Imperial villa katsura. Katsura palace

The features of the synthesis of the previous stages of development, which resulted in a product of rare harmony and measure combined with exquisite simplicity and naturalness, were most fully embodied in the Katsura ensemble.

Although the Katsura gardens can be attributed to the final, final stage in the development of the genre, this refined work is devoid of features of decline, loss of semantic significance, manifested in a passion for the purely formal side of creativity. On the contrary, the very principle of free and organic combination of features of different styles gave an interesting and fruitful artistic result. There are features coming from the Heian architecture of shinden-zukuri - a special "opposition" between the building and the space of the garden, as well as the lyrical aspect of experiencing nature. The principle of constructing the interior of a house, as it were, opening outward, is characteristic of the shoin-zukuri style, which was formed during the Muromachi period. But an equally important place in the Katsura concept is occupied by the qualities inherent in the architecture of tea pavilions (the so-called sukiya style) with its refined simplicity and deliberate attention to the natural beauty of the material - wood, bamboo, stone. Already the very first impressions of the ensemble are associated with admiring the golden-yellow, shiny surface of the bamboo fence posts, skillfully tied with straw bundles. The veranda of the palace, made of smoothly polished unpainted boards, resembles a precious moire in texture, so the play of wood texture is selected and aesthetically meaningful. The ideals of the tea cult here, as it were, spread to a more widely understood architectural concept - not only of a tea house and a garden, but of the entire complex of buildings and their surrounding natural environment.

The Katsura ensemble, significant in size (its area is 66 thousand square meters), has a complex developed plan without any fixing vertical. Natural hills and troughs define ascents and descents, alternating high points with a distant view, and lower, relatively closed ones. This is a single, horizontally unfolding space, the fluidity and dynamism of which is formed by the composition of gardens that form integrity, but stand out into independently distinguishable links. The soft picturesqueness of the Heian gardens organically merges with the strong, filled with a sense of inner power, groups of stones, as if they came from Zen dry gardens. Countless shades of greenery of mosses, shrubs, trees, disposed to contemplation, bring to mind the gardens of the Saihoji type. Still, the most important thing is the quality borrowed from the tea gardens - the exact "guiding" of a person along a pre-planned, artistically verified route with a whole series of completely definite visual impressions. The stone paths that connect the palace to the pavilions in the garden, leading to places to admire a waterfall or a particularly beautiful tree, give the impression of accidentally curving, naturally winding among the depressions and irregularities of the soil. The very first purpose of this path - not to soak your feet in damp grass - presupposes caution when walking along it, constant attention to the unevenness of the surface of each stone, in other words, makes a person look down all the time. But the master, who planned the path, also considered some kind of respite in this careful, slow progress. He fixed them with either a larger and smoother stone or a forked path. At these points of stopping the movement, the person raised his head and saw a composition, thought out in advance, provided by the artist, which must be considered. The artist makes the path to be a "guide", not just to lead, but to show the garden, to reveal its varied, changing beauty.

A person is invisibly present on the paths of Katsura. The artist builds the entire ensemble - not only architectural structures, but also the environment - commensurate with a person. If in the gardens of the 14-15 centuries nature was only an object of contemplation and a person only strove to merge with it, to dissolve in it, then here different scales and images create a slightly different type of connection between man and nature, which, in fact, can be noted as the main thing. an innovation of the Katsura ensemble.

Tradition associated the authorship of the Katsura ensemble with the name of Kobori Enshu, but modern Japanese scholars tend to abandon this point of view. The general idea, in all likelihood, belonged to Prince Toshihito himself, for whom the palace was built. The construction work was headed by Nakanuma Sakio, who, together with the artist subordinate to him, the gardener Joshiro, was the author of the main landscape compositions.

The center of the ensemble is occupied by an artificial lake with a rather complex and differently designed coastline, with islands of different sizes and shapes. The main building of the palace in the form of a long zigzag of buildings adjoining each other at the corners overlooks the garden and consists of three parts - Old Shoin, Middle Shoin and New Palace. At the main gate, opposite Old Shoin, is the Gepparo Pavilion, and between them is a garden in an expanded form - a syn. This is the oldest part of the ensemble.

The first stage of construction dates back to 1620-1625 (under the leadership of Prince Toshihito). After a significant break, it resumed in 1642-1647 (already for Prince Toshitada, son of Toshihito), and the last structures were completed for the visit of Emperor Gomitsuno in 1659. In the second and third stages, the priest Ogawa Bojo was the consultant to Prince Toshitada, Tamabuchi was in charge of the arrangement of the gardens, and the general direction was carried out by Kobori Seishun.

The veranda of Old Shoin offers beautiful views of Gepparo and the garden in front of him. As you move inside the palace through the Middle Shoin and the New Palace, the view of the garden changes all the time and ends with a completely empty green lawn. Paths of individual stones are laid along the building and through the garden. Walking along one of them to the lake, you find yourself in the Pine and Lute Pavilion - Shokintei, and then across the bridge - to the island, where the Flower Admiring Pavilion - Shokatei stands at the top. In addition to these main buildings, the ensemble also includes the Onrindo and Shokien pavilions.

Although Katsura's plan is such that the ensemble cannot be captured by the gaze in its entirety, at the same time, it is all comprehended through the details, through the part, the whole is revealed; The unified synthetic space of the ensemble, which has no pronounced boundaries, constantly varies, is played out, experienced and, as a result, gives a lot of different emotions depending on the position of the observer - sitting motionless inside the room or slowly passing the path from the spacious open lawn in front of the palace to the pavilion on the island.

It is unlikely that there is still an ensemble in world art that would give such a complex gamut of emotions from experiencing nature and where every smallest detail would be so varied and subtle. At the same time, the architectural form itself is almost secondary, or, in any case, is equivalent to natural forms - both natural and man-made.

The horizontal orientation of the palace, not only not towering above the natural environment, but even below the trees that create the background for it, completely removes the idea of opposing architecture and nature. The zigzag line of the facade connects it with the adjacent environment, makes it grow into it. The surface of the reservoir separates and simultaneously unites all buildings, and the relaxed line of the coast creates a smooth, natural rhythm of their alternation, which could be observed in different gardens of the past. Here, these qualities are emphasized and sharpened, but just enough so as not to catch the eye, not to become self-sufficient.

The artist does not allow himself the slightest carelessness, not a single accidental detail, not a single unimpressive angle. A distant and majestic picture of mighty nature opens before the gaze of a person looking from the interior of the palace into the garden (a small pagoda on the shore of a reservoir creates a scale, emphasizes the height of the trees). But if, sitting at the edge of the veranda, lower your eyes, the main impression becomes the richness of textures: the soft golden bamboo of the terrace, the silky tree of the supports and railings, the silvery rough stones surrounded by emerald mosses. In both cases, the artist tried to achieve the greatest possible completeness of emotional experience.

Those canons of beauty that have been created over the centuries, complementing each other, merging and deepening, received a real material embodiment here, reaching a high harmony of the classical model. The movement towards nature, the desire to comprehend it without violating its integrity, and to feel its place in it are expressed in Katsura as the embodiment of the ideal.

Everything here speaks of the slowness of the genius artist-philosopher, who constantly felt himself not outside the element, which he was given artistically to comprehend, but inside it. And that is why he was able to so vigilantly notice the beauty of the lace fern leaf against the background of thick and soft green moss, shaded by light stones of the path. He felt a gentle musicality in the alternation of large and small stones, caught and juxtaposed dozens of shades of green, forcing the viewer to experience the texture of objects again and again - in collision, contrast, in harmony and consonance.

But most importantly, using natural objects as plastic ones, he creates an unprecedentedly diverse, meaningful space, now static, closed in a chamber at the entrance gate, now moving and spacious, merging with distant wooded hills. It becomes the main and unforgettable "hero" of the ensemble.

It is difficult even to list all the non-repeating techniques of the spatio-temporal organization of the Katsura gardens. Here is an almost illusory distant landscape, calm and designed for long-term contemplation, and a sharply "slowing down" stone on the bank of the pond, and the closed world of the courtyard in front of the entrance, where the tower-lantern is perceived as a park sculpture creating a long circular movement of space around itself.

The color scheme of the gardens was also carefully developed, taking into account the seasonal changes in greenery and the combinations depending on this - with the tree of buildings, the white planes of the sliding walls, etc.

But the most important result of the artist's work is that the garden as a whole and all its details are permeated with a sense of spirituality, animation, meaningfulness, revealed not only in symbols, but also in open emotionality.

The main quality of the Katsura gardens is their special spatial and plastic connection with architecture. This applies not only to the gardens located at the tea pavilions, but also to the compositions directly adjacent to the palace. The poeticization of simplicity and poverty, based on the wabi principle, was organically combined in the architecture of the palace with the aristocratic sophistication of the shoin style, and this indirect, but still traced (although not as clearly as in chashitsu) connection with the democratic traditions of a rural house is its main originality and quality. , which subsequently influenced the addition of the type of residential building. The humanistic content of this architecture, which manifests itself primarily in its proportionality to a person, genetically also goes back to the people's dwelling with its strict functionality, utilitarian justification of all details, which was aesthetically understood by tea masters in the architecture of chashitsu. Clear linearity, graphic design, emphasized orderliness of architecture are juxtaposed and contrasted with the relaxed freedom, naturalness of the garden. But both of these components of the ensemble form integrity, the unity of static and dynamic principles, balance of rest and movement. The design features of the palace architecture - sliding windows-walls, a light frame, the very naturalness of materials (mainly wood) make the house organically part of the garden. Outside space, as it were, merges into the interior, the garden “enters” into the room, and for a person sitting on a floor mat or on a veranda, the garden is not separated or removed. It can be viewed, contemplated, like a picture, but you can also feel it around you. These features, brought to perfection and absolute clarity in the Katsura ensemble, turned out to be the most important for the subsequent development of architecture and garden art.

Japanese gardens. Nikolaeva Natalia Sergeevna. Publishing House "Fine Art", Moscow. 1975

KATSURA COUNTRY PALACE IN KYOTO

Middle Shoin

The Japanese city of Kyoto is not just an amazing city with wonderful architectural monuments. For one and a half million inhabitants of Kyoto today there are about 200 temples, hundreds of parks and dozens of palaces. The Japanese themselves call their city a national treasure, and indeed a fifth of all the masterpieces of Japanese architecture are located in Kyoto.

The village of Uda in Kadono County was chosen to select the new capital. The emperor came here twice in 792 to inspect the place chosen by his entourage. The village was located in a picturesque valley among the mountains, and construction work began here already in 793. The Japanese imperial court then followed the Chinese standards in everything, and the new capital was built in the Chinese style - with flat streets intersecting at right angles.

For more than a thousand years, Kyoto has been the capital of the Land of the Rising Sun, either becoming a victim of fires and civil strife, or experiencing times of prosperity. The waves of history carried away many unique monuments and masterpieces of architecture, but what has survived amazes everyone who has visited the city with the severity and stinginess of lines, splendor and richness of colors.

Now there are so many historical buildings and monuments, temples and shrines, palaces, fences and gardens in Kyoto that you can find any sight everywhere: the hollow curved roof of a temple, a pagoda or a street that rises in the distance, overlooking the facades of old houses. The Katsura palace complex, its medieval simplicity and beauty of constantly changing park landscapes, harmoniously combined with graceful pavilions and gazebos, is rightfully considered the special pride of the Japanese.

Katsura Rikyu was built as a suburban imperial palace. It is known that since the 9th century, the land on which the palace complex is now located was owned by the aristocratic Fujiwara family, and at the beginning of the 17th century it was acquired by Prince Toshihito, gifted with many talents. He knew classical Japanese and Chinese poetry, loved to draw and play the koto, was a master of flower arranging and a great admirer of the tea ceremony.

In 1615, Prince Toshihito began to build a palace, the first buildings of which were distinguished by the simplicity that testified to the impeccable taste of its owner. In the circles of researchers, there is an assumption that Prince Toshihito used the advice of Kobori Enshu - a genius architect, poet, potter, master of the tea ceremony and specialist in garden planning all rolled into one. True, there are historical records that other masters were engaged in the decorative arrangement of the garden, however, K. Ensu's style is felt everywhere. However, the prince himself did not have time to enjoy the beauty of his country palace, and after his death, everything fell into disrepair.

The second stage in the construction of the palace is associated with the son of Toshihito Toshidada, who inherited the talents of his father, and his financial problem was solved by his marriage to the daughter of a wealthy feudal lord Maeda. Toshidad's new buildings did not in the least violate the original plans of his father, but on the contrary, they organically blended into what had already been created, and thus, in terms of beauty and architectural design, a single palace complex was obtained.

The palace ensemble, built on the banks of the Katsura River, covers an area of 56,000 square meters. In the center there is a large pond of a very peculiar shape with five islets connected to each other by wooden or stone bridges.

The main part of the palace ensemble unites three buildings into a single whole - the old shoinh, the middle shoin and the new palace. The buildings of the old and middle shoin are located in such a way as to avoid the sun's rays in the summer, but to catch the soft sun rays in the winter, and in the fall to allow the opportunity to admire the full moon. Their roofs, due to the different heights of the buildings, create a varied scenic rhythm with their overhanging cornices.

The first floor of each building is surrounded by a veranda, which is separated from the outer space by shoji - sliding walls. The veranda is raised above the ground on tall and thin wooden props. The rooms, like the verandas, have sliding walls made of wooden frames with thick paper glued to them. Such walls can delimit interiors and separate them from the surrounding nature. Prince Toshihito was very fond of admiring the moon and built a special platform in the old shoin for this.

On average, Toshihito's living quarters were located in the shoin. Their interior is very interesting, since the landscape on the walls and sliding walls is perceived as a natural landscape, visible through the open doors. Thus, as it were, the border between the inner and outer space is being destroyed.

The middle shoin is connected to the new palace by a room for storing musical instruments, and it is framed by a wide veranda for playing music. The doors between the music room and the new palace are decorated in a very peculiar way. These are flowers typical for every season: in spring - sakura and wisteria, in summer - susuki and hibiscue, in autumn - chrysanthemums, in winter - plum, camellia and daffodils.

The refined simplicity of the Katsura Palace is also given by natural building materials, which play a huge role in the decoration of buildings. Cryptomeria in natural color, a wicker lattice fence made of bamboo, white sliding walls, stone paths against a background of moss, gutters strewn with small pebbles - everything creates a feeling of noble simplicity.

An integral part of the Katsura palace complex are tea houses located on the shore of a pond, without which it is impossible to imagine a traditional Japanese garden. The surface of the water itself, as it were, becomes the material for the endless alternation of landscapes, designed for different seasons, day and different weather.

One part of the pond in Katsura is famous, for example, for the romantic reflection of the autumn moon, sung by many poets.

The most elegant of the tea pavilions is the Shokintei, which surpasses all other tea houses of that era in its decorativeness. On the east, west and north sides, it faces the pond; The low overhanging roof of the Shokintei keeps it cool even on a hot day.

There are several rooms in this pavilion. The first contains a tokonoma (a wall niche with a raised floor) and a stone hearth, which is used in winter. The paper in the niche is in the form of large squares - white and blue. This shape is repeated in the floor mats and in the sliding walls.

The last room of the Shokintei Pavilion opens onto the garden. This gradual transition of the interior to the garden space, which in turn turns into a natural landscape, is one of the characteristic features of Japanese architecture.

Even the sound of the wind and the singing of birds play a big role in creating an emotional mood. After all, Shokintei is a pavilion of “pines and lutes”, when the sound of the wind playing in the surrounding pines is perceived in the rooms as the sounds of a lute.

Another tea pavilion - Gepparo - gives originality to the autumn season. Maples grow near the pavilion, the leaves of which turn purple in autumn. From this pavilion, you can admire the reflection of the moon in the pond, and from the veranda of the old shoin, watch its rise.

On the territory of the palace complex there is also a Buddhist temple built in the Chinese style. Prince Toshidada dedicated it to his father.

The suburban imperial palace Katsura is famous not only for the architecture of its buildings. The palace garden combines the features of a wide variety of park ensembles, but its general character approaches the style of tea gardens, when the perception of the landscape occurs in the process of movement, the direction and rhythm of which are set by the paths.

A visit to the Katsura palace complex usually consists of a short walk along the quaintly winding paths of the park. The park, in fact, was conceived for walking and admiring the landscapes created by the most skilled gardeners. When you walk through the park, the landscape changes with your movement: for example, the pond completely disappears, then appears in front of you completely unexpectedly. The constant movement of space is a feature of traditional Japanese architecture, because the Japanese are great masters of enclosing nature in a small space.

One of the famous visitors to Katsura said that this palace complex was created to "think with the eyes." This statement becomes clear even after a short walk through the palace, when once a year its doors are opened to visitors.

Among the many attractions of the palace, they are shown the "Chamber of Peace and Coolness", in which, during solemn ceremonies, the emperor sat on a matting platform under expensive silk canopies. A staircase leads to this platform, on the sides of which there are two wooden lions protecting the emperor from evil forces. When a visitor at the entrance to the "Chamber of Peace and Coolness" stepped on one of the boards, with the help of a special device the alarm was immediately raised and a formidable guard appeared.

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GOSHO - Kyoto Imperial Palace

In the historical part of modern Kyoto, there is a huge garden, in the depths of which the old imperial palace - Gosho - is hidden. In its present form, it is not the same palace that was built for Emperor Kammu in 795.
That palace was called Daidairi - the Great Imperial Palace, it was located on the northern outskirts of the city. It would have been the oldest building in Kyoto if it hadn't been burned many times, and not even ashes remained from that palace.
And where Gosho is now, Sato-dairi was located - a small rural palace in which the emperor hid from all the troubles and misfortunes that happened in Daidairi. Gosho Palace became the official imperial residence under Emperor Kogon in 1331. And 28 generations of Japanese emperors lived in Gosho until Emperor Meiji moved to Edo on November 26, 1868, which was renamed Tokyo, becoming the capital of Japan.
The palace was opened to the general public in 1946. Twice a year, in spring and autumn, during the week you can get here with a guided tour.
The palace is a national treasure of Japan and the property of the imperial family.
In 1868, the capital of Japan was moved from Kyoto to. But Kyoto has retained its significance as a cultural center of the country, as a treasury of national architecture and gardening art.

Imperial park

Majestic pine trees and views of the distant Higashiyama mountains distinguish the Imperial Park (Kyoto Gyoen), a spacious oasis located in the heart of the city. It houses the Imperial Palace (Kyoto Gosho) and the Palace of the Retired Emperor (Sento Gosho), whose enchanting landscape garden was built by Tokugawa for the retired Emperor Go-Mizuno in 1630. The Imperial Household Agency (Kunaich), where tickets are sold for visiting the imperial chambers, as well as the villas Shugakuin and Katsura, located in the northwest corner of the park.
Near the southern end of the park, there is a delightful pond with an arched bridge left over from the possessions of several noble families that occupied most of the park. From the bridge you can see Canraimon - the majestic gateway on the southern wall of the palace, which is used only by the emperor. The palace buildings were built after 1855. The ceremony of the emperor's accession to the throne is held in Shishinden.

Imperial Villa Katsura

Serious attention to detail is often cited as one of the finest examples of Japanese landscape architecture due to its creators' serious attention to detail. Built in 1620 by Hachizo no Miya Toshihito, a prince of the imperial blood, it was later completed by his son Toshitada. The luxurious Katsura Walking Garden is renowned for the fact that its paths and stones "control" the visitor's line of sight, revealing a sequence of ingeniously planned perspectives. The view from the Shokintei (pine zither) tea shelter reproduces the setting of Amanohashidate. Many of the views in the garden date back to the places mentioned in the Chinese and Japanese classics. A short excursion includes the Shoikatei ("tea house of flower viewing") at the highest part of the garden, followed by a visit to the Shoiken ("tea house of the sense of humor") and then the main building of the villa, the sequence of halls of which reminds the imagination of the poets of a flock of flying geese.

How to get there: Katsura station, Hankyu line. Bus 33 to Katsura Rikyu-mae.
! Only by prior request, Mon-Fri, petitions must be submitted to the Agency of the Imperial Court.

Unlike the shogun's military leaders, who, under the influence of their aristocratic ambitions, created luxurious displays of power, the ancient aristocratic families, most of whom were removed from power, under the influence of the ideals of Zen Buddhism turned to the aesthetics of introspection and deliberate simplicity. the view of many modern architects is the pearl of Japanese architecture - the Katsura imperial country palace. It was built by the nobleman Ishizonomiya Toshihito (1579-1629) and his son Toshitada (1619-1662). The design is based on the shapes of a traditional teahouse. In the XVII century. serving tea and drinking tea has become a complex ritual with exquisite ceremonies to showcase the quality of the tea and the way it is prepared. At the same time, less attention was paid to tea drinking itself. In the second half of the XVI century. the patron saint of Zen Buddhist monks in Gynkakuji, Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591), transformed this ceremony and made the whole character of the ritual simpler and more strict. This became a personality development exercise called wabi-cha. His famous saying "one moment, one meeting." This ceremony was contrasted with the extravagance of the shoguns. With its help, they tried to free themselves from all thoughts about the past and the future and achieve a state of detachment.

Rikyu created one of the first teahouses, the soan, called Tayan. He was located in Yamazaki, south of Kyoto. A carefully laid winding path led to the house. From all over the path, especially on its bends, there were views of the garden. The last section of the path ran at an angle to the house, from where the view was about three-quarters of the building. Neatly cut trees obscured part of the teahouse and visually divided its view into two parts. This was intended to help the participant clear their mind and focus on the present.

Inside the house was a simple bench where a visitor was sitting, waiting for the preparation of the ceremony. The entrance to the house was through such a low door (nidzirituchi or "laser-like door") that the person had to bend over, assuming a pose of resignation. In the main room (chashitsu) there were two tatami mats, another was used for making tea (katte), and a fourth mat covered the auxiliary room. The roof of the house is flat and low. Only above the main place, it rises by a dozen cm. Inside, in the corner, there is a hearth for boiling water. The entire structure is made of simple raw materials. The 7-hectare Katsura Country Imperial Palace is located on the western bank of the Katsura River, which flows in a suburb of Kyoto. The main building consists of three interconnected shoin (or parts) called Old, Middle and New shoin. It stands on the western bank of a curvilinear reservoir with several islands. The old shoin, located north of the rest, was built by Prince Tosihito, and the other two were built by his son, Prince Toshitada. The new shoin, along with the gate and the driveway, was built on the occasion of Emperor G-Mizuno's visit to Katsura in 1663. Seven teahouses are located in the garden in a semicircular arc and are connected to each other by a promenade. Therefore, Katsura is only a country residence of a noble nobleman with a walking garden. Katsura is remarkable for its layout of the structures, the use of materials and the route along which the walking path was laid. It, like the path to the Rikyu teahouse, runs in such a way as to show all the splendor of Katsura.

The entrance to the palace is through two gates. Ordinary people entered Katsura through a simple bamboo gate located at the far end of a strict but immaculately constructed bamboo fence. From the outside, you cannot see anything that was inside. Even when entering the territory, the view is cleverly hidden by an obstacle. The front gate of Katsura was created for the emperor to visit this palace. This gate is rather modest. They open onto a straight gravel path lined with trees. The path leads to another gate located in the center of the painting. The entrance to the Katsura Palace is quiet.

After the second gate, the gravel path turns sharply to the right and goes straight for about 50 m. This is the longest straight path in Katsura. The garden is to the left and the villa to the front, but the view from this imperial path is carefully hidden by bushes and trees. When walking along the path, views only open up to small fragments of the garden, to part of the main teahouse and to the boat house. The bridge offers views of the water. The path then approaches the northern edge of the palace, where it makes a sharp left turn. Only at this point do we really enter the palace.

A narrow promontory, enclosed by a hedge, juts out into the reservoir. A miniature Sumi-noe pine tree grows in the center of the cape. The view of the tree against the backdrop of the garden attracts special attention. Thanks to the miniature tree, the cape seems to be longer than it really is. It shows how thoughtful the symbolism is in the landscape. The garden of the Katsura Palace attracts not only with its picturesqueness, it is a ready-made set of scenery for filming in space and time.

To the right of Cape Suminoe, behind a humped wooden bridge, is the central gate, where the visitor first encounters architecture. A simple freestanding wall with a rectangular passage extends west of the ancillary building (where the common people's entrance is). At the end of the gravel path, at the threshold, in this passage, lies one large flat rough stone, followed by four smooth slabs of stone, laid out in a square. Freely diverging paths, lined with separately lying stones, intersect a straight path made of rectangular stone slabs. Thus, in Katsu-re, a different type of paving is used. The clever combination of different stone paths makes a strong visual and tactile impression.

From the central gate, a stone path leads to the entrance to the old shoin, called the imperial carriage parking lot. Here, another detached wall with a passageway departs from the Old Shoin to the north, from which another neatly laid path begins, leading east to Gep-paro - the tea pavilion closest to the shoin. Stone paths, laid out of separately lying stones, look like someone's mysterious footprints. They invite you to follow them all the time.

On the final section of the path to Old Shoin, there is another rough stone. It is installed right next to the wooden staircase at the front door.

Another characteristic feature of Katsura is the layout of the palace in the form of a simple hut, which is in complete harmony with the surrounding natural landscape (this is not much different from the palace architecture of that time). It looks a lot like the Rikyu teahouse. There are large rough stones at each entrance to the villa, and each external support, at least from the side of the garden, is set on the stone that serves as its foundation. As in the Rikyu teahouse, all the wooden posts and beams were left untreated and unpainted, some even show bark.

The geometry of the plan of the three shoin is based on the dimensions of the tatami and shoji sliding walls, pasted over with transparent rice paper. The layout of the interior space is a series of walk-through rooms, with all the most important rooms located in the eastern part, overlooking the garden. Secondary rooms in the west have passages to non-residential areas. The Middle and New Shoin are connected by a special intermediate room called the Music Room. An external veranda runs along the eastern border of the palace. It is delimited by sliding walls that can be opened and closed to adjust the lighting and connect the outside and inside.

The spatial and visual center of the Old Shoin is the transverse axis formed by the pantry, the Spear room and the main shoin room (Second Room) with an external bamboo platform called the moon viewing platform. (The Katsura River was known as a scenic spot for watching the moon in August.) Both the frame view from the shoin and the open view from the landing have been carefully designed. A miniature stone pagoda in a clearing at the southern end of Immortality Island is the only distinct object in the continuous forest landscape. The basis of the landscape is the still water of the pond, in which the rising moon is reflected in the east at night, and the trees with their irregular outlines during the day. In autumn, trees are painted with bright colors, and in winter they are covered with snow.

The main activity in Katsura is walking in the garden. The creation of the garden is traditionally attributed to the master of tea ceremonies and garden planner, Kobo-ri Aeneas (1579-1647), but there is no direct evidence of this. You can walk in the garden in different ways, but most often you started your walk from the north, walked around the pond clockwise from the Old Shoin, went down to the imperial path, walked around the northern garden with Far Seats for rest, walked along the shore to the main tea pavilion (Shokintei), then went to the large island with the tea pavilions of Søiken and Oringo, and then through the riding area and the moss garden - back to the Old Shoin.

It is important to note that these paths are not created as paths to any particular goal. Most of the paths are very neatly laid out with individual rough stones that are one step apart. Although each stone lies strictly horizontally and the distance between the stones is always equal to one step, the stones do not form a continuous path and can suddenly make unexpected turns, which force you not only to carefully look where to step, but also to focus on walking itself. The individual stones of the path provide a tactile and meditative experience of measured walking, as required by the practice of Zen Buddhism.

The intersections of the paths are also very skillful. When the rectilinear paths surrounding the shoin and lined with rectangular cut stones intersect with paths lined with individual stones, the latter seem to dance around the former with unlawful disdain. But when they encounter a cascade of pebbles that depicts coastal "sand", they resolutely walk through it like a hurrying pedestrian. Sometimes it seems that they have some tasks of their own. A path of individual stones runs right through the wet moss garden next to the Middle Shoin, while a straight path goes around the edge of the garden. Otherwise, they are just functional. Stone lanterns along the way mark the ends of paths and resting places. One of the most famous uses of the lantern can be seen on a sandbank jutting out into a pond. Here, at the end of the shallow, a single lantern, called the Night Rain Lantern, marks the end of the path that may be overlooked.

But Kyoto is also a very special place with irresistible magic. The history of the city began on October 22, 794, when Emperor Kammu and the crown prince entered the new capital, called Heian, a city of peace and tranquility. Prior to this, the Japanese capital was located in the city of Nagaoka, but palace intrigues led to a political assassination, and then the imperial court decided to change its place of residence, since the city was desecrated by the shed blood. The village of Uda in Kadono County was chosen to choose a new capital. The emperor came here twice in 792 to inspect the place chosen by his entourage. The village was located in a picturesque valley among the mountains, and construction work began here already in 793. The Japanese imperial court then followed the Chinese standards in everything, and the new capital was built in the Chinese style - with smooth streets intersecting at right angles. For more than a thousand years, Kyoto was the capital of the Land of the Rising Sun, sometimes becoming a victim of fires and civil strife, then experiencing heyday. The waves of history carried away many unique monuments and masterpieces of architecture, but what has survived amazes everyone who has visited the city with the severity and sparseness of lines, splendor and richness of colors. Now there are so many historical buildings and monuments, temples and shrines, palaces, fences and gardens in Kyoto. that everywhere you can find any sight: the hollow curved roof of the temple, a pagoda rising in the distance or a street on which the facades of old houses look out. The Katsura palace complex is rightfully considered a special pride of the Japanese, its medieval simplicity and beauty of constantly changing park landscapes, harmoniously combined with graceful pavilions and gazebos. Katsura Rikyu was built as a suburban imperial palace. It is known that since the 9th century, the land on which the palace complex is now located was owned by the aristocratic Fujiwara family, and at the beginning of the 17th century it was acquired by Prince Toshihito, gifted with many talents. He knew classical Japanese and Chinese poetry, loved to draw and play the koto, was a master of flower arranging and a great admirer of the tea ceremony. In 1615, Prince Toshihito began to build a palace, the first buildings of which were distinguished by the simplicity that testified to the impeccable taste of his owner. In the circles of researchers, there is an assumption that Prince Toshihito used the advice of Kobori Enshu - a genius architect, poet, potter, master of the tea ceremony and specialist in garden planning all rolled into one. True, there are historical records that other masters were engaged in the decorative arrangement of the garden, but the style of K. Ensu is felt everywhere. However, the prince himself did not have time to enjoy the beauty of his country palace, and after his death, everything fell into disrepair. The second stage in the construction of the palace is associated with the son of Toshihito - Toshidada, who inherited the talents of his father, and his financial problem was solved by his marriage to the daughter of a wealthy feudal lord Maeda. Toshidad's new buildings did not in the least violate the original plans of his father, but on the contrary, they organically blended into the already created, and thus, in terms of beauty and architectural solution, a single palace complex was obtained. The palace ensemble, built on the banks of the Katsura River, covers an area of 56,000 square meters. ... In the center there is a large pond of a very peculiar shape with five islands connected to each other by wooden or stone bridges. The main part of the palace ensemble unites three buildings into a single whole - the old shoin, the middle shoin and the new palace. The buildings of the old and middle shoin are located in such a way as to avoid the sun's rays in the summer, but to catch the soft sun rays in the winter, and in the fall to allow the opportunity to admire the full moon. Their roofs, thanks to the different heights of the buildings, create a varied scenic rhythm with their overhanging cornices. The ground floor of each building is surrounded by a veranda, which is separated from the outer space by shoji - sliding walls. The veranda is raised above the ground on tall and thin wooden props. The rooms, like the verandas, have sliding walls made of wooden frames with thick paper glued to them. Such walls can delimit interiors and separate them from the surrounding nature. Prince Toshihito was very fond of admiring the moon and built a special platform for this in the old shoin. In the middle shoin, Toshihito's living rooms were located. Their interior is very interesting, since the landscape on the walls and sliding walls is perceived as a natural landscape, visible through the open doors. Thus, as it were, the border between the inner and outer space is destroyed. The middle shoin is connected with the new palace by a room for storing musical instruments, and a wide veranda for playing music is framed by it. The doors between the music room and the new palace are decorated in a very peculiar way. These flowers are typical for each season: in spring - sakura and wisteria, in summer - susuki and hibisuke, in autumn - chrysanthemums, in winter - plum, camellia and daffodils. Natural building materials, which play a huge role in the decoration of buildings, give an exquisite simplicity to the Katsura Palace. ... Cryptomeria of natural color, wicker lattice fence made of bamboo, white sliding walls, stone paths against a background of moss, gutters strewn with small pebbles - everything creates a feeling of noble simplicity. An integral part of the Katsura palace complex are tea houses standing on the shore of a pond, without which it is impossible to imagine imagine a traditional Japanese garden. The surface of the water itself, as it were, becomes the material for the endless alternation of landscapes, designed for different seasons, day and different weather. One part of the pond in Katsura is famous, for example, for the romantic reflection of the autumn moon, sung by many poets. The most graceful of the tea pavilions is Shokintei, which surpasses all other teahouses of that era in its decorativeness. On the east, west and north sides, it faces the pond; The low overhanging roof of the Shokintei keeps it cool even on a hot day. There are several rooms in this pavilion. The first contains a tokonoma (a wall niche with a raised floor) and a stone hearth, which is used in winter. The paper in the niche is in the form of large squares - white and blue. This shape is repeated in the floor mats and in the sliding walls. The last room of the Shokintei Pavilion opens onto the garden. This gradual transition of the interior into the space of the garden, which in turn turns into a natural landscape, is one of the characteristic features of Japanese architecture. Even the sound of the wind and the singing of birds play a big role in creating an emotional mood. After all, Shokintei is a pavilion of "pines and lutes", when the sound of the wind playing in the surrounding pines is perceived in the rooms as the sounds of a lute. Another tea pavilion - Geppa-ro - gives its originality to the autumn season. Maples grow near the pavilion, the leaves of which turn purple in autumn. From this pavilion you can admire the reflection of the moon in the pond, and from the veranda of the old shoin you can watch its rise. There is also a Buddhist temple built in the Chinese style on the territory of the palace complex. Prince Toshidada dedicated it to his father. The suburban imperial palace of Katsura is famous not only for the architecture of its buildings. The palace garden combines the features of a wide variety of park ensembles, but its general character approaches the style of tea gardens, when the perception of the landscape occurs in the process of movement, the direction and rhythm of which are set by the paths. A visit to the Katsura palace complex usually consists of a short walk along the whimsical winding paths parka. The park, in fact, was conceived for walking and admiring the landscapes created by the most skilled gardeners. When you walk through the park, the landscape changes with your movement: for example, the pond completely disappears, then appears in front of you completely unexpectedly. The constant movement of space is a feature of traditional Japanese architecture, because the Japanese are great masters of enclosing nature in a small space. One of the famous visitors to Katsura said that this palace complex was created to "think with the eyes." This statement becomes clear even after a short walk through the palace, when once a year its doors are opened to visitors. Among the many attractions of the palace, they are shown the "Chamber of Peace and Coolness", in which, during solemn ceremonies, the emperor sat on a matting platform under expensive silk canopies. A staircase leads to this platform, on the sides of which there are two wooden lions protecting the emperor from evil forces. When a visitor at the entrance to the "Chamber of Peace and Coolness" stepped on one of the boards, with the help of a special device the alarm was immediately raised and a formidable guard appeared.