History of Bonsai The Japanese art of bonsai originally derived from the Chinese practice of penjing.[7] From the 6th century onwards, Imperial embassy personnel and Buddhist students from Japan had been visiting and returning from mainland China, bringing back souvenirs that included container plantings.[8] At least 17 diplomatic missions were specifically sent from Japan to the Tang court between the years 603 and 839 Japans historical Shōsōin, which houses 7th, 8th, and 9th-century artifacts including material from Japans Tempyō period, contains an elaborate miniature tree display dating from this time.[9] This artifact is composed of a wooden tray serving as a base, carved wooden mountain models, and sand portraying a riverine sandbar. Small tree sculptures in silver metal are meant to be placed in the sand, to produce a table-top depiction of a treed landscape. While this display is closer to the Japanese bonkei display than to a living bonsai, it does reflect the periods interest in miniature landscapes. From about the year 970 comes the first lengthy work of fiction in Japanese, Utsubo Monogatari (The Tale of the Hollow Tree), which includes this passage: A tree that is left growing in its natural state is a crude thing. It is only when it is kept close to human beings who fashion it with loving care that its shape and style acquire the ability to move one. The idea, therefore, was already established by this time that natural beauty becomes true beauty only when modified in accordance with a human ideal. In the medieval period, recognizable bonsai began to appear in handscroll paintings like the Ippen shonin eden (1299).[9] Saigyo Monogatari Emaki was the earliest known scroll to depict dwarfed potted trees in Japan. It dates from the year 1195, in the Kamakura period. Wooden tray and dish-like pots with dwarf landscapes on modern-looking wooden shelf/benches are shown in the 1309 Kasuga-gongen-genki scroll. These novelties show off the owners wealth and were probably exotics imported from China Chinese Chan Buddhist monks also came over to teach at Japans monasteries, and one of the monks activities was to introduce political leaders of the day to the various arts of miniature landscapes as ideal accomplishments for men of taste and learning.[12][13] The c.1300 rhymed prose essay, Bonseki no Fu (Tribute to Bonseki) written by celebrated priest and master of Chinese poetry, Kokan Shiren (1278–1346), outlined the aesthetic principles for what would be termed bonsai, bonseki and garden architecture itself. At first, the Japanese used miniaturized trees grown in containers to decorate their homes and gardens.[ Criticism of the interest in curiously twisted specimens of potted plants shows up in one chapter of the 243-chapter compilation Tsurezuregusa (c.1331). This work would become a sacred teaching handed down from master to student, through a limited chain of poets (some famous), until it was at last widely published in the early 17th century. Before then, the criticism had only a modest influence on dwarf potted tree culture. In 1351, dwarf trees displayed on short poles were portrayed in the Boki Ekotoba scroll.[16] Several other scrolls and paintings also included depictions of these kinds of trees. Potted landscape arrangements made during the next hundred years or so included figurines after the Chinese fashion in order to add scale and theme. These miniatures would eventually be considered garnishes decidedly to be excluded by Japanese artists who were simplifying their creations in the spirit of Zen Buddhism Hachi-no-ki Japanese white pine from the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum at the United States National Arboretum. Around the 14th century, the term for dwarf potted trees was the bowls tree (鉢の木, hachi-no-ki).[18] This denoted the use of a fairly deep pot, as opposed to the shallow pot denoted by the term bonsai. Hachi-No-Ki (The Potted Trees) is also the title of a Noh play by Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1444), based on a story from c. 1383. It tells of an impoverished samurai who sacrifices his three last dwarf potted trees as firewood to provide warmth for a traveling monk on a winter night. The monk is an official in disguise who later rewards the samurai by giving him three lands whose names include the names of the three types of trees the samurai burnt: ume (plum), matsu (pine), and sakura (cherry). In later centuries, woodblock prints by several artists would depict this popular drama. There was even a fabric design of the same name. Stories referring to bonsai began to appear more frequently by the 17th century. Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu (r. 1623-1651) was a hachi-no-ki enthusiast. A story tells of Okubo Hikozemon (1560–1639), councilor to the shogun, who threw one of Iemitsus favorite trees away in the garden—in sight of the shogun—in order to dissuade him from spending so much time and attention on these trees. In spite of the servants efforts, Iemitsu never gave up his beloved art form. Another story from this time tells of a samurais gardener who killed himself when his master insulted a hachi-no-ki of which the artisan was especially proud.[19] Bonsai dating to the 17th century have survived to the present. One of the oldest-known living bonsai trees, considered one of the National Treasures of Japan, is in the Tokyo Imperial Palace collection.[20] A five-needle pine (Pinus pentaphylla var. negishi) known as Sandai-Shogun-No Matsu is documented as having been cared for by Tokugawa Iemitsu. [20][21] The tree is thought to be at least 500 years old and was first trained as a bonsai by, at latest, the year 1610.[20] The earliest known report by a Westerner of a Japanese dwarf potted tree was made in 1692 by George Meister. Chinese bonsai containers exported to Japan during the 17th and 18th centuries would become referred to as Kowatari (old crossing). These were made between 1465 and about 1800. Many came from Yixing in Jiangsu province—unglazed and usually purplish-brown—and some others from around Canton, in particular, during the Ming dynasty.[23][24] Miniature potted trees were called hachi-ue in a 1681 horticulture book. This book also stated that everyone at the time grew azaleas, even if the poorest people had to use an abalone shell as a container.[25][26] Torii Kiyoharus use of woodblock printing in Japan depicted the dwarf potted trees from horticultural expert Itō Iheis nursery. By the end of the 18th century, bonsai cultivation was quite widespread and had begun to interest the public. In the Tenmei era (1781–88), an exhibit of traditional dwarf potted pines began to be held every year in Kyoto. Connoisseurs from five provinces and neighboring areas would bring one or two plants each to the show in order to submit them to visitors for ranking.[28]
Posted on: Tue, 06 May 2014 19:17:50 +0000
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