Page 18 - Tạp chí bonsai cây cảnh BCI 2018Q1

Bonsai and Stone

Exhibits at Xizhou

Top; the BCI Excellence Award
for Viewing Stones was given Park
to Jin-Zhu Chen for his Nantian
stone, Taitung, Taiwan. Theme By Gudrun Benz, Germany
of stone: Rhythm of Line. Not
only is it a beautiful stone,
but it was also beautifully he main activity and attraction of the conven-
displayed. tion to me was the bonsai exhibition of the 22nd
Middle; the BCI Excellence
Award for Bonsai was given The BCI Excellence THwa-Fong National Bonsai exhibition at the
to Zhong-Xiong Xu for his Xizhou Park, Changhua County. It was an exhibition
Juniperus chinensis, 86 cm tall, Award at the same high level as the world famous Kokufu
which is also featured on the Ten in Tokyo, Japan. There were over 135 first class
cover of this issue. By Budi Sulistyo, Indonesia bonsai on display, chosen by a jury from the 10 best
nominated bonsai of the 26 branches of the National
here were so many beautiful bonsai exhibited Bonsai Association of Taiwan. Whereas the space at
in Xizhou Park. In fact almost every bonsai I the Metropolitan Art Museum in Tokyo is limited
Tsaw was very beautiful and could be chosen as and therefore the display restricted, the large exhi-
the awarded tree. Each bonsai had its own beauty. I bition hall of Xizhou Park offered excellent facilities
hesitated for a long time to choose any of them. There for the bonsai display. The natural lighting combined
was some interesting choice in term of species and with spot lighting underlined the beauty of the trees.
styles, between natural and creative. At last, the choice The diffuse light on the backdrop of some displays
was this Juniperus chinensis, a native tree from Taiwan minimized the shadow of the trees backing on the
that has a natural beauty with interesting shari and wall. There was enough space, sometimes a few me-
movement. In training for a long time, it has beautiful tres, for each bonsai. The different backdrops, such as
look with excellent balance and most of all a natural off-white, black, blue and white, cloud-paintings in
look. subdued blue-gray colors, and even landscape paint-
There were so many stones beautifully displayed in ings, provided interesting backgrounds for the trees.
one large hall in Xizhou Park. We decided to choose To my feeling the blue and white colored background
an original stone and not a polished or modified stone was a little bit too bright and too much in contrast to
as were some of the exhibited stones. After looking the trees, the focus of the display. Nearly all bonsai
around and discussing the merits of the selected were large in size (as usual in Taiwan and China) with
stones, we decided to choose the stone above. The exception of a few smaller ones and a few shohin com-
stone is a black, pattern stone with simple white pat- positions on shelves.
tern of fishes or grass with the same flow of move- Unfortunately, the place was overcrowded at the
ment. It has simplicity in shape and pattern, and yet, opening day, although we had another possibility to
showing beauty and dignity. see the show on Nov. 6, the last day. But there wasn’t
enough time to stroll through the huge park of about

16 | BCI | January/February/March 2018