Blending with Nature: Classical Chinese Gardens in the Suzhou Style

“In the midst of the city there can be mountains,” a Chinese poet once said, and that sense is precisely what the Suzhou gardening style is meant to invoke in the beholder. Born nearly 1,500 years ago in a time of civil unrest, the Suzhou style celebrates the joy of living among forests, mountains, and flowing rivers. Wealthy city dwellers, intrigued by this aesthetic but still tied to cities, created gardens that could serve as a hermit-like oasis from the turmoil of urban life. Originally, there were more than 250 classical Chinese gardens in the Suzhou style, but today only 30 or so remain. Filmmaker Raymond W. Olson's Blending with Nature takes viewers on a guided tour of 11 gardens--eight of the finest in Suzhou style, as well as three others in North America inspired by classical Chinese design--while gardeners, scholars, and art historians offer insights into the past, when those who could afford it would create these paeans to solitude and harmony with nature. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (J. Asala)