Bonsai Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
Penjing (tray scenery) originated from ornamental plants; as early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties there was already the custom of appreciating famous trees and flowers. Penjing with stones arranged to form mountains had already appeared in the Han dynasty, for which considerable evidence can be found in Han tomb murals. By the Tang dynasty, penjing had become a furnishing in wealthy households, a situation reflected in many murals and silk paintings of the time. In the Song dynasty, imperial gardens already used Ying stone for ornamental accents, and famous historical gardens of Lingnan, such as the Liang Garden in Foshan and the Yuyin Garden in Panyu, all contain rockeries and penjing made with Ying stone. After the 18th century, as China’s doors opened, European palaces and garden architecture also began using Ying stone to build rockeries, arches, pavilion foundations, and fountain decorations.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Penjing technique is a traditional means of artificial scenery arrangement: plants, strange stones, and the like are planted and arranged in a basin and, through artistic processing, made into a furnishing that condenses natural beauty. The penjing production technique combines numerous craft skills such as horticulture, the appreciation of strange and beautiful stones, and sculptural modeling, becoming an artistic creation that derives from nature yet surpasses it. Since the Wei and Jin dynasties, penjing production had developed considerably. After the Qing dynasty was established, the traditional art of penjing developed substantially and entered a flourishing period. Landscape-style penjing arranges strange and beautiful stones from nature in a basin through techniques such as sawing, carving, corroding, gluing, and joining, adorned with miniature pavilions and towers, small bridges, farmhouses, boats and carriages, pedestrians, and straw-caped fishermen made of materials such as ceramics, and accompanied by pond water, plants, and moss, so that the peaks rise in layered beauty with undulating variety, suggesting a thousand miles within the space of a foot and revealing a profound artistic conception. Stump-and-trunk-style penjing plants woody plants in a basin and tends and manages them over a long period, using processes such as pruning, binding, and fertilizing together with various artistic means to form beautiful and unusual plant shapes, so that the trunks are vigorous and strong, the branches and leaves lush and green, with a distinctive aesthetic appeal. Chinese penjing production technique is concentrated in Suzhou and Yangzhou in Jiangsu and in Anhui, Guangdong, and other places; although the artistic styles differ, in general they all achieve greatness within smallness, alternate emptiness and fullness, lay equal stress on artistic treatment and the pursuit of natural character, and oppose excessive carving and ornamentation. Ying stone is named after Ying Mountain, where it is produced. It is composed of countless loose slabs and, under the action of drastic temperature changes and the weathering and erosion of wind and rain, has developed the characteristics of being “lean, wrinkled, hollow, and translucent”. In later development, garden features made with Ying stone appeared in many regions throughout China. The Ying stone rockery penjing technique takes natural strange stones as its foundation, bringing to bear the wisdom of skilled craftsmen and using the distinctive “lean, wrinkled, hollow, and translucent” shapes of Ying stone to express the Buddhist and Daoist ideas of “emptiness” and “spirituality”. The landscape style, dry-mountain style, and mountain-with-tree style forms of Ying stone rockery penjing are full of artistic appeal and are praised as “silent poetry and three-dimensional painting”, deeply loved by the broad masses.
Ying stone's four qualities
Named for Mount Ying, the stone consists of loose plates weathered into the four qualities of thinness, wrinkling, holes and translucency.
Water, dry and tree-clinging modes
Water, dry and tree-clinging arrangements are called silent poetry and three-dimensional painting, expressing Buddhist and Daoist emptiness and spirit.
Ying stone in Song gardens
Song imperial gardens already used Ying stone, as did such Lingnan gardens as Foshan's Liang Garden and Panyu's Yuyin Garden.
Reaching Europe after 1700
After the eighteenth century European courts and gardens began using Ying stone for rockeries, arches, pavilion bases and fountains.
The Yingde stone resource
Kept in Yingde city, Guangdong, and supported by its ornamental-stone association, the craft is valued as an accumulation of Chinese garden knowledge.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Penjing is mainly divided into two broad categories: landscape style and stump-and-trunk style. The Ying stone rockery penjing technique is transmitted in Yingde City, Guangdong Province, and is a famous traditional handicraft of the area.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Bonsai Craftsmanship · Bonsai Craftsmanship · Bonsai Craftsmanship · Bonsai Craftsmanship · Bonsai Craftsmanship · Bonsai Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Ying stone rockery penjing technique embodies the valuable experience of traditional Chinese garden art and has research value in the history of crafts, the history of architectural aesthetics, and Lingnan local culture.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhao Qingquan 03-1301
- Cao Jide 05-2701
- Zhu Zhenqing 05-2702
- Hong Guanqing 05-2703
- Shen Baiping
- Wang Rusheng
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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