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Autumn Rockery
If one compares Spring Rockery to an introduction and Summer Rockery to the foreshadowing of the climax, then Autumn Rockery before us is the climax. Walking east along either of the two corridors, one may directly reach Autumn Rockery.
Autumn Rockery is piled up with Huangshan stones. It looks energetic and powerful. It is matched mainly with maple trees and other trees like pines and cypress trees. It faces west. At sunset, green pines, red maple and brownish yellow stones jointly form a scene like a picture. But the wonder of Autumn Rockery is its design of interior mountain path, being spiral up and down and crisscross. Stone house, stone bridge, stone beam, stone hole and small structure in the mountain meet here. Sometimes one find gully and valley and sometimes stone cliff and water margin. It is unpredictable. Before you come to Autumn Rockery, if you know a mnemonic rhyme, it will afford keener interest to you. The mnemonic rhyme goes that where it is bright, you can’t pass; where it is dark, you can pass; where it is big, you can’t pass; where it is small, you can pass; where it is straight, you can’t pass; where it is winding, you can pass.” About autumn rockery , it is said in Yangzhou that it was piled up by Shi Tao, a famous painter at the end of the Ming dynasty and in the beginning of the Qing dynasty. A famous expert of history of ancient architecture in china said in his work entitled Collected Writings of Garden: ”it is said that the original rockery in Shou Zhi Yuan was piled up by Shi Tao but there is no reliable evidence , probably because the imposing manner of the rockery is similar to Huangshan mountain in An Hui Province and Shi Tao liked to draw the landscape of Huangshan, people drew a forced analogy. However Wang Quantai, a Qing writer, once wrote a poem to Huang Shi, it reads :”You are young , homesick and often make complaints. You told me , your family lives in Shi Tao’s rocky house, spacious and beautiful like fairyland.” They talked about their family affairs. Can this be an evidence?
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