Jimu news reporter Cheng Yuxun
Correspondent Chen Shenglan
At the foot of Xianning Xiangwu Mountain, there is a bonsai garden covering an area of 4 acres, and there are more than 600 pots of bonsai in the garden. The owner of the garden is feng liansheng, a retired employee of the Xianning Power Supply Company.
On sunny days, he waters and prunes the garden, and on rainy days he cuts and sculpts stones indoors. Get up early and be greedy, go in the wind and rain, in the words of his wife, "more than a farmer." However, in order to popularize the knowledge of bonsai and enrich the cultural life of the citizens, this bonsai garden, which embodies too much of Feng Liansheng's hard work and sweat, is open to tourists free of charge throughout the year.
On February 23, Jimu News reporters visited the "Feng Liansheng Bonsai Art Showroom" located at the foot of Xiangwu Mountain in Xianning and walked into the bonsai art world of international bonsai master Feng Liansheng.
Born as a painter, he accidentally embarked on the path of art
In 1968, 19-year-old Feng Liansheng was forced by life to leave his hometown of Wangjiahe Village in Huangpi County, Wuhan City, and went to Xianning to work as a painter in this small city. He vividly remembers the day he left home, barefoot, carrying a quilt on his back.
In two years, this young man who got up early and was greedy and could not leave the paint turned into the most famous painter in Xianning. In 1970, a car in the Xianning District Electric Power Bureau was badly damaged and needed to be "dressed up", and Feng Liansheng had a clever hand to rejuvenate and paint the car so brand new. The Electric Power Bureau suddenly took a fancy to this young man's craftsmanship, and in this regard, Feng Liansheng successfully entered the Work bureau and became an auto mechanic.
In 1987, the Ministry of Water Resources and Electric Power held the first bonsai exhibition, as a participating unit, hubei provincial electric power bureau handed over the task to Xianning, and Feng Liansheng, who was born in the countryside and had a strong affection for flowers and trees, immediately began to create and think, he thought of the small hydropower station on the Xianning Hot Spring River, which has both industry characteristics and is well known to himself. A few months have passed, and a pot of landscape bonsai "Hometown Small Hydropower" with novel shapes, exquisite shapes, beautiful paintings and far-reaching artistic conceptions was born.
After the work was sent to Beijing, it won the gold medal of the Ministry of Water and Power in one fell swoop. Subsequently, "Hometown Small Hydropower" participated in the first China Flower Expo Competition as the only selected work sent by the Ministry of Water and Power, and once again won the gold award. When the news came, Feng Lian was the hero of the power system and was welcomed home by beating a gong and a drum. Since then, the Xianning District Electric Power Bureau has built a special bonsai garden, which is responsible for Feng Liansheng. At this point, the painter Feng Liansheng completed the gorgeous turn of his life journey.
Decades of learning art road, the achievement of international bonsai master
From amateur to professional, Feng Liansheng deeply felt that the first task to go further in art was to study. He worshiped Mr. He Gansun, a chinese bonsai art titan, who is a wuhan native, not only an outstanding bonsai artist, bonsai theorist, bonsai educator, but also a calligrapher and painter and art educator, and can be called a generation of grandmasters.
Under Mr. He, Feng Liansheng focused on learning aesthetic knowledge, learning the shape of bonsai and the inheritance and innovation of bonsai art. In 1990, he learned aesthetics from his master, focusing on the three-far method, that is, the application of near and far, pingyuan and gaoyuan in trees, stones, landscapes and bonsai. From the teacher, he gradually learned how to skillfully integrate tree bonsai and landscape bonsai, so that the natural beauty of bonsai creation is integrated with the beauty of art and artistic beauty, so as to improve the viewing value of bonsai art.
In 2004, Feng Liansheng's name appeared in the Who's Who in the World, and he has become a well-known figure in the world of bonsai art. In 2006, he won the international gold medal and became the highest honor of his artistic career with the Youlan stone collected by Four Liuzhou, with the bonsai "Don't Have a Cave Sky" created by carefully cultivating small-leaf boxwood for more than 20 years, and integrating trees and stones.
International Bonsai Master, Chinese Bonsai Art Master, China Bonsai Exhibition Jury, Vice Chairman of the China Regional Committee of the International Bonsai Association, Vice Chairman of the Flower Bonsai Stone Appreciation Branch of the China Landscape Architecture Society...... In today's Chinese bonsai industry, Feng Liansheng is a well-deserved first-class expert. In 2012, he was also elected honorary president of the Chinese Ethnic Culture Research Association.
Eat and live with the students, so that there will be people after the pot art
On February 22, more than 20 bonsai lovers from Hunan, Jiangxi, Hebei, Jiangsu, Shaanxi, Gansu and other places gathered at Feng Liansheng's home, some of them were apprentices, some of them were bonsai bosses, and some were even senior bonsai artists. Although their identities are different, they have a common master, he is Feng Liansheng.
There are three rooms in Feng Liansheng's home, which are specially used for his students, and Feng Liansheng told Jimu News that the children eat and live with him and his wife, just like his own children, and he never asks students for a penny of tuition. In his view, he only hopes to pass on his skills in bonsai and let Chinese bonsai be followed by others.
Among Feng Liansheng's many students, there is another special child, that is, his grandson Li Chenxing. Born in 1994, he can be said to have grown up under the influence of his grandfather, Li Chenxing said that at the beginning he could not understand the "broken things" that his grandfather had been making all day, and now he has deeply understood the meaning of bonsai to his grandfather.
"In my impression, Grandpa was always wearing liberation shoes, riding a bicycle, leaving early and returning late, and even going out for two or three days, just to find 'treasure'." Li Chenxing told the Jimu News reporter that Grandpa is now old, and sometimes he can't move, but he won't let this garden be abandoned, because this is Grandpa's life's work, and he will definitely guard it.