Zen Landscapes: Perspectives on Japanese Gardens and Ceramics

(Hardback)

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The essential elements of a dry Japanese garden are few: rocks, gravel,moss. Simultaneously a sensual matrix, a symbolic form and a memorytheatre, these gardens exhibit beautiful miniaturization and precise craftsmanship.However, their apparent minimalism belies a deeper complexity.In Zen Landscapes , Allen S. Weiss takes readers on a journey through theseexquisite sites, explaining how Japanese gardens must be approachedaccording to the play of scale, surroundings and seasons, as well as in relationto other arts, thus revealing them as living landscapes rather thanabstract designs.

Reviews

His text, illustrated with images so subtle you can scarcely tell if they are in colour or black and white, helps us move our understanding on a step. Rich in imagery and reference, it explores the interface between Japans gardens and the ceramics made both there and, in modern times, elsewhere . . . A book to read time and again. * Historic Gardens Review *
the first in-depth Western study that looks at the relationship that exists between gardens and ceramics, suggesting new theories of representation and, above all, presenting ideas that may change the way we view such places . . . lush color photos * Japan Times *
In this thoughtful work, Allen Weiss examines closely the relationship of elements found in a Japanese Zen garden . . . Weiss is particularly sensitive to the role of different objects and features, creating what he calls a Gesamtkunstwerk, a web of correspondences . . . Excellent photographs of various features of Zen gardens illustrate the pages. * Chicago Botanic Garden *
one can learn a lot about Japanese art and culture from this well-illustrated, attractive book. * Garden Design Journal *

Author Bio

Allen S. Weiss teaches in the departments of Performance Studies and Cinema Studies at New York University. He is the author and editor of over forty books in the fields of performance theory, landscape architecture, gastonomy, sound art and experimental theatre. Mirrors of Innity: The French Formal Garden and 17th-century Metaphysics (1995), Feast and Folly: Cuisine, Intoxication, and the Poetics of the Sublime (2002), Varieties of Audio Mimesis: Musical Evocations of Landscape (2008) and, most recently, Zen Landscapes (Reaktion Books, 2013)