ABSTRACT
In the late Ming period, garden culture was an important aspect of literati culture, especially in the cultural heartland of Jiangnan. Although garden culture had been important to many literati since at least the Song dynasty, there were a number of reasons why interest in it became ever more widespread during the Ming, and especially in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century: economic growth meant that garden ownership came within the means of increasing numbers of people; the expanding numbers of aspirants to government offi ce were not matched by any increase in the number of offi cial posts, and there was therefore an increasing number of unemployed literati who had to fi ll in their leisure time one way or another; the rise of the merchant class was felt by the literati as a threat to their social position, and in response they devised ways to assert their cultural superiority by defi ning the criteria of ‘taste’, and found gardens to be an area in which these criteria could readily be deployed. At the same time, a fl ourishing publishing industry encouraged the spread of information and comment on all aspects of culture, including gardens;1 descriptions of actual and ideal gardens and different views on various aspects of garden culture circulated widely. Book illustrations also provided the reading public with a wide range of images of garden scenes.2
