Objective Exemplified by the private gardens in Jiangnan Region during Ming and Qing dynasties, traditional Chinese gardens are renowned for their intricate layouts, refined details, and profound implications. They are acclaimed as “three-dimensional paintings and silent poems”, exhibiting a significant affinity with poetry, literature, painting, and even musical arts. Landscape poetry and painting, in particular, have been highly abstracted, refined, and sublimated by scholars throughout the ages, based on their experiences of appreciating natural landscapes. These works transcend mere depictions of natural landscapes, incorporating scholars’ personal experiences, emotions, and aesthetics into reinterpretations. Various aspects of traditional private gardens in Jiangnan, encompassing rockery arrangements, water feature design, architectural layout, plant cultivation, couplets, plaques, and even home bonsai, can be perceived as continuations of this reinterpretation process in the realm of engineering. Consequently, poetry and painting arts serve as the spiritual bridge between natural landscapes and “urban forests”. While extensive research has explored the interconnection and intertextuality between poetry, painting, and urban gardens, investigations into the exploration and expression of poetic and artistic conceptions in natural landscapes, particularly in renowned mountain scenic areas, remain relatively scarce. Therefore, it is imperative to clarify the specific derivation process of the gardening technique of “emulation of nature” by identifying a well-known natural wonder among traditional famous mountain scenic areas that is adorned by scholars’ poems and paintings throughout history.

Methods This research centers on the natural wonder of Hanyan − Mingyan Scenic Area. Rooted in landscape architecture, the research relies heavily on historical research and theories. The research is conducted through on-site surveying and mapping utilizing such methods as oblique photography, three-dimensional modeling, and field reconnaissance.

Results The inherent natural endowment of the “Ten-mile Iron Armor Dragon” (“Shilitiejialong”), where Hanyan − Mingyan Scenic Area is situated, attracts hermits and fosters the creation of Hanshan poetry and Mingyan paintings. Conversely, literary and artistic creations further invigorates and deepens the “anthropomorphic” aspect of local scenery, encompassing the so-called “naturalization of humans” and “humanization of nature”. These two aspects reinforce each other, ultimately achieving the apex state of “poetic and artistic nature”, which provides inexhaustible inspiration and nourishment for the creation of the “urban forest” among the bureaucratic class. The motif of “Snow on Cold Rock”, popular since Song Dynasty, along with the summaries of “poetic materials” and “painting materials” by scholars in Ming Dynasty, has elevated and refined the aesthetic cognition of landscapes to the realm of “harmony between heaven and man”. This has become an integral component of the aesthetic value of the renowned Tiantai Mountain Scenic Area. Relying on their superior natural endowments, traditional famous mountain scenic areas in China gradually evolve and improve with the progressive enhancement of their development and openness throughout the ages. In the process of deepening their epistemological understanding, the literati and scholar-bureaucrats of the time often engage in the “disembodied cognition” process, wherein aesthetic subjects cognize landscape objects through poetry, calligraphy, painting, and other creative expressions. Their diverse worldviews, life outlooks, and values as “social beings” give rise to diverse aspects of landscape aesthetics deconstruction and distinct expression styles. The aesthetic value of famous mountain scenic areas is derived from the commonalities extracted from all these deconstructions and expressions. Scholars apply the aesthetic experience garnered from appreciating the poetry and painting works of their predecessors or directly visiting the sites to the engineering practices of urban private garden construction. This transition represents a leap from “disembodied cognition” to “embodied cognition”. If captivating natural landscapes and artificial pavilions and temples constitute the “two facets of the same coin” in terms of the natural and humanistic attributes of famous mountain scenic areas, then the process of interpreting and deconstructing them through literary and artistic works may serve as a bridge and link that introduces them into the “human world”. The “re-cognition” and “re-interpretation” of landscape by the general public, based on literary and artistic works, continuously generate newer and deeper aesthetic understandings that can guide urban construction practices. Simultaneously, this may also enrich the cultural connotation of the original scenic areas from both material and spiritual dimensions, forming a complete positive feedback loop from beginning to end.

Conclusion By analyzing the symbiotic relationship between humanities and natural landscapes, this research summarizes the interaction and positive feedback mechanism between the natural endowments of Hanyan − Mingyan Scenic Area and relevant literary and artistic creation. This approach is pivotal in elucidating the specific evolutionary process of the traditional gardening technique of “emulation of nature”, and can offer insights into the rational development and utilization of the tourism resources of Hanyan − Mingyan Scenic Area. Furthermore, it can foster a novel integration of culture and tourism in “Poetic and Artistic Tiantai” and “Poetic and Artistic Zhejiang”, thereby promoting regional industrial upgrading.