The art of bonsai is a product of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.
United as one
Where did bonsai actually originate? Westerners once believed it originated in Japan, but later archaeological discoveries and a large amount of documentary material proved that the art of bonsai originated in our country. It went through a process from large to small, and from outdoor pot cultivation to display on a desk. The Japanese art of bonsai was introduced from our country, and later spread to Western countries.
Lingering Charm of Liugeng Author: Rui Xinhua
Bonsai is a product of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature. The emergence of the art of bonsai was derived from primitive ancestors' feelings of reverence, worship, love, attachment and longing for return to nature. It was not until the integration of the reclusive culture of literati during the Wei and Jin dynasties that the development of bonsai art was pushed to a climax. The development and growth of bonsai art depended on the development of horticultural cultivation techniques and ceramic technology, which laid its technical foundation. Bonsai is the crystallization of art and technology. It uses the posture of plants cultivated in a pot to express natural scenery and the author's thoughts and feelings. Therefore, it belongs to the realm of ideology and to creation in the cultural category. What bonsai seeks to express is a certain partial landscape of nature. At its smallest, it can be reduced to a single unit - one tree or one piece of stone; at its largest, it can encompass a world, that is, its spiritual world. Contemporary bonsai art is developing rapidly. Modern people increasingly seek refinement in bonsai, and classification has also become more detailed.
Osaka pine
According to the forms of bonsai, they are divided into water-cultivation style, forest style, cliff-hanging style, lying-trunk style, straight-trunk style, and so on. Bonsai types also include large, medium, small and miniature. With the improvement of people's living standards, cultural literacy and aesthetic concepts, new varieties of bonsai art with different styles will be developed one after another, contributing to the creation of warm and comfortable environments. In the forest of world art, bonsai art is one of the Oriental art treasures rich in natural charm, and it is also one of our country's unique traditional garden arts.
Old cypress displaying its posture
Chinese bonsai is mainly divided into three major categories. The first category is bonsai created mainly with plants as material, called tree-stump bonsai. The second category is bonsai created mainly with mountain stones or stone substitutes as material, called mountain-stone bonsai. The third category is tree-and-stone bonsai, which has an obvious tree-and-stone structure in the near-view or middle-view position of the pot.
The shaping of bonsai is the expression of the author's certain thoughts and feelings. Its artistic image concentrates the essence of nature and is a miniature landscape with a highly natural spiritual realm. It blends people's thoughts and tastes into nature, concentrating the expression of "the grace and spirit of nature." In other words, the image of bonsai is a humanized image of nature. The natural distribution of bonsai across the country has obvious resource advantages and geographical location advantages. How to use these advantages, and in the process of investigating and studying the main schools of Chinese bonsai art, analyze how the shaping techniques and shaping characteristics of each school of bonsai art affect bonsai art. While summarizing the artistic characteristics and shaping techniques of bonsai, we should also summarize its existing shortcomings. Starting from the point of vigorously developing the cause of bonsai art, and for the purpose of improving the artistic taste of bonsai and shaping the unique characteristics of bonsai art, relevant experts should make reasonable and sustained suggestions. Only in this way can Chinese bonsai art be carried forward.