is a Japanese art form using trees grown in containers. Similar practices exist in other cultures, including the Chinese tradition of penjing from which the art originated, and the miniature living landscapes of Vietnamese hòn non bộ. The term "bonsai" itself is a Japanese pronunciation of the earlier Chinese term penzai. The word bonsai is often used in English as an umbrella term for all miniature trees in containers or pots.
History
Early versions
The Japanese art of bonsai originated from the Chinese practice of penjing. From the 6th century onwards, Imperial embassy personnel and Buddhist students from Japan visited and returned from mainland China, bringing back souvenirs, including container plantings. At least 17 diplomatic missions were sent from Japan to the Tang court between the years 603 and 839.
Japan's historical Shōsōin, which houses 7th, 8th, and 9th-century artifacts, including material from Japan's Tenpyō period, contains an elaborate miniature tree display dating from this time.
From about the year 970 comes the first lengthy work of fiction in Japanese, Utsubo Monogatari (The Tale of the Hollow Tree), which includes this passage: "A tree that is left growing in its natural state is a crude thing. It is only when it is kept close to human beings who fashion it with loving care that its shape and style acquire the ability to move one." The idea, therefore, was already established by this time that natural beauty becomes true beauty only when modified in accordance with a human ideal.
In the medieval period, recognizable bonsai began to appear in handscroll paintings like the Ippen shonin eden (1299). Saigyo Monogatari Emaki was the earliest known scroll to depict dwarfed potted trees in Japan. It dates from the year 1195, in the Kamakura period. Wooden tray and dish-like pots with dwarf landscapes on modern-looking wooden shelf/benches are shown in the 1309 Kasuga-gongen-genki scroll. These novelties show off the owner's wealth and were probably exotics imported from China.
Chinese Chan Buddhist monks also came over to teach at Japan's monasteries, and one of the monks' activities was to introduce political leaders of the day to the various arts of miniature landscapes as ideal accomplishments for men of taste and learning.Nippon Bonsai Association, pg. 144
The c. 1300 rhymed prose essay, Bonseki no Fu (Tribute to Bonseki), written by celebrated priest and master of Chinese poetry, Kokan Shiren (1278–1346), outlined the aesthetic principles for what would be termed bonsai, bonseki, and garden architecture itself. At first, the Japanese used miniaturized trees grown in containers to decorate their homes and gardens.
Criticism of the interest in curiously twisted specimens of potted plants shows up in one chapter of the 243-chapter compilation Tsurezuregusa (c. 1331). This work would become a sacred teaching handed down from master to student, through a limited chain of poets (some famous), until it was at last widely published in the early 17th century. Before then, the criticism had only a modest influence on dwarf potted tree cultures.
In 1351, dwarf trees displayed on short poles were portrayed in the Boki Ekotoba scroll. Several other scrolls and paintings also included depictions of these kinds of trees. Potted landscape arrangements made during the next hundred years or so included figurines after the Chinese fashion in order to add scale and theme. These miniatures would eventually be considered garnishes, decidedly to be excluded by Japanese artists who were simplifying their creations in the spirit of Zen Buddhism.
Hachi-no-ki
Around the 14th century, the term for dwarf potted trees was "the bowl's tree" ( ). This denoted the use of a fairly deep pot, as opposed to the shallow pot denoted by the term bonsai.
Hachi no Ki (The Potted Trees) is also the title of a Noh play by Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1444), based on a story from c. 1383. It tells of an impoverished samurai who sacrifices his three last dwarf potted trees as firewood to provide warmth for a traveling monk on a winter night. The monk is an official in disguise who later rewards the samurai by giving him three lands whose names include the names of the three types of trees the samurai burnt: ume (plum), matsu (pine), and sakura (cherry). In later centuries, woodblock prints by several artists would depict this popular drama. There was even a fabric design of the same name.
Stories referring to bonsai began to appear more frequently by the 17th century. Shōgun Tokugawa Iemitsu (r. 1623–1651) was a hachi no ki enthusiast. A story tells of Okubo Hikozemon (1560–1639), councilor to the shōgun, who threw one of Iemitsu's favorite trees away in the garden—in sight of the shōgun—in order to dissuade him from spending so much time and attention on these trees. In spite of the servant's efforts, Iemitsu never gave up his beloved art form. Another story from this time tells of a samurai's gardener who killed himself when his master insulted a hachi no ki of which the artisan was especially proud.
Bonsai dating to the 17th century have survived to the present. One of the oldest-known living bonsai trees, considered one of the National Treasures of Japan, is in the Tokyo Imperial Palace collection. A five-needle pine (Pinus pentaphylla var. negishi) known as Sandai Shogun (, the third shogun) is documented as having been cared for by Tokugawa Iemitsu. The tree is thought to be at least 500 years old and was first trained as a bonsai by, at latest, the year 1610. The earliest known report by a Westerner of a Japanese dwarf potted tree was made in 1692 by George Meister.
Chinese bonsai containers exported to Japan during the 17th and 18th centuries would become referred to as kowatari ( "old crossing"). These were made between 1465 and about 1800. Many came from Yixing in Jiangsu province—unglazed and usually purplish-brown—and some others from around Canton, in particular, during the Ming dynasty. Miniature potted trees were called hachi-ue in a 1681 horticulture book. This book also stated that everyone at the time grew azaleas, even if the poorest people had to use an abalone shell as a container. Torii Kiyoharu's use of woodblock printing in Japan depicted the dwarf potted trees from horticultural expert Itō Ihei's nursery.
By the end of the 18th century, bonsai cultivation was quite widespread and had begun to interest the public. In the Tenmei era (1781–88), an exhibit of traditional dwarf potted pines began to be held every year in Kyoto. Connoisseurs from five provinces and neighboring areas would bring one or two plants each to the show in order to submit them to visitors for ranking.
Classical period
In Itami, Hyōgo (near Osaka), a group of scholars of Chinese arts gathered in the early 19th century to discuss recent styles in the art of miniature trees. Their version of these, which had been previously called "hachiue" or other terms, were renamed "bonsai" (the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese term penzai). This term had the connotation of a shallower container in which the Japanese could now more successfully style small trees. The term "bonsai", however, would not become regularly used in describing their dwarf potted trees for nearly a century. Many others terms and compositions adopted by this group were derived from Kai-shi-en Gaden, the Japanese version of Jieziyuan Huazhuan (Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden).
In 1829, a significant book that first established classical bonsai art, Sōmoku Kin'yō-shū (, A Colorful Collection of Trees and Plants/Collection of tree leaves), was published. It includes the basic criteria for the ideal form of the classical pine bonsai, in detail and with illustrations. That same year, small tako-tsuki (octopus-styled) trees with long, wavy-branches began to be offered by a grower in Asakusa Park, a north-eastern Edo suburb. Within 20, years that neighborhood became crowded with nurseries selling bonsai. The three-volume Kinsei-Jufu, possibly the first book of bonsai, tools, and pots, dates from 1833.
Numerous artists of the 19th century depicted dwarf potted trees in woodblock prints, including Yoshishige (who pictured each of the fifty-three classic stations of the Tōkaidō as a miniature landscape) and Kunisada (who included mostly hachi-no-ki in some four dozen prints). The earliest known photograph from Japan depicting a dwarf potted tree dates from c. 1861 by Pierre Rossier.
On October 13, 1868, the Meiji Emperor moved to his new capital in Tokyo. Bonsai were displayed both inside and outside Meiji Palace, where they have since remained important in affairs of the Palace. Bonsai placed in the grand setting of the Imperial Palace had to be "Giant Bonsai," large enough to fill the grand space. The Meiji Emperor encouraged interest in bonsai. Government officials who did not appreciate bonsai fell out of favor. Soon, all members of the ministry had bonsai whether they liked the tradition or not. Prince Itoh was an exception: Any bonsai that the emperor gave him were then passed to Kijoji Itoh. Kijoji Itoh was a statesman of great influence behind the scenes, and a noted bonsai collector who conducted research and experiments on these bonsai.
Bonsai shaping aesthetics and techniques were becoming more sophisticated. By the late 1860s, thick combed and wetted hemp fibers were used to roughly shape the trunk and branches of miniature trees by pulling and tying them. The process was tedious and bothersome, and the final product was unsightly. Tips of branches would only be opened flat. Long, wavy-branched tako (octopus)-style trees were mass-produced and designed in the [renamed capital] Tokyo for the increasing foreign trade, while the more subtle and delicate bunjin-style trees designed in Kyoto and Osaka were for use in Japan. Tokyo preferred big trunks out of proportion and did not approve of Kyoto's finely designed slender trunks. (This cultural rivalry would continue for a century.)
Pots exported from China between 1816 and 1911 (especially the late 19th century) were called nakawatari or chūwatari (both meaning "middle-crossing"), shallow rectangular or oval stoneware with carved feet and drainage holes. Unglazed pots of this type were used at ancestral shrines and treasured by the Chinese. After the mid-century, certain Japanese antiquities dealers imported them and instant popular approval for this type of container for bonsai created a huge demand. As a consequence, orders came from Japan to Yixing pottery centers specifically to make bonsai pots.
Through the later 19th century, Japanese participation in various international exhibitions introduced many in the U.S. and Europe to dwarf potted trees. Specimens from the displays went into Western hands following the closing of the fairs. Japanese immigrants to the U.S. West Coast and Hawaii Territory brought plants and cultivation experience with them. Export nurseries, the most notable one being the Yokohama Gardeners Association, provided increasingly good quality dwarf potted trees for Americans and Europeans—even if the buyers did not have enough information or experience to actually keep the trees alive long-term.
An Artistic Bonsai Concours was held in Tokyo in 1892, followed by the publication of a three-volume commemorative picture book. This demonstrated a new tendency to see bonsai as an independent art form. In 1903, the Tokyo association Jurakukai held showings of bonsai and ikebana at two Japanese-style restaurants. Three years later, Bonsai Gaho (1906 to c. 1913), became the first monthly magazine on the subject. It was followed by Toyo Engei and Hana in 1907, and Bonsai in 1921.