In a message dated 3/16/2004 3:13:22 AM Eastern Standard Time,
writes:

What would you say would be the top 3 (concrete?) things that
define the
difference between Penjing and Bonsai, that would let a
relative newbie
identify it?


I would say:
1. if it has figures, mud men, etc. it is Penjing.
2. if it has a lot of landscaping, streams, stones, etc.
it is
Penjing.
3. if it has a variety of species of different types
such as tall
trees and shorter shrub like plants it is Penjing.


Billy's definitions are good. He is defining Saikei, also
(except, perhaps, for the mudmen). Saikei, as the Japanese
practice it _usually_ is much "simpler" than the Chinese art --
there aren't so many things going on and, as Billy says, most
often the trees are the same. But not always.

BUT . . .

Penjing also can be individual trees -- what the Japanese call
bonsai. The difference here is harder to describe (for me, at
least) but -- speaking VERY generally -- the Chinese seem to go
more for the odd tree, the one with the tangle of roots, or the
one standing on a stilt of roots, or the one with the twisted
trunk (note all the gyrations that imported Chinese elms have)
and their trees can be a bit unkempt looking to one who is most
familiar with Japanese trees. Taper doesn't seem to be as
important. Neither is branch placement.

Don't get me wrong. Penjing = Bonsai, essentially. Some can be
as manicured and as svelte as the classiest Japanese bonsai.

I heard at a convention that "penjing" essentially means tray
landscape (Ernie?????) and that can include one tree or several,
rocks or no rocks, figures or no figures. The Japanese appear to
have decided that there is some vague difference between bonsai
and saikei. To me, at least, it often isn't clear; we have
forest bonsai. Add rocks and it becomes saikei. But we have
individual bonsai growing on or over a rock and it still is
bonsai.

What it all boils down to in the end is that it really doesn't
matter what you call your creation.

Call them "artichokes" and be done with the terminology question.
;-)

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Only where
people have learned to appreciate and cherish the landscape and
its living cover will they treat it with the care and respect it
should have - Paul Bigelow Sears.

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