Penjing from the collection of Mr. Hong Lin

[treeman]

I don't get penjing

[macca66]

Broaden thy horizons.

I don't mind the bottom branch.
But then again I've never liked " rules ".

[treeman]

Broaden thy horizons.

Actually I will re-phrase that. ''I don't get why western people try to emulate penjing''.

Please give me your explanation or interpretation of penjing.
Then I will give you mine

[Andrew Legg]

Actually I will re-phrase that. ''I don't get why western people try to emulate penjing''.

Please give me your explanation or interpretation of penjing.
Then I will give you mine

Now there's a challenge! Gonna be interested to see the answers to that one!

[Reece]

Please give me your explanation or interpretation of penjing.

With my very limited experience of Bonsai and no experience with Penjing ill have a shot....

Penjing is growing trees (and other plants) in miniature using clip and grow only. Very little rules and a lot of spiritual stuff attached.

Bonsai is growing trees in miniature using a set of general rules that should make the miniature tree look older than it actually is.

One thing Ive never been able to understand with Bonsai. Is when people say not to grow certain trees in a certain way because its not how they would look in the wild.

This:

viewtopic.php?f=129&t=10167&p=204166&hi ... lm#p204155

Is probably the best "Bonsai" I have seen on this forum. It adheres to the rules of informal upright almost perfectly and it loos like a REALLY old tree. I think its amazing and I would love to see it in real life sometime.

Now....... Can someone show me a picture of a Chinese elm in the wild that grows like this?

This can be said about 100s of bonsai Ive seen.

The way I see it is if it looks good its looks good.

I think the hanging branch on Stevens tree makes it interesting and I think it looks good. Wether its Penjing or Bonsai doesn't really worry me. As long as its not just a pot plant and has had some styling done to it.....

Please feel free to school me on everything I've just said

[thoglette]

Actually I will re-phrase that. ''I don't get why western people try to emulate penjing''.

But, then, please give us your explanation of "why western people try to emulate bonsai".

[Andrew Legg]

Actually I will re-phrase that. ''I don't get why western people try to emulate penjing''.

But, then, please give us your explanation of "why western people try to emulate bonsai".

The plot thickens!

[treeman]

But, then, please give us your explanation of "why western people try to emulate bonsai".

Because they look nice

[treeman]

Now....... Can someone show me a picture of a Chinese elm in the wild that grows like this?

We are not trying to copy nature in bonsai, we are trying to produce something which appears natural and pleasing to our eye. There is a difference. However, some examples in Japan for example, are now so overworked and over-refined that they have gone too far away from what appears natural and pleasing to my eye. They have lost sight of what attracted the old masters to bonsai in the first place. (mainly in the conifers) This view is being argued in Japan as well not just in the West. Soon we will be 3D printing computer designed trees!
Another of my pet hates is what I call the ''Mount Fuji'' trident maples with massive taper and branches pulled down like a conifer. I think (or hope) this type of styling is on the way out.

[Grant Bowie]

I also dislike deciduous trees grown as Conifers. I call it "Black Pine Disease" or BPD. It's very catchy. I have suffered from it in the past and am trying to cure myself of it.

I like Bonsai, I like Penjing and I like Australian natives grown as miniature trees in pots; call it what you will.

Both Penjing and Australian natives however need a kind of mind shift from standard bonsai in my opinion.

Grant

[Grant Bowie]

I will add another word or two.

My first impression of Penjing was from the book published in the 1960s / 1970s called in English "Garden Artistic Pot Plants" or Man Lung. It showed very old looking trees in pots, some interesting, some amazing and some a bit ordinary looking.

As there was no follow up or more information about Penjing I tended to go in the direction of Bonsai. At this time there were lots of books coming out from USA and England about bonsai and then eventually magazines from USA And then Europe.

I first saw the trees by Hong Lihn about 5 or 6 years ago and was staggered by their beauty.

I visited China in 2013 finally and was intrigued by some interesting, challenging, frustrating trees that I saw there.

I think the miniature trees created by Hong Lihn are amongst the best I have ever seen and wished he had lived many years longer so he could have passed on his expertise to us Westerners struggling to understand Penjing.

grant

[treeman]

The few examples of what are called penjing I have seen take 3 basic forms. The first is the anthropomorphic kind where plants are trained to resemble various animals etc. They are very often abstract and must have some cultural meaning to the Chinese that I don't understand. However this is not something I desire to learn about as they are very grotesque to the pont of being repulsive. Always will be.

The second type are more tree type shapes with branches in all kinds of odd positions, exposed roots and often very short inelegant and congested branches. Again unappealing to my eyes.

The third kind of trees coming out of China (more recently) are quite naturalistic and more in the Japanese tradition.
Some of these are truly masterpieces and deserve all the respect of the Japanese trees. This third kind I class simply as bonsai or perhaps ''Chinese Bonsai''

The second class of trees are probably what most of us think of when we hear the word ''Penjing'' Certainly not my cup of tea.

It really is amazing how much the infulence of what is around us steers the direction of style. China was a very closed and insular society for many centuries (as was Japan) and developed it's own perculiarities. Now in the modern era it seems the influence of the Japanese is infiltrating Chinese (and Korean and Taiwanese) bonsai design. Not the other way round.

[Elmar]

Interesting review, Mike.

Would you say then, that the Japanese got it right? Or that these countries seem to indicate that Japan got it right...

In a way, it looks to me that we are going thru a similar developmental process as China, Korea and Taiwan, in that we want to go our own way, but in the end are strongly influenced by Japan...
not that I mind that as I think they, on a whole, produce a great number of majestic trees and, reading the history, are the founders or main developers of the art of Bonsai.

[John Henry]

Two more of Mr Hongs (sorry for poor quality pics)
John M

[thoglette]

Because they look nice

Edit: you deserve more that that. Without writing a dissertation on symbolism and aesthetics, the reason you "don't get" penjing is exactly the same reason you think bonsai "look nice". Penjing is still culturally foreign, bonsai is not.

That is, you are both familiar with and understand (perhaps unconsciously) the values symbolised by a bonsai.

What does that mean in plain English?

Imagine if I did a large oval bonsai landscape, all tightly trimmed grass, especially a strip in the middle. With one piece of matchstick-sized dowel lying at one end of the strip. Behind is a scroll hinting at the back of a man dressed in white, wearing a baggy green cap, walking away.

Now if accent that with some fallen leaves & a red leather ball , and give it the title "Nov 2014 ", you would know exactly what I was saying. You might even be moved, (if I don't screw it up too badly - indeed the more subtle the symbols, the more effective it would be.)

An American would, perhaps, suspect half the truth. Someone from China?