Element of Water in Korean Culture and Garden Art of Korea

Abstract

The East always was mysterious for Europeans, and it continued till 16-17 centuries. When it comes to the Near East, China, Japan and India, we can see that researches at that time gave a lot of information about these countries, but as for Korea, there was just fragmentary information. More detailed research of Korea has begun much later, that is why there are still a lot of subjects needed be researched. And one of them is Garden Art of Korea. It should be mentioned that researchers telling about Korean gardens give only general things and do not do detailed analyze. This article analyzes an image of water and its realization in the Garden Art of Korea. As we know, Koreans have a special attitude to nature as an object of contemplation and comprehension. And this attitude was incarnated through parks and gardens, which develop under the influence of Chinese culture. But Korean gardens save their originality and get new semantic contents which spread on each element of a park-garden complex. The analyze of evolution of base elements of Korean garden gives us a possibility not only see changes of culture complex, but also helps us to understand a mechanism of interaction of cultures when recipient culture saves its originality and uniqueness.