The Japanese garden is a depiction of a landscape imagined in the mind. A pond mimics an ocean, a rock mimics a mountain, this is a condensed version of the natural world. To express the natural world through imitation is simply “perspective”. If Japanese people look at a Japanese style garden they may feel “Wabisabi”. Wabisabi is a word to describe the classic aesthetic sense in Japanese art that shows both simplicity and refinement.
But what exactly is Wabisabi? Perhaps some Japanese people cannot explain, but their heart may understand. It is similar to understanding the misery or the beauty of loneliness, but being unable to put these feelings into words. Is it because Japanese people from a young age come into contact with the feeling of Japanese gardens? Or is it the response of ancestral DNA, which has been passed down by earlier generations?
If you think about it, Western art developed portrait painting, while it was Japan that developed ink wash painting. Maybe this demonstrates the ability of Japanese people to see landscapes beautifully.
During sundown when the time comes for the park to close you turn around and no one is inside the park. It is possible to witness your long shadow unadulterated by other people. Then as a few fragments of beauty remain, while the light is present, you reflect on one piece of this scenery and time stops. It is just you breathing, and it is just you who remains in the world in isolation. You feel the loneliness and misery.
The beauty of this scene cannot be put into words. The scenery and the moment overlap. We are looking at time rather than the place we are in.