A Little Bonsai History

This famous Chinese elm (Ulmus parivflora) planting is by Zhao Qingquan, reknowned penjing artist, teacher and author of two best Penjing books in the English, Penjing: the Chinese Art of Bonsai and Literati Style Penjing Yesterday we featured a couple of events and photos from the Pacific Bonsai Museum. So, just for the fun of it, I thought we’d go back and find our earliest PBM post. It’s from April 21st, 2009, almost exactly 9 years ago. Way back in the day when it was owned by Weyerhauser and called the Weyerhaeuser’s Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection. The two photos shown here were … Continue reading A Little Bonsai History

The Art of Illusion

The profusion of such tiny figures make this tree look absolutely massive. This effect is not an accident. Whoever put this together has a masterful grasp of spatial relations, perspective, the art of illusion… however you want to say it. He or she is also a very accomplished bonsai artist. Just the tree would stand alone as a superior tropical bonsai. We don’t post that often on Penjing tray plantings, but the photo above was just too good to pass up. It was posted by Sanjay Dham on Bonsai Club India. Sanjay’s caption says only “From China Penjing & Scholars … Continue reading The Art of Illusion

Super-Sized Penjing & Our Summer Bonsai Book Sale Is About to End

This super-sized three part penjing is by Robert Steven; renowned bonsai artist, teacher and author, and frequent contributor to this blog. It’s worth noting that this is freshly planted, so you might imagine what it would like after things settled and filled out. Every time I see this magnificent Penjing planting, I want to share it. For this and other reasons, this is the third time for this post, though the original photos have been enlarge to fit our newer format and a couple new cropped versions have been added. I’ve also stuck some pertinent books in to remind you … Continue reading Super-Sized Penjing & Our Summer Bonsai Book Sale Is About to End

NEW Bonsai Book: Literati Style Penjing

Penjing Master Zhao Qingquan’s long awaited Literati Style Penjing, Chinese Bonsai Masterworks has arrived and is available at Stone Lantern. At a glance, we’ll give it five stars. Upon further examination, we’ll still give it five stars. I haven’t been this excited about a new bonsai book for a long time. The problem is, we have been writing copy for so long that we’ve exhausted all the superlatives; sometimes on books that don’t begin to measure up to this one. So, instead of saying much more, we’ll just borrow from the publisher: “Overview … the Japanese art of creating miniature … Continue reading NEW Bonsai Book: Literati Style Penjing

Not Shimpaku: A Juniper Bonsai Non Starter

This lovely tree with its natural flowing feel is from a 2012 Bark post. The tree resides at the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. It’s listed as a Procumbens nana, though I’ve never seen a ‘nana’ with such a massive trunk. Which begs the question… (the story is here). It’s archive time again. This post originally appeared in September 2013. It was titled Not Shimpaku and was supposed to be the start of a series on juniper bonsai. Like many starts in life, it turned out to be a non-starter (maybe later…?). Japanese Garden Juniper bonsai Shimpaku junipers rule. You … Continue reading Not Shimpaku: A Juniper Bonsai Non Starter

A Penjing Pioneer

Windswept Japanese white pine tray planting by Zhao Qingquan. I think the wind in this case, is a gentle but persistent on shore breeze. I think the two best known Penjing artists in the world are Zhao Qingquan and Robert Steven (Robert refers to what he does as bonsai rather than penjing, but to my eye many, if not most, of his bonsai show strong penjing qualities and he is certainly one of the world’s authorities on the art and history of penjing). We’ve featured Robert numerous times here on Bark (his critiques are quite famous by now) but we’ve … Continue reading A Penjing Pioneer

Four New Books

I liked this book at first glance and still like it after spending a few days with it. I can say with some confidence that it’s the best book yet on Penjing, at least in English. It goes way beyond Zhao’s earlier Worlds of Wonderment in all respects: quality and variety of the Penjing, quality of the photos, amount and level of information and overall production value of the book itself. This is to say that this is a very handsome and very useful book. Zhao Qingquan is one of thee world’s most renowned Penjing artists and when you see … Continue reading Four New Books

Some of the World’s Best Bonsai Are Right Here

Winter display, from the Chinese collection at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum in Washington DC. Trident maple by Quinquan Zhao. A trip well worth taking We’ve been encouraging people to visit our National Bonsai & Penjing Museum for a long time (way back to the days when we published Bonsai Today). We’ll keep doing it until you go visit (if you’ve already been, tell your friends). It’s worth the trip and you can drop by the Smithsonian while you’re at it. Or the Lincoln Memorial. Or… A borrowed shot to whet your appetite The photo above is from the … Continue reading Some of the World’s Best Bonsai Are Right Here