The Japan Times: Where Japanese gardeners, in their pre-Shinto, animistic phase, sought out water…

Where Japanese gardeners, in their pre-Shinto, animistic phase, sought out waterfalls, forest glades and pebble beaches, requisitioning these spaces as proto gardens or purified clearings where the gods could be summoned and petitioned, the ancient Okinawans, without any notion of arranged landscapes functioning as magnetic fields for the spirits, allotted groves, rocks, cliffs and crevices called “utaki” as manifestations of the sacred. One of the clearest examples of a garden closely modeled on Chinese principles is Shikina-en in Naha. Destroyed in the battle of Okinawa in 1945. The circuit garden was faithfully reassembled in the postwar period from surviving stones and masonry. 📸 Stephen Mansfield
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