An Analysis of the Spatial Relationship Between Tangible and Intangible Scenes in Bonsai

"Tangible scene" refers to the landscape formed by trees, stones, soil, water, grass, moss and their combinations arranged in a pot; it is the real scene within the spatial bounds of the pot. "Intangible scene" lies beyond the "tangible scene", that is, the artistic realm where "the scene is outside the pot". The space of the tangible scene is limited, while the space of the intangible scene is unlimited. The sayings "seeing the great in the small", "a thousand miles within a foot", "one peak suggests Mount Tai soaring a thousand xun, one spoonful suggests rivers spanning ten thousand li" and so on refer precisely to the two kinds of spatial relationship expressed by bonsai. "Small", "a foot", "one peak" and "one spoonful" are real space; "great", "a thousand miles", "a thousand xun" and "ten thousand li" are artistic space. Real space is material space, while artistic space is imaginative space. Real space is fixed and unchanging, while artistic space is uncertain and changing, determined by the author and the viewer according to their own artistic cultivation and aesthetic imagination. The same work can have different artistic spaces.

The relationship between the "tangible scene" and the "intangible scene" in bonsai is one in which each serves as the condition for the other's existence. Without the tangible scene, the intangible scene loses its material foundation; without the intangible scene, the tangible scene becomes nothing but a pile of dead trees and stones.