Detailed Explanation of the Key Techniques for Shaping Landscape Bonsai

Landscape bonsai is a combined bonsai style that integrates rocks and plants into one, but it focuses on expressing the majestic grandeur of mountain forms and the lush greenness of plants, as well as the coordinated pairing effect between the two. Therefore, how to combine them often must follow certain rules or patterns; otherwise, the layout will appear rather chaotic and cannot achieve a natural sense of beauty. At the same time, novelty of conception is also an important part of the creative process of landscape bonsai, because by integrating rocks and plants into an extraordinary artistic conception with ingenious planning, the landscape effect will also be fully expressed.

For landscape bonsai, in terms of shaping techniques, there is a saying of opening and closing in landscape modeling. In the process of making rocks and plants into a complex landscape bonsai, usually 1-3 different ways of opening and closing to establish momentum are applied. In the creative process of landscape bonsai, opening and closing often form the landscape through the main rock, guest rocks, and scattered accent stones. After they are arranged in the tray, they will form visual elements in space, which can achieve an all-directional, two-way radiating effect, thereby bringing viewers a sense of tension and expansion of qi“momentum”. At the same time, because of its directionality in three-dimensional space, it can often also form a sense of dynamism.

“Momentum” is usually fully expressed in landscape bonsai. Not only can it be made to resemble a battle formation through arrangement and combination, but in the process of arranging and combining rocks, the tension of the rocks also needs to be varied, thereby presenting different forms of “momentum”. Generally speaking, establishing “momentum” in landscape bonsai includes many aspects such as starting, continuing, turning, joining, settling, and concluding. In a landscape bonsai with the characteristics of opening and closing, placing the main mountain is essentially the process of positioning the main momentum in the landscape space, and is often called the “starting” momentum.

Around the main mountain, especially on the left and right sides, guest mountains generally also need to be arranged, and their placement should appear well-balanced and varied, and they must not be arranged arbitrarily. Moreover, between the main mountain and other rocks, a natural transition and connecting effect often also needs to be perfectly expressed, so this effect is what we call the “continuing” momentum. Moreover, the “continuing” momentum is also divided into direct continuation and reverse continuation. We need to scientifically and reasonably establish momentum and create the landscape according to needs, so that it ultimately achieves the effect we expect.

Under normal circumstances, the main mountain and guest mountains in a landscape bonsai stand directly opposed to each other, but at the same time there is also a unified relationship between the main and guest. In the overall effect of a landscape bonsai, the “main” momentum often plays the role of opening and closing the overall momentum, while the “guest” momentum often appears in the opposite state, so in this process we also call it the “turning” momentum.

Where the momentum of the main mountain descends, there may be a transitional link, or there may be no transitional link, but if there is a transitional link, the landing position of the transitional rock needs to be found, and this landing position is what we call the “settling” momentum. For ordinary landscape bonsai, it is usually the part of the rock close against the main mountain that is the landing point of the main mountain's “settling” momentum.

However, the bordering part between the main mountain and guest mountains in the landscape is often a joining point in the process of opening and closing modeling in landscape bonsai, and this joining point is often called the concluding “momentum. However, for these joining points, we generally do not use relatively large stones to connect them, but mostly use scattered accent stones to achieve this. Although scattered accent stones are somewhat small in size, they can still produce a certain ”momentum“ visual effect.

In rock bonsai, the balance of establishing momentum generally requires grasping a certain degree, that is, ”moving“ momentum or ”breaking“ momentum needs to show tension or variation within a relatively balanced state, so that people can feel the effect of visual tension rushing forward in the process of connection during viewing. Moreover, in addition to establishing ”momentum“, the effect of contrast and accentuation cannot be ignored in landscape bonsai either. Such things as the contrast of rock sizes, the contrast between the main mountain and guest mountains, the contrast between sparsity and density, and the contrast between exposure and concealment often all need to be realized according to the creator's thematic conception and techniques. Usually only by grasping the rules and proceeding according to the principles can landscape bonsai achieve a ”refined and exquisite“ effect.