Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/274

JAPAN growth of Japan's civilisation through the historical stages of her existence, it should be noted that, in strict accuracy, the above developments of landscape gardening and its correlated arts do not belong entirely to the Military epoch. But the additions that were made to these refinements under the Tokugawa epoch, which succeeded the Military, are not sufficient to require special discussion. Virtually all the principles destined to guide subsequent devotees of the art were conceived and coded in the closing days of the Ashikaga Shōgunate, and though landscape gardening in Yedo during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reached a scale of grandeur and elaboration such as had never previously been witnessed, these splendid results were not new departures, but only extended applications of the science.

The characteristic, though not by any means the unique, type of garden affected during the Military epoch was dictated by the canons of the Cha-no-yu cult. Cha-no-yu literally signifies "hot water for tea," a title which assumes almost offensive simplicity when contrasted with the extraordinary complexity and subtlety of the practices it designates. The Cha-no-yu garden bears to the great park of princely palace or nobleman's mansion much the same relation as an impressionist sketch bears to a highly finished representative picture. The chambers where the Tea Ceremonial is carried on are specially 246