Very non-traditional display

I'm not Japanese so I've never tried to display my trees in any "traditional" way. Still I do bring them inside once in a while. We're having company tomorrow, which is a good excuse to bring in my Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera).

The chest it sits on is Chinese, the bowl is Imari ware, the large plate is a Japanese antique of some ilk or another, as is the bronze urn. The large painting is by a very dear friend of ours. Kind of a mix and match display, but it looks surprisingly together.

I very much like the painting: the colors are wonderful; it gives me a pleasing sense of the building, and I tend to like something more 'geometric'. I think it provides a surprising background for your tree. Even though it obviously overpowers the tree, it still brings my eye to the tree after I've examined the painting. Even though I might appreciate the other pieces (they are harder to see), I do think I would prefer to see only the tree on that beautiful chest with the painting behind it: something like a tree in the yard of the house.

I'd probably like the tree alone better, too. Those other items are what's normally on the chest, and I have no idea where we'd hide them.

I do this almost every day that I'm home. I have several art niches in my house but most times I just place a tree on the kitchen counter which opens up to our family room so that every time I go past it I get to enjoy looking at a tree.

To me, the style of the chest of drawers doesn't fit at all with the style of the painting, etc.

Sorry, but in my opinion, it's not a display, it's just piling up things that don't go together.

But as our saying goes, "good taste is my taste"...

AlainK wrote:To me, the style of the chest of drawers doesn't fit at all with the style of the painting, etc.
Sorry, but in my opinion, it's not a display, it's just piling up things that don't go together.
But as our saying goes, "good taste is my taste"...

Hi AlainK,

Oh lighten up bud! lol - There is a huge difference between a private personal display (which Jim's is) and something you'd do for public consumption at a show, taditional, or non-traditional. From a personal standpoint it doesn't matter if it's sitting on the garbage can if that's where you want it.

Jim,
I do like the work you've done on that Maclura. Very good job on getting the leaves to reduce. I've often wanted to try one and now I guess I'm just going to have to get out into the woods or along fence rows and find one. They have such wonderfull bark color and texture when they get old and knarly. I'll bet if it fruits you'd have to remove it once it gets to large but still it would be a nice display when the fruit are small for sure.

Jim:

The chest you label as Chinese is actually a Japanese tansu.

It is definitely in the wrong place, it should be in my living room.

Cheers.

Peter Aradi

JimLewis wrote:I'm not Japanese so I've never tried to display my trees in any "traditional" way. Still I do bring them inside once in a while. We're having company tomorrow, which is a good excuse to bring in my Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera).

The chest it sits on is Chinese, the bowl is Imari ware, the large plate is a Japanese antique of some ilk or another, as is the bronze urn. The large painting is by a very dear friend of ours. Kind of a mix and match display, but it looks surprisingly together.

Surprisingly "what" together? Was the absence of an adjective an invitation for open critique or just a grammatical oversight? Sometimes it's about knowing what to take away, as opposed to knowing what to add.

That said.....nice tree, and to each his own. tu casa, es tu casa.

Fingers moved too fast, but it probably wouldn't have taxed your mind too much to find a word to go there, would it? Whatever one you'd want.

"together" in a common American slang vernacular is an adjective that means –from Dictionary.com "adjective
10. Slang. mentally and emotionally stable and well organized: a together person."
So Jim's sentence makes sense grammatically.

I like the painting as well and have no problem mixing items in an eclectic style. Eclectic mixing of items is a common decorating style in the USA, and face it , that's what the traditional Japanese bonsai display is, home decorating.

paradi wrote:Jim:

The chest you label as Chinese is actually a Japanese tansu.

It is definitely in the wrong place, it should be in my living room.

Cheers.

Peter Aradi

Thanks, Peter. It's been in Jackie's family since the 19-teens sometime. We'd been told they got it in Manchuria, but we heard all sorts of stories about their "stuff", so . . .

My family had a smaller one made for us in Tokyo when we lived there in the 50s. Its off in another corner with my netsuke collection.