Today the garden at the Golden Pavilion covers approximately four and a half acres (although it seems much larger), with a lake occupying about one-third of the total area. The pavilion sits at the lake's edge, but in past times before the waters shifted, it was in its midst. When viewed from the pavilion, as was the original intention, the garden seems a landscape vista. Several of the small islets scattered about the lake have their own dwarf pines, while others are no more than massive protruding stones, chosen for an abstract resemblance to a tortoise or cane. In the portion of the lake closest to the pavilion everything is wrought in great detail, whereas stones on the far side are vague and diffuse, so that the distant shoreline seems lost in misty recesses. The hillsides surrounding the garden are covered with foliage, and there is no clear demarcation between the garden and the hills. Executed at a time when resources were almost limitless, the garden of the Golden Pavilion is one of the finest Zen landscape gardens ever created. It stands as a watershed between the modification of Chinese styles and the maturity of Japanese Zen art. Yoshimasa, architect of the fourth great Zen landscape garden, was also fond of Saiho-ji and had studied its garden, as well as that of the Golden Pavilion, with great care. But the Silver Pavilion and its garden were built after the disastrous Onin War, when the available resources were nothing like those of the earlier Ashikaga shoguns. Although he was surrounded by a coterie of Zen aestheticians, it appears Yoshimasa designed the garden himself, assisted by a new class of professional garden workers drawn from the outcast _eta_ class (outcast because they were associated with the meat and hides industry and thus pariahs to all good Buddhists), who had been engaged by the Zen priests to take care of the heavy work involved in stone movement and placement. Many of these _eta_ became famous for their artistic discernment, and one, the famous Zen-ami, is regarded as one of the foremost garden architects of the Ashikaga era.