Bonsai

What is bonsai? Contrary to widespread mistaken belief - Bonsai is not a special botanical species of plant, "Bon-sai" means - "a plant on a tray" (in a bowl). Almost any tree or shrub can be turned into a bonsai, although Japanese traditionalists limit the list to species: pine/spruce, juniper, maple, azalea/rhododendron.

The authorship of the idea of bonsai (as with many others) belongs to China. There are different opinions regarding the starting date of the art of bonsai, but all of them are counted in millennia. Initially, bonsai was an exclusive privilege of the imperial court of Chinese dynasties. Historians still argue over whom to award the palm — the Ming, Tang, Jin or Chu dynasties.

According to various claims, the beginning of bonsai history dates back about 4000 years. There is also an opinion that during the reign of the Han dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) the emperor constructed a miniature landscape copy of his empire with rivers and mountains, forests, etc., in order to contemplate all his possessions at a single glance from a window. He also strictly forbade anyone to do anything similar under threat of repression.

Although today bonsai is often associated with Japan, it was only during the Heian period (794 - 1191 AD) that Chinese Buddhist monks brought the first bonsai to the Japanese islands. It was precisely Buddhist monks from China and Korea who gave the Japanese bonsai, the art of ikebana, the tea plant and citrus.

At the beginning of its history (especially the Japanese part of it) bonsai looked like a mini-landscape on a tray, with plants, stones and other elements. It is believed that the tradition of planting single specimens without other basic elements appeared no earlier than 1650.

From the moment of its first appearance in Japanese society, bonsai became a privilege of the feudal nobility of Japan and therefore almost died out there as a phenomenon until the Chinese intervention in Japan in the 14th century. From that moment the art of bonsai became accessible to all classes of Japanese society, which then seriously advanced it in terms of the development of styles and techniques, thereby securing for itself the right to occupy a significant place in the history of this art.

In the West bonsai gained popularity relatively recently, especially from the time of the Third World's Fair in Paris in 1878, and the subsequent years of exhibitions only increased Europeans' interest in bonsai.

An interesting fact is that some Europeans up until the 1930s perceived bonsai roughly the same way some now view products made of natural fur and leather. Many PITYED the "poor" trees, which were subjected to "tortures and torments" by masters. Only after 1935 did the "green" extremists of the West recognize bonsai as an art.

Particular popularity in the West bonsai gained after the Second World War, when American soldiers brought back a certain number of bonsai as trophies. Most of the trees died fairly quickly due to improper care, but the flame of interest in bonsai was ignited in earnest, after which American society turned to the Japanese and Japanese Americans for help in learning this unique art. Since then the American branch of the bonsai school has become quite powerful. Almost every state and capital in the USA has a bonsai museum/foundation with federal patronage.

Creating bonsai requires understanding and furthermore the "feeling" of the laws of natural harmony. Some go the other way around, but the absence of either of these two components hinders the full progress of the "master." A one-sided perception of the world (either only by the mind or only by intuition/subconscious) inevitably leads to an internal imbalance, which is easy to notice in the bonsai(s) of some masters.

A classic example is the difference between the Japanese and Chinese schools of bonsai. If the Japanese strive for a formal style (a hypothetically ideal tree), then for Chinese masters perfect forms that do not have a sufficient share of natural "chaos" are considered bad form.

The technique of creating bonsai has a beginning, but seemingly has no end. The first methods began to be used thousands of years ago, some appeared quite recently.

The ultimate task is a living work of art — a landscape in miniature. The most important thing is precisely this fact. Everything else is subordinate to it. The tree grows for many years — accordingly the whole composition must look "mature."

What should a mature tree look like? — here begins the study of nature. Try to clarify to yourself — what do you like about mature and healthy trees? What do they have in common?

The harmonious development of a master, in terms of perceiving the harmonies of nature through knowledge and feeling, inevitably brings his soul closer to the Creator-architect of this nature. It is pleasing to realize that progress in any of these aspects is possible at any stage of human life, so it is never too late to begin; moreover — it is necessary if a person sets the task to evolve as much as possible during this life.

The art of bonsai is, in essence, a conglomerate of workshop skills and talents related to several separate types of art, the closest of which can be called sculpture, because bonsai, in the artistic understanding of this word, is a sculptural composition of natural elements (five main ones, ideally), whose primary object is a living plant imitating an adult tree or a group of trees that have reached the apex of their development.