Bonsai & Patience

Actually, that to me is one of the points of bonsai, and other branches of art as well. You don't need to be able to "do" at an advanced level to be able to appreciate. I am merely an average cyclist and tennis player but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the top ones, nor does it mean I can't recognise their skill and understand how it is developed. I don't need to be a great writer myself to appreciate the best of the written word. For many of us, lack of attainment at a high level in bonsai is because of a similar lack of skill; for others it's merely a lack of money. I do, however, take your point about the amount of talking the talk without any knowledge or understanding of how to walk you get in bonsai. It's the same in all arts, sports etc.

btw I am of the school of thought that considers Engineering to be a noble art too - where else do you get that degree of vital precision and skill that is needed? And while I on occasion moan my face off at having lost our spare room to Himindoor's model aircraft workshop, I can actually look at engines and think them objects or art, especially the very small ones. Bad bonsai-ists are never going to damage the world are they? A bar branch isn't going to cause building to topple or industry to grind to a standstill, although the way some folk in bonsai go on you'd think such things were a matter of similar gravity.

So, Mal, bonsai "masters" I can take or leave, but good engineers walk like Gods as far as I am concerned. Altho in your case remind me if you're up at Ayr Flower Show to give you a quick lesson on apostrophe usage so I can then add you to the God category.

Marcus,

I am old school - Poetry, Prose, Painting,Sculpture, are the highest, but that is just me.

I have no problems with someone enjoying the growing of trees, but if you want to better yourself at the highest level of Bonsai, just as we painters go to Italy to study the highest level of Fine Art, so to one would have to go to China or Japan to study Bonsai.

Plus, as your Ebay site shows, there is considerably greater development of the subtle, as trees go, Zuisho, or Zelkovas with finer qualities, in Japan, something I would believe is still in the infancy stage in Europe.
Getting the trees to have all the qualities one could draw into an image.

BUT I don't care if someone calls me an amateur, or hobbysits, as I did not study Bonsai under an acknowledged master, and so I wouldn't have the subtle knowledge. Just trees created on the rules of European Old Master painting techniques, plus this island's influence.
AND I don't need wires to get there - chuckle [ to MAl B ]
Laters.
Khaimraj

* Hey one can be as philosophical as one wants to be, you still have to tend to the trees.

Somehow Fiona,

I don't think William Shakespeare, being told by Housewife or Househusband x, that his work was weak, as he would take Boccaccio telling him his ideas were poorly developed because of subtle turns in his words.

Modernism, it gets into everything and kills it.
Stay Well.
Khaimraj

Hmm. That's not really what I meant. What I was saying is that you don't need the same degree of practical skill to be able to recognise and appreciate high levels of skill in the work of others. I do however firmly believe that you need a good degree of knowledge and understanding of something before you can approach it critically (and I'm using that word in its sense of giving an evaluative critique), otherwise it would be easily become ill-informed at its best and prejudiced/biased at its worst. As many, including yourself, have said on here in relation to many things, we should perhaps try to understand before we condemn. IMHO if housewife or househusband x has that sufficient level of knowledge and understanding to make a fair and considered evaluation then let them have at it.

And on the point of one artist criticising/critiquing another's work, again IMHO they are often the worst as petty jealousies and/or "it's not my style therefore it's wrong" attitudes come into play. In fact, the worst - ill-informed and downright petty - critiques I have ever heard in the bonsai world have come from so-called (and often self-styled) "masters" who are doing little other than bitching.

fiona wrote:Actually, that to me is one of the points of bonsai, and other branches of art as well. You don't need to be able to "do" at an advanced level to be able to appreciate. I am merely an average cyclist and tennis player but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the top ones, nor does it mean I can't recognise their skill and understand how it is developed. I don't need to be a great writer myself to appreciate the best of the written word. For many of us, lack of attainment at a high level in bonsai is because of a similar lack of skill; for others it's merely a lack of money. I do, however, take your point about the amount of talking the talk without any knowledge or understanding of how to walk you get in bonsai. It's the same in all arts, sports etc.

btw I am of the school of thought that considers Engineering to be a noble art too - where else do you get that degree of vital precision and skill that is needed? And while I on occasion moan my face off at having lost our spare room to Himindoor's model aircraft workshop, I can actually look at engines and think them objects or art, especially the very small ones. Bad bonsai-ists are never going to damage the world are they? A bar branch isn't going to cause building to topple or industry to grind to a standstill, although the way some folk in bonsai go on you'd think such things were a matter of similar gravity.

So, Mal, bonsai "masters" I can take or leave, but good engineers walk like Gods as far as I am concerned. Altho in your case remind me if you're up at Ayr Flower Show to give you a quick lesson on apostrophe usage so I can then add you to the God category.

Never was one for the written word and quite often what I write doesn't convey what I really mean to say but it's nice to know you understand me bonny lass. Lesson's in Ayr ! you've got no chance, it took me all my time to dodge the dolling inspector when I was at school so you've got no chance in pinning me down for a lesson in grammer mind you, the pinning down I could quite get used to, it's the apostrophe lesson that would make me wriggle

Now THERE'S a challenge. I hear the slapping down of a gauntlet.

fiona wrote:Now THERE'S a challenge. I hear the slapping down of a gauntlet.

Oh Fiona your only appealing to the sado masochistic side of me there you go guy's there can be more to this hobby than you first thought

don't worry Mal' i ca'nt use the apostrofii right very often either

Thanks for looking at my ebay shop trees K, yes they are japanese imported because the quality is so much better - the zelkovas are spectacular - as you see too the finesse and skill in the early stages is clearly apparent. I totally believe in global trade though - it is healthy and leads to specialisation, which in turn creates pockets of excelence. Britain is too small a country with too much demand placed on her soil to grow fields of bonsai so the initial skills are not needed - it is better to trade with Japan and spend our efforts learning how to keep and improve them when they get here.

I regularly see the best efforts of western growers to commercially produce new material but it falls way short of the japanese trees I like to keep in stock, but that is not a failing on their part really as the standard is already set so high if you are happy to pay for the higher quality japanese material, also there is decades of stock over there that has passed from father to son so western growers will always be a long way behind