Page 14 - Tài liệu Ebook cây cảnh Bonsai Basics

16 THE ART OF BONSAI

A BRIEF HISTORY

The art of bonsai is synonymous with about the thirteenth century that the art
antiquity, since our present civilization of bonsai was really absorbed into Japa-
has been unable to introduce any real nese culture. For a long time, the art
innovations. The word bonsai conjures remained the preserve of the nobility and
up a thousand years of art - even several the priesthood, who gave it a philosophi-
thousand in some examples. It is hard to cal and sacred character. Not until the
tell precisely when man first developed a beginning of the nineteenth century did
passion for miniaturizing trees and the art of bonsai gain popularity at every
growing them in trays (the word bonsai level of society.
comes from bon, meaning 'tray' and sai, The World Fair in Paris in 1878 saw
meaning tree). the first-ever presentation in Europe of
bonsai collections. But they were not
received with much enthusiasm, as is
Chinese before Japanese apparent from a report in the Journal
Although it remains a controversial is- Hebdomadaire by a journalist describing
sue, it seems that the art of bonsai his visit to the Japanese pavilion: 'The
originated in China, rather than Japan, outstanding plant curiosity in this gar-
with which it is traditionally associated. den is the miniature forest, or wooded
One distinguished expert attributes to glade, if you prefer, formed of trees that
the Chinese originating not cultivation are normally immense but whose devel-
of single trees in trays but cultivating opment the Japanese, like the Chinese,
groups of miniature trees as part of are skilled at limiting, so they can be
the small decorative rock gardens, grown in pots. We may not find this a
known as pun-ching. The art of the particularly attractive art, but that is no
miniature landscape (or Japanese gar- reason to ignore it.'
den, as an ignorant European might be By the time the 1889 exhibition was
tempted to call it . . .) made its held eleven years later, the Japanese had
reappearance in the third century, in the realized how much the art of bonsai
Han dynasty to be precise. But it seems intrigued the French. They made it the
that the art of pun-sai or cultivating focus of interest in their pavilion. This
miniature trees in pots, was practised in time, it was no longer a display of plants
China even before this. arranged in groups (as forests, in fact) in
Painting and literature both bear wit- front of their building, but of the first
ness to the cultivation of pun-sai since ever international showing of bonsai.
then. However, it was in Japan that the Although not much more enthusiastic,
art really took hold, particularly be- the reporter from the same Journal
tween the tenth and twelfth centuries Hebdomadaire cast a more attentive eye
under the twin influences of the Buddhist over the display of bonsai: 'First of all,
monks and the merchants, who had the sheer horticultural skill is both as-
established trading links with China. tounding and disconcerting. You stop
short in front of these strange contorted
products of cunning cultivation, so in-
From pun-sai to bon-sai genious that they challenge nature,
Miniature trees were cultivated in pots in recreating it in the most minute forms,
Japan in the ninth century (as we know like these cedars, which are more than a
from several iconographic Buddhist ar- century old but are not as tall as a child.
chives of the period), but it was not until Twisted by invisible storms, bent under