Early Spring in February: A Suzhou Walk, Glimpses of Gusu Charm – Part Four: The Master of Nets Garden
The Master of Nets Garden was first built during the Southern Song dynasty, probably one of Suzhou’s oldest classical gardens, second only to the Canglang Pavilion from the Northern Song dynasty.
In the 21st year of the Shaoxing era (1151 AD) under Emperor Gaozong of the Southern Song, a man from Yangzhou named Shi Zhengzhi passed the imperial examination and became a jinshi. By then, Yue Fei and Han Shizhong were already gone, and the court was short of people versed in military strategy. Shi Zhengzhi wrote strategic essays such as ‘Mirror of Warfare’ and ‘Inquiries on the Border’ which earned Emperor Gaozong’s favor. After Emperor Xiaozong (personal name Zhao Shen, pronounced Zhao Rui) ascended the throne, Shi Zhengzhi was promoted to Vice Director of the Ministry of Personnel. Due to his outstanding administration, he later served as Vice Minister in the Ministries of Personnel, Justice, and War, and subsequently became Prefect of Jiankang Prefecture (present-day Nanjing), where Xin Qiji served as the Tongpan (deputy prefect). Shi Zhengzhi and Xin Qiji had a deep friendship. Before Shi left Jiankang for his post as Prefect of Chengdu, the two climbed the Shangxin Pavilion at the Water West Gate of Jiankang. Xin Qiji composed the poem ‘A Thousand Autumns’ to celebrate Shi’s birthday: ‘Autumn grass by the frontier, again news of peace. At the feast, the hero’s mark. The city walls gleam with vitality, pearls and jade sparkle amidst laughter. Spring is near, plum blossoms seem to defy age. Do not let the golden cup stand idle, the imperial summons will soon arrive. Cannot hold you back, Jiangdong is small. You go to the council tent, setting the world aright. For a thousand years, from now, forever in the annals of the Secretariat.’
Shi Zhengzhi’s official career had minor setbacks, but he was again employed by Emperor Xiaozong, serving as prefect in various regions. He retired in the early Chunxi years (1174 AD). By then, Emperor Xiaozong had grown weary of pursuing the Northern Expedition and was content with the Southern court. So Shi had to retire to Suzhou, build a residence to settle his family and all his belongings. He bought a plot of land in Suzhou, built a house, and within it, a garden.
Shi loved reading, so naturally he was a bibliophile. Over his years of service, he amassed over ten thousand volumes. Although papermaking was already widespread in the Song dynasty, owning ten thousand volumes in the Southern Song was still remarkable. By the Ming dynasty, when the Vice Minister of War Fan Qin retired, he had seventy thousand books and needed a dedicated library, the Tianyi Pavilion. Shi stored his books in his house, and because it was rich with books, he named the residence the ‘Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes’. Having retired to Suzhou and no longer seeking office, he named the garden ‘Fisherman’s Retreat’. In ancient times, seclusion was a noble form of elegance. Hiding in the mountains to farm was called ‘tilling retreat’, as with Tao Yuanming; hiding by the waters to fish was ‘fisherman’s retreat’, as with Jiang Ziya. Shi chose ‘fisherman’s retreat’ to indicate there was water in the garden where one could fish. After retiring, Shi devoted himself to writing and produced many works. The Qing dynasty's ‘Complete Library of the Four Treasuries’ included his ‘Chrysanthemum Manual’ in its collection, which has been passed down to this day.
Shi did not live in this residence for many years; he retired in early Chunxi and passed away in the sixth year. Thereafter, the property changed hands repeatedly, the owners’ names lost, and the garden gradually fell into disrepair, until the Qianlong period of the Qing dynasty, when a Suzhou native, Song Zongyuan, appeared. Song Zongyuan was a jinshi of the third year of Qianlong (1738). He first served as magistrate in several counties in Zhili (present-day Hebei), then became Prefect of Tianjin. Around the 20th year of Qianlong, he took a leave of absence to care for his elderly mother. Returning to Suzhou, he bought the old site of the Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes and the Fisherman’s Retreat, built a new residence and garden, naming it ‘Master of Nets Retreat’. ‘Net’ refers to fishing net; ‘Master’ means a skilled person. The name continues the idea of the fisherman’s retreat, as a tribute to Shi Zhengzhi.
In the 30th year of Qianlong, Song’s mother passed away, and he resumed his official career, thus abandoning halfway his life of seclusion. His brother-in-law, the scholar Peng Qifeng, wrote in his ‘Discourse on the Master of Nets’: ‘Song once more went to Chang’an, was appointed Circuit Intendant of Tianjin, busy with official duties, and the joys of the garden and fields were neglected.’ After returning to office, Song became Circuit Intendant of Tianjin. In the 36th year of Qianlong, he rendered meritorious service in flood control and was promoted to Vice Director of the Court of Imperial Entertainments, a third-rank official. The Court of Imperial Entertainments handled royal sacrifices and court assemblies. After this promotion, Song Zongyuan wisely retired at the height of his career, resigned from his capital post, and returned home. He again renovated the residence and garden, creating twelve scenic spots, and renamed it the Master of Nets Garden. The garden rebuilt by Song Zongyuan was quite different from Shi Zhengzhi’s Fisherman’s Retreat of Ten Thousand Volumes, entirely in the Qing style, without any Song flavor. Thus, the de facto first owner of the Master of Nets Garden was Song Zongyuan. A few years after returning to seclusion, Song passed away, and the garden gradually fell into neglect.
Years later, a wealthy merchant from Jiading, Qu Yuancun, came to Suzhou to restock goods and passed the dilapidated Master of Nets Garden. Qu, a man of culture as well as means, was not merely a corpulent moneybag. Seeing this once-famous garden ruined and overgrown, he sighed and then bought it to restore its hills, waters, rocks, bamboos, and pavilions. Boss Qu adapted the ancient garden to his own vision, inviting talented people to offer advice, and thoroughly overhauled the ten-mu Master of Nets Garden, redesigning half of its contents. Although Qu’s high aspirations were unrelated to the fisherman’s retreat or the master of nets, he kept the old name ‘Master of Nets Garden’ to preserve the literati tradition. In the late Qianlong period, the renowned scholar Qian Daxin of the Qian-Jia school visited Qu’s Master of Nets Garden and wrote a record, praising: ‘Though the land is only a few mu, it has endless winding charm; though situated near the marketplace, it offers the delight of forgetting the world amid clouds and waters.’ The garden was no longer what it once was, but the name Master of Nets was retained to remember its origins. This same Qian Daxin also left many written marks in the Lingering Garden.
After Boss Qu’s overhaul, the garden was completely refreshed, making one want no other once possessing it. He spent the rest of his life there. Later, the garden changed owners many times, sometimes weathering storms, sometimes shining again, like flowers blooming and falling. Eventually, in the Republican era, its last owner, the collector He Yanong’s children donated it to the state. In the history of the Master of Nets Garden, the key figures are: Shi Zhengzhi of the Song dynasty, who created the Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes and Fisherman’s Retreat; Song Zongyuan of the Qing, who rebuilt the Master of Nets Garden; Qu Yuancun, who remade it; and He Yanong’s children, who donated it. What we see today largely retains Boss Qu’s layout and style, embodying the aesthetic of Qing dynasty Jiangnan gardens.
In 1982, the Master of Nets Garden was listed by the State Council in the second batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units, alongside the Tianyi Pavilion in Ningbo. In 1997, it was included in the World Cultural Heritage list as part of the Classical Gardens of Suzhou.
Unlike the Humble Administrator’s Garden, whose main gate is understated, or the Lion Grove Garden with its prominent ancestral hall to the left of the gate, the Master of Nets Garden’s main entrance is a three-bay grand gate, with a gatehouse three bays wide and one bay deep. It has a post-and-beam structure with grey tiles and a single-eave flush-gable roof, and on both side gables are Huizhou-style wind-and-fire walls. Look at the main ridge: grey bricks, tile pieces, and decorated with grass-dragon plasterwork. The most distinctive feature is the ridge ornaments, called ‘pheasant finials’, with a pheasant’s head and tail. In Huizhou style they are called ‘chicken-feeding’ ridges, found in Suzhou-style buildings but never in the north.
The door leaves are set in the central pillar of the gatehouse, making it a central-pillar gate. The threshold is very high. Once the threshold is set in place, even with the doors open, you cannot enter. In the old days, they said ‘a threshold higher than a person, the courtyard is a treasure basin’. In reality, a high threshold kept street water from flowing into the courtyard. The high threshold is matched by very tall drum-shaped stone piers. On the drum stones are relief carvings of three lions playing with a brocade ball, called ‘three lions frolic with ball’, implying ‘three lifetimes of play and wine’—if there’s play and wine, surely there is prosperity. Were these drum stones installed by Boss Qu? He certainly wouldn’t have been entitled to such door piers; they were likely assets of his predecessor, the third-rank Vice Director Song Zongyuan. If the house owner was a second-rank official or higher, the top of the door piers could also have auspicious beasts like stone lions.
After passing through the gatehouse, you find the sedan chair hall common in large Jiangnan residences—a place to park sedan chairs. Between the gatehouse and sedan chair hall of the Master of Nets Garden is not a courtyard but a covered corridor.
The sedan chair hall of old is now the garden’s first hall, serving as an inner gate. It has a screen inside, thus also acting as a screen door. Between the rear hypostyle columns of the central bay, there’s a back screen bearing a full map of the Master of Nets Garden. On the beam above the columns hangs a paper plaque reading ‘Clear-mindedness Leads to Early Return’. The signature is by the contemporary Suzhou artist Zhang Xinjia. I interpret ‘clear-mindedness’ (清) as being clear-headed; awakening from the murky officialdom so one can return early to the fisherman’s retreat and become a master of nets.
Outside the windows on both sides of the corridor are small courtyards, essentially tiny light wells. Is that a moringa tree planted there? On the north wall there is a stone plaque reading ‘Locking Clouds’, signed ‘Dream Tower’—this is the Qing calligrapher Wang Wenzhi, a close friend of Ji Xiaolan.
Beyond the sedan chair hall is the first courtyard of the Master of Nets Garden. The north building in the middle is naturally the main hall of the residence. Because there are no covered corridors on either side, this cannot be called a skywell; it’s simply a courtyard.
This main hall is five bays wide. Across the front, all are six-panel lattice doors with plain skirt boards and begonia-patterned lattice work. Above, a post-and-beam grey-tile single-eave flush-gable roof, with Huizhou-style wind-and-fire walls on the side gables. In the garden, a few magnolia trees are planted; early blossoms have already begun to open. Truly, ‘At first like bamboo shoots, dewy and enchanting; unfolding like white lotus, feathers swaying.’ Let’s go inside.
The floor is paved with grey bricks, with an open ceiling revealing all the structure. The central bay plus the adjacent bays of the main hall are arranged as a large reception room. On the back screen hangs an ink painting of pine and rocks, flanked by the couplet: ‘Purple whiskers wet with rain from a thousand hills by night; iron armor in spring thunder roars through ten thousand valleys.’ This couplet comes from the Yuan dynasty poet Xie Zongke’s ‘Dragon-shaped Pine’, perfectly matching the painting. ‘Purple whiskers’ and ‘iron armor’ describe the pine’s majestic presence. On the rear architrave hangs a paper plaque inscribed ‘Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes’, surprisingly signed by ‘Chengming’—this is Wen Zhengming of the Ming dynasty. During Wen Zhengming’s time, the Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes already existed, but who was the owner then? If the owner at that time was sufficiently refined and managed to invite Wen Zhengming to inscribe the plaque, it might have been possible; otherwise, it is a recent reproduction. On the front hypostyle columns hangs another couplet: ‘Tracing romantic elegance back to the Southern Song, before the Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes fishing songs write rhymes; Fengxi Stream adds charm, in the Master of Nets Garden visitors are like clouds.’ Fengxi is a stream outside Feng Gate in Suzhou, hence referring to Suzhou.
In front of the back screen is the classic four-piece reception set: a long table, a square table, and rose chairs, with the host on the left and guest on the right. Below are seats for accompanying guests, also host-left guest-right, all in Qing dynasty style. In the center stands a bronze drum; beating the drum signals attack—attack on what? The meal? Some say it’s a Zhuge bronze drum. The notion that Zhuge Liang made bronze drums appears only in legends from the Ming dynasty onward, with no historical records or archaeological evidence, so no one can say what a Zhuge bronze drum looks like. If you claim that the bronze drum in the Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes is a Zhuge bronze drum, as long as no archaeologist hears it, likely no one will object.
Space is tight in the Master of Nets Garden; from the courtyard you cannot see the whole roof of the Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes, so I’ll look at the roof from inside.
Seen from within, this hall is quite peculiar. It’s actually three bays deep, with enclosed front and rear verandas. The roof is not a simple single-eave flush-gable roof, but a double-vaulted, connected single-eave flush-gable roof. Measured from the front hypostyle columns, the front vault is one bay deep plus the front veranda, with a boat-shaped ceiling; the rear vault covers the second and third bays plus the rear veranda, with exposed structure. You see, double-vault connected roofs are rare enough, but ones with two vaults of unequal size are even rarer. I’d say this is unique in Suzhou.
The eastern and western end bays are partitioned into small warm rooms, furnished as cozy sitting rooms.
Earlier I mentioned that turning back to admire the view is important—first, to see if there’s a wolf; second, to see if there’s a paradise. Standing in the Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes and turning around, there truly is a paradise!
That’s the rear door of the sedan chair hall. Above the door is an imitation wood brick-carved gatehouse. On its architrave is inscribed ‘Brilliance Soars Aloft’, taken from ‘The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons’: ‘Only by shining brilliantly and soaring aloft can a literary work be like a phoenix singing.’ ‘Brilliance’ means rhetorical elegance; ‘shining brilliantly’ denotes florid diction. ‘Soaring aloft’ implies vigorous strength of character—a robust and forceful style. ‘The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons’ is the first guide to writing in Chinese history. Inscribing ‘Brilliance Soars Aloft’ in the Master of Nets Garden suggests that this garden is both beautiful and of lofty style.
This gatehouse is a two-story structure built above the lintel. On top is a balustrade platform, as if the second floor is a stage. Beneath the ‘Brilliance Soars Aloft’ architrave, inside the gatehouse on either side, two plays are being performed on stage. The upper eaves have a bracket-supported post-and-beam single-eave hip roof, and the main ridge also has pheasant finials. Look at the bas-reliefs on the lintel: lotus flowers, swastikas, longevity symbols, colorful clouds, and lions playing with brocade balls. Combined with the two bats on the inverted hanging frieze, this gatehouse is not only resplendent but also incalculably auspicious. They call it the ‘Number One Gatehouse South of the Yangtze’, and it seems no empty boast. Now look at the plaster sculptures on the eastern stage.
This play depicts King Wen of Zhou, Ji Chang, imprisoned by King Zhou for seven years, who after release resolved to overthrow Zhou. Thirsty for talent, he heard that Jiang Shang was a worthy man and went to the banks of the Wei River to watch him fish. While observing the fishing, they debated world affairs back and forth. King Wen realized Jiang Shang was indeed a great talent and finally invited him to leave the river and assist him. The most famous opera about this story is Beijing opera’s ‘The Wei River’, performed by Ma Lianliang; other regional operas tell this story under the title ‘King Wen Seeks a Worthy’.
Now look at its doors.
These are plank doors, also called strap-reinforced doors, but different from the common type. Ordinary plank doors have reinforcing straps forming a grid on the back; here there are only two horizontal straps with a diagonal cross brace for reinforcement. Moreover, the front of the door planks is reinforced with stone slabs—was this to defend against arrows?
Inside the door, behind the standing screen, is a huanghuali table screen bearing ‘Introduction to the Master of Nets Garden’ in both Chinese and English.
The main hall of the second courtyard is a two-story building.
It is also five bays wide and three bays deep, with enclosed front and rear verandas, and bedrooms upstairs. Let’s go inside. The ground floor’s central bay plus side bays form a living room.
In the central bay, against the back wall between the rear hypostyle columns, stands a zitan wood daybed inlaid with marble, flanked by a few side tables and chairs. In the center there’s also a dining table and round stools. This arrangement indicates it is an inner residence, a place for daily living and dining. On the back wall hangs a marble landscape painting. On the architrave hangs the horizontal plaque ‘Plucking Beauty Tower’, signed by Yu Yue. Yu Yue was a late Qing literary scholar; the ‘Record of the Lingering Garden’ behind the screen in the Lingering Garden’s entrance hall was also written by him. This plaque looks old—could it be the original? ‘Pluck’ means to gather; ‘beauty’ means elegance. A Yuan dynasty poem says: ‘Ganoderma and jade-like stones cover the fields, gathering blooms and plucking beauties into a fragrant feast.’
Standing beneath Plucking Beauty Tower and looking back at the rear door of the Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes.
Above that rear door there is also an imitation wood brick-carved gatehouse, but much simpler than the one on the rear door of the sedan chair hall. The front gatehouse, being in front of the front courtyard’s main hall, was part of that courtyard’s scenery, so it had to be the most exquisite. This gatehouse here is part of the back courtyard’s scenery, so it could be simplified. Its top still mimics bracket sets and post-and-beam, but only a single corbel tier. The roof is just a simple single-eave overhanging-gable roof. The stage is gone, plaster sculpture replaced by plaster relief carving. On the architrave is inscribed ‘Bamboo and Pine Flourish’, where ‘flourish’ can mean bearing or presenting. In the ‘Book of Songs, Minor Odes, Sigan’: ‘Gently flows the stream, dark loom the southern hills. Like bamboo in bud, like pine so lush.’ ‘Sigan’ is a song of congratulations for a new palace built after King Xuan of Zhou ascended the throne, called ‘King Xuan’s Achievement’. The inscription ‘Bamboo and Pine Flourish’ was certainly made when He Yanong renovated the garden, explicitly noting the lush pines and bamboos in the garden, and implicitly celebrating the completion of the new residence, He Yanong’s own ‘achievement’.
Behind the inner residence is the garden. The Master of Nets Garden is not large, but it still has a covered walkway.
The walkway encloses a courtyard. The ground is paved with cobblestones, and on all four sides are rockeries and bamboo plantings, using rocks as planters to create scenic spots.
To the north is a whitewashed wall with a moon gate.
Above the gate is a scroll-shaped stone tablet inscribed ‘Cloud Grotto’.
Inside the gate is a three-bay pavilion hall, now selling souvenirs.
Walking to a building.
This is a two-story building with a rockery stairway in front. It is five bays wide and one bay deep, with front and rear verandas, the rear veranda enclosed. Above is a post-and-beam, grey-tile, single-eave flush-gable roof. The ground floor’s front veranda has a boat-shaped ceiling; between the veranda columns there are openwork canopy screens above and sitting rails below. Let’s go inside.
In the central bay, between the rear hypostyle columns and the rear veranda columns, a small warm chamber is built, furnished with a wooden daybed. Above the warm chamber hangs the plaque ‘Five Peaks Study’. Against the side gable walls are bookcases and shelves, and under the front window of the eastern side bay is a square table and rose chairs for reading. This is a place for study, and upstairs is the library. If the owner read at night, he could rest on the daybed in the warm chamber, or even spend the night. Could this be where Shi Zhengzhi once stored his ten thousand volumes?
Next to Five Peaks Study is another building.
This building resembles Five Peaks Study, three bays wide and one bay deep, with enclosed front and rear verandas. Directly in front is a wall; though the space is extremely cramped, it doesn’t stop them from planting bamboo to express elegance.
In the central bay, between the rear hypostyle columns, a five-panel partition screen with silk inserts is installed. The silk panels feature ink-wash paintings of bamboo groves, with the poem: ‘Deep bamboo, the wind opens and closes; cold pool, the moon ripples and sways.’ This line comes from a Tang poem by Huangfu Zeng bidding farewell to the Daoist master Li Quan. The signature is by the contemporary Suzhou painter Wu Gemu, who also created the six-panel silk screen in the Ancient Five Pine Garden of the Lion Grove. Above the screen hangs the plaque ‘Studio of Accumulated Emptiness’. In Laozi’s ‘Tao Te Ching’: ‘Attain utmost emptiness, maintain profound stillness.’ The commentary says: ‘Emptiness’ means desirelessness, ‘stillness’ means non-action. Zhuangzi said, ‘Only the Way accumulates emptiness.’ The Daoist concept of accumulated emptiness means keeping the mind free of desires. The bamboo screen’s poem, quoting Huangfu Zeng’s farewell to a Daoist master, also hints at seclusion and the Daoist ‘accumulated emptiness’ of the plaque. It is said that in the past, the owner’s daughter lived in this building, so then this would be the embroidery tower. A scholarly garden owner’s daughter certainly wouldn’t just focus on needlework; she would also read and write, hence living next to the library.
The main hall of the garden lies in a small courtyard on the north bank of the pond, facing south, four bays wide. Let’s go inside.
The floor is grey brick, with an open ceiling, one bay deep, and enclosed front and rear verandas. Its layout is: the central bay has only a side bay to the left, but on the right it has both a side bay and an end bay. To keep the central bay centered, the right side bay and end bay inside are partitioned by screens, with the end bay serving as a small living room. Such an asymmetrical plan for the hall is rare; usually, in the courtyard, walls would separate the two sections. Here, from the courtyard, the main hall appears to be three bays wide, with a separate small skywell courtyard in front of the western end bay. In the Forbidden City in Beijing, in the Qianlong Garden, the main hall of the last courtyard, the Hall of Retired Diligence, has a similar asymmetrical layout: five bays on the east for bedrooms, four on the west for a small theater stage.
On both sides, between the rear hypostyle columns, a silk-inserted partition screen forms three small warm chambers. The silk panels of the central bay screen feature a couplet. The upper scroll reads: ‘Countless mountains, a sea of deep green shade; misty hues shift in endless change. When autumn rises and the air is crisp, see frosted leaves redden the sky.’ This is Guo Moruo’s poem inscribed on a painting by Fu Baoshi, ‘Summer Mountains’, the original of which is now in the Palace Museum. The lower scroll of the silk couplet reads: ‘I hear the winter plum is half in bloom, a bird on the southern hill calls spring back. On the Jialing River, the east wind comes early; tender green and rich red reflect the lush moss.’ This is Guo Moruo’s poem ‘Exploring Plum Blossoms on Yellow Mountain’.
On the rear architrave of the central bay hangs the plaque ‘Pavilion for Viewing Pines and Reading Paintings’. The pines refer to the ancient cypress in the front courtyard, planted by Shi Zhengzhi in the Fisherman’s Retreat eight or nine hundred years ago and still green today. When Boss Qu renovated the Master of Nets Garden, he also reworked the rockery arrangement in the courtyard to create a potted landscape. Sitting in this hall and looking out through the front door, you can see the vigorous ancient cypress and also ‘read’ the picturesque scenery.
In front of the window, there is also a plum tree.
The east wind blows another year’s green; red plum blossoms welcome spring’s return. The ancients sang of plum blossoms as a mood. I too, playing the refined amateur, compose a clumsy verse to the tune of ‘Song of Divination’ for fun: ‘Whitewashed wall catches the slanting sun, red plum blossoms enter the window. Amidst lush grass, spring crickets chirp, the clear pond water turns blue again. Not vying with others for splendor, alone I lean by the windowsill. Under the eaves, the solitary fragrance delights itself, yet stirs the melancholy of Lu You.’
Because the Master of Nets Garden is not large, at every turn of the whitewashed walls, they’ve piled rocks and planted trees to create scenery, full of elegant, leisurely charm.
There are also meticulously arranged spots that reveal even more poetic sentiment.
Walking to this spot, in the midst of a bustling world, finding this corner of verdant bamboo and an ancient well’s seclusion, you cannot help but recall Su Dongpo’s lines: ‘Since we parted at the capital gate, three seasons have changed. To the very ends of the earth I’ve trodden all the red dust. Still your smile brings spring’s warmth. Truly the ancient well has no ripples; truly the autumn bamboo has steadfast joints.’
On the day I visited, the lotus pond area in the garden was under renovation, closed off to visitors, so I regretfully could not appreciate that canvas of clouds and water.
Suzhou official and aristocratic private gardens are renowned for their exquisite delicacy and charm, and often literati and artists were invited to frequent them; the Master of Nets Garden is no exception. The garden contains traces of many celebrities from antiquity—Wen Zhengming, Wang Wenzhi, Yu Yue are all famous names. In modern times, Zhang Daqian once resided here to paint, and together with his brother Zhang Shanzi (pronounced Zhang Shanzi), they moved their studio, the Great Wind Hall, into the garden. When Song Zongyuan established the Master of Nets Garden, he also often invited dignitaries and nobles to enjoy it. A certain official, after admiring flowers and attending a banquet, wrote this poem: ‘The sun shines on Red Cliff, rosy clouds scatter like silk; Twin Beauties before me, Flying Jade behind. Soon lamps are lit and brocade screens open, ten thousand stars fall on the window lattices. Waists slender, they lean on the wind for support, tipsily they glance back once. The host, fond of guests, spreads a lavish feast, amber light congeals on the rim of cups. Gold skirts and jade pendants, the flowers of Luoyang; clouds gather and stars meet, friends from all over. Jin Qing’s elegant gathering scroll lingers on; Taibai’s spring outing verse is immortal. Famous blooms and renowned gardens persist through people; we of the romantic breed shall not fail them.’
You see, what he admired in the garden were the ‘flowers of Luoyang’, i.e., peonies, hence their opulent appearance with gold skirts and jade pendants. The poem mentions ‘Jin Qing’s elegant gathering scroll’—this refers to the Northern Song prince consort Wang Shen (pronounced Wang Shen, also known as Wang Jinqing), who commissioned Li Gonglin to paint ‘Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden’, depicting a party of literati including the Su brothers (Shi), Huang Tingjian, Qin Guan, and Mi Fu. This was another famously recorded literati gathering in history, following the Eastern Jin’s Orchid Pavilion gathering presided over by Wang Xizhi. Like Wang Xizhi’s ‘Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection’, the ‘Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden’ had enormous influence and was copied many times. In the annals of literati gatherings, one is recorded in text, the other in painting; the text is lost, and the painting now roams overseas.
The poem also mentions Taibai’s spring outing poem, which must be Li Bai’s: ‘Clouds think of robes, flowers think of faces; a spring breeze by the railing, the dew is thickly fragrant. If not seen atop the Jasper Terrace, then met beneath the moon by the Turquoise Pond.’ This was composed to amuse Emperor Minghuang of Tang and his beloved Yang Guifei while admiring peonies at the Aloeswood Pavilion.
Though small, the Master of Nets Garden is a gem of intricate design, offering tranquility within a tiny world. Truly: one courtyard of pure realm, as picturesque as the four seasons, open to breezes on eight sides, perfectly enchanting. When Master Song secluded himself here, amid the ancient city’s lanes, he tasted the joy of Tao Yuanming’s hermitage—wasn’t that delightful? And I, strolling today, feast my eyes and heart—isn’t that delightful? How wonderful!
