What is Penjing?
To most, penjing is an unfamiliar term, but those who are familiar with this historic Chinese art understand how captivating it can be. If you want to know more about what penjing is, then you’ve come to the right place, as this chapter will introduce you to the basics.
A Quick Definition of Penjing
Penjing is a Chinese art that first began many centuries ago, and a literal translation of the term should give you a good idea of what this art entails. Essentially, the word “pen” means “pot” in English, while “jing” roughly translates to “landscape” or “scenery.” As such, penjing is an art that involves creating miniature naturalistic landscapes in garden containers.
What Does Penjing Look Like?
At times, penjing creations may include one plant or a single dominant group of plants, in which case the plants are likely to be carefully pruned and trained to take on certain expressive forms. In other cases, penjing may depict entire landscapes, again, scaled down to fit in a pot.
Penjing vs. Bonsai
Penjing and bonsai are two similar but distinct art forms, both of which involve raising plants in miniature forms. However, penjing and bonsai do not have the same historical origin and do not follow the same general set of stylistic principles.
Penjing came first, possibly coming into being in China during the first century C.E. Bonsai is a Japanese art that developed from penjing and began much later.
Likewise, although penjing and bonsai both use miniature plants, they typically use plants in different ways. Bonsai usually focuses on growing and shaping an individual miniature tree. By contrast, penjing often depicts entire miniature landscape scenes, which can include plants, water, figurines, and more.
As the older and broader art, penjing includes several styles, some of which are more like bonsai than others. However, despite what many assume, bonsai and penjing remain separate arts, each with a unique style and cultural origin.
Styles of Penjing
With such a long history, it is no surprise to learn that there are different styles of penjing. While many styles exist, there are two that are considered by most to be the main styles of penjing. Those two main styles are:
- Shumu penjing: Quite similar to bonsai, the Shumu penjing style is all about growing one or a few small plants while deliberately training and shaping them.
- Shanshui penjing: This style involves creating miniature landscape scenes — often including rocks, water, and small plants as dominant design elements — that create a mountain-like scene.
- ShuiHan penjing: The shuihan penjing style creates miniture landscapes that include trees, stones, water, small plants, figurines, and more to recreate a realistic depiction of nature. The need for precise detailing makes shuihan one of the most difficult styles of penjing.
Along with those main penjing categories, there are many regional styles of penjing throughout China, each of which includes its own tradition and stylistic character. This stylistic diversity reflects the rich history of penjing as it reveals an appreciation of nature inherent to Chinese culture.