Somei: Landscape Gardening in Edo

Two main highways leading north from Edo -- the Naka- sendo and the Nikko Kaido -- divide just as they leave the busy residential suburbs where most of Edo's wealthiest families have their manors. The countryside beyond is dotted with hundreds of small farms and occa- sional clusters of homes. As you make your way along the Naka- sendo and into the countryside, the spring landscape unfolds in beautiful colors. There are flowering trees and bushes everywhere you look. The delicate pink blossoms of cherry trees dot the roadside, and many of the hills are covered with a multicolored blanket of shrubbery -- especially azaleas and rhododendrons.

This is the Somei area -- a general name given to a cluster of small towns and villages that specialize in growing orna- mental plants and trees to plant in the gardens of all the wealthy daimyo in Edo. The two main towns in this area are Koma- gome and Sugamo, but most people in Edo know the area as "Somei" and the farmers who live in the region are known as the Somei uekiya (the landscape gardeners of Somei). They get their reputation from their great skill in raising thousands of different types of ornamental plants.

The farms in the Somei area produce most of the ornamental plants that the daimyo plant in their gardens, and many flower markets are held in the small towns along the Naka- sendo, where common people can also buy flowers, trees and shrubs. In fact, even the beautiful gardens inside Edo Castle are landscaped and tended by gardeners from Somei.

Gardening is one of the most common and most universal hobbies in Edo. Although the daimyo spend lots of money to build large and extensive gardens, even the poorest city dweller can raise flowers and small shrubs along the roadside or on their balcony, because all it takes is a pot, some dirt and a few seeds or cuttings. Since poor city dwellers have only a limited amount of land for growing plants, one popular hobby of lower-class people is bonsai . A bonsai tree is planted in a small pot and carefully trimmed to keep it from growing too big. If the grower does a good job of tending the tree, in ten years or so he will have a miniature bonsai tree, that looks exactly like a full-sized tree, but is only about a foot tall! Although Edo is a very crowded city, it is quite beautiful. In even the most crowded downtown neighborhoods, you can always see beautiful and well-tended flowers, shrubs and bonsai trees in almost everyone's front yard or doorstep. However, nothing can quite compare to the sight of Somei, with its endless acres of bushes, flowers and trees of every type imaginable.

Somei is the home of one of the most famous gardeners in Edo: Ihei Masatake. Masatake is the son of perhaps the greatest landscape gardener ever -- Ihei Sannojo, and many believe that Masatake is as good at actual gardening as his famous father. The Ihei family first got into the landscaping business back in the early days after Edo was founded. Masatake's grandfather was a simple farmer in the northern suburbs of Edo. Back then, most of the farms in the area grew only rice and vegetables for sale in the city, though a lot of farmers supplemented their income by working part time as gardeners and handymen at the estates of daimyo who lived nearby.

Ihei Masatake's grandfather was named Hotsukimaru. Since he was just a poor farmer, he did not have a last name. In Edo, most of the low-class people do not have a surname, because surnames are a sign of respect, and only fairly important people are allowed to have one. Hotsukimaru got a job working as a gardener and handyman at the estate of the Todo family, who were the rulers of Tsu province, in southern Japan. When Hotsukimaru was still a young man one member of the family, Todo Ihei, brought back some azalea bushes from his home in Tsu province and asked Hotsukimaru to plant them in the garden. The azaleas from southern Japan were more colorful than any Hotsukimaru had ever seen before, so he took cuttings home to his farm and carefully raised the bushes around his house. He soon discovered that if he carefully bred different plants together, the colors of the flowers were slightly different. After carefully tending the azaleas for about ten years, he had bred some beautiful varieties of different azalea, including purple, red, and even white varieties. After several years, when the new bushes had grown big enough, he brought these new varieties back to the Todo family estate and planted some in the gardens. When he saw them, Todo Ihei was amazed! He thought the bushes were so beautiful that he immediately appointed Hotsukimaru the head of all gardeners on the estate, and urged him to continue working to try to develop new varieties.

To show how pleased he was with the new types of azaleas, Todo Ihei asked the Shogun to let Hotsukimaru use a family name. When the Shogun saw the beautiful flowers, he agreed, as long as Hotsukimaru promised to grow some azaleas to plant in the gardens at Edo Castle. Hotsukimaru felt deep gratitude for his master. Once he got a last name, he would no longer be just a poor farmer -- he would be somebody important. To show his gratitude, he asked if he could take the name Ihei as his family name (so he would be named after his master). Todo Ihei agreed, and from that day on, everyone in the area knew of the gardener Ihei Hotsukimaru. Ihei Hotsukimaru's son, Sannojo grew up on the Todo estate, and worked with his father in the gardens. More and more daimyo in the area started planting large and elaborate gardens ,so they could show off to their neighbors. As the demand for gardeners increased, Hotsukimaru and Sannojo set up a family landscaping business. Although many other farmers in the area also began doing landscape work at the daimyos' estates, the Ihei family was the most famous. All the daimyo wanted to have their landscaping done by the Ihei ueki-ya (the Ihei landcaping company).

Sannojo learned all about azaleas from his father, but he could see that there was a strong demand for all sorts of flowering trees and bushes. He started to study every type of flowering tree and bush he could find, and planted many different varieties on his farm in Komagome. By the time Sannojo was thirty, he had developed several new varieties of ume (plum trees) and sakura (cherry trees). Since the new types were more colorful and had more flowers, all the daimyo wanted to buy them for their gardens, so they could show off to their friends. Sannojo became very wealthy selling the new types of cherry trees, plum trees, azaleas and other flowering bushes. When they saw how succesful the Ihei family had become, most of the other farmers in the area stopped growing rice and began raising ornamental plants instead.

By the time Masatake was born, Somei was the center of a huge landscaping business. From the time he was a little boy, every hour of the day he spent doing landscape work for rich daimyos, or trying to breed new varieties of flowers. The demand for trees and shrubs to plant in the elaborate gardens of Edo provides work for hundreds of farmers, and the convenient location of the Somei area -- on the main road leading into the suburbs where all the daimyo live -- makes it the "flower and garden center" of the entire country.

Naturally, every daimyo wants to have the most unique plants in their garden, so they can show off to the other daimyo . Therefore, the Somei uekiya (landscape gardeners of Somei) search far and wide for new varieties of plants. Not only do they try to breed new varieties of popular flowers; they also search in the forests for new species that might make good ornamental plants. They even import seeds and cuttings from countries far, far away. In 1695, Ihei Sannojo published a best-selling book on gardening that gave information on over 2000 different types of plants, including varieties from as far away as Africa and South America. 1


this all (well... the words part) from an extraordinary time-travel website where, in the blink of an eye, you are transported to edo in 1790, and it really feels like you're there. fascinating, well-written, well-researched.

EDO JAPAN: A Virtual Tour

octopii -- can't live with em' can't live without 'em

there are numerous myths about lovely tamatori, the simple pearl-diver. unfortunately they wildly contradict each other. for simplicity's sake, i'll offer this shorter one.

The legend of Princess Tamatori (Tamatorihime), or Ama, developed around the historical figure Fujiwara no Kamatari (614-69), who was the founder of the powerful Fujiwara clan.

Upon Kamatari’s death, the Tang dynasty emperor who had received Kamatari’s beautiful daughter as a consort, sent three priceless treasures to Japan in order to comfort his grieving lover by honoring her father. One of the treasures, a pearl, was stolen by the dragon king during a storm on its way to Japan in the inlet of Fusazaki.

Kamatari’s son Fujiwara no Fuhito (659-720) went in search of the pearl to the isolated area where he met and married a beautiful pearl diver named Ama, who bore him a son. Ama, full of love for their son, vowed to help recover the stolen pearl. After many failed attempts, Ama was finally successful when the dragon and grotesque creatures guarding it were lulled to sleep by music.

Upon reclaiming the treasure, she came under pursuit by the awakened sea creatures. She cut open her breast to place the pearl inside for safe- keeping; the resulting flow of blood clouded the water and aided her escape. She died from the resulting wound but is revered for her selfless act of sacrifice for her husband Fuhito and their son. 1

and as you might have noticed, there is another strong tradition, believed to be based in this myth, of the ladies and their 8-legged friends. a modern 'parody' follows.

from THE PILLOW BOY OF LADY ONOGORO

As soon as her lover had concluded his scrupulous congress and lay sleeping, Hanako crept out of bed and, carelessly throwing on an outer-robe, ran to the fish pond for solace.

'Moonlit apricots fell from their branches with a plop and floated on the water as the lady lay all abject on the muddy bank. Meanwhile, Yugure, the giant of twilight, called up from the depths by the sad sound of weeping, rose to the surface in all his kindly majesty.

'Spying Hanako's white hand upon the water, Yugure opened his muscular lips and sucked sympathetically at her fingers, which shed their sadness under his touch and opened out like jasmine flowers.

'Under the bridge of the night sky with the air smelling of apricots the great carp scented out another delicacy, and this was the lady's small bare foot which dangled, abandoned, in the sultry water. The small morsels of her toes filled his ardent mouth, and each one he worshipped separately, until Hanako's eyelids drooped with contentment and her long sigh rippled the surface like a balmy wind.

'With a spiralling dive Yugure swept his silver belly lightly along the curved sole of her foot, and resurfaced to nudge her splendid calf, which glimmered in the moonlight. All thought of her scrupulous lover was banished now, as Hanako rolled on to her back and, luxuriating in the slickness of the mud, stretched her legs out in the shallows until her robe floated up around her like a giant water-lily.

`Yugure circled the lady amorously, for on the table of the waters the feast had been laid for him, and he wished for nothing more than to taste her pleasure.

`Hanako, for her part, felt the golden head butt gently between her thighs, and she clasped her legs eagerly round his broad girth, for his slippery scales were far less chilly to the touch than the pallid skin of her lover. Her small breasts bobbed like apricots on the water as the great lips closed on the kernel of her, and she cried 0 0 0, and hid her face in her tumbling hair, feeling the four tender barbels stroke her with a touch lighter than lark's breath.

`With exquisite consider- ation, Yugure scooped up water and blew it in spouting fountains upon Hana- ko's tender- est places, so that when his lips swam back to nibble her they found the lady anchored unflinchingly to her own pleasure, and swell- ing up to meet them. And if Yugure’s heart swelled also, then so might a gardener feel who has watered his pea·flowers lovingly throughout the spring and now admires them in their glorious unfolding.

‘With his tickling barbels teasing at her outer crevices, the giant fish enclosed both pea and pod within his noble lips. And there were moments when he sucked, and moments when he blew, and moments when the delicate morsel rolled in his mouth as if it would detach itself from its moorings. The lady’s juices flowed saltily, and her limbs quivered, and her belly arched, and he knew that before too long he would be rewarded by the lovely wash and thrash of her.

‘At last, with her excellent gate open as never before, Hanako cried out in the velvet night and fed her pleasure to him inch by streaming inch, and Yugure drank down her very good essence and held it hotly in the thrill of his fins and the diamond patterns of his belly, for what better accompaniment is there to the lavish feast of love than the intoxicating wine of the soul?

‘And afterwards she laid her mud·slicked hand on his accommo- dating head, and both carp and lady lolled back in the sultry shallows, she heavy-lidded and content, he with his lidless eyes unwavering under the curious scrutiny of the stars.

Alison Fell
copyright 2000

mid-century....... japonisme? :: part three

"'Young architects, forget Rome, go to Japan!' exclaimed Walter Gropius after his return to Cambridge from the Far East in the early 1950s." 1

But many had al- ready gone. In 1930 Richard Neutra was invited to speak in Japan, as he was considered one of the best suited modern architects to indicate the way of adapting Japan's age-old building techniques.

"The synthesis of Eastern and Western accomplishments in building... involved the integration of two seemingly dichotomous elements -- Nature and geometric structural forms. The importance of bringing the two together, Neutra said, was introduced to him early in his career." 1

"As the Japanese have already successfully turned the 'Buddhist universe' into architecture, the West gradually discovered their achievements in visual arts, architecture and later in philosophy as well.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Adolf Loos, Gerrit Rietveld, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and many others took inspiration from Japanese building heritage in creating modern architectural space of the West." 4

The Case Study Houses were experiments in American residential architecture sponsored by John Entenza's (later David Travers') Arts & Architecture magazine, which commissioned major architects of the day, including Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig and Eero Saarinen, to design and build inexpensive and efficient model homes for the United States residential housing boom caused by the end of World War II and the return of millions of soldiers.

The program ran intermittently from 1945 until 1966. The first six houses were built by 1948 and attracted more than 350,000 visitors. While not all 36 designs were built, most of those that were constructed were built in Los Angeles; a few are in the San Francisco Bay Area, and one was built in Phoenix, Arizona. A number of them appeared in the magazine in iconic black and white photographs by architectural photographer Julius Shulman. 2

Charles and Ray Eames' contribution to this experiment included their own home. With its open plan and its integration of structure with landscape, the Eames house translated into high-tech forms the democratic ethos Frank Lloyd Wright had earlier explored in his prairie houses. With the Eameses, as with Wright, the Japanese influence is pronounced, evident not only in the simple, tatami matlike rhythm of walls, floors and ceilings, but also in the attempt to displace Western ideas of art with the Eastern art of living. 3

These houses epitomized the nature of "mid-century modern" architecture.

"As a romantic tendency colors the modern architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, a classic predisposition flavors that of Philip Johnson.

In Johnson's work every element is placed in symmetrical response to some other and each bears a close and logical relationship to the total design...

Less evident, but no less important a Japanese charac- teristic, is the use of a standard unit of measure throughout the residence. It determines the proportional relations of house parts in the same way that the ken assures the Japanese builder of pleasing visual effects." 1

We have seen both outright attribution and denial of attribution to inspiration from the Japanese.

"Johnson, however, had political theories of his own. He laid out his position on race in an article for the Examiner titled 'A Dying People?' He opened the article by warning that Americans were failing to reproduce in sufficient quantities, predicting deserted ghost towns and a massive population decline. Midway through the article, however, Johnson displaced population decrease in absolute terms with a decrease in the population of the white race, writing: 'This decline in fertility, so far as scientists have been able to discover, is unique in the history of the white race.'

The decline Johnson was predicting would be only among whites, the non-whites apparently not worthy of consideration as part of the population. 'In short,' Johnson wrote, 'the United States of America is committing race suicide.' Only by thinking in the broader terms of the greater good of the race could whites save it:

…by their lack of will to live and grow, [Americans] themselves accelerate the already rapid decline in births. I have heard many educated men talk in this way: --Well if we are not the fittest to survive, nature will wipe us out. The Japanese may be more fit to survive. Remember Darwin.--" 5

Remember Darwin indeed. The hatred is not new. The spread of ideas is not new. The need for time to accept and to own what is new: these are build into our very genes.

For better and worse.

mid-century....... japonisme? :: part two

THE TRAIL OF JAPANESE INFLUENCE
IN OUR MODERN DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE:

THE "Spirit of the Orient" appears to be invading not only American trades and market gardens, but its art and architecture. From the solemn groves of Nikko, from ancient castle moats and mountain shrines, from the wet, shining leaves of water gardens in old Nippon, from the soft curves of the flowing roof lines and the tender tones of the untouched wood surfaces, our modern house-architects are drawing inspiration for new and delightfully "different" effects.

Local character in architecture is always a fascinating study, and the high standard of culture in Japan, the refinement of art developed through centuries by a people devoted to the ideal, must of necessity impress itself upon their architecture.

While the mere draughtsman, wedded to conventional forms and accustomed methods, would find Japanese architecture only absurd and impracticable, there are architects who are artists as well, and who find in these sources a delightfully suggestive and enriching field of study.

They know that thatched roofs and light sliding partitions are not practicable for American homes, nor do they desire to copy Japanese ideas merely because they are foreign and strange. Charming and interesting as is Japanese tradition in architecture, it is so for Japan and not for us, and it would be foolish indeed to attempt to naturalize in this country many of their local idiosyncrasies.

But the sympathetic student of architectural forms finds much real beauty that can be used to impart a fresh interest to jaded ideas. In the houses here mentioned, Messrs. Green & Green of Pasadena, California, have attempted to naturalize in a new world environment the usable and livable features of Japanese architecture.

The highly picturesque character of the natural surroundings -- the houses being situated on high ground overlooking the wild gorge of the Arroyo Seco -- is admirably suited to a certain irregularity and picturesqueness of architectural treatment, and the introduction of Japanese suggestion accentuates the charm.

Although the motif is picturesque, it is not carried to extremes, but an effect of simplicity is obtained in a composition which is in itself rather loose and complicated by the simple treatment of detail. The Japanese system of bracketing, for instance, said by authorities on art to be the acme of perfection for wood, has been adopted in these designs with happy results.

Without employing the queer quirks and angles of Japanese roof lines, their graceful curves, so difficult to achieve, are sufficiently marked to render impossible an effect ordinary or common-place. While there is a decided Japanese feeling, nothing has been carried to extremes, and the slightly foreign accent has been so modified by principles of good domestic design as to give a wholly normal and satisfying result. The different features are harmonized with admirable skill and a sane and sound judgment.

Hard-burned clinker bricks set roughly in dark mortar are used in the foundation and in the entrance pillars and chimneys, strikingly combined with large, mossy boulders brought from the near-by mountains. The warm purplish-brown of the brick in combination with the mossy boulders and the soft grays and browns of the wood construction give a color effect of great beauty and softness.

The chimneys are strongly suggestive of Japanese influence, as are also the treatment of the windows and the open rafter work. Great simplicity characterizes the construction, which is all exposed and made to form the decorative features. The timbers are mortised together with oak pins, and nails are used scarcely at all in the construction.

While groups of mullioned windows are largely employed, Japanese suggestion is again felt in the narrow slits of windows which open on the side terrace, with but one long, narrow light, divided in the center by a single wood muntin [sic].

No attempt has been made to introduce Japanese ideas in the interior arrangement, which is that of the usual high-class modern home. The living and dining rooms are heavily wainscoted and beamed, the solid ceiling beams of the construction being exposed in true CRAFTSMAN style. Simple CRAFTSMAN ideas are carried out in the finish and furniture.

Two views are given of the architect's own residence, which nearly adjoins the house just described and which embodies similar ideas. That all appearance of sameness or monotony of treatment should be entirely absent from designs based upon the same general picturesque motif is evidence of the skill and fertility of the designer.

Such architecture can be the result of no hard and fast rules. Not only must the architect possess the artist temperament to begin with, but the trained eye for harmonious detail, the eye as sensitive to discords of form and color as the trained ear of the musician is to discords of sound. It is the aim of these architects to interpret these subtle harmonies by their work, and above all things to have all construction and materials true to their own nature, believing that brick treated simply as brick, stone as stone or wood as wood, is better than any disguise that can be put upon them.

Henrietta P. Keith

The Craftsman (ed. Gustav Stickley)
July 1907 1

There are numerous really terrific resources on this subject,
some of which are:

Douglas Keister's Photography

Antique Home & Daily Bungalow

The Arts & Crafts Society

American Architect and
Building News 1876-1890

East Meets Northwest

Maggie's Farm


The Rose and The Chrysanthemum