LegendThe Song cypress
An old cypress by the studio is said to have been planted in the Song garden of Shi Zhengzhi.
Source: No record proves its age
The story
In 1174, under the Southern Song (1127–1279), the official Shi Zhengzhi retired to Suzhou and built a house with a library called the Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes, and a garden he called the Fisherman's Retreat. Six hundred years later, about 1765, Song Zongyuan rebuilt the ruin and named it the Garden of the Master of the Nets. The lane outside was called Wangsi, and wangshi, master of the nets, sounds almost the same.
The fisherman is an old figure in Chinese poetry: the man who has given up office to live on the water, free. The garden is a reply to the world of officials, and also the home of officials: the house at the front for guests and ceremony, the garden behind for the family and for friends.
Part of Classical Gardens of Suzhou. Also there: Humble Administrator's Garden, Lingering Garden, Canglang Pavilion, Lion Grove Garden, Mountain Villa with Embracing Beauty, Garden of Cultivation, Couple's Retreat Garden, Retreat and Reflection Garden.
What is here
The day ticket covers the house and garden. The night garden has its own ticket. Astor Court is in New York.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| The house: sedan hall, brick gate, Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes | Day ticket |
| The central garden and pond | Day ticket |
| The Late Spring Cottage | Day ticket |
| Night garden | Own ticket |
| Astor Court, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York | The Met's ticket |
If you have one minute
By the pond
The pond is only about twenty metres across. But its banks are cut into small bays and inlets, so that you never see where it ends, and the buildings round it are kept low, so that the water seems wide. This is the trick of the whole garden: much in little.
Look for the tiny stone bridge in the south-east corner. It has three steps and is often called the smallest arched bridge in the Suzhou gardens.
In 1980 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York asked Suzhou to build a Chinese courtyard in its galleries. They chose the Late Spring Cottage, the peony court at the back of this garden. Suzhou craftsmen made the pieces at home and assembled them in New York. Astor Court opened in 1981.
Things people often get wrong
"The Master of the Nets was a fisherman." He was an official who liked the idea of fishing.
"It is Song." Only the history is. What you see was laid out in the Qing (1644–1912) and repaired in the 1940s and 50s.
"Small means quick." It is small, but every corner is meant to be looked at slowly. Sit down.
People who stood here
We searched Chinese sources first for this list, then English ones.
- Shi Zhengzhi (Southern Song official)He built the Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes and the Fisherman's Retreat here in 1174.
- Song Zongyuan (Qing official)About 1765 he rebuilt the ruined garden and gave it the name Master of the Nets.
- Qian Daxin (historian, 1728–1804)He wrote the record of the garden after it passed to Qu Yuancun in the 1790s, and praised how much it held in so little space.
- Zhang Shanzi and Zhang Daqian (painters, brothers)In the 1930s they lived here. Zhang Shanzi, famous for painting tigers, kept a real tiger in the garden. When it died, Zhang Daqian wrote the words on its gravestone, which is still in the garden.
- He Yanong (owner from 1940)He bought the neglected garden and restored it. In 1950 his family gave it to the state. It opened to the public in 1958.
- Chen Congzhou (garden scholar, 1918–2000)He held it up as the model of the small garden.
Go deeper: eight stops from the gate to the peony court
Go in through the house, round the pond, and out through the peony court. An hour is enough; two is better.
1. The sedan-chair hall and the brick gate
Guests arrived in sedan chairs and were set down in this hall. Turn round and look up at the gate behind you: a brick gateway carved in the Qing with figures from history, a deer, a crane and a phoenix. Its four characters say: brilliance soars high. It is often called the finest carved gateway in Jiangnan.
2. The Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes
The main hall keeps the name of Shi Zhengzhi's library. This was the formal heart of the house, where the family received guests and held ceremonies. Behind it, the women's tower looks over the garden wall.
3. Into the garden: the Osmanthus Hall
A small door leads from the house into the garden. The first hall is surrounded by osmanthus, which flowers in September and fills the air. Its name comes from a poem in the Songs of Chu inviting a hermit to stay in the hills.
4. The Washing Tassels Pavilion
A small open pavilion over the water at the south of the pond. Its name comes from the fisherman's song: when the water is clear, wash the tassels of your hat in it. It is the same song that names the Canglang Pavilion nearby. In the evenings it is the stage for the garden's music.
5. The Pavilion for the Moon and the Breeze
On the west bank, a pavilion faces east across the water, where the moon rises. Inside hangs a mirror that holds the moon a second time.
6. The Studio for Watching Pines and Looking at Paintings
North of the pond, behind old pines and cypresses, a study. One cypress is said to be from the Song garden, which would make it over eight hundred years old.
Look at the windows of the corridors: no two have the same lattice.
7. The Late Spring Cottage: the peony court
Peonies are the last flowers of spring, and this small court was made for them. It has a study, a spring in a corner, and a pavilion with a rock shaped like an eagle.
Compare it with the photographs of Astor Court in New York. The copy has the same moon gate, the same pavilion and the same plan, but no sky above it.
8. The tiger's grave and the night garden
Somewhere in the garden is the gravestone Zhang Daqian wrote for his brother's tiger. Ask the staff where it is.
On evenings in the warm months the garden reopens for its night garden: each hall has a short performance, Kunqu, pingtan storytelling, the guqin or silk-and-bamboo music, and you walk from one to the next in the lamplight.
The garden and the same years elsewhere
Shi Zhengzhi built in 1174, the year Saladin took Damascus. Song Zongyuan rebuilt about 1765, when the young Mozart was touring Europe. The garden opened to the public in 1958.