Bonsai

• 1. Origins And Evolution

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  In 1299, a handscroll painting titled Ippen Shōnin Eden depicted dwarfed potted trees, marking one of the earliest visual records of what would become bonsai. This artwork emerged during a period when Japanese Buddhist monks traveled to China and returned with ideas about miniature landscapes. By 1309, another scroll called Kasuga Gongen Genki E showed wooden trays holding dwarf trees on short poles. These early depictions included miniature figurines alongside the plants, reflecting Chinese influences that dominated the aesthetic of the time. Around the 14th century, a new term began to appear in Japanese texts, referring to trees in fairly deep pots rather than the shallow containers later associated with bonsai. By 1610, a five-needle pine known as Sandai Shogun was being trained as a bonsai under the care of Tokugawa Iemitsu. This tree, now over 500 years old, remains part of the Tokyo Imperial Palace collection and stands as one of Japan's National Treasures. The practice slowly shifted from esoteric courtly art to public interest during the Tenmei era between 1781 and 1788, when annual exhibits of dwarf potted pines began in Kyoto. Connoisseurs from five provinces brought their plants to these shows for ranking by visitors. By 1892, an Artistic Bonsai Concours held in Tokyo demonstrated a growing recognition of bonsai as an independent art form. The publication of a three-volume commemorative picture book followed that event. In 1906, Bonsai Gaho became the first monthly magazine dedicated to the subject, setting the stage for broader public engagement. The term bonsai itself would not become widely used for nearly a century after its initial appearance in written records.

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• 2. Cultivation Techniques

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  In 1910, shaping with wire rather than older string, rope, and burlap techniques appeared in the Sanyu-en Bonsai-Dan. Zinc-galvanized steel wire was initially used for most trees, while expensive copper wire was reserved for selected specimens with real potential. By the 1920s and 1930s, toolsmith Masakuni I (1880-1950) helped design and produce the first steel tools specifically made for bonsai styling. One of these tools was the concave cutter, a branch cutter designed to leave a shallow indentation on the trunk when a branch was removed. Properly treated, this indentation would fill over with live tree tissue and bark over time, greatly reducing or eliminating the usual pruning scar. Leaf trimming involves the selective removal of leaves from deciduous trees or needles from coniferous trees. Wiring allows designers to create desired forms and make detailed branch and leaf placements. Grafting introduces new growing material, typically a bud, branch, or root, into prepared areas on the trunk or under the bark. Defoliation provides short-term dwarfing of foliage for certain deciduous species. Deadwood techniques such as jin and shari simulate age and maturity in a bonsai. These methods distinguish bonsai from genetic dwarfing, which relies on selective breeding or genetic engineering to create permanent miniature cultivars. Bonsai instead depends on growing small trees from regular stock and seeds through cultivation techniques like pruning, root reduction, potting, defoliation, and grafting.

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• 3. Aesthetic Principles

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  Miniaturization defines bonsai as a tree kept small enough to be container-grown while otherwise fostered to have a mature appearance. Proportion among elements is another key principle, with the most prized examples mimicking those of a full-grown tree as closely as possible. Small trees with large leaves or needles are out of proportion and are avoided, as is a thin trunk with thick branches. Asymmetry discourages strict radial or bilateral symmetry in branch and root placement. No trace of the artist should be apparent to the viewer. If a branch is removed in shaping the tree, the scar will be concealed. Wiring should be removed or at least concealed when the bonsai is shown, and must leave no permanent marks on the branch or bark. Poignancy helps create trees that express wabi-sabi or portray an aspect of mono no aware. These design rules help practitioners work within an established tradition with some assurance of success. Simply following the guidelines alone will not guarantee a successful result. Nevertheless, these design rules can rarely be broken without reducing the impact of the bonsai specimen. The aesthetic goals are informed by Zen Buddhism and the expression of wabi-sabi, which shape the Japanese tradition of growing an artistically shaped miniature tree in a container.

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• 4. Global Expansion

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  In 1952, Yuji Yoshimura, the son of a Japanese bonsai community leader, collaborated with German diplomat and author Alfred Koehn to give bonsai demonstrations. Koehn had been an enthusiast before the war, and his 1937 book Japanese Tray Landscapes had been published in English in Beijing. Yoshimura's 1957 book The Art of Bonsai, written in English with his student Giovanna M. Halford, went on to be called the classic Japanese bonsai bible for westerners with over thirty printings. In 1963, Kawamoto and Kurihara introduced the related art of saikei to English-speaking audiences in their book Bonsai-Saikei. This book describes tray landscapes made with younger plant material than was traditionally used in bonsai, providing an alternative to the use of large, older plants, few of which had escaped war damage. In 1967, the first group of Westerners studied at an Omiya nursery. Returning to the U.S., they established the American Bonsai Society. Other groups and individuals from outside Asia then visited and studied at the various Japanese nurseries, occasionally even apprenticing under the masters. These visitors brought back to their local clubs the latest techniques and styles, which were then further disseminated. Japanese teachers also traveled widely, bringing hands-on bonsai expertise to all six continents. By 1940, about 300 bonsai dealers worked in Tokyo. Some 150 species of trees were being cultivated, and thousands of specimens were shipped annually to Europe and America. The first bonsai nurseries and clubs in the Americas were started by first and second-generation Japanese immigrants.

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• 5. Styles And Classifications

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  In 1980, the first World Bonsai Convention was held in Osaka during the World Bonsai and Suiseki Exhibition. Nine years later, a series of World Bonsai Conventions was launched by the newly-formed World Bonsai Friendship Federation (WBFF) in Omiya. These conventions attracted several hundreds of participants from dozens of countries and have since been held every four years at different locations around the globe: 1993, Orlando, Florida; 1997, Seoul, Korea; 2001, Munich, Germany; 2005, Washington, D.C.; 2009, San Juan, Puerto Rico; 2013, Jitan, Jiangsu, China; 2017, Saitama, Saitama, Japan; and 2022's virtual convention in Perth, Australia. The very largest size, called imperial, is named after the enormous potted trees of Japan's Imperial Palace. In the very largest size ranges, a recognized Japanese practice is to name the trees two-handed, four-handed, and so on, based on the number of men required to move the tree and pot. These trees will have dozens of branches and can closely simulate a full-size tree. At the other end of the size spectrum, there are a number of specific techniques and styles associated solely with the smallest common sizes, mame and shito. These techniques take advantage of the bonsai's minute dimensions and compensate for the limited number of branches and leaves that can appear on a tree this small. The most common styles include formal upright, informal upright, slanting, semi-cascade, cascade, raft, literati, and group/forest. Less common forms include windswept, weeping, split-trunk, and driftwood styles.

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• 6. Exhibitions And Community

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  In 1947, the Kokufu-ten bonsai displays reappeared after a four-year cancellation and became annual affairs. These displays continue to this day and are by invitation only for eight days in February. The Kokufu-ten is the oldest competition in Japan, celebrating in 2023 its 97th edition. Awards are presented in different categories. For bonsai professionals, the top competition in Japan is the Nippon Bonsai Sakufu-ten organized by the Japan Bonsai Cooperative Association. The competition is held in December of each year and the top prize is the Prime Minister Award, which went to Hiroaki Suzuki in 2022 for a Shimpaku Juniper tree. There are over fourteen hundred books on bonsai and the related arts in at least twenty-eight languages available in over one-hundred-and-ten countries and territories. A few dozen magazines in over thirteen languages are in print. Several score of club newsletters are available online, and there are at least that many discussion forums and blogs. There are at least a hundred thousand enthusiasts in some fifteen hundred clubs and associations worldwide, as well as over five million unassociated hobbyists. Japan has several private and public museums dedicated to bonsai, such as the Shunka-en Bonsai Garden in Tokyo and the Omiya Bonsai Museum in Saitama. In the United States, there are two museums dedicated to bonsai, the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum at the National Arboretum in Washington DC, and the Pacific Bonsai Museum close to Tacoma, WA.

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