English Garden - The Anglo-Chinese Garden

The Anglo-Chinese Garden

Chinese architecture and aesthetics also influenced the English garden. In 1685, the English diplomat and writer Sir William Temple wrote an essay Upon the garden of Epicurus (published in 1692), which contrasted European theories of symmetrical gardens with asymmetrical compositions from China. Temple had never visited China, but he had read the works of European travelers there. He noted that Chinese gardens avoided formal rows of trees and flower beds, and instead placed trees, plants, and other garden features in irregular ways to strike the eye and create beautiful compositions. His observations on the Chinese garden were cited by the essayist Joseph Addison in an essay in 1712, who used them to attack the English gardeners who, instead of imitating nature, tried to make their gardens in the French style, as far from nature as possible.

The novelty and exoticism of Chinese art and architecture in Europe led in 1738 to the construction of the first Chinese house in an English garden, in the garden of Stowe House. The style became even more popular thanks to William Chambers (1723–1796), who lived in China from 1745 to 1747, and wrote a book, The Drawings, buildings, furniture, habits, machines and untensils of the Chinese, published in 1757. In 1761 he built a Chinese pagoda, house and garden in Kew, London, as part of Kew Gardens, a park with gardens and architecture symbolizing all parts of the world and all architectural styles. Thereafter Chinese pagodas began to appear in other English gardens, then in France and elsewhere on the continent. French and other European observers coined the term Jardin Anglo-Chinois (Anglo-Chinese garden) for this style of garden.