Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. 750 pages, ISBN: 978-0-88402-465-1. Price: $70.

On rare occasions, a scholarly work appears that rises far above the many articles published and the verbiage posted on the Internet about Chinese viewing stones. This book is one of those rare works. Many scholars of Chinese literature contributed to this volume. Even though the majority of this massive tome is devoted to garden literature, chapter 3, Rocks and Flora, and selected pieces in chapter 7 do focus on unusual rocks appreciated for their aesthetic qualities. 

In 2013, Dumbarton Oaks, a research facility of Harvard University, began a project to translate rare and classic Chinese text on Chinese garden history and related topics into English. This is one of those translations. It covers over 1200 years of Chinese history that ends with the Qing dynasty. One chapter alone contains 18 passages about rocks, including two very important works of Bai Juyi —"A Pair of Rocks" and "An Account of Lake Tai Rocks"—which helped to establish the aesthetic parameters for appreciating fantastic rocks in China. Important works of Niu Sengru, Du Wan, Su Shi, Mei Yaochen, Lin Youlin, and others are also included. 

A translation of the introduction of The Stone Compendium of the Plain Garden (1613) by Lin Youlin is provided by Stephen Little. As I read this passage, I could not help but yearn for a complete translation of this important four-volume illustrated work on Chinese stones appreciated solely for their aesthetic qualities. What an important contribution this would be. 

A favorite story of mine is The Etherial Rock by Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling. It is a wonderful story about the relationship of a rock and a man that should be required reading for aspiring stone connoisseurs. A translation of this work was first published in Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio (1989). Several of the articles about stones have been previously published in hard-to-find works. Thanks to Hardie and Campbell, many of the important translations have been brought together in The Dumbarton Oaks Anthology of Chinese Garden Literature.

Even though the majority of Chinese literature relating to stone appreciation has yet to be translated, this book is an important contribution to the growing body of works about Chinese scholar rocks.

182 pages, ISBN 13: 978-0-9961032-8-2. Great Story Book Publishing Company, Bellingham, Washington.

This delightful volume is an essential reference for rock or mineral collectors interested in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The author spent twenty years plying the waterways of the Inland Passage stretching from Washington state to southeastern Alaska in search of minerals rocks and viewing stones. This book describes more than 150 collecting locations in the region, including many small islands. McWilliams is a mineral collector who picked up many beautiful stones he referred to as “natural sculpture” before he learned about viewing stones and suiseki.

The Anchor and The Pick can guide a collector to known sites that have yielded attractive viewing stones. Caution: it won’t be easy to get to many of these sites without a boat.

Privately Published. 125 pages. ISBN: 979-8398366600. 

This volume features the stones collected by the author over many years on the island of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. It is a welcomed addition because it is the first book devoted solely to viewing stones in this part of the world. Caribbean Suiseki Gallery is also clear evidence that quality Japanese Suiseki-type stones can be found on an American tropical island. I was impressed with the quality of many of the Japanese Suiseki-type stones on this American tropical island. Caribbean Suiseki Gallery can serve as a valuable guide to stone collectors throughout the Caribbean.

The photographs lack good contrast and appear washed out. Gloss or semi-gloss paper would help make a stronger artistic statement. An editor or copy editor would have caught the numerous grammatical errors in the text.

Viewing Stone Association of North America, Claremont, California. 204 pp. ISBN: 978-0-578-67524-4.

Review by Tatehata Kengo, Chief Editor, Aiseki Magazine, Japan

I am impressed by the new ways of displaying stones illustrated in this book Contemporary Viewing Stone Display, even though my English is not good enough to read through all the contents in a limited time. I can surely recommend this book to all the stone hobbyists in the world. The stone displays in chapters 4 and 5 are all strikingly fresh and new, departing from Japanese suiseki displays. The book is insightful and inspirational for those who love stones, including all the readers of Aiseki magazine. I find the book very interesting in presenting a new future direction of suiseki and viewing stones. Contemporary Viewing Stone Display book was published in the USA in July 2020. Three authors such as Tom Elias, well-known stone connoisseur even in Japan, as well as Richard Turner and Paul Harris, cooperatively prepared the book. Each author presents his interpretation of stones in the book. Additionally, the book presents the history of Japanese suiseki and Chinese viewing stones. Yet the focus is obviously on contemporary stone displays deriving from the tradition and history.

My first impression is the cover photo of the Georgian Bay stone. This stone is too white and too soft by the Japanese suiseki standards. Yet the base is interesting enough for the Japanese to learn from it. I have been serving as a chief-editor of Aiseki magazine for 16 years, and I have had opportunities to visit US stone hobbyists. I realized that majority of US stone hobbyists had been working to understand and get closer to the Japanese suiseki. As a Japanese magazine editor, I was pleased with their attitudes since the Japanese suiseki should be fundamental. However, when I think of the future of suiseki and viewing stones, I find a good possibility in the future of stone appreciation that is different from the status quo illustrated in this book. Suiseki hobby is declining in Japan. The Japanese tend to take much time to get out of old ways. Taking time for change is sometimes good, but other times it is not good since our world is changing rapidly. It is indeed vital to appreciate the tradition, but the Japanese suiseki needs to find new and different ways to accommodate the current society. Recently some young Japanese ladies in their twenties began to be interested in stone appreciation. It is essential to show them new ways of enjoying stone appreciation. These trials or experiments in the book will lead to an increase in the suiseki and viewing stone people. I hope this will also increase the subscribers of my magazine.

Harvard East Asian Monographs 225. Harvard University Asia Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 301 pp. ISBN: 0-674-01219-4. $45 when published.

This scholarly treatise is not for the casual stone hobbyists. Instead it is an important contribution for serious collectors and scholars of Chinese stone appreciation. Mountains and stones were revered in ancient China and played a critically important role in the lives of painters, posts, writers, and learned officials. Individual stones and artificial mountains made of stones were a conspicuous element in Chinese gardens. The author of this volume carefully documents how gardens and garden objects were incorporated in some of the more important works of poetry in the Tan and Song dynasties. Chapter three, Fetishism and Its Anxiety: A Poetic Biography of Fantastic Rocks, is the most important chapter of this book for pterophiles. The appreciation of stones and their incorporation in gardens expanded greatly during the late Tang dynasty. Yang provides numerous examples of the way poets described in their work different types of stones, especially one from Lake Tai. He shows how the leading poets of that time wrote about these stones,and were also avid collectors of stones. Yang compares and contrasts the poets and their views in this valuable reference. Readers will begin to understand the importance of fantastic stones in Chinese society and in the lives of the literati after carefully studying this book.

Translated into English by William Scott Wilson. Kodansha International. Tokyo. 183 pages. ISBN: 13:978-4-7700-2499-2 and 10:4-7700-2499-1. Price when published $19.95.

First, this is not a book about Japanese Suiseki or the broader category of Viewing Stones. The Flowering Spirit is valuable to understand some aspects of the Japanese aesthetics and spiritual culture. The Flowering Spirit or Fushikaden is a treatise on drama as expressed in the Japanese Noh plays written by Zaemi Motokiyo in the early half of the Muromachi era between 1394 and 1428. This treatise was not published nor made available to the public. It was kept as a secret document that was carefully passed from one generation of Noh leaders to the next generation. Zeami is regarded by most scholars as the founder of the Noh play. He was an accomplished actor who inherited a travelling theatrical troupe when his father died. Most actors in the troupe were poorly educated. Zeami acting skills were greatly appreciated by the Ashikaga Shogun. Zeami was accepted into Ashikaga’s court and provided an education in classical literature and philosophy. Because of this education, Zeami was able to write more meaningful dramas and incorporate Zen Buddhism themes into his plays. Zeami compared a person’s mind to a flower and techniques to a seed. His writings were intended to lead people as an approach to the Way as in Zen Buddhism. This and other private treatises written by Zeami discussed important aspects of character acting, music, and physical movements which are so important in Noh plays. It was not until 1908 that Zeami’s treatises were found and were more widely circulated. A complete set of his treatises was published in 1940, more than five hundred years after they were first drafted. But how does Zeami’s treatises relate to suiseki?

The aesthetic qualities that are applied to Japanese suiseki were adapted from ancient concepts that developed with the formation of Japanese culture ancient times to the present. Some aspects of the accepted sense of beauty arose from calligraphy, the tea ceremony, and from the ancient Noh drama plays. Zeami incorporated the aesthetic concept of Yugen in the Noh plays he wrote. Yugen is a sense of great depth of feeling, the imagination of the latent beauty, something that is suggestive or leave a lingering memory. The ability of a viewer to experience deep feelings of hidden beauty when viewing an exceptional stone comes from concepts expressed in Noh play drama.