Classical gardens in Jiangsu province were mostly built adjacent to private residences. The past owners of the gardens were usually retired government officials, who took the natural landscape as their model for creating artistic garden scenery. They would invite the social elite to gatherings in their gardens.

The gardens were therefore, in effect, a continuation of the living space, which gave rise to the practice of a lifestyle of leisure and refined pursuits sought by intellectuals.

This preference featured idealized routines of daily life, including reading, painting, writing and reading out poetry, playing music, tasting tea and wine, playing chess and banqueting.