Types of Garden Rocks
From the middle of the T'ang dynasty (8th cent.) important element in landscape
design became rocks eroded by water, whose creation was absolutely spontaneous, and therefore they embodied
naturalness. These rocks were, perhaps, the first ready-mades in the history of world art. There were two types
of rocks: recumbent, and standing. The first were piled up to make hills/mountains. Vertical stones, larger and
with more interesting shapes, were treated as monuments, sometimes set up on pedestals, and solitary. "Their
decorative function in the Chinese gardens is often the same as that of the statues, obelisks, and urns found in
European gardens, only with the difference that they merge so much more naturally in the picturesque play of
light and shade of their surroundings."
