Bonsai technique (Yingshi rockery bonsai technique)

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Bonsai technique (Yingshi rockery bonsai technique)

Applicant: Yingde City, Guangdong Province

Item No.: 870

Project No.: Ⅶ - 94

Time of publication: 2008 (second batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Guangdong Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Yingde City, Guangdong Province

Protection unit: Yingde Qishi Association

Introduction to bonsai technique (Yingshi rockery bonsai technique)

Applicant: Yingde City, Guangdong 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.

Yingshi rockery bonsai is a well-known traditional handicraft in Yingde City, Guangdong Province. Yingshi is named because it is produced in Yingshan. It is composed of numerous loose plates. Under the action of severe cold and hot weather and weathering corrosion, it has the characteristics of "thin, wrinkled, leaky and transparent". The imperial court of Song Dynasty has selected Yingshi scenic spots, and Lingnan historical gardens such as Foshan Liangyuan and Panyu Yuyin garden also have rockery and bonsai made of Yingshi. Later, many areas of the country have appeared to Yingshi as a material of garden attractions. After the 18th century, with the opening of the door of the country, the European Court and garden buildings also began to choose Stone Mountain, arch or pavilion base, decorated with fountains.

Yingshi rockery bonsai technique is based on the natural stone, gives full play to the wisdom of skilled craftsmen, and uses Yingshi's unique shape of "thin, wrinkled, leaky and transparent" to express the ideas of "emptiness" and "spirit" of Buddhism and Taoism. Yingshi rockery bonsai in the landscape style, dry mountain style, mountain attached tree style modeling is full of artistic interest, known as "silent poetry, three-dimensional painting", loved by the masses. Yingshi rockery bonsai art contains valuable experience of Chinese traditional garden art, and has research value in the history of craft, architectural aesthetics and Lingnan local culture.