 |
In Japanese gardens, water and bridges represent the flow of time, the movements of arriving and departing, of coming into existence and passing out of it. Bridges invariably join two shores, and since the bridges in Japanese gardens make no distinction as to which which is the nearer and which the farther shore, the time reigning in these gardens is reversible. A bridge gives the feeling of introducing time rather than of ruling space. As soon as time is arrested, its irreversibility is denied.