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  Japan - is the country-riddle, the country of rising sun, which for many Europeans will remain unsolved secret, not understood and not estimated. And it is not surprising, except cardinal difference of mentalities, throughout almost two millennia it has been isolated from world and only in the middle of XIX century it has opened the doors. The unique creation of hands human - the Garden of stones belongs to one of surprising features of this country, which is now the card of Japanese culture.
 

And, as well as all life of these people, and this unique in own way phenomenon, it is inseparably connected with philosophy, national and religious features of Japanese validity perception. Religions of Japan are zen-Buddhism and Shinto, learn that contemplation of the nature or its corners changed by the person, and helps to come nearer to comprehension of organic laws of life. Japanese are extraordinary sensitive to the nature, there are not beautiful thing for them in the world. Worship falls, mountains, trees became a basis of national religion. Characteristic line of the Japanese mentality -  is ability to perceive any artistic image actively, conjecturing it and empathizing together with the author. It explains laconicism and the same time a polysemy, the symbolism, inherent in the Japanese gardens. Unlike the European garden, where all is subordinated to influence on our sense organs by means of colours or aromas, the Japanese garden pursues only one aim: to help to be released from all vain and to find composure.


 

Basis of bases of the Japanese garden are stones. The stone in its photogenic form is the main attribute of the Japanese park. Aesthetic properties of a raw stone are more applied in architecture of "garden of stones".

 Japanese garden of stones - is a unique construction. Its basic area is filled up by sand or a small pebble, and on it as though in the disorder groups of crude stones are scattered. However disorder is only the seeming. Arrangement of stones on the platform - is an art form, one of the main abilities of the gardener. The essence of this art in each stone managing to see your own "face" and "pose", and to allocate with a certain role in a composition: it will lay, lean, escape. On degree of decorative and semantic loading, group of stones are placed from left to right, as the sight slides on the picture, so the movement along the garden is usually organized. Stones and boulders mean force and firmness. Being motionless, they radiate rest, and located asymmetrically, they are most conformable with the nature. In due course they become covered by a web, acquire a moss and a lichen that makes them even more organic. The stone garden can look so: moss pillows simulate soft outlines of hills, wavy lines on the small gravel mixed with sand, a water surface, giving a hitch ripples with grey-haired rocks stand out from it. It is also called a flat garden or dry landscape. Gardens of stones are functionally intended for meditations, discharge from worldly vanity and daily problems. The design of similar constructions, submitting to norms of the zen-Buddhism, strengthens draught of Japanese to admiring of nature, reflexion, and solitude. Here such principles as ability to see a charm of usual and grace of simplicity stand out in clear form. The platform is enclosed by a wall approximately the one meter height underlining privacy of the garden.


 

The garden of stones, as well as in general, Japanese garden, is created according to architecture of the house and depends on it an interior. The garden is intended for examining from the house. The garden in Japan is as though continuation of the house and all that occurs around, thanks to a low fencing, is involved in the garden life, all world in its integrity and nonseparatedness intertwines in indissoluble harmony. Mountain is on horizon, the river proceeding in the distance, blossoming plants in the next garden... All can be seen from a window of the Japanese house.

Unshakable fundamental bases of the world which are symbolized with the Japanese garden of stones, were embodied in an immovability and static character of garden picture. Wisdom of centuries is concluded in these symbols, simple and difficult simultaneously.

The author - V.C.