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Bon-sai,
literally meaning "plant in a container", was a sacred symbol
for Taoist monks, the expression of the search of the elixir of life, as
if Nature's magic qualities could be concentrated in the miniature. It was
born for room and transport needs, and, especially, as spiritual practise
for the search of harmony between mankind and Nature in the circle of
Zen discipline: bonsai artists put themselves to the test, bring their
inner world closer to the outside world, trying to govern and confine
Nature's millenary forces. To some bonsai styles the tree stands for human
being's life, the twisting of its trunk and branches represents the
troubles and the pain, while its flowers and leaves are the defeat of
death. The Bonsai was particularly popular during the T'ang dynasty (618-907 A.D.), to which the first historical document dates back (a bonsai painted in a mural in Emperor Koshiu's son Li's tomb, about 706 A.D.) and it became the symbol of essentiality and equilibrium for men of letters and artists, a practise to which apply the aesthetic sense of Chinese calligraphy, far from the corruption and the disorder of the Empire. The Sung period (960-1280 A.D.) saw the birth of the legend of the emperor, who lost his reign to create a bonsai garden on the top of a high mountain: his subjects, forced to a great fatigue, rose against him and caused his overthrowing.
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