Old Summer Palace(Ruins of Yuanmingyuan)

Background

Emperor Kangxi who wrote three characters of it in Chinese calligraphy named it Yuanmingyuan. Why did the emperor name it Yuanmingyuan? The reasons could be categorized into two parts: firstly Chinese Character Yuan means the perfection of human morality which surpasses what the commoners have; secondly the Chinese Character Ming means the advisability, perfection and extension of political achievement. In other words, such an explanation is the ideal standard of respectable emperor and virtuous ministers of feudalistic society.
 
The Characteristics of Garden Architecture

Yuanmingyuan gathered the obvious characteristics of some typical famous gardens from regions of southern Yangtze River. It integrates the core of Chinese ancient arts and techniques of horticulture. Adopting the technique of building inner gardens in exterior gardens, the builders harmoniously integrated the image of poetics and paintings with changeable scenery. The southern part of Yuanmingyuan was used for government. Among the diversity of sceneries, there are more than 50 scenic spots imitating the famous gardern of other places such as ten sceneries of

West Lake in Hangzhou

. What is more interesting is that some gardens are designed to be westernized. The most famous westernized one is Guanshuifa, a western-style fountain. It is typically characterized by Italian Renaissance style. At the center of lake, there is a Venice-city model, and the emperor could sit beside the lake and appreciate the landscape of water-city thousands of miles away from China. In 1860, the union army of UK and France ransacked this Garden. The buildings were fired and antiques were robbed, the miraculous and mythical Yuanmingyuan was burned into a wasteland. 
 
The art features

Yuanmingyuan is a hall collecting enormous treasures, celebrities' scriptures, calligraphy works and paintings, jewelry, silver and gold wares, vases and so on. It densely shows the essence of Chinese ancient culture. It was also the garden gathering varieties of rare trees and plants.  Visitors who visited this garden directly called it "the King of All the Gardens in the World."