Bonsai
Bonsai (Potted dwarf tree)
Bonsai are miniaturized potted plants and trees for aesthetic appreciation and are an art form unique to Japan. The pine tree is cited as typical, but all sorts of other plants and trees are nurtured. When the roots have grown too long, the plant is taken out of the pot, cut, planted in fresh dirt, the branches are diligently pruned, and wire is sometimes wrapped around the trunk and branches to shape them to the desired configuration. To keep this up as the trees and plants grow, they are handed down across several generations. To complete the ideal shape requires a considerable amount of knowledge and labor, even for an expert, but it has an intimate appeal as a hobby. In Japan, it is chiefly taken up as a hobby by those in middle and old age, while in the United States it is also popular among young people.
Bonsai school
Iemoto (Head of the school)
Most of Japan's classical performing arts have any number of schools, and the term iemoto refers to the legitimate house or person that inherits the artistic ways of those schools. The iemoto protects the artistic ways of his own school and has successive generations of disciples succeed to those ways. At present, the iemoto system is entrenched in most artistic fields such as flower arrangement, tea ceremony, classical Japanese dance, Noh and Kyogen. The term iemoto is said to have originated in a school of ancient court music in the Heian Period(794-1185), but the iemoto system has flourished from the middle of eighteenth century on. From the middle of the eighteenth century, iemoto started to give certificates of initiate. Through accredited master and master, iemoto authority was passed on to disciples
Bonsai art
My link Ikebana / Kado