Bonsai skills (Hui style bonsai skills)

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Bonsai technique (Hui style bonsai technique)

Applicant: Shexian County, Anhui Province

Item No.: 870

Project No.: Ⅶ - 94

Time of publication: 2008 (second batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Anhui Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Shexian County, Anhui Province

Protection unit: Shexian Hui Bonsai Association

Introduction to bonsai skills (Hui style bonsai skills)

Applicant: Shexian County, Anhui Province

Bonsai technique is a traditional artificial landscape setting method, which plants, stones and other plants are planted and arranged in the basin. After artistic processing, it becomes a kind of display of concentrated natural beauty. Bonsai production technology combines gardening, appreciation of rare stones and beautiful stones, sculpture modeling and many other craft skills, and becomes an art creation originated from nature and higher than nature.

Bonsai originated from ornamental plants. As early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties, there was the custom of appreciating famous trees and flowers. In the Han Dynasty, bonsai of "building stones into mountains" appeared, which can be found in the murals of Han tombs. Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, bonsai production has made great progress. In the Tang Dynasty, bonsai became the furnishings of wealthy families. Many murals and silk paintings at that time reflected this situation. After entering the Qing Dynasty, the traditional bonsai art has made great progress and entered a prosperous period.

Bonsai can be divided into landscape and stump two major categories. Landscape bonsai decorates the basin with rare and beautiful natural stones through sawing, carving, corrosion, gluing, splicing and other techniques. It is decorated with miniature pavilions, bridges, farmhouses, boats, pedestrians, rainbows, etc. made of ceramics and other materials. With pool water, vegetation and moss, it makes the peaks and hills stack up and fall at random. It is very close and has a potential of thousands of miles, showing a far-reaching artistic conception. Stump bonsai plants are planted in the basin, long-term management, careful management, with the help of pruning, binding, fertilization and other techniques and various artistic processing means to form a beautiful and unique plant shape, making the trunk vigorous and powerful, branches and leaves lush, with unique aesthetic significance.

Chinese bonsai production techniques are concentrated in Suzhou, Yangzhou, Anhui, Guangdong and other places in Jiangsu Province. Although the artistic styles are different, they are all small but big, with the combination of virtual and real. They not only pay attention to artistic processing, but also pursue natural character, and oppose excessive carving and decoration.

Hui style bonsai is one of the main schools of bonsai in China. It began in the Southern Song Dynasty and flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It has a history of more than 1000 years. It is named after its origin and spread in the flower selling fishing village in Shexian County, Anhui Province. Huizhou bonsai technique mainly through pruning, rolling, composition and other artistic processing means, the local unique plants, rocks and other materials are arranged in the basin, making it present the style characteristics of ancient or natural or vigorous or elegant. The Hui style bonsai made of it has distinct primary and secondary features, the combination of virtual and real, the appropriate density, the dynamic and static, the hidden in the dew, the combination of hardness and softness, the contrast between withered and prosperous, and the skillful and clumsy use of each other, which fully reflects the breadth and depth of Huizhou culture and the intelligence of the local people.

Huizhou bonsai technique skillfully uses the artistic technique of "close to a thousand miles, shrinking the Dragon into an inch, small to see the big, although the fake is still true", and the bonsai made is rarely the same. These works are either rugged, simple and vigorous, or intertwined, like a dragon, or hanging upside down, like a dragon exploring the sea, or graceful, precipitous and straight, or well arranged, with thick branches, showing the charm of dead wood naturally. There are also some works with vigorous trunks and dense crowns, which are in the shape of clouds, beautiful spirits and full of spring, which are quite interesting. Youlong style plum blossom pile is the representative work of Huizhou bonsai, which is commonly known as "Huimei". It is characterized by tidiness, symmetry and solemnity. It has long been well-known at home and abroad, and has won a great reputation for Huizhou bonsai.