Apprenticeship Ceremony at the Humble Administrator's Garden - Suzhou-style Penjing Passed Down Hand to Hand and Mouth to Mouth

Apprenticeship ceremony at the Humble Administrator's Garden: the master burns incense, the student presents the apprenticeship letter and offers the ceremonial tuition gift, then bows three times to the master.

The master burns incense, the student presents the apprenticeship letter and offers the ceremonial tuition gift, bows three times to the master, master and student burn incense together…… Yesterday afternoon, at the Yuanxiang Hall of the Humble Administrator's Garden, following the procedures of traditional Han rites, three master-apprentice pairs including Mao Fumin and Ji Heng held a grand ceremony of formal apprenticeship. From now on, three veteran masters specializing in penjing and flowers will teach by word and example, carefully passing on to their young apprentices their mastery of Suzhou-style penjing craftsmanship and traditional flower cultivation techniques.

Suzhou-style penjing is one of the five major schools of penjing in China. The Humble Administrator's Garden Penjing Garden is the earliest specialized garden penjing collection in the country, currently with 5 highly skilled professional penjing masters, managing and maintaining about 500 penjing in daily care, including a papaya penjing with a history of nearly 500 years. In order to pass down Suzhou-style penjing craftsmanship in its entirety and establish first-class penjing management standards, the Humble Administrator's Garden Management Office selected 3 young employees to apprentice with the veteran masters.

Mao Fumin has been engaged in horticultural work such as penjing and flowers for 38 years. He said that Suzhou-style penjing needs more of the younger generation to inherit and carry forward, and that the Humble Administrator's Garden Management Office has entrusted him with the important task of taking on apprentices this time. He will do his utmost to pass on his skills, with master and apprentice of one mind, together contributing to carrying forward and glorifying Suzhou-style penjing craftsmanship.

Ji Heng, 22 years old, is one of the 3 young people who became apprentices yesterday. The traditional Han-rite apprenticeship ceremony made him feel it was very grand. He said that previously at school he had only learned horticultural knowledge in a general way, and it was only after arriving at the garden in March this year that he could practice in detail. In the future, he will focus on learning penjing cultivation and creation from his master.

Sun Jianfeng, director of the Humble Administrator's Garden Management Office, said that the flower and penjing cultivation techniques in Suzhou's classical gardens are an important part of China's traditional culture. He hopes that through such a grand ceremony, masters and apprentices will carry on Chinese ritual culture and establish a modern master-apprentice relationship of mutual teaching and learning, “leaving the historical mark of our generation in the process of protecting the World Heritage.”

Chinese Penjing Schools - Suzhou-style Penjing

        Suzhou, with a city-building history of 2500 years, is located in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, on the shore of Taihu Lake, with continuous hills, densely woven rivers, a humid climate and abundant rainfall. It is suitable for the reproduction and growth of plants, providing an extremely favorable regional environment and natural conditions for the development of tree-stump penjing.
Suzhou is not only a unique water city, but also a garden city that gathers the great achievements of Eastern garden architecture art. Since ancient times it has enjoyed the reputation that “Jiangnan gardens are the finest under heaven, and Suzhou gardens are the finest in Jiangnan.” The Suzhou urban area has crisscrossing waterways and interlocking bridges; in the past there were nearly 100 kilometers of waterways, and now there are 40 kilometers; in the past there were 325 bridges, and more than one hundred are still preserved today. The Tang dynasty poet Du Gouhe wrote in his poem Seeing a Friend Off on a Journey to Wu: “When you come to Gusu, you will see homes all built along the river. In the left palace there is little idle land; in the small lanes there are many water bridges. In the night market one admires water chestnuts and lotus roots; spring boats carry fine silk. Knowing from afar the sleepless moon, homesickness lies in the fisherman's song.” From this one can glimpse the appearance of Suzhou at that time. The Suzhou dialect nurtured by this regional environment has a soft pronunciation, with each phrase turning three times, and is therefore called “the soft Wu speech.” (Completely different from what Zhu Wenchang points out in his History of the Qin, that “Shu is a hundred times impetuous, like surging waves and rolling thunder.”)
Suzhou once had more than 220 gardens (and courtyards). Through the fires of war, more than 60 are still preserved today, and twenty or thirty are open. Suzhou's gardens differ from those of the wealthy gentry and rich merchants of other cities: not only do they have a long history, but most were created by famous literary figures of the time, and thus embody a high level of artistic accomplishment and a strong humanistic spirit. For example, the Humble Administrator's Garden was originally built after Wang Xianchen, a censor of the Ming dynasty, resigned from office and returned home; its site was once the former residence of the Tang dynasty poet Lu Luwang, with a tranquil environment and a natural, detached simplicity. The Lingering Garden, outstanding in architectural layout, was initially the private garden of Xu Tai, a taipu of the Ming dynasty, and later came into the hands of Liu Rongfeng, a provincial administration commissioner of the Qing dynasty, who renovated and rebuilt it as “Hanbi Mountain Villa,” with bamboo of clear cold color and waves of translucent green. The Canglang Pavilion, the pond-side residence of Qian Yuanliao, Prince Guangling of Wu-Yue in the late Tang, was purchased by the poet Su Shunqing in the Northern Song, and later became the residence of Han Shizhong, a famous anti-Jin general of the Southern Song, hence called Han Garden, with winding streams, tranquil and ancient in simplicity. And so on. It can be said that every garden has a “bond” with famous literary figures. Garden art and penjing art were originally a pair of “twin sisters”; the high achievements of Suzhou garden architecture inevitably had a direct and major influence on the formation and development of Suzhou-style penjing, especially since many of the creators of these gardens were themselves lovers and makers of penjing art.
Suzhou is not only a commercial city, but more importantly a cultural city; the number, quality and fame of its cultural relics are rarely seen even nationwide. From the early Tang dynasty, Suzhou was the center of cultural activity in the Jiangnan region, and its poetry, prose, calligraphy and painting were renowned throughout the country. In the Three Kingdoms period there was Lu Xun; in the Jin dynasty there were Lu Ji and Lu Yun; in the high Tang, Wei Yingwu, Bai Juyi and Liu Yuxi all served as Prefect of Suzhou; in the late Tang there were Lu Guimeng and Pi Rixiu; after the Song and Yuan dynasties even more literary celebrities came from Suzhou, especially the “Wumen Painting School” of the Ming dynasty led by Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming, Tang Yin and Qiu Ying, which had an even more profound influence on the artistic style of Suzhou penjing. From the Longwu Zhi by the Suzhou native Wen Zhenheng, it can be seen that Suzhou tree-stump penjing at that time was already created in imitation of the pictorial ideas of famous painters and the poetic sentiment of famous poets, pursuing artistic realms such as “the pictorial idea of Yunlin's mountain trees.” The Gusu Zhi says: “The people of Huqiu are skilled at planting rare flowers and exotic herbs in poor soil, and at training pines and ancient plum trees, placing them on desks and tables, clear, elegant and lovely, calling them penjing.” The modern famous Suzhou writer and horticulturist Zhou Shoujuan once pointed out: “My potted plants are on the one hand creations of my own design, and on the other hand follow the highest models, made according to the famous paintings of the ancients. Those I have made successively include Tang Yin's Banana and Rock, Shen Shitian's Crane Listening to the Qin, Xia Zhongzhao's Bamboo Charm and Half-Window Clear Green, and Qing dynasty Wang Yanrong's New Calamus and Longevity Rock, etc.” (Shen Shitian is Shen Zhou; Wang Yanrong is Wang Yuanqi, one of the “Six Great Masters” of early Qing painting.)
Suzhou-style tree-stump penjing is divided into two major categories: formal (that is, the formal rules of the Sichuan school) and natural. The main form of the traditional formal category is called “six platforms, three supports and one crown.” The trunk is trained into 6 bends; at each bend a side branch is kept, with 3 branches each in the left, right and back directions, trained into 9 round branch pads. The 6 symmetrically paired left and right pads are the “six platforms,” the 3 pads at the back are the “three supports,” and then a large branch pad is trained at the top of the tree, the “one crown,” irregular and interesting, with clearly distinguished layers. When displayed, they are generally placed in symmetrical pairs, meaning “perfect in every way,” so they are much loved by high officials, nobles and wealthy merchants; ordinary people also very much welcome them, for the good fortune they represent, achieving appeal to both refined and popular tastes.
Coexisting with the formal category is the natural category. As the times advanced, by the 1940s of this century, through the bold innovation of penjing artists represented by Zhu Zi'an, it broke free from the shackles of traditional forms, adopted the technique of “coarse training and fine pruning,” achieved rapid shaping, and endowed Suzhou-style penjing with a new spirit of the times. The so-called “coarse training and fine pruning” means pruning as the main method and training as the auxiliary, using palm fiber to train the branches and trunk of the tree stump into flat and slightly inclined two-and-a-half-bend S-shaped pads, afterward trimmed with scissors into oval shapes, slightly raised in the middle, preserving their natural form as much as possible, shaped like clouds, and according to the growth habits of the tree, forming a “crown” for each tree stump, which from then on no longer grows upward but extends toward the side branches, making it fuller and more beautiful. The position of the “crown” varies with the stump and changes with the momentum, in order to achieve the artistic effect of a concise overall composition and profound artistic conception, thus becoming the main characteristic of contemporary Suzhou-style penjing artistic style. Known as the king of Jiangsu penjing: the 500-year-old “Qin and Han Legacy” (Chinese juniper) as well as “Clouds Rising and Mists Surging” (large Chinese juniper pine) and “Inscription of the Prosperous Age” (Chinese boxthorn) can all be called typical representative works of this school, and are also heirloom treasures in the national penjing art world.

Chinese Penjing Schools - Introduction to the Suzhou School

Suzhou, with a city-building history of 2500 years, is located in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, on the shore of Taihu Lake, with continuous hills, densely woven rivers, a humid climate and abundant rainfall. It is suitable for the cultivation and growth of plants, providing an extremely favorable regional environment and natural conditions for the development of tree-stump penjing.

Suzhou is not only a unique water city, but also a garden city that gathers the great achievements of Eastern garden architecture art. Since ancient times it has enjoyed the reputation that “Jiangnan gardens are the finest under heaven, and Suzhou gardens are the finest in Jiangnan.” The Suzhou urban area has crisscrossing waterways and interlocking bridges; in the past there were nearly 100 kilometers of waterways, and now there are 40 kilometers; in the past there were 325 bridges, and more than one hundred are still preserved today. The Tang dynasty poet Du Gouhe wrote in his poem Seeing a Friend Off on a Journey to Wu: “When you come to Gusu, you will see homes all built along the river. In the left palace there is little idle land; in the small lanes there are many water bridges. In the night market one admires water chestnuts and lotus roots; spring boats carry fine silk. Knowing from afar the sleepless moon, homesickness lies in the fisherman's song.” From this one can glimpse the appearance of Suzhou at that time. The Suzhou dialect nurtured by this regional environment has a soft pronunciation, with each phrase turning three times, and is therefore called “the soft Wu speech.” (Completely different from what Zhu Wenchang points out in his History of the Qin, that “Shu is a hundred times impetuous, like surging waves and rolling thunder.”)

Suzhou once had more than 220 gardens (and courtyards). Through the fires of war, more than 60 are still preserved today, and twenty or thirty are open. Suzhou's gardens differ from those of the wealthy gentry and rich merchants of other cities: not only do they have a long history, but most were created by famous literary figures of the time, and thus embody a high level of artistic accomplishment and a strong humanistic spirit. For example, the Humble Administrator's Garden was originally built after Wang Xianchen, a censor of the Ming dynasty, resigned from office and returned home; its site was once the former residence of the Tang dynasty poet Lu Luwang, with a tranquil environment and a natural, detached simplicity. The Lingering Garden, outstanding in architectural layout, was initially the private garden of Xu Tai, a taipu of the Ming dynasty, and later came into the hands of Liu Rongfeng, a provincial administration commissioner of the Qing dynasty, who renovated and rebuilt it as “Hanbi Mountain Villa,” with bamboo of clear cold color and waves of translucent green. The Canglang Pavilion, the pond-side residence of Qian Yuanliao, Prince Guangling of Wu-Yue in the late Tang, was purchased by the poet Su Shunqing in the Northern Song, and later became the residence of Han Shizhong, a famous anti-Jin general of the Southern Song, hence called Han Garden, with winding streams, tranquil and ancient in simplicity. And so on. It can be said that every garden has a “bond” with famous literary figures. Garden art and penjing art were originally a pair of “twin sisters”; the high achievements of Suzhou garden architecture inevitably had a direct and major influence on the formation and development of Suzhou-style penjing, especially since many of the creators of these gardens were themselves lovers and makers of penjing art.

Suzhou is not only a commercial city, but more importantly a cultural city; the number, quality and fame of its cultural relics are rarely seen even nationwide. From the early Tang dynasty, Suzhou was the center of cultural activity in the Jiangnan region, and its poetry, prose, calligraphy and painting were renowned throughout the country. In the Three Kingdoms period there was Lu Xun; in the Jin dynasty there were Lu Ji and Lu Yun; in the high Tang, Wei Yingwu, Bai Juyi and Liu Yuxi all served as Prefect of Suzhou; in the late Tang there were Lu Guimeng and Pi Rixiu; after the Song and Yuan dynasties even more literary celebrities came from Suzhou, especially the “Wumen Painting School” of the Ming dynasty led by Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming, Tang Yin and Qiu Ying, which had an even more profound influence on the artistic style of Suzhou penjing. From the Longwu Zhi by the Suzhou native Wen Zhenheng, it can be seen that Suzhou tree-stump penjing at that time was already created in imitation of the pictorial ideas of famous painters and the poetic sentiment of famous poets, pursuing artistic realms such as “the pictorial idea of Yunlin's mountain trees.” The Gusu Zhi says: “The people of Huqiu are skilled at planting rare flowers and exotic herbs in poor soil, and at training pines and ancient plum trees, placing them on desks and tables, clear, elegant and lovely, calling them penjing.” The modern famous Suzhou writer and horticulturist Zhou Shoujuan once pointed out: “My potted plants are on the one hand creations of my own design, and on the other hand follow the highest models, made according to the famous paintings of the ancients. Those I have made successively include Tang Yin's Banana and Rock, Shen Shitian's Crane Listening to the Qin, Xia Zhongzhao's Bamboo Charm and Half-Window Clear Green, and Qing dynasty Wang Yanrong's New Calamus and Longevity Rock, etc.” (Shen Shitian is Shen Zhou; Wang Yanrong is Wang Yuanqi, one of the “Six Great Masters” of early Qing painting.)

Suzhou-style tree-stump penjing is divided into two major categories: formal (that is, the formal rules of the Sichuan school) and natural. The main form of the traditional formal category is called “six platforms, three supports and one crown.” The trunk is trained into 6 bends; at each bend a side branch is kept, with 3 branches each in the left, right and back directions, trained into 9 round branch pads. The 6 symmetrically paired left and right pads are the “six platforms,” the 3 pads at the back are the “three supports,” and then a large branch pad is trained at the top of the tree, the “one crown,” irregular and interesting, with clearly distinguished layers. When displayed, they are generally placed in symmetrical pairs, meaning “perfect in every way,” so they are much loved by high officials, nobles and wealthy merchants; ordinary people also very much welcome them, for the good fortune they represent, achieving appeal to both refined and popular tastes.

Coexisting with the formal category is the natural category. As the times advanced, by the 1940s of this century, through the bold innovation of penjing artists represented by Zhu Zi'an, it broke free from the shackles of traditional forms, adopted the technique of “coarse training and fine pruning,” achieved rapid shaping, and endowed Suzhou-style penjing with a new spirit of the times. The so-called “coarse training and fine pruning” means pruning as the main method and training as the auxiliary, using palm fiber to train the branches and trunk of the tree stump into flat and slightly inclined two-and-a-half-bend S-shaped pads, afterward trimmed with scissors into oval shapes, slightly raised in the middle, preserving their natural form as much as possible, shaped like clouds, and according to the growth habits of the tree, forming a “crown” for each tree stump, which from then on no longer grows upward but extends toward the side branches, making it fuller and more beautiful. The position of the “crown” varies with the stump and changes with the momentum, in order to achieve the artistic effect of a concise overall composition and profound artistic conception, thus becoming the main characteristic of contemporary Suzhou-style penjing artistic style. Known as the king of Jiangsu penjing: the 500-year-old “Qin and Han Legacy” (Chinese juniper) as well as “Clouds Rising and Mists Surging” (large Chinese juniper pine) and “Inscription of the Prosperous Age” (Chinese boxthorn) can all be called typical representative works of this school, and are also heirloom treasures in the national penjing art world.

Tree species commonly used for tree-stump penjing include pine, cypress, Chinese boxthorn, Chinese elm, boxwood, trident maple, pomegranate and Chinese holly, etc.

The landscape penjing of the Suzhou school also carries much of the pictorial idea of the ancients and is rich in strong poetic sentiment, with concise layouts and rigorous compositional rules, vividly reproducing the scenery of Jiangnan. Commonly used stones include ax-cut stone, Kunshan white stone, Taihu stone and Ying stone, etc. Since the reform and opening up, as exchanges between the various schools have increased day by day, other varieties of stone have also been introduced.