Ji Cheng (1582 - c. 1642) was a Ming dynasty garden designer

Garden designer

The term garden designer can refer either to an amateur or a professional who designs the plan and features of gardens. Amateurs design their gardens for their own properties. Professionals, with experienced skills, design gardens that benefit clients...

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Ji Cheng was born in the Ming Wanli Reign 10th year (1582) in Tong Li township, Wujiang

Wujiang

Wujiang may refer to the following associated with China:*Wujiang , was a military class in Ancient China*Wujiang, Jiangsu , county-level city*Wujiang District, Shaoguan, Guangdong...

 county, Suzhou

Suzhou

Suzhou , previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part...

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As a youth, Ji Cheng made a name for himself as a landscape painter and private garden designer, he worshipped two North Song painters: Guan Tong

Guan Tong (painter)

Guan Tong , 關仝, , was a Chinese landscape painter of the Northern Landscape style during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period and early Song dynasty, a pupil of Jing Hao, and known as a critical figure in the development of the era's monumental landscape painting...

 (关仝) and Jing Hao

Jing Hao

Jing Hao was a Chinese landscape painter and theorist of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period in Northern China. As an artist, he is often cited along with his pupil, Guan Tong, as one of the most critical figures in the development of the style of monumental landscape painting which...

 (荆浩)

During his lifetime, he designed numerous private gardens in Southern China. In his late years, he summarized his lifetime experience into a monograph on landscape design: (园冶), Yuanye: The Craft of Gardens, 1631.

Ji Cheng's Yuanye

Yuanye

Yuanye , variously translated as The Garden Treatise or The Craft of Gardens, is a 1631 work on garden design by Ji Cheng of the late Ming Dynasty...

 (园冶), is the first monograph dedicated to garden architecture in the world. His work has been translated into many languages.

Ji Cheng's thirty-five room former residence at Hueichuan Bridge, Tong Li

Tong Li Comics

Tongli Publishing Co. , most known as Tong Li Comics, is a publishing company which distributes a variety of domestic and imported comics in the Republic of China .-History:...

, is now a tourist attraction.

"The garden is created by the human hand, but should appear as if created by heaven."