearn was well into his decade in New Orleans devoted to writing his important series of ground breaking articles; by 1890 Hearn was in Japan, a friend of Basil Hall Chamberlain of Tokyo Imperial University. The writer was very prolific in Asia, teaching at various institutions and publishing consistently until he died of a heart attack in 1904 at 54.


His comments about the formal gardens of Japan were directly on the mark. Karesansui, often called rock gardens or “dry landscape” gardens, are usually associated with Zen Buddhism, and, by extension, with the residences of Zen abbots, or with Zazen schools or monasteries. As dry landscape, Karesansui gardens feature rocks and sand (or gravel) the sea being symbolized or represented not by a small water feature (as it might be in other garden styles) but by raking this sand into patterns. The patterns, in turn, suggest rippling surfaces or waves in water.


Ryoanji Temple and Daitokuji Temple, both in Kyoto, are internationally well-known examples of the Karesansui form of dry landscape garden. The first-ever Zen landscape garden in Japan, however, is credited to Kenchoji Temple in Kamakura, founded in 1251 (the temple was head of the five great Zen monasteries, 1185-1333).


Contrasted to Karesansui, the Chaniwa, or tea garden attached to the tea house, began to appear in Japan along with the introduction and spread of the tea ceremony in the 14th century. Although these varied enormously, in very many cases the Chaniwa form was actually a treatment or, it could be said, a section of the overall garden. Rather than a full-fledged garden, the Chaniwa was likely a carefully designed, prepared, and maintained path—generally stepping stones—leading up to the Chasitsu or main tea room.

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