# Korean Garden (韓国庭園)

> The Joseon garden, typified by Changdeokgung's rear garden, that moves earth as little as possible: pavilions set into natural valleys and ponds — the other East Asian ideal, design by restraint.

- IndexStyle No.410 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/korean-garden
- Kind: Style · Family: Garden Styles · Era: Joseon dynasty–
- Mood: Calm, Intimacy, Trust
- Color cues: #e9e6dd / #67635d / #171615 (cues taken from reference works, not a fixed palette)

## Defining characteristics

- Terrain left as found
- Square ponds with round islands
- Scattered pavilions
- Artifice restrained

## Best used for

- Comparing primary sources and canonical works
- Extracting principles that transfer to other media

## Research method

This entry records a historical style; derive the treatment from its sources rather than a fixed recipe:

- Observe the letters, signs and scale of reference works
- Extract the one structure that governs gaze and information
- Verify the materials and behaviors specific to era, region and process

## What to avoid

Don't reduce it to surface signs. Verify the context of era, region, technology and makers.

## Application checklist

Before calling a piece an application of this style, check it against the defining characteristics:

- [ ] Terrain left as found
- [ ] Square ponds with round islands
- [ ] Scattered pavilions
- [ ] Artifice restrained
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Chinese Scholar Garden (中国文人庭園)** — The literati garden crystallized in Suzhou: landscape painting built in three dimensions. Taihu stone peaks, lattice windows as picture frames and turning corridors fold infinite scenery into small plots. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/chinese-scholar-garden
- **Minhwa (民画)** — The folk painting of unnamed artists in late Joseon Korea: tigers and magpies, pictorial ideographs, scholar's-shelf still lifes — set formulas drawn with free multi-perspective composition and humor that laughs at authority. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/minhwa

## Further study

- the Huwon of Changdeokgung
- the square-pond cosmology
- siting and pungsu

## Reference works

- 昌徳宮後苑 芙蓉池（CC BY-SA 3.0） — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Korea-Seoul-Changdeokgung-Huwon-Buyongjeong%20and%20Buyeongju-01.jpg
- 後苑（CC BY-SA 4.0） — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Biwon%20Huwon%20of%20Changdeokgung.jpg

## Source of record

- UNESCO — Changdeokgung Palace Complex — https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/816/

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/korean-garden
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/korean-garden/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compose_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)

## 日本語

昌徳宮後苑に代表される、地形を最小限しか動かさない朝鮮の庭。自然の谷と池に亭を置くだけの「手を加えない設計」が、東アジア庭園のもう一つの理想を示す。

特徴: 地形をそのまま使う／方池円島の池／亭（あずまや）の点在／人工の抑制
注意: 表面的な記号へ還元せず、時代・地域・技術・制作主体の文脈を確認する。