Page 69 - Tài liệu Ebook cây cảnh Bonsai and Penjing

Landscape with Tall Trees by Qian Weichang (1720–1772), painting on folding fan, mid-18th
century, 18.4 x 54.0 cm, China, echoes the feel of landscape penjing.

A rock-only penjing, Dancing Dragon, made of Linglong stone from Anhui Province, China,
portrays a mythic shoreline explored by sailors.
Penjing is also known for its “Literati Style” specimens—trees with tall,
slender trunks and sparse foliage resembling the types of trees featured in
Chinese scholars’ paintings and calligraphy. Stanley Chinn’s gift included a
striking example of the “Literati Style” created with a Japanese Black Pine
(Pinus thunbergii).
Whole scenes presented on trays of white marble are also considered
penjing. The idea is that the viewer is looking at a big landscape, similar to one

depicted on a Chinese scroll, only the materials used are taken from nature and
artfully arranged to create an imagined vista in three dimensions. A show-
stopper of this genre was created by Mr. Hu Yun Hua, former Director of the
Penjing Research Center at the Shanghai Botanical Garden in China, when he
visited the Arboretum in 2004. The trees are Chinese Elms (Ulmus parvifolia)
set among stones. The penjing depicts three sages gathered in the midst of a
grove and another man fishing
Some landscape penjing have no plants at all, conveying their “story”
through the artful selection and arrangement of rocks only. Spring Rain,
composed of Qi stone from Jiangsu Province in China, was a gift to the U.S.
National Arboretum from the Shanghai Botanical Garden, an important partner
in the arboretum’s plant conservation and exploration efforts.
The various forms of penjing all evoke an idealized natural world, an
imaginary realm where humans take their place within all of nature, including
plants, animals and rocks. Because of the upheavals in China in the last century,
however, not many antique examples of penjing survive, although images of

penjing exist in ancient texts and paintings, confirming that it is an age-old art