Most beautiful Japanese gardens; at Nanzen-Ji, Kyoto, Japan
Japanese gardens are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden designers to suggest an ancient and faraway natural landscape, and to express the fragility of existence as well as time's unstoppable advance. Ancient Japanese art inspired past garden designers. By the Edo period, the Japanese garden had its own distinct appearance. Traditional Japanese gardens can be categorized into three types: tsukiyama (hill gardens), karesansui (dry gardens) and chaniwa gardens (tea gardens). The main purpose of a Japanese garden is to attempt to be a space that captures the natural beauties of nature.
Kamakura and Muromachi periods (1185–1573) Several of the famous zen gardens of Kyoto were the work of one man; Musō Soseki (1275–1351). He was a monk, a ninth-generation descendant of the Emperor Uda. He was also a formidable court politician, writer and organizer, who armed and financed ships to open trade with China, and founded an organization called the Five Mountains, made up of the most powerful Zen monasteries in Kyoto. He was responsible for the building of the zen gardens of Nanzen-ji; Saihō-ji (The Moss Garden); and Tenryū-ji.
Nanzen-ji garden, Kyoto, built by Musō Soseki. Not all zen gardens were made of rock and sand; monks here contemplated a forest scene.
Cascade at Nanzen-ji garden in Kyoto Text: wikipedia.org