Garden as a Refuge.

Osvald Sirén’s reminiscences and appropriations of Chinese garden art

paper by Minna Törmä, Annual Meeting of British Association of Chinese Studies, Bristol, September 8-9, 2010

This paper discusses Osvald Sirén’s (1879–1966) views on Chinese garden art, as they are manifested both in his scholarly studies such as Gardens of China (1948) and in his garden practice. During the World War II, when Sirén lived isolated in Sweden, he sought refuge in memories of his wanderings in Chinese and Japanese gardens. With the aid of the photographs he had taken on his travels, the earliest ones dating to 1918, he recalled his experiences and complemented the research by looking at Chinese paintings, reading Chinese poetry and translating Ji Cheng’s Yuanye or ”Craft of Gardens.” These provided him a vehicle for his woyou or ”travelling while lying down” and an escape of the grim reality of the times.

If the first part of the paper focuses on the role of memories in Sirén’s research, the second part investigates his manner of applying ideas formed on the basis of his knowledge of East Asian gardens to his own garden in Lidingö, outside Stockholm (photo by Sirén, from an album in Art History Library, University of Helsinki). His garden practice, however, was not limited only to his own garden; in addition he assisted Cyrillus Johansson (1884–1959), Swedish architect, in designing a garden around his villa. In these two gardens Sirén was creating his own interpretations of orientalism, which will be investigated in the light of his knowledege of 18th century views on Chinese gardens and European adaptations of them, as presented in his China and the Gardens of Eighteenth Century Europe (1950).