Page 65 - Tài liệu Ebook cây cảnh Bonsai and Penjing

These images show how one of Chinn’s Chinese Elms (Ulmus parvifolia) has been trained to
create a more windswept appearance over several years.

Penjing added to the decoration in the room where President Richard Nixon toasted with Chinese
Premier Chou En-Lai during his historic trip to China in 1972.
The scholar-hermit enjoyed a privileged position in ancient China. The ideal

was that after serving in the bustling world, the scholar-hermit would retreat to
an ascetic life, devoted to cultivating art and writing poetry, living close to
nature. A penjing from Dr. Wu with a tiny figure beneath a Pauper’s-tea tree
(Sageretia thea), in training since 1951, evokes this dream life, captured in a
poem by the eighth century Chinese poet Wang Wei:
I sit alone in a bamboo grove,
Strumming on my lute while singing a song;
In the deep forest no one knows I am here,
Only the bright moon comes to shine on me.
President Nixon saw penjing during his historic visit to China in 1972 and it
is believed that he was given some to bring back to the United States, though
none survive. It was not until Dr. Wu’s collection, augmented by pieces from his
friend Mr. Lui, arrived in Washington that the Chinese art form became
accessible to the Arboretum’s visitors and they could experience the living arts
that had inspired and evolved into the bonsai of Japan.
A Japanese Black Pine (Pinus thunbergii) from Dr. Wu’s collection is an

excellent example of a tree penjing. It has been in training since 1936 and was