Bonsai: Nature in Miniature

The 1914 Arnold Arboretum expedition to Japan led by Ernest H. Wilson produced, among other things, some excellent photographs which clearly show the natural inspiration for many of the forms of bonsai that most specialized kind of Japanese horticulture. Pictures such as these can help put the hobbyist in touch with the source of his art and can be of particular importance to bonsai enthusiasts who wish to follow the Japanese models for bonsai but who do not have the experience of the Japanese landscape. The first part of this article is devoted to the relationship between nature and bonsai, and the last part of the article will relate some specific bonsai styles to such scenes as Wilson photographed in Japan in 1914. A bonsai is a conscious attempt to suggest a natural scene. The first bonsai and still the ideal of bonsai were a part of nature. They were naturally dwarfed old trees dug and brought home to grow in containers in the collector’s garden. Though the trees were of interest in themselves, their real beauty lay in their capacity to suggest the total landscape from which they had come. The gnarled and bleached old tree, potted and growing in the serenity of a garden, not only gave evidence of its struggle to survive but also suggested by its form the cliffs to which it had clung, the valley below the cliffs, the river in the valley, and perhaps the wind which had so tortured its branches.