The Chinese Jingjie and the 18th-century Western Picturesque

This book analyses links among the Chinese concept of jingjie, the picturesque movement in European aesthetics, and site-specificity in 1960s Land Art. Jingjie was fundamental to the spatial fluidity found in Chinese landscape arts, especially garden design. After demonstrating how Chinese gardens influenced English landscape garden principles and the 18th-century European picturesque movement, this book argue that similar East-West connections served as direct and indirect influences on the site-specific work of middle and late 20th-century Land Art artists. This book then describe how picturesque depictions of the relationship between man and nature influenced 19th-century landscape architecture in North America and 20th-century Land Art throughout the West. These parallel East-West connections served as the foundation for later interest in site- specificity, and were essential in establishing a historical context for understanding cross-cultural currents and their influences on Land Art artists.