Ke Yuan,or Adore Garden,located at BoXia West Dongguan city, is one of the Four Great Gardens of Guangdong. Ke Yuan represents the Lingnan garden architecture.
Ke Yuan was built during the Qing Dynasty by Zhang JingXiu. Construction started in 1850 and was finished by 1858. After that, Ke Yuan has been expanded and reconstructed a few times.
Zhang JingXiu was first and second assigned as AnChaShi of the Guangxi and Jiangxi provinces by a Qing dynasty emperor. (A Qing officer rank which corresponds to a vice governor nowadays.) After he retired and returned to his home town Dongguan he lived in Ke Yuan. Zhang was good at and fond of Chinese writing, painting, chess, poetry, antiquing, stone collecting, etc. He invited friends, poets, scholars and painters to gather in Ke Yuan. And that’s how Keyuan became one of the origins of Guangdong culture.
Compared with the other three gardens, the significance of Ke Yuan is far beyond just being a private own garden. Ke Yuan could be considered the origin of Lingnan culture, for example, the famous lingnan style painting (a major branch of Chinese painting) was originated in Ke Yuan.
