The Beauty of Bonsai Art: The Spirit of Nature Revealed Within a Square Inch

  China is a kingdom of poetry in the world. Poets and literati through the ages held a special affection for flowers, grasses and trees, and with condensed language and vivid wording they vividly captured the spiritual character and charm of landscapes, flowers and trees; quite a few of them also sang the praises of bonsai art.

  "Misty emerald of autumn's three months, waves bearing traces of ages past. Carved into a sliver of clear jade, cut off from the roots of the blue clouds. The wind breathes through the rocky cave, moss patterns guard the cave door. The three peaks in miniature form, surely descendants of Mount Hua." This is the heartfelt exclamation of admiration by the Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi after appreciating a landscape bonsai. "The little pine is not yet a full chi, beloved, I move it with my own hands. Dark green, the color of the ravine's depths, clouds wet, mist swirling. I planted it late in my years, it grew to match your open nature. How is it that past forty, I plant these few-inch branches. Will I see it become shade? Seventy years of life are rare." This poem is Bai Juyi's song of his own pine bonsai, cultivated for decades, as it grows into a lush grove, verdant and towering, full of vigorous vitality.

  Many poets and painters of the Song dynasty, such as Su Dongpo and Lu You, not only made bonsai themselves, but often, moved by the scenery, found their poetic inspiration stirred, and chanted praises of the bonsai before them, leaving behind many famous lines: "I bring this stone home, the Eastern Sea is in my sleeve... placed in a pot, day by day I face the mountains and sea." (Su Dongpo, "Taking Pellet Stones to Raise Stones") "Yandang sweet flag and Kunshan stone, old Chen brought them to soothe my solitude. The inch-long roots cluster dense, nine feet slender, one lump towering, worth a thousand in gold. Clear spring and earthen jar bring out each other's beauty, the high monk and the rustic alike change color. The potted mountain fragrant before my eyes each day, once this thing arrives all else is swept away. Roots coiled, leaves lush, the more I look the better; I have long regretted not following it sooner. I sigh that I too am full of wind and frost, nourishing my spirit, heaven's work daily withering. (Lu You, "Sweet Flag"). These poems not only express the artistic technique of "seeing the great in the small," but also give detailed description and praise of landscape bonsai.

  The Yuan dynasty emphasized the bonsai principle of "seeing the great in the small," and also required the charm of painting principles entering the pot. Xie Zongke's poem "Coiled Plum": "Entwining spring, binding emerald, splitting the gray moss, as the year wanes cold fragrance winds its way here; the dragon sleeps in frozen clouds, icy bones slender. The dragon lies in the night moon, jade scales open. Wind and frost momentum follows a thousand turns, iron-stone heart also nine-fold; only for the Lord of the East does it willingly bow, not letting the hundred flowers' leader be wrongly crowned."

  In the Qing dynasty, flower-viewing bonsai were not only deeply loved among the common people, but also held a place in the imperial court. Kangxi wrote in "Ode to the Imperial Potted Pomegranate Flower": "On the little branch a single dot of red, smiling in June amid the lotus wind; among the green leaves a coral blossom, as if moved into silver and gold." He captured vividly the contrast of the coral accent in the pot, and the pomegranate flower's delicate, dripping beauty.

  Both use the ci form "Xiao Chong Shan" to describe bonsai, achieving equally admirable effects by different means. Li Fu wrote in "Xiao Chong Shan": "Red stand, square porcelain, flower-carved edges, the green pine just half a chi, several plants clustered, broken cloud roots, stones taken like fists. On the settled mud, dotted with Guo Xi's mountains, moved near the small railing, moss trimmed and spread in emerald halos, guarding against frost and cold, the lotus tube sprays rain, dark flying spring, adding fragrant mist, lent to the jade censer's smoke." Gong Xiang also wrote in his "Xiao Chong Shan": "A three-chi Xuanzhou white narrow pot, the Wu people just won't put it to use, planting orchids and fragrant herbs, hairpin pines and fist stones piled into a village, in the tea smoke, wholly like cold clouds at dusk, hills and ravines remain in view, still the stream winds, guarding the brushwood gate, autumn frost long since washed the moss traces, the painter old man, seeing it would surely lose his soul." The two "Xiao Chong Shan" ci poems depict the image and mood of bonsai to the fullest, giving one the feeling of being moved by the scene and letting imagination wander.

  The modern famous writer and horticultural master Mr. Zhou Shoujuan not only had a body of work equal to his stature, but also, regardless of wind, rain, cold or heat, tended flowers and bonsai among the poetically picturesque bonsai groves. He once wrote a seven-character quatrain to express the scene and his aspirations: "Serving no lords and shaming no self, carefree beyond things, preserving innocence. All year willingly a slave to flowers, first busy for a whole spring for the plum blossom."