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See also
RJB
bio page,
Magical Miniature Landscapes
intro,
WhatWasNew,
SiteStats,
SiteKudos, and website
Credits
page for additional background.
(I first learned about bonsai through Ann Pipe’s book in late Oct. 1969. As this was in the days before seemingly every house had a copier/printer -- yes, pre-PC -- I used tracing paper to record several of the line drawings. (Those sketches are long gone.) Over the next 16 years, other than the first Sunset Bonsai book, the 1967 Readers’ Digest article about Murata, and occasional newspaper articles, I really didn’t read anything about bonsai or its background. A plant or two a year was kept by me as minimal experience, usually in an orange clay flowerpot after receiving a little pruning to rough shape. I did happen to have been familiarizing myself a little, however, with Chinese history since the late 1970s due to some ongoing research on the Chinese pyramids, specifically those near Xian.) I first got serious about bonsai in Feb. 1986 when I planted some seeds gotten through a Spencer Gifts mail order kit containing a half dozen varieties. Of the plants that came up, a Japanese Red Pine ( P. densiflora ) lasted the longest -- through the middle of June 1988 when I accidentally left it on the south-facing porch rail till late morning... Other and larger nursery, dug, or established trees would come and go through my collection. (And reviewing notes, I see I had a small Italian Stone Pine Christmas tree from Dec. 85 - June 86). The first books about bonsai which I read included: BBG’s Handbook of Bonsai: Special Techniques, Bonsai by Paul Lesniewicz, The Masters’ Book of Bonsai by Koide Nobukichi et al, Miniatures and Bonsai by Philip Perl, The Beginner’s Guide to American Bonsai by Jerald P. Stowell, A Dwarfed Tree Manual for Westerners by Samuel Newsom, Bonsai – Miniature Trees by Claude Chidamian, The Creative Art of Bonsai by Isabelle and Rémy Samson, and Shufunotomo’s The Essentials of Bonsai. Their few lines about the history were written down and constituted the beginning of my journey. |
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In the spring of 1986 I joined the American Bonsai Society and started receiving their quarterly
Journal
and the ABStracts newsletter.
At the Phoenix Public Library (across the street from where I worked), I scoured the Reader’s Guide to Periodic Literature to track down early articles and references. I basically chose articles by what was suggested by the title, and then looked them up. As the Library has a good selection of bound and microfilmed periodicals, I'd make a certain length list and then hit the shelves or the cabinets. I easily perused at least 5x as many articles as finally made the first versions of the pre-WWII and post-WWII lists (a handy arbitrary division point) over the next few years. (I'm sure not all the articles have been found yet.) In September I joined the Phoenix Bonsai Society. In a short time I would discover their holdings of back issues of BCI’s Bonsai and IBA’s Bonsai International. Then various members' private holdings of Bonsai Today and some early copies of the ABS Journal and current GSBF Golden Statements. Wu Yee-Sun's Man Lung Artistic Pot Plants, editions 1 and 2, were seen in the holdings of the PBS, as well as John Naka’s Bonsai Techniques I, II, and Satsuki. I photocopied much. (Four file cabinet drawer's worth to date.) A copy of Deborah Koreshoff's 1984 Bonsai; Its Art, Science, History and Philosophy was found at Arizona State University's library in Dec. 1986. Its nineteen page history would have sufficed this researcher if it had been read six months earlier -- but when I did view it I discovered that I had already uncovered a few bits of early American bonsai history not dealt with by Australian Koreshoff. Probably the first big "A-ha!" moment. So, I continued... (That same library visited yielded the first of the Garden and Forest articles I would find.) The bibliography early on was expanded to include other titles known-of but not seen. The Phoenix Public Library's copy of the National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints (© 1970 Mansell Information/Publishing Limited. ©1970 The American Library Association, Chicago. With 685 main volumes and another sixty-nine (plus?) as supplements, this is about the closest American equivalent you can readily find to the numerous massive encyclopedias of old China) was searched for titles, principally by known and intuited – Japanese mostly -- authors' last names. This was done, fortunately, at the library's old site on McDowell Rd. (After the move a few blocks south on Central Ave., these volumes were stored out of ready access.) The Phoenix Art Museum, right next door to the old location, was visited on my lunch hour during a few Japanese wodblock print exhibitions. Background info via Japan the Official Guide (copy of 1941 edition gotten at the Visiting Nurses Auxilary Annual Booksale in Feb. 1988) and E. Papinot's Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan. Moving the earliest known use of "bonsai" in English back a generation (Aug. 1989). Memories of getting up a little earlier before work to wake up my mental engines by having breakfast while reading a chapter from Siebold, Dr. Philipp Franz von Manners and Customs of the Japanese or Yule, Col. Sir Henry (trans. & ed.) The Book of Ser Marco Polo The Venetian Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East or Bretschneider, Emil, M.D. History of European Botanical Discoveries in China and also his Botanicon Sinicum . CPT 8” Floppy disks were the first storage media for the history which I was starting to compile, afterhours where I worked (1986-1990). Probably the earliest lecture I gave on the history of bonsai took place in September of 1989 at a meeting of the Phoenix club. For most of the members present, this was the first time they were aware that such a thing existed. (One more formal lecture before the club would follow, as well as a lecture in front of a local civic group, informal summaries during various Matsuri displays, and a 45 minute run-through to a captive audience of 3 other club members on a trip back from a Tucson nursery in June of 2000.) The Phoenix club holds its biggest annual show during the Japanese Week Matsuri downtown. Almost every late February from 1987 through 2002 I participated, providing some of the commentary during demonstrations, displaying a few trees, and sharing a little more history with club members or visitors. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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GOING PUBLIC
A member of the Phoenix Bonsai Society (whose name is long forgotten) suggested to me during the February 1990 Matsuri show that the way to prelude a book was by having articles on the subject published first. So I wrote "Hachi No Ki" (my first hand-written draft is undated; my typed submission was responded to by ABS editor Jack Wikle on May 29, 1990). Several contemporary references had made passing mention of this Noh play -- including variations on the lead character's name -- and I thought it deserved further telling of background and plot. The bibliographical works I now have listed for that play on this website and other volumes had already been studied by this time. This was followed by "Some Bonsai Futures" (first hand-written draft is dated July 1, 1990; typed submission responded to on Oct. 25, 1990). But Jack Wikle wisely suggested "Futures" would be a stronger/better introduction of me to the bonsai community. The many history notes I'd compiled had gotten me thinking about what we probably would see and experience regarding this art/hobby. The article did require substantial rewriting on my part based on many perceptive observations by Jack. After two last-minute publication drops due to space considerations, "Some Bonsai Futures" was finally published in the Fall 1991 issue of ABS Journal. “Hachi No Ki” was then published in the Summer 1992 issue, having been passed on to the new editor, Arch Hawkins. I retyped my book notes into a Commodore 64 word processing program and expanded the draft (1990-93). The earliest version of the results of the PBS club plant survey was published on two pages in the 1991-92 club yearbook as “Practical Hints.” (The 2005 version of “Bonsai Care in Phoenix” has two pages of introduction, followed by twelve pages on the plants and another page of summary. Since Fall of 2002, the website version has had a few more details because of space restrictions in the yearbook, including the taxonomic Family and Order.) “America Peeks” was published in the Winter 1992 Journal, having initially been received by Arch Hawkins by mid-October 1992. (My hand-written first draft for the article “18th & 19th Century America’s Peaks [sic] at Bonsai” is dated Aug. 28, 1992; the second draft with the final title is from Sept. 3). The Colonial involvement with the China trade pushed back our first exposures to dwarf potted trees and I wanted to share this knowledge. Then as I learned my way around Word Perfect software, I retyped all the growing book notes again (1993-98), but then was able to have them switched fairly automatically over to MS Word (c.1998) Annual late-summer workshops with visiting teachers were started for the Phoenix club in 1993. Our first guest sensei was Mel Ikeda, followed by Jim Barrett (who specifically I interviewed for historical info), Sze-Ern "Ernie" Kuo, Roy Nagatoshi, and Ben Oki. Ben has been our annual teacher since, with his workshops moved to a slightly cooler November setting. Many set decorations involving bonsai or reasonable facsimiles were discovered while just relaxing and watching TV or movies/videos. My very first hand-written draft of an article was dated Nov. 18, 1992 and titled “On the Big and Small Screen.” It did have a subsection with just the "Star Trek" episodes labeled “To Boldly Grow.” Nothing much was done with this for nearly three years. The first dated typed version is marked Aug. 1, 1995 with the title “Some Screen Portrayals of Bonsai.” My hand-written editing of this changed the title to “To Boldly Grow: Some Cinematic Bonsai.” Per an e-mail to RJB from editor Jill Hurd on Nov. 8, 1995, the article was split into two parts and put into the two-column format (which I also used when the info was reproduced on this website). The article saw print in ABS Journal issues Winter 1995 and Spring 1996. I hadn't seen anything like this in the magazines previously, so I thought maybe it would be fun to do. Some of the references I had gathered were not used in that article. Many of the others were found posted on the Internet Bonsai Club's newsgroup (either with or without some passing reference to this site’s listings), and a few just e-mailed directly to me. These became "To Boldly Grow: Some Celluloid Bonsai (Part III)." (At least one acquaintance has reprimanded me about using the split infinitive...) Hud Nordin’s haiku originated in an e-mail to me about the year 2000. In 2001 I split the references after the year 1999 into a Part IV. As additional sightings were made or brought to my attention they were put into the appropriate part (III or IV) of the chronology. A summary and analysis of the years and media was first compiled in November 2004. I finally got around to begin including computer and video games portrayals near the end of April 2005. I first joined the Internet Bonsai Club in Apr. 1995. Regularly viewing and sometimes participating thru Aug. 1996, I very briefly looked in spring 1998 before rejoining in May 1999. A very decent bunch of around 500 people from all over the globe, they do hold surprisingly strong opinions when it comes to subjects as wide-ranging as digging wild trees to preserving original bonsai styles in collection trees to handling pests and feeding formulae. And a whole lot more. During the first year or so I shared a little history and picked up new info and confirmation of some things. An initial hand-written draft of “Club Tree Experience Survey” was composed on Sept. 18, 1995. The typed article was faxed to Jean C. Smith, the managing Editor of BCI Bonsai magazine, on Oct. 24. It was published in the January/February 1996 issue, coincidentally as the last article in the last issue edited by Jean. This came about when I realized I'd never seen mention of such a project (above) in any of the books or magazines. I figured that others might do similar surveys for their locales. Re-reading this article, I see the basic framework for Designing Dwarfs in the Desert, Up Through the First 35 Years of the Phoenix Bonsai Society (November 1997). That book’s basic decade-chapter format can be traced back to an in-house history I compiled for a company I worked at between 1984 and 1992. (See also Club History after 1997.) Queries to a dozen and a half Japanese/Asian subject publishers in the mid-1990s resulted in the awareness that this project -- some 600 single-spaced pages on all aspects of the history from neolithic China up through the near future -- was simply too detailed for most in-print markets. Several rejection letters suggested that if I cut it down to around 200 pages they might consider it. "I'll get back to you." In 1996, a series of talks with Wendy Zaritsky, a self-published author and editor living in Phoenix at the time, led me to see the possibility of self-publishing the "Big History." It was she who suggested a catchier name than my working title: An Introduction to the History of Bonsai and Penjing. I went through my typed notes and came upon the phrase “Magical Miniature Landscapes” (which dates at least from 1992). That became the new title -- and was first used in print for 1997's Designing Dwarfs in the Desert (page 2 top, page 71 bottom, page 79 top as the title of my forthcoming book, and with an accidentally flipped version of the phraseology on the middle of the back cover). (BTW, our club history's very first working title was Designed Dwarfs in the Desert. Soon I realized that it made more sense to do this as an ongoing story.) This club history focused my research for the next two years. In March 1997 I attended my first non-Phoenix show: the California Bonsai Society's 40th anniversary presentation plus the opening of the California South collection at the Huntington Museum. During these four days, by way of a chartered bus with a dozen other Phoenix club members, I experienced my first true all-bonsai nurseries. (So what if I was the president of the club -- my enthusiasm spilled forth like the proverbial kid in the candy shop.) I finally met longtime Phoenix club honorary sensei John Naka, along with a few other international teachers. I also had/have the knack on a few occasions of opening a non-bonsai, non-Asian history book -- fact or fiction -- and randomly finding the only and unexpected use of the word "bonsai" in the entire volume.
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JOINING ONTO THE WORLD WIDE WEB
Getting e-mail access to the Internet in April 1999 gave me also 5MB of space for a personal website. I didn't have that much to talk about for myself, but, hey, I did know of this one gardening club, and maybe I could also squeeze in a few things from my "big history" project... And so it began. (I tweaked the background color a couple of times to lighten it up.) The amount of space available over time rose to 10MB, then 20MB, and now has jumped to an almost unimaginable 1GB. From the very start I searched for additional info on ideal website construction and incorporated the standard Top 10 Tips -- the main reason there are no graphics on our home page. (Oh, other than the "dancing pyramid" .gif which was an option in the Netscape template and which I, of course, had to use.) Also, from the beginning was the intent to assemble a website with all the credible and documented info and links that I would have liked to have found had it been available when I first started my research on the history of bonsai and related arts. Versions of Netscape Composer have been used for the vast majority of the html incarnation of the history (1999-mid-January 2006). Arachnophilia 5.2 was then adopted when I had a computer switch. At the beginning of May I attended the ABS Symposium in Tucson. A sifting of info from Designing Dwarfs for a planned John Naka obituary -- something many newspapers and magazines have pre-written -- was thankfully and quickly reworked by early May 1999 as an ongoing biography. What was meant to be a series of other master bios resulted in the life stories of Yoshimura (by Aug. 1999), Katō (by October), and Murata (by December). A few other masters were early drafted but never followed through with. A visitor counter was added by late May. My ABS articles were reproduced on the site upon receipt of permission from ABS editor Jill Hurd. By September 1999 we had English Language Bonsai Bibliographies, Pre-1945 and Post-1945 (the latter not really being kept up), a start of the What Was New? page which listed previous website version additions, my thesis of the history as The Big Picture, and, to tie in with the Phoenix Bonsai Society's new club year, a Club Activity Calendar. (Many of the details on this calendar over the years are actually cut and pasted from general e-mails sent out by the Phoenix and Tucson club presidents.) October saw the first listings of the Books and Magazines. During the next couple of months a SiteMap was added and the entries for the books were color coded by a (somewhat arbitrary) category system. In response to a Chris Cochrane e-mail about the number of books I had listed, I overestimated severely -- I think I unconsciously added the number of clubs I had once tallied. When I did an actual count soon after and realized my mistake, I began the analysis which since about Nov. 2002 has been on that page. I keep the complete detailed breakdown on an Excel spreadsheet. As new additions to the list require a complete retotaling which is then transferred to the web page and double-checked by hand-held calculator, I wait until I have several titles before doing an update. By March 2000 came the first version of what may possibly have been seen as a very audacious project, the Bonsai Book of Days. In late November came Origins of Some of the Terms. (About a year later I came upon a site elsewhere on the Internet that had an older but less ambitious listing of Chinese and English words.) By January 2001 came Japanese Portrayals in Paintings and Woodblock Prints -- apparently the first time anywhere side-by-side representations were shown. Chinese Portrayals would come in March, as well as a Site Search engine and the first Graphics Gateway pages. These haven't "taken off" as well as I expected, although the seeds were planted: the many images we have on the website can be appreciated by non-English-speaking persons also. November 2001 saw the first listing of online club newsletters. Also the listing of Chinese Schools and Styles -- which Scottish teacher Craig Coussins quickly stumbled upon and which text was slightly modified for use in his book The Bonsai School a little more than a year later. And the new year saw the centennial publication of the first European-language work entirely about bonsai. March of 2002 saw the splitting of John Naka's bio into two (more easily readable) parts, plus the first of Some of What We Don't Know About the History of Magical Miniature Landscapes. (Several times since then I would have to get out of bed at night before falling asleep in order to jot down a headful of thoughts about what we don't know, so that I could then forget about them and go to sleep. While reading other subjects, I often have been able to take away non-horticultural concepts and turn them into questions eligible for Don't Know. The "pre-sleep download" has taken place for several sections, most recently the Assumptions Used on this Website portion of the MML start page.) (Momentary paradigm-shift: has a small part of this been "channeling" of anonymous bonsai teachers who are on the other side?!?) During the Mohave County Home and Garden Shows in Kingman during mid-March 2003 and 2004 and a few meetings the following summers, I talked and demonstrated on bonsai basics, including history. A few people who were interested enough to stick with it continue the art/hobby in northwestern Arizona, but there wasn't enough steam to get a club continuing there. |
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My earlier collecting of postage stamps had
several from China, including a few with bonsai/penjing. Some of the
postage stamps
– image scans or leads -- used on this website (from Oct. 1999 on) were also
e-mailed to me because of the others seen on the site. A listing of specifically
fraudulent stamps
started in May 2005. (I am aware of the arguments about not
depicting such issues. However, the graphics I have for these are
definitely not mint-quality for further illegal replication, and the
authority source text is not detailed enough for complete identification. This
is
an educational website.)
By the end of 2003 we had the first Magazine Covers, and the first historical Anomalies. In late October 2004 I started searching the Library of Congress online links to the Memory of America project for optically scanned issues of periodicals from the 19th century. Several early article references to dwarf trees were discovered there and typed/proofed on to this site. A number of times a year or so I'll spend a few hours looking on the Internet for useful additional background for any of the material already here on this site. That's basically where updates come from. BTW, I have mixed feelings when I enter a search phrase/person's name and our site comes up as the only result. Yes, I am glad that this website is so authoritative on the subject; but, no, when I am searching I want some new information! I had no formal history training after the standard classes in college. Over the years various projects I've worked on have made me aware of some of the promise and perils of research and translation, including some extensive geneological historical studies. In the past six years or so I've read a few in-print or electronic articles regarding writing and researching history to specifically help me stay focused. There has also been exposure over time to various broadcast or recorded programs from the Public Broadcasting System, the History Channel, A&E, the Discovery Channel, and so forth. Plus, it is not so much academic knowledge as just understanding what it is that I have been doing for twenty-one years in compiling this history. The hundreds of articles and hundreds of books I've looked at do have their own patterns and flows, sometimes immediately evident, sometimes made aware of during meditation upon a different book. I take a few notes and make some photocopies in addition to my high memory-retrieval rate. The sources I do check out are basically approached two ways: either a book or article is known or suspected to have some of this history in it or else the material is believed at least to have useful general background info. Either of these two sources might contain illustrations of bonsai portrayals. I have looked at scores of art and landscape books while searching for previously unseen pictures -- again, primarily about Chinese or Japanese collections or subjects. Titles or persons mentioned in any of the above are then looked up on the Internet for additional details. If additional details are to be found or seem to be found in new books or articles, these are then researched similarly. And the hunt can begin again. (At any given time I usually have one or two more titles to be InterLibrary Loan ordered...) Regarding A Suggested Timeline for the Development of Magical Miniature Landscapes, “"Last November [2004] I started building this particular web page based on key notes from my unpublished manuscript/researches. I decided I needed to then have the footnotes available in order to continue the unwritten theme I've used in creating this website: a well-documented and detailed exploration. (In the 60s and 70s issues of the bonsai magazines, there were so many short articles/space fillers rehashing just a few points of the history. Shortly after I started my researches I learned that I had come upon info not previously published in these articles or books, so I continued...) I initially realized that many of the chronology notes were from sections whose citations had been grouped by chapter, essentially blending the origin of the specific points. So, I started to comb through all my old notes, earlier drafts and assorted photocopies of source material going back to early 1986. Only the other day I decided that the motivation to complete this was by putting what I had right now on the web. So I did a 'final push' yesterday and published what I had. "I know additional points will further flesh out this chronology which is, I suppose to be technical, my working hypothesis on how magical miniature landscapes developed out of the various suggested cultural sources to be what it is today." from RJB's e-mail to Marty Haber, May 23, 2005, after Marty complimented the page. In mid-August 2005 I finished the first version of the background story to this research, On the Creative Process of Compiling This History (this present page you are reading, which I first started to work on in late May 2003). And I followed it with a new page: many books, articles and sites mention the early international expositions (Paris and London, usually) that had bonsai on display, but my studies show it wasn't that short and simple -- or accurately repeated. This was another "a-ha! Why don't I set the record straight?" moment. And so it was created, hyperlinked and published: Expositions Know to Have Had Bonsai Present. In late August we switched to double alpha designations for the various languages in the books listing. One of the latest page is now the start of a database log of Dreams we've had involving our past, present and future bonsai. Take a look and let me know if you would like to contribute something. The Kokufu-ten page was not originally meant to be the definitive source of info for that prestigious bonsai exhibition. In late September 2005 I started to put together a quickie table-chart to show in which year which number show took place. I soon discovered that, as I went backwards from the 80th show scheduled in 2006, the numbering was confounded in the 1950s and earlier. An e-mail to Dr. Tom Elias of the National Arboretum received a partial answer. I started to add in the bits and pieces of Kokufu history of which I knew. A copy of the numbering list sent to Dr. Tom I then sent to William N. Valavanis in late October. Much to my pleasant surprise, this started a veritable flood of information from Bill in his e-mails back-and-forth to me, along with album cover images. Sometime in November the first official version of this page was published on the web site. Bill was able to find a few more dated shows and I did also from my ongoing researches. He then asked that I re-send him on Feb. 7, 2006 a list of questions about the show which he would have with him in Tokyo for which he would then get the answers. This was dutifully accomplished, and I am very grateful that he was able to work into his busy schedule (leading a tour of some 43 persons) the sending of some answers to me. The Kokufu-ten page was being updated during the show in near real-time. Upon his return Bill e-mailed me some photos he had taken and several of these I added to the page. And so this page now provides much more info about this grand show than had been previously gathered in any other medium or language. That is the essence of what I've been working to achieve here. My writing and research on this website has redirected most of my interest in writing articles on this subject for outside sources. I never was a quickie, filler or fluff article writer: I admit that my articles are usually concentrated and require more than one reading to digest. With web publishing, typo corrections and updates can be made literally at any time of day and as often as I want. A topic can be expanded upon and/or hyperlinked without concern of page size or printing schedules, and thus this version of the "Big History" is much more fluid and comprehensive than any even looseleaf print version could have been ten years ago if the history had been chosen for publication then. It is conceivable that at some point I could gather all the immutable pages together, such as the historical articles, and get them published in hard copy form for ready-reference by anyone so interested. I agree that for much of that type of material a book-in-hand format with proper indexing would be easier and quicker to check, compared with going online. We will see... If I come upon news of a recent event I can include it, along with a whole range of relevant details. One of many times that I demonstrated this to myself, for example, was with the May 11, 2001 Boldly Grow entry for "Wall$treet Week with Louis Rukeyser." Within a half hour of my seeing this with bonsai set decor, this was listed on the website and worldwide on the Internet. And, a few times, minor corrections received by e-mail were applied within an hour of my checking my mail. This site, in its own very small and modest way, is exploring the modern compiling of [ancient] history. One project I was working on (beginning July 2006) was something for the American Bonsai Society's new booklet series. The version of the history of dwarfed potted trees I was doing for them takes a little different approach to the subject than what is mostly found on this present website. The print date was supposed to have been February 2007, but when I submitted the material at the end of December I coincidentally received an e-mail stating that ABS had put future booklets on hold due to financial constraints. The process of assembling the material in a different fashion, anyway, caused me to see new connections and to look more closely at less obvious data in the older articles. Stay tuned. Another project is a massive addition to Japanese Portrayals, courtesy of researcher Horst Graebner. Over 4 dozen images have been added, all from the hand of the woodblock artist Kunisada. Several trees snow-covered in winter; several new varieties not previously seen in prints. An important broadening of our idea of dwarfed potted trees from c.1820 - 1868. This is now "completed." Then in November 2006 I finally started to venture into Google Books, a vast resource of digitalized public domain works. Several additional early mentions of either Chinese or Japanese dwarf potted trees have been found, and these are being added to this site over time. Google Books also led me to check Fa-ti Fan's 2004 British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter. A spin-off from studying this book via ILL is a page here listing dwarf trees actually seen in England. An Internet Bonsai Club mention in February 2007 of an upcoming celebration of 100 years of bonsai in Germany led me to the site about that. With some Babel Fish machine translation help, I focused my search on Georg Meister who has now predated Kaempfer in briefly writing about Japanese dwarf potted trees to a European audience (1692 <== 1727). That page then ended up being referenced in IBC when the event took place in June. And a commemorative book in German has now raised the bar for further research. (Details on a second person, J.H. Seidel from 1803, are now being tracked down along with his specific mention of Chinese dwarf potted trees.) A series of e-mails in May 2007 led me to being gifted by former BCI president Alan Walker a whole collection of digital photos which he had taken or otherwise come into possession of during the past several years. These he is graciously allowing me to add throughout this site to greatly enhance the tales herein. In May and June I added the break-downs of several of the kanji used in the Origins of Some of the Terms. In January 2008 I finally came upon the French text of Mémoires concernant l'histoire, les sciences, les arts, les mœurs, les usages,&c des Chinois, par les missionaires de Pe-Kin, Vol. VIII, after nearly twenty years of looking. Fr. Cibot's observations in French of dwarf cedars and firs are finally now here.
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And, yes, a feature of this particular website which most visitors will quickly discover is the presence of a large number of hyperlinks both internal and external, usually opening a new browser window. This history -- and strictly speaking, any history -- is not a brief linear progression, nor is it self-complete. These gardening arts I've labelled as Magical Miniature Landscapes have touched and been touched by many persons. (Looking at my book notes I see an early but simpler version of the internal links between the various parts, chapters, and segments.)
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One complaint I do have with the Internet are the large number of directories -- bonsai and health-related being two topics I know too well are offenders, though I'm sure all subjects have their share -- that are just endless loops of links to their own and other URLs without providing very much useful information. Not all directories are like this, but there are enough of these space wasters. IMHO.
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PARTICULARLY USEFUL
Some lucky references found in the libraries (not necessarily in chronological order): Stein, Rolf A. The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings in Far Eastern Religious Thought (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press; 1990), borrowed twice since about May 1991 and extensively photocopied for notes on much of the history, not the least being details for the Fei Jiang-fang story. This led me to the citation of McClure, F.A. "Methods and Materials of Chinese Table Plant Culture," Lingnan Science Journal (Canton: Lingnan University), Vol 12, Supplement, pp. 119-164. Issued May 22, 1933, and also Bretschneider, Emil M.D. Botanicon sinicum (as Article III in "Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society," 1881, New Series Vol. XVI, Part I, Shanghai, 1882, and his History of European Botanical Discoveries in China (Leipzig: Zentral-Antiquariat; 1981, reprint of the original 1898 edition) for additional info on Abel, Livingstone, and Fortune. The last two I'd already read in their original state. This work also supplemented Sirén, Osvald Gardens of China (NY: The Ronald Press Company; 1949) and Gothein, Marie Luise A History of Garden Art (reprinted by Hacker Art Books, New York, 1966. First published in English, 1928) for Cibot (see also above). Hu, Yunhua Chinese Penjing, Miniature Trees and Landscapes (Portland, OR: Timber Press; ©1987 Wan Li Books Co., Ltd., Hong Kong), much of Chinese Schools & Styles is derived from his comprehensive work; Then, a footnote on pp. 188-189 in Conrad Totman’s Early Modern Japan (Berkley & LA: University of California Press; 1993) led to a detailed bio of Chu Shun-Shui by Julia Ching "The Practical Learning of Chu Shun-shui (1600-1682)," in Principle and Practicality, Essays in Neo-Confucianism and Practical Learning, edited by Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom (NY: Columbia University Press; 1979), pp. 189-229, which resulted in a Chu Shunshui bio here. Erickson, Susan N. "Boshanlu--Mountain Censers of the Western Han Period: A Typological and Iconological Analysis," The Archives of Asian Art 45 (Dec, 1992), pp. 6-28, which is adapted from her dissertation. This reference was found while "surfing the Web" for additional info on these mountain incense-burners which are I consider the equivalent of great-great-great grand-uncles of bonsai. Laufer, Berthold Chinese Pottery of the Han Dynasty (Leiden: E.J. Brill, Ltd., 1909; 1962 reprint by Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc.), gotten because of a footnote in Erickson, this pioneering study has much additional early history of boshanlu, which resulted in that section on the website being rewritten. This was the first section seriously revised -- as opposed to just added to -- because of new research. Cooper, Michael, S.J. (ed.) They Came to Japan, An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543-1640 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; 1965), as a reference in a biography of Will Adams -- the subject of the mini-series "Shogun" -- I picked up at the library in March 2005 to "cleanse my mental palate" after several months of research into the late 19th/early 20th century. Much useful info to flesh out a very early Western mention. Cooper's book is an intense study of Japan in the title's time period. A copy of The Huntington Botanical Gardens' "Plant Trivia TimeLine" on the Internet, reviewed two years after I printed a copy for my files (05/01/01), yielded a 1506 reference to Chinese potted landscapes per Clunas' 1996 work, The Fruitful Site. Obtaining a copy of Clunas through InterLibraryLoan via the Burbank Street branch of the Mohave County Library yielded much new information for " Pre-1800 Books." ILL via Kingman from May 2002-June 2005. Wood, Francis Did Marco Polo go to China? (Boulder, CO: Westview Press; 1996. First American edition), was picked up off the library shelf and skimmed. It had some additional info I could use for the NOT found in Marco Polo page, and it yielded a new Pre-1800 Book mention. The details were then ILL-ordered through the Security [Colorado] Public Library and produced by Jacques Gernet's Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion 1250-1276 (NY: The Macmillan Company; 1962. Translated by H. M. Wright). From the references in that I then ordered Christopher Dawson (ed.) The Mongol Mission (NY: Sheed and Ward, 1955). No bonsai references, but it does detail some pre-Polo and contemporary Western exposures to the East. The Charles R. Long article "An Informal History of Bonsai" (Arnoldia, Jamaica Plain, MA: Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, 1971, (31):261-273), was gotten in photocopy through InterLibrary Loan on Nov. 15, 2000. Where I heard about this I do not remember. References in this article led me to the material on Marie Stopes and Francis Hawks. There are a few mentions in the article of Chinese portrayals that I am still following up on. Other particularly useful books of the few hundred I've studied were Bartlett, Harley Harris and Hide Shohara Japanese Botany During the Period of Wood-Block Printing (Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop; 1961); Engel, David H. Creating a Chinese Garden (London: Croom Helm Ltd. and Portland, OR: Timber Press; 1986); Goldstein, Jonathan Philadelphia and the China Trade, 1682-1846 (University Park and London: The Pennsylvania University Press; 1978); Keene, Donald No, The Classical Theater of Japan (Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd.; 1966); Kikuchi, Sadao A Treasury of Japanese Wood Block Prints, Ukiyo-e (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.; Translation © 1969 by Tokyo International Publishers, © 1963 Kawadeshobo, Tokyo); Lach, Donald F. Asia in the Making of Europe (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 1965. Two Volumes, each consisting of two Books); Morris, Edwin T. The Gardens of China: History, Art, and Meanings (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons; 1983); Nienhauser, William H., Jr. (ed.) The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press; 1986); Richardson, S.D. Forestry in Communist China (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press; 1966); Vertrees, J.D. Japan Maples, Momiji and Kaede (Portland, OR: Timber Press; 1978, 1987. Second Edition); Yi, O-nyoung Smaller Is Better, Japan's Mastery of the Miniature ( Chijimi shikoo no Nihonjin) (Tokyo: Kodansha International, Ltd.; 1982. First English edition 1984). While looking for portrayals of bonsai, I have also skimmed untold dozens of books on China, Japan, Oriental gardening, art, and religion which ended up not having any useful graphics -- or, to a lesser extent, other material. The number of works with copies of paintings or scrolls which include bonsai/penjing are relatively few, and not always obvious by the book's title or subject.
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Interviews RJB conducted with Leroy
Fujii, Joan McCarter,
"Bud" Jacobson,
Elsie Andrade, Jim Claycomb, Fred Carpenter, and other members of the
Phoenix Bonsai Cub regarding bonsai in the west during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.
Interviews RJB conducted with Doris Froning, Warren Hill, Marty Klein, Jerry Stowell, and Ted Tsukiyama at the International Scholarly Symposium on Bonsai and Viewing Stones, May 18, 2002, Washington, D.C. There I met John Naka again and also Saburō Katō. Wow. And I had a chance to briefly act as a doyen at the Bonsai and Penjing Museum when I spontaneously took twenty minutes to explain a few of the fine points of bonsai to three or four people who were wandering by Goshin at the moment I was passing by that forest of John Naka's. |
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Personal e-mails to RJB
from Peter Aradi of Tulsa, OK, on Oct. 22, 1999 connected me with http://webcat.nacsis.ac.jp/webcat_eng.html and I was able to get two hundred titles of books in early December. The following spring and summer George and Nobuyo Cole in the Phoenix Bonsai Society were able to provide me with translations of most of the citations which were then entered in Books. from John Ruger of Brookhaven, PA mentioning Chinese art and penjing, after I initially answered him, led me to dig up from my old notes “1,000 questions” unanswered in the "Big History." These were then incorporated and formed the initial skeleton of "Some of What We Don't Know About the History of Magical Miniature Landscape". Other chapter-end questions from the book notes were also interwoven. from Karin Albert, Max Braverman, Chris Cochrane, Craig Coussins, Dr. John Creech, Navasona Krishnan, Felix Laughlin, Gunter Lind, Yukio Murata, Walter Pall, Solita Rosade, Jerry Stowell, William N. Valavanis (whose ongoing occasional discoveries are shared with me and allow me to update specifically the Kokufuten page), Tom Zane, and others with whom I electronically converse(d) and by whom I had questions answered. I have been kept informed about happenings in the world of bonsai, in part, through the Internet Bonsai Club postings and gallery, BonsaiTalk gallery, the Art of Bonsai site, and Lindsay Farr's World of Bonsai videos. Also, I have tried to contact the webmasters of all sites that have a link to us which is erroneous/old style. This has not always been possible, so some links out there in cyberspace only tell an older/partial story here. This is complicated further when the links are copies of other old links. But, little by little, I am doing my best to update everyone.
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Regarding the most useful creative moments: particularly beneficial have been shower, shaving, and/or mind-neutral paperworking times for thoughts and inspirations about this whole body of material over the past twenty plus years. The various and sundry notes so built up -- in file cabinet drawers, large plastic tote tubs, on scraps of paper, numerous other drafts and additions stored electronically -- hopefully will be incorporated into this web site during my lifetime.
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Partial "regrets": Not having the time to follow up on all citations. Putting together connections but not having the time or resources to follow up on them. Not making connections soon enough to then be able to use certain reference books to get more details on. If I knew then what I know now, some of the early page names on this site would be a little different. Most of the Phoenix Bonsai Society-related pages I prefaced with a "P". I would drop that initial now, but by the time I really thought about it the pages had been out on the 'Net for some time and I didn't think that the renaming justified a change to the various directories and search engines which would eventually occur. We learn...
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ANOTHER WAY OF LOOKING AT IT ALL
And so, these website pages can be divided into the following somewhat arbitrary types (the terms used here were devised in May 2005): Index, a listing of links to other pages on this site and/or outside ( index, Sitemap, PBSWing, PlantList, Graphics Gateways, Recently Displayed, Travellers, WhatWasNew, Paintings, Stamps, Newsletters ); Speculation, the most wonderfully creative/re-creative ( DontKnow, Futures ) ; Mined, pulling together in a new manner of info from other pages ( BoldlyGrow, Japanese Styles, Some of the Portrayals, Incomplete Info, Taxonomic Analysis, Magazines, Origins of Some of the Terms ); I&M, both a listing and a pulling together ( BigPicture, Timeline, Books, Days, pre1945Biblio, PFAQ, Expositions ; Sticks and Stones ); Data, more or less straight-forward information (most other pages).
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A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE
This history would have been compiled differently if RJB -- had been a better grower and didn’t have so much free time to think about what he was doing because 1) of not investing in more large material (although in that case the Portulacaria monograph then would not have been compiled) and 2) of having losses, in part, due to my multiple household moves primarily around the Phoenix area (in themselves partly due to multiple jobs while looking for my career niche. More stability might have meant more money, might have meant more trees and workshops and convention attendances and meeting my colleagues face-to-face, overseas travel, as well as other non-bonsai diversions, and less mental time to focus on this history.); -- had come upon D. Koreshoff’s book six or more months earlier; -- had not become involved with the Phoenix Bonsai Society and 1) its close ties to John Naka or 2) its collection of magazine back issues and library donations by former members; -- had not been the Phoenix Bonsai Society’s initial webmaster, with virtually total access to the contents around the clock for updating and additions; -- had not made the history of bonsai and related arts so much a quest that it has been in my thoughts nearly every day since spring of 1986 and thus could be assembled from the study of seemingly unrelated disciplines, often piecing together minor excerpts originally seen in passing; -- had seriously tried to include a grand encyclopedia of biographies of masters and teachers, glossary, and listing of clubs. (The middle has more or less been picked up by the Internet Bonsai Club's Japanese Terms listing and Japanese terms dictionary, while the latter I deferred to in some of the Book of Days entries, the BCI Teacher's Registry, and what is now the current LINKS incarnation of what originally was Craig J. Hunt's link page. While not complete or updated, this last one has the foundation to be the grand listing.) Along the lines of that final point, I have purposely not [yet?] tried to include any comprehensive listing of audio and video presentations (16 or 35 mm, VHS, DVD, audiotape, etc.) of bonsai-related educational material, such as I did with the books and magazines. Perhaps in the future...
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Being approached by various persons for assistance because I am seen as a "bonsai encyclopedia" has slightly altered how I see myself over the years. In the big scope of this art, there is this niche I have carved out for myself because I followed my innate talents of quick skimming "power research" and remembering various details from numerous sources which I could piece together. No one else apparently had taken in that range of material and commented upon it like I've been able to. A service, a point of view which is, at times, in demand or requested and which I can supply. On the other hand, being approached by a smaller number of persons to work on some forms of joint projects of a historical nature. I have found my plate constantly overflowing with just my notes and have not been able to generally co-author. This web site is a partial tapestry woven out of my older and newer notes. Several patterns hinted at but not adequately even outlined; significances and implications sometimes overlooked; possibly meaningful tangents not incorporated yet. Certain sources, such as complete catalogs of the major periodicals, incompletely reviewed. At times, thinking that the scope of this all is too broad to do justice to. The spirit of serendipity occasionally appearing in what start out as random internet searches, which then reveal wonderfilled tidbits which I can piece into the larger picture. Unsolicited e-mails providing new info. Passages in indirect books and articles which lead to new avenues -- ever-reading with an eye to finding bits of early developmental keys in unsuspected areas. And the opportunity to make some other researchers' more widely known by incorporating their discoveries into this larger framework. The many loose threads to this tapestry, much material not yet woven in or adequately explored...
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PAGES NO LONGER EXISTING
An "Odds & Ends" trivia
page, something like an early blog where I could list recent specialized
magazine articles of interest, etc. From summer-fall of 1999.
The eulogy that was presented at our sensei Leroy Fujii's early Nov. 1998 funeral. A couple of years ago the minister happened upon this website and requested the eulogy be removed because he had quickly assembled it from various sources and now did not have them to be properly acknowledged. The copy the club had received via e-mail the night after the funeral was included in the limited-circulation club yearbook from the 1999-2000 thru 2001-2002 club years; A tentative page announcing an Arizona State Bonsai Federation. From about mid-2001 through early 2002. The ASBF idea was premature. But, maybe, someday... On the home page we briefly had a Bravenet Web Forum in 2002. No usage after six months. It was replaced by the already established Gardenweb Bonsai Forum. As we found other forums and in other languages, these were added to the home page.
A few
display ads from nurseries the club has done business with, either
because of those establishments not renewing or going out of business.
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WISH LIST
What more would I like to add to this website? Well, how about:
Info and dates on all the persons and things listed for the Bonsai Book of Days, including the names and events I have on the wish list there; Photographs for all of the mentioned persons; Good quality graphics (color if possible) for all the paintings and sample magazines listed (and reviewing the 12-vol. Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections by Kodansha International Ltd.); Details on all unidentified paintings; Other major international conventions, including gatherings I already have partials on, along with links to pictures from them on other websites; Complete listing of books and translations, including titles I already have partials on (and access to a copy of Ryoji Iwasa's Bonsai Bunka-shi (Tokyo: Yasaka Shobo; 1976)); Complete listing of pre-1950 books, especially pre-1800 works; Complete listing of Boldly Grow portrayals, including sightings I already have partials on; Video and/or audio clips linked to Boldly Grow portrayals; Complete listing of In Other Words literature, including titles I already have partials on; Complete listing of pre-WWII magazine and periodical articles, including those published in Europe (assorted languages, but especially the Gardener's Chronicle, 1841 through at least 1900). In particular, these articles: * W.I. “Chinese Method of Dwarfing Trees,” Gardener’s Chronicle, London, 21 November 1846. * Veitch “Contorted Coniferous Trees,” Gardener’s Chronicle, London, 4 July 1896. * The Yokohama Nursery "How the Japanese grow the dwarfed trees in jardinieres," Gardener's Chronicle, t.II, p. 466. London 1899. * Vallot, J. "Causes phyiologiques qui produisent le rabougrissement des arbres dans les cultures japonaises," Bulletin de la Société de Botanique de France, p. 284. Paris 1889. * Maury "Sur les procédés employés par les Japonais pour obtenir des arbres nains," Bulletin de la Société de Botanique de France, p. 290. Paris 1899. * Bing, S. Arbres nains du Japon Catalogue d’une collection d’arbres nains du Japon, Paris 1902. Une brochure in-12 de IX + 46 p. et 10 planches.); * Tissandier, A. "Jardins Chinois et Japonais," La Nature, 1902, 30: 86-90. * Gardener’s Chronicle, London, 1845, pg. 547; * Gardener’s Chronicle, London, November 21, 1846, 6: 711-712 ("Chinese Method of Dwarfing Trees"); * Gardener’s Chronicle, London, 1862, pp. 22-23 ("The Horticulture of the Far East"); * Gardener’s Chronicle, London, 1870, pp. 1191, 1218; * Gardener’s Chronicle, London, 1872, pg. 1386; * Gardener’s Chronicle, London, January 25, 1889 ("The Dwarf Trees of Japan"?); * Gardener’s Chronicle, London, 1904, pg. i 74; * Journal of Horticulture, London, 1861, I, pg. 224; * Journal of Horticulture, London, 1864, VII, pg. 130; * Florist's Journal, London, 1840, pp. 25-26; * The Floricultural Cabinet, London, 1848, XVI, pg. 308; * Quarterly Review, London, 1851, LXXXIX, pp. 30-31; * Revue horticole, Paris, 1874, p. 273; * Journal Horticole et de Viticulture de Suisse, 1909, pp. ? * Gardeners' Chronicle of America, 1922, pp. ? * Tribune Horticole, 1932, pp. ? * Coe, E.F. "Keeping Japanese picture-plants alive," Garden Magazine, 1923, 37:331-332; * Matsuki, B. "Japanese potted trees (Hachinoki)," Brooklyn Botanic Garden Record, 1931, 20(6): 279-289. Complete listing of magazines and online newsletters, including periodicals I already have partials on and more sample covers ; More questions and answers for Some of What We Don't Know and the Anomalies ; More graphic, textual, and translated quote details about India's long yet little-known-especially-in-the-West experience with magical miniature landscapes; Graphics Gateway pages for other languages, such as Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Swedish, etc.; Link up to all the entries in our Site Map (those not bolded are pre-publication pages in progress); Additional items currently existing but not yet covered here; Listings for things not yet existing; And maybe becoming a bit of a forum, something which has informally happened a few times by direct contact and by referring others to stop by and share their experiences over the years with this wonderfilled art/interest. To discuss what we already have here, discover new connections and meanings, explore new sources of information, link with some external sites to become more symbiotic about certain specific areas of this, see a few more enthusiasts become interested in this facet of the art, raise more questions about what we know and don't know, and learn a bit further about ourselves and the world.
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More thoughts and facts about the development of this website to be added here... |