Quiet Beauty: The Japanese Gardens of North America

by Kendall H. Brown, David M. Cobb (Photographer)

Overview

*Gold Medal winner in the 2014 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award for Home & Garden*

"Just flipping through the pages of Quiet Beauty: The Japanese Gardens of North America will instantly lower your blood pressure."—The New York Times Book Review

Quiet Beauty: Japanese Gardens of North America is an extraordinary look at the most beautiful and serene gardens of the United States and Canada. Most Japanese garden books look to the gardens of Japan. Quiet Beauty explores the treasure trove of Japanese gardens located in North America. Featuring an intimate look at twenty-six gardens, with numerous stunning color photographs of each, that detail their style, history, and special functions, this book explores the ingenuity and range of Japanese landscaping.

Japanese gardens have been part of North American culture for almost 150 years. Quiet Beauty is a thought-provoking look at the history of their introduction to the world of North American gardening and how this aspect of Japanese culture has taken root and flourished.

Japanese gardens include:

• Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California
• Nitobe Memorial Garden, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia
• Japanese Garden, Fort Worth Botanic Garden, Texas
• Garden of the Pine Winds, Denver Botanic Gardena, Colorado
• Japanese Garden, Montreal Botanical Garden, Quebec
• Tenshin'en (The Garden of the Heart of Heaven), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
• Roji'en (Garden of Drops of Dew), The George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Japanese Gardens, The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, Delray Beach, Florida
• Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix, Margaret T. Hance Park, Arizona
• Garden of the Pine Wind, Garvan Woodland Garden, Hot Springs, Arkansas

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9784805311950
Publisher:	Tuttle Publishing
Publication date:	04/23/2013
Edition description:	Hardcover with Jacket
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 10.60(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

David M. Cobb is a member of NANPA (North American Nature Photography Association) and PPA (Professional Photographers of America). He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and their two cats.

Kendall H. Brown is Professor of Asian Art History in the Art Department at California State UniversityLong Beach. He also recently served as Curator of Collections, Exhibitions and Programs at Pacific Asia Museum. Dr. Brown is a leading figure in the study of Japanese gardens in North America and is the author of Japanese-style Gardens of the Pacific West Coast.

Editorial Reviews

Just flipping through the pages of Quiet Beauty…will instantly lower your blood pressure. And while you may not be able to replicate the teahouses and moon bridges in David M. Cobb's elegant photographs, there are plenty of details to be borrowed for even the smallest gardens…

The New York Times Book Review - Alida Becker

The gently flowing streams, crushed-rock paths, and koi-filled ponds of Japanese gardens invite tranquil meditation beauty, nature, and order. Yet, the 150-year history of Japanese gardens in American culture raises complicated questions about authenticity, design, style, and meaning. In this lavishly illustrated book, art historian Brown and photographer Cobb act as tour guides to 26 such gardens—including the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, Francisco Nitobe Memorial Garden in Vancouver, B.C., and Shomu’en (Pine Mist Garden) at Cheekwood in Nashville, Tenn.—that are accessible, historically significant, and compelling physical spaces. The first Japanese-style gardens were built between the 1890s and 1920s, often at fairs and expositions in an effort to satisfy the curiosity of Westerners obsessed with Japan; these early tea gardens were often built by the “first generation of Japanese immigrants anxious to leave the forms of their ancestors in the land of their descendants.” After WWII, friendship gardens multiplied, designed by distinguished Japanese landscape artists as a way of building ties and promoting business with former enemies. By the 1960 and 1970s, homeowners began building Japanese-style gardens in their backyards, as authentic as their budgets would allow; today’s Japanese gardens focus on the power of such places to “calm, inspire, and even heal.” 180 color photos. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"Visiting Maruyama Park in Kyoto, which he likes best on a misty late afternoon in November, Pico Iyer remarks that it seems "like a public monument to privacy." This is, perhaps, why the signature serenity of what Kendall H. Brown's new book calls "places to dream" has attracted so many Western gardeners. Just flipping through the pages of Quiet Beauty: The Japanese Gardens of North America will instantly lower your blood pressure. And while you may not be able to replicate the teahouses and moon bridges in David M. Cobb's elegant photographs, there are plenty of details to be borrowed for even the smallest gardens: a simple bamboo fence, a perfectly sited stone lantern, a rough pebbled path that gently curves to create heightened suspense about what lies beyond. " —The New York Times Book Review

"Kendall Brown, professor of Asian art history at Cal State Long Beach and one of the experts to weigh in on the Storrier Stearn garden in Pasadena, has a book coming out this month. It's titled Quiet Beauty: The Japanese Gardens of North America, and for this edited Q&A, we asked about his fascination with Japanese gardens, how best to experience them and why our notion of Japanese gardens is not entirely Japanese." —LA Times

"With an introduction titled "Places to dream," Kendall H. Brown extols the serenity of Japanese gardens, lauding their soothing environments in a world of "the cacophony of cities (and) the anonymity of suburbs." … The gardens, [Brown] says, can nurture, educate and stimulate creativity, and Quiet Beauty can do the same." —The Oregonian

"In this lavishly illustrated book, art historian Brown and photographer Cobb act as tour guides to 26 such gardens—including the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, Francisco Nitobe Memorial Garden in Vancouver, B.C., and Shomu'en (Pine Mist Garden) at Cheekwood in Nashville, Tenn.—that are accessible, historically significant, and compelling physical spaces." —Publishers Weekly

"This compilation of images by photographer David M. Cobb, and information on the most beautiful and serene gardens in the United States and Canada features gardens from Seattle, Bainbridge Island and Spokane." —Seattle Times

"By the end of this well-written and beautifully photographed book we realize that, far from being lost in transplantation, Japanese garden aesthetics and principals have been re-codified and adapted to create energizing, transformative works." —The Japan Times

"This is a book you will want to visit over and over. Definitely worthy of your coffee table book collection." —SensibleGardening.com

"If you are a fan of Japanese gardens and want to see how they have been interpreted [in the United States], then this is the book for you." — Flowers Across Melbourne blog

From the Publisher