Ritsurin

Ritsurin, the garden where the landscape changes with every step

There are places you visit to see something beautiful. And then there are places where, after a few minutes, you realize your way of seeing has changed.
Ritsurin Garden, in Takamatsu, on the Japanese island of Shikoku, undoubtedly belongs to the second category.
Here, there is no monument dominating everything else, nor a single view you must reach to be able to say you’ve seen the garden. Ritsurin is discovered slowly, by walking. A path leads to a pond, a bridge frames a group of pine trees, a hill hides the landscape for a moment, and then, around the corner, the profile of Mount Shiun appears.
It is a garden that seems to never cease to amaze.
And perhaps for this very reason, the Japanese definition that best describes it is ippo ikkei: “a landscape at every step.”

A green interlude in the heart of Takamatsu
Takamatsu is the capital of Kagawa Prefecture and one of the gateways to Shikoku and the Seto Inland Sea. A vibrant, modern city overlooking the sea, also famous for its Sanuki udon.
Yet, as soon as you enter Ritsurin, you feel like you’ve traveled far from the city.
The garden occupies a total of approximately 75 hectares, a surprising size for a space located within the urban fabric. The garden area itself is approximately 16 hectares, while the rest encompasses Mount Shiun and the areas that contribute to its natural setting.
Six ponds, thirteen artificial hills, rocks, bridges, paths, traditional buildings, and an impressive number of carefully crafted pine trees unfold before your eyes.
But the real specialty lies not in the number of these elements.
It’s in how they were assembled.

A garden built to be traversed
Ritsurin belongs to the tradition of large Japanese strolling gardens, the so-called kaiyū-shiki. It was not designed to be observed from a single point, but to accompany the visitor through a succession of perspectives.
It’s a bit like stepping into a movie without knowing the next scene.
You walk, and the landscape changes.
Water appears and disappears behind the vegetation. A bridge leads to a new perspective. A bend in the path suddenly reveals a building. A hill seems to block the horizon and, a few steps further, reveals the mountain.
The surprise is constant, but never accidental.
Because behind that apparent naturalness lies an extremely sophisticated design.
Ritsurin is, in fact, the result of centuries of work, during which its owners shaped the terrain, arranged the rocks, tended the trees, and built observation points capable of constantly creating new images.
It is a landscape in which man does not seek to dominate nature, but to construct a composition with it.

The history of a garden born in samurai Japan
The origins of Ritsurin are very ancient. According to official sources, the initial nucleus dates back to the late 16th century; around 1625, the area of ​​​​the current Nanko pond was developed. A key turning point came in 1642, when Matsudaira Yorishige became lord of the Takamatsu domain and inherited the garden.
From then on, for over a century, successive lords of the Matsudaira family continued to expand and refine it.
The project was completed in 1745, under the fifth lord of the domain, Matsudaira Yoritaka. At that time, sixty scenic spots in the garden were also identified and named.
For 228 years, across eleven generations, the Ritsurin remained a private residence of the Matsudaira family.
Then Japan changed.
With the Meiji Restoration, the feudal system ended, and the world of daimyo gave way to modern Japan. In 1875, the Ritsurin was opened to the public.
In 1953, another important recognition arrived: the Japanese government designated it a Special Place of Scenic Beauty, a category reserved for landscapes deemed to be of exceptional value.
Today, it is considered one of the most important historical gardens in Japan.

Fourteen Hundred Pines and Three Centuries of Patience
If one had to choose one image to describe Ritsurin, it would probably be that of its pine trees.
There are approximately 1,400 of them, and about 1,000 are regularly maintained by gardeners. Some are over three hundred years old. Their branches, shaped over time, take on shapes reminiscent of enormous bonsai.
Observing them, one understands the importance of time in Japanese garden culture.
Here, beauty does not arise from immediate perfection.
It arises from patience.
A branch is guided, pruned, supported. A tree is allowed to grow in a certain direction. A shape is preserved for decades and passed down from one generation of gardeners to the next.
Among the most famous trees at Ritsurin is the Neagari Goyomatsu, a Japanese white pine donated to the Takamatsu domain in 1833 by the eleventh Tokugawa shogun. Born as a small bonsai, over time it has become a large tree.
Looking at it is, in some ways, like looking at the fruit of nearly two centuries of history.

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When the Mountain Enters the Garden
There is another element that makes the Ritsurin so special: Mount Shiun.
The mountain is located outside the garden, yet it seems to belong there.
This is not an illusion. It is the result of a precise landscaping technique called shakkei, literally “borrowed landscape.”
The principle is simple and ingenious: using a natural element beyond the garden’s boundaries to visually expand the space.
At the Ritsurin, Mount Shiun thus becomes the backdrop of the composition. From certain perspectives, it almost seems to rise directly from the ponds and pine trees.
One of the best places to understand this is Hiraiho Hill, modeled after Mount Fuji. From here, the garden finally seems to reveal its own design: the water, the trees, the bridges, the hills, and the distant mountain all enter into the same image.
It is one of those moments when you realize that what seemed spontaneous was actually extremely carefully planned.

The Pond as a Mirror
Water is the other great protagonist of Ritsurin.
Nanko Pond, in particular, offers some of the most evocative perspectives in the entire garden. Here, the trees and buildings are reflected in the surface of the pond, and the landscape seems to double.
But there’s something even more interesting.
The reflection is never the same.
A cloud, a change in light, or a gust of wind can completely alter the image.
In the morning, when the mist can settle on the water, the garden takes on an almost suspended atmosphere. It’s no surprise that the Japan National Tourist Organization recommends the early hours of the day to capture one of Ritsurin’s most evocative moments.
And that’s also why a video perhaps conveys it better than a photograph.
A photograph captures an image.
Ritsurin, on the other hand, is movement.
It’s the transition from one image to another.

A cup of tea overlooking the landscape
In the heart of the garden is the Kikugetsutei, a traditional teahouse linked to the history of the lords of Takamatsu.
Sitting on the tatami, gazing at the Nanko pond, and drinking green tea means entering a dimension completely different from that of the city just beyond the garden.
Even the name Kikugetsutei has a poetic origin: it recalls a verse from a Tang Dynasty Chinese poem according to which, by gathering water, one can hold the moon in one’s hands.
It’s a perfect image for Ritsurin.
Because here, nature isn’t simply observed.
It’s contemplated.

A garden that changes with the seasons
Ritsurin doesn’t have just one season.
In spring, the cherry and plum blossoms arrive. In summer, the green becomes intense and the ponds fill with reflections. In autumn, the maples illuminate the landscape with red and yellow. In winter, when the vegetation becomes more sparse, the shapes of the pines, rocks, and architecture emerge even more clearly.
The same walk can therefore tell completely different stories depending on the time of year.
This is also why Ritsurin never truly seems “finished.”
You can visit it the first time and return years later, finding a place familiar yet surprisingly new.
The garden to see… without rushing
Perhaps the best way to visit Ritsurin is to take your time.
Don’t immediately seek out the most famous viewpoint.
Don’t walk through it as if it were a list of things to photograph.
Better to let the path guide you.
Follow the water.
Stop in front of a pine tree.
Cross a bridge.
Look at what appears around the bend.
Because Ritsurin was designed precisely this way: so that the visitor discovers the landscape gradually.
One step, a landscape.
And perhaps also an invitation to experience the journey in the same way.
One step at a time.

When the Garden Becomes a Memory
After a few hours spent in the Ritsurin, we return to the exit and Takamatsu reappears with its daily life.
But the garden remains in the eyes.
What remains are the impossibly shaped pine trees, the reflection of the bridges on the water, the silhouette of Mount Shiun, the silence of the teahouses, and that curious feeling of having traversed not just a place, but a part of Japanese history.
The Ritsurin was built by feudal lords, perfected by generations of gardeners, and open to the public for nearly 150 years.
Yet its strength does not belong to the past.
It is entirely in the present.
At the exact moment when the visitor walks along a path and something appears before them that until a second before was not in their field of vision.
Another landscape.
Another perspective.
Another surprise.
One step, a landscape.
This is perhaps the simplest and, at the same time, the most profound lesson of the Ritsurin Garden.
And it’s precisely the images in the video accompanying this article that tell it better than any description: because to truly understand Ritsurin, it’s not enough to know what it is.
You have to let yourself be led through it.

Guido Bissanti