What is Yangzhou-style penjing? Learn its main characteristics in one article

  Yangzhou-style penjing is one of the outstanding traditional arts of the Han Chinese and one of the five major schools of Chinese penjing. It began in the Tang Dynasty and is a penjing art school named after Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province. Its crafting technique of one cun (one cun is 3.3 cm) with three bends can be said to be unmatched in the world. In order to better protect this special set of penjing-making techniques, the Yangzhou Penjing Museum has recently applied to the relevant authorities for inclusion in the national intangible cultural heritage list, and the application has been accepted.

  Yangzhou-style penjing has a long history. The key to its distinctive modeling, with clear layers and a strict, balanced structure, lies in its exquisite pruning and binding techniques.

  It is understood that Yangzhou-style penjing, precisely by virtue of this rigorous set of production techniques, has repeatedly won gold and silver at national penjing grand prix competitions, and in the early 1980s it was again designated as one of the five major penjing schools in the country.

  Yangzhou-style penjing was already being made in the Tang and Song dynasties. By the Qing Dynasty, Yangzhou built gardens extensively and vigorously developed penjing, giving rise to the saying that "every household has a garden, every home grows penjing," and a school was formed. In 1949, Yangzhou-style penjing developed further. In early 1950, Yangzhou once sent 36 pots of pine and cypress penjing to Zhongnanhai in Beijing. In 1973, Yangzhou-style penjing, together with the Lingnan, Sichuan, Suzhou, and Shanghai schools of penjing, was listed by the Landscape and Greening Bureau of the State Bureau of Urban Construction as one of the five major schools of national tree-stump penjing.

  Yangzhou-style penjing is exquisite in technique, and is especially distinctive for its foliage-appreciation types such as pine, cypress, elm, and poplar (boxwood with small leaves). It has the local characteristics and Han Chinese cultural charm of clear layers, a strict and balanced structure, and a decorative beauty rich in the manner of fine brushwork, and it is renowned at home and abroad.

  Strict and orderly yet full of variation, elegant yet not lacking in grandeur:

  The artistic characteristic of Yangzhou-style penjing is "strict and orderly yet full of variation, elegant yet not lacking in grandeur." Yangzhou-style penjing adopts the modeling method of "careful binding and fine pruning" using palm fiber, much like "fine brushwork" in Chinese painting. Yangzhou-style penjing also places special emphasis on "deep skill and cultivation from a young age," that is, "the stump must be old, with age valued; the pad must be flat, with skill valued." Influenced by Yangzhou's economy, culture, and geographical environment, Yangzhou penjing, like Yangzhou gardens, has both the imposing characteristics of the north and the delicate beauty of the south. This is also the reason for the formation of the artistic characteristics of Yangzhou penjing.