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The Place of Meaning: Gardens in Europe and Asia

Module description

Gardens are commonly known as places of leisure and recreation. This module, however, reveals the relatively unknown, fascinating cultural meanings of gardens in Europe and Asia. You will discover the gardens not only as the spatial matrix where the physical environment and cultural meanings interrelate and reciprocate, but also as media that trigger their users into performance with personal and social implications. You will conduct in-depth reading and analysis of images and texts. While this module can count towards Chinese credits, it is suitable for specialists and non-specialists. The field trips may incur a small extra cost.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module introduces you through cross-cultural comparative perspectives to the art of gardens in Asia and Europe. You will:

• Develop critical tools for understanding the layered cultural meanings of garden space of both past and present. Engage with a range of perspectives bringing together mythological, philosophical, psychological, as well as sociopolitical and environmental contexts.
• Form a sound foundation for comparative art history and master a set of interdisciplinary methods and tools for cultural studies.

Together we shall develop, experience and explore the possibilities of understanding gardens as places in which diverse cultural inheritances and ideas may be woven, and in doing so, we shall search for the wholeness of being in ourselves as well as the planet.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate a sound understanding of the chosen garden examples, including reference to their place in the cultural, historical, and generic context of their time.
• 2. Analyse coherently the space and meaning of particular gardens and their representations (e.g. paintings and texts) over different historical periods and their cultural contexts.
• 3. Compare examples of gardens across cultures effectively.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. With some guidance from the course tutor, apply a set of interdisciplinary methods and tools for art history, philosophy, literature and cultural studies to the material covered.
• 5. Mount a detailed argument in the appropriate register of English, mustering a range of textual and visual / spatial evidence in support.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Adopt a critical approach to the selection and organisation of material in order to produce, to a deadline, a written argument.

Syllabus plan

While the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• ‘Gardens as private/personal space’ includes case studies such as Stourhead, Studley Royal, Courances, Plaz Metaxu and Zhuo Zheng Yuan (The Humble Administrator’s Garden);

• ‘Gardens as public/political space’ covers examples such as Alexander Pope’s Twickenham villa, Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Little Sparta, Alhambra of Granada and Bishu Shanzhuang (Mountain Resort for Escaping the Summer Heat) in Chengde;

• ‘Gardens for healing’ explores the potential of how gardens can not only improve our well-being but also help us rethink pressing issues such as climate change and how humanity intersects with nature.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Bush, Susan, and Hsio-yen Shih. Early Chinese Texts on Painting.  Cambridge, MA: Published for the Harvard-Yenching Institute by Harvard University Press, 1985.
• Cooper, David. A Philosophy of Gardens. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Forbes, Alasdair. On Psyche’s Lawn; The gardens at Plaz Metaxu. Pimpernel Press, 2020.
• Hunt, John Dixon. Nature Over Again: The Garden Art of Ian Hamilton Finlay. Reaktion Books, 2008.
• Keswick, Maggie, and Charles Jencks. The Chinese Garden: History, Art & Architecture.  London: Academy Editions, 1978 [2002].
• Leslie, Michael. ed., A Cultural History of Gardens. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.
• Li, Zehou. The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition, translated by Maija Bell Samei. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010,
• Porter, David, The Chinese taste in eighteenth-century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010,
• Richardson, Tim. The Arcadian Friends: Inventing the English Landscape Garden. Bantam Press, 2007.
• Tao Te Ching, by Lao tzu, trans. John Minford, Viking Publishing, 2018.
• Zhuang, Yue. and Andrea Riemenschnitter eds, Entangled Landscapes: Early Modern China and Europe, Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2017.
• Zhuang, Yue, Alasdair Forbes, and Michael Charlesworth eds. The Garden Retreat in Asia and Europe: Ways of Dwelling in a Torn World. London: Bloomsbury, 2025.
• Ziporyn, Brook. Zhuangzi: The essential writings, with selections from traditional commentaries. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2009.

Key words search

Gardens, China, Britain, Europe, Asia