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These are "water stones" from the Harpeth River Valley Tennessee is filled with mountains and lots of rivers winding throughout. The Harpeth Valley area was inhabited by over 250,000 indigenous peoples in our historic past. The Harpeth is a storehouse for unique river stones depicting all sorts of landscapes, mountains, objects, figures, animals and more. I hope you enjoy seeing some of these stone pieces. I have not started creating daiza yet. These are the wooden bases that can accompany each stone. I have used a shallow tray with sand, or suiban to display these recently collected stones. MORE LINKS TO GERBER'S HORTICULTURE WORLD |
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Viewing Stone History
Aesthetics For thousands of years, Chinese and Japanese collectors have sought out natural stones possessing two highly prized qualities: beauty and suggestive shape. What began as a simple pastime pursued around the world -- collecting beautiful stones -- evolved over the centuries into a complex art form regulated by strict aesthetic conventions. In Japan, this art form is known as "suiseki". Suiseki (pronounced suu-ee-seck-ee) are stones admired for their beauty and for their power to suggest a scene from nature or an object closely associated with nature. Among the most popular types of suiseki are those that suggest a distant mountain, a waterfall, an island, a thatched hut or an animal. The art of suiseki is believed to have originated some two thousand years ago in China, where small stones of great natural beauty were set on stands to represent famous mountains and legendary islands of immortality associated with Buddhist and Taoist beliefs. In the sixth century A.D., emissaries from the Asian mainland brought several such stones to Japan. The Japanese adapted the art to their own tastes and have practiced it to this day. Suiseki are traditionally exhibited on a carved wooden base or in a shallow tray. When formally displayed, suiseki are often accompanied by bonsai. The term suiseki means literally "water stone." It is derived from the ancient custom of displaying miniature landscape stones in trays filled with water, and from the association between suiseki and classical Oriental landscape paintings of mountains and lakes. Early Influences For thousands of years the Japanese have looked upon stones with a spirit approaching veneration. It is therefore not surprising that Empress Regent Suiko greatly admired the miniature landscape stones first brought to Japan as gifts from the Chinese Imperial Court during her reign (A.D. 592-628). Reflecting the Chinese taste of the period, these imported stones were often fantastically shaped, with deep folds and hollows, pass-through holes, highly eroded surfaces, convoluted forms, and soaring vertical lines. Stones of this type were popular in Japan for many centuries and were an important item of trade. During this early period of development, miniature landscape stones were appreciated both for their natural beauty and for their religious or philosophical symbolism. For Buddhists, the stone symbolized Mount Shumi, a mythical holy mountain; for Taoists it represented Horai, the Taoist paradise. For believers in the Chinese philosophy of yin-yang, the stone set in water took on the symbolism of the two opposing yet complementary forces of the universe. For Japanese Shintoists, beautiful or unusual stones, along with other elements in the natural environment such as the sun and unusual trees, were the abode of powerful spiritual forces or gods (kami). As such, suiseki were living objects capable of growth with a soul or inner being that required respect. Aesthetic principles for judging the beauty and placement of viewing stones (both in gardens and trays) became highly developed in Japan during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. However, beginning in the thirteenth century radical changes occurred in Japanese aesthetic taste that caused a major divergence from the Chinese tradition of stone appreciation. This change in Japan was caused in large part by the quick and wide acceptance among the growing samurai class of Zen Buddhism. During this period of Japanese history, suiseki, as well as the tea ceremony, flower arrangement, bonsai, calligraphy, literature, painting, music and architecture, attained new levels of refinement and perfection. Connoisseurs of viewing stones would hold gatherings where participants competed with one another in writing poetry about the stone on display. Stones were sometimes so highly prized that their owners carried them in specially designed boxes wherever they traveled. Under the influence of Zen -- with its emphasis on austerity, concentrated meditation, intuitive insight, experience of absolute "nothingness" and direct communion with nature -- a different type of stone came to be admired. Unlike the older Chinese stones, these new stones were subtle, profoundly quiet, serene, austere and unpretentious. In order to perceive more clearly the essence of the stone, there developed among Zen monks of the Muromachi period (1338-1573) a taste for stones stripped of all distracting elements and unnecessary detail. This in turn led to a preference for stones that were more suggestive than explicit, more natural and irregular than artificial and symmetrical, more austere, subdued and weathered than ostentatious, colored, bright and new. Reduced to its bare essentials, the stone became a means of spiritual refinement, inner awareness and enlightenment. Early in the Meiji era (1868-1912) there was a brief period during which the development of the art of suiseki came to a virtual standstill. However, by the turn of the century the popularity of suiseki had revived and has reached an all time high in the latter half of the twentieth century. Since 1961, for example, the Japanese Suiseki Association, in collaboration with the Japanese Bonsai Association, has sponsored annual exhibitions of suiseki attended by thousands of individuals. The international status of the art has grown considerably and suiseki organizations have been established in the United States and other countries. A significant step occurred when the Japanese people presented six priceless suiseki to the United States as part of their bicentennial gift in 1976. Author: Vincent T. Covello, August 1995 |
June 12th, 2003
Photography by Tony Gerber unless noted otherwise.
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