Orchestrating Movement in Space through Picturesque, Sharawadgi, and Chinese Landscape Painting

Picturesque is a term first introduced in the 17th century and thrived in the 18th century that means “in the manner of a picture; fit to be made into a picture” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In landscape paintings, the picturesque style is to show the depth of the planes within the canvas, creating foregrounds, middle grounds, and backgrounds. John Nash is famous for using picturesque in architecture as a concept of framing to guide people's way of circulating through the space he created. Regent Street is an excellent example of his attempt to separate the rich areas from the poorer districts in London. The All Souls Church that John Nash created was used as an eye-catching monument at the background of his canvas, connecting Regent Park with Piccadilly. While John Nash has been using picturesque in architecture in the early 19th century to limit circulation, the use of picturesque in architecture can also free movements.

The Eastern culture has a significant impact on the concept of picturesque that was brought to Europe by Sir William Temple. In Europe proportions, symmetry, and precision have been of prominent value when it comes to building design and plantations in a landscape. Palaces and gardens have symmetrical buildings regarding façade treatment, interior spaces and also have the trees planted at the same distance from one another. This, however, is very different from the concept of Sharawadgi or "sa luo gui qi" (洒落瑰琦) meaning "quality of being impressive or surprising through careless or unorderly grace"[1] has long been influential in Chinese landscape designs and paintings. The Summer Palace’s naturalistic style of the asymmetrical planning of architecture and plantation can be understood as an example of the Sharawadgi style, bringing an organic and free sensation to the atmosphere within the garden.

Suzhou Yuanlin or Suzhou Gardens such as The Lion Grove Garden is also an example of the Sharawadgi Style. It is famous for its irregular pathways with the use of rocks to form thresholds and partitions combined with the fluid shape of the rivers and ponds that are exquisitely weaved into the garden space. This creates moments that are mysterious and exciting to explore, bringing a new experience every time through the endless possibilities of circulation within the garden area.

The Chinese Landscape Painting is also known as “Shan Shui Hua, ” or mountain-and-water painting celebrates the idea of an abstract impression of the landscape, creating a sense of harmony in the arbitrary, using multiple layers and depth to wrap the painting with a sense of mysteriousness and is open to imagination. All of these are influential to the understanding of picturesque and the new embrace of the less arithmetically order in the later designs of landscape and garden spaces in Europe and North America such as Adolphe Alphand’s Parc des Buttes Chaumont in Paris and Frederick Law Olmsted's Central Park in New York City.

Picturesque is composing a picture within a frame, yet it can be used to control movements or choose it to set it free.

[1] Y.Z. Chang (1930). "A Note on Sharawadgi". Modern Language Notes. 45 (4): 221–224.