A variety of research -- like history of mentality, literature, architecture, and colonialism, research on the reception of Japan, social history, and comparative jurisprudence -- contributes to understanding the garden as a result of the social and ideological meeting of nature and men. Cultivation of gardens builds up an anthropological symbolism from antique to modern times -- as in feudal representations in Japan and European Baroque and its overcoming during the enlightenment and the times of social reforms, including novels and poems. Colonialism of the 19th century had the illusory opinion that colonisation by gardens would bring high cultural civilisation to regions of savagery.