Redwood Bonsai

Kindly lent to us by the Urimbirra Bonsai Society, this 15-year old Redwood (Sequoia) bonsai is set within the (illusionistic) circular secondary courtyard of the Illawarra Pavilion to evoke the wispy, wind-sculpted Pine trees that often feature prominently in Chinese, Korean and Japanese landscape paintings and, not to mention, also as spectacular bonsais in the contemplative garden.

This bonsai specimen, along with the Moving-water Bowlscape located in the central peristyle, sets up a conversation about cultural transmission and resonance as the Japanese art of Bonsai (盆栽) is close cousin to the Chinese art of Pénjǐng (盆景) which formally emerged at the height of the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907 C.E.). Pénjǐng can be further classified into three main categories: Shùmù Pénjǐng (树木盆景) which focusses on the aesthetics of a single or collection of miniaturised trees in a pot; Shānshuǐ Pénjǐng (山水盆景) which is a deliberate composition of select rocks in contact with water and completed with small live plants to depict a miniature landscape, and finally, Shuǐhàn Pénjǐng (水旱盆景) which effectively combines the practices of the two aforementioned categories. It is the Shùmù Pénjǐng that, when transmitted over to Japan via a long history of cultural exchange with China, became the most popular and accessible form that we (in the Western world) now regard as a quintissential representation of Japanese Art and Culture.