American Bonsai at the NC Arboretum

I am not certain that I am welcome to post any kind of reply to this question, understanding that I seem to create havoc wherever I intrude myself even understanding that this is a public forum.  I know that this particular question was specifically pointed at Walter Pall, and if indeed it was intended for his eyes only maybe it should have been posted in a PM.  Seeing that it was posted publicly I feel I can reply.

Arthur:  The focus of most of your current post centers around this point:  You wrote, For many there is no bonsai without the Japanese identity. Take away the Japanese stuff and that which is left cannot rightly be called bonsai, that is how integral the one is to the other.

Rightly or wrongly most of the understanding of bonsai within the Western Culture comes from the Japanese model.  Some may not like this but is is none the less the truth.  If it were not for the artistic foundation of Japanese bonsai, and if it were not for the Japanese artists teaching and sharing their culture with us, there would be no interest in bonsai at all.  It was, after all, the interest in bonsai that followed the returning American GI's, coming home from  Japan who brought with them the interest in bonsai after WWII.   It was this interest spawned by Japanese bonsai, taught to Americans  by Japanese artists,  that brought the interest in the Art Home to America.  

If you discard or discredit the Japanese contribution or Japanese roots to the art, there would be no bonsai today.  The art by itself, being expressed as trees in pots, would not have enough unique beauty to attract the kind of following that bonsai has today, without the beauty imparted by the Japanese.   That does not mean we have to continue in the Japanese Model forever, unable to grow beyond that which the Japanese envisioned.  I am all in favor of growing beyond that point of view, but I am also not in favor of making ugly bonsai and justifying them as Non-Japanese-American-Anglo-Quasi-not ugly bonsai just because all of us have decided we have to advance beyond this Japanese design.  I have mentioned it previously making the boast that a really ugly bonsai is exempt from any kind of criticism on the basis of Japanese styling solely, because it is claimed to be an American bonsai, is at best a dodge, and at worst, the worst kind of cynical phoney excuse to justify a lack of talent a lack of commitment, and an in your face statement with the extended middle finger.

There is one thing that has to be present in Bonsai no matter what style we  prefer to follow;  The tree must be beautiful.  Beautiful always flys no matter how many rules it breaks; no matter what artistic school it embraces.  If you cannot produce beauty in your trees they don't matter.  In fact as I think about it, the argument is far simpler than all we have said here:  If it were not for the Japanese phrase Bonsai we would certainly not be calling trees in pots anything as personally defining as the word "Bonsai." If you say the word bonsai almost everyone will picture in their minds a little Japanese looking tree in a pot. If you say Pensai, Penjing, and other forms of the Chinese word most people would be asking for an explanation.

Randy_Davis wrote:

Arthur Joura wrote:

If you take out of bonsai all the obviously Japanese stuff, what do you have left?

You have a platform for unlimited design potential limited only by the human imagination.

We have that without taking out all the Japanese rendering your statement redundant.

Vance Wood wrote:... If you discard or discredit the Japanese contribution or Japanese roots to the art...

hi vance !
i dont really see anyone trying to do that...

Vance Wood wrote:There is one thing that has to be present in Bonsai no matter what style we  prefer to follow;  The tree must be beautiful.  Beautiful always flys no matter how many rules it breaks; no matter what artistic school it embraces.  If you cannot produce beauty in your trees they don't matter.  

amen brother...

Vance Wood wrote:I am not certain that I am welcome to post any kind of reply to this question, understanding that I seem to create havoc wherever I intrude myself even understanding that this is a public forum.  

i dunno vance... i dont know why you should think you aint welcome to jump in the same hot tub that everyone else is wallowing in (bring your own skimmer )... and it really doesnt look to me like you are wreaking any havoc

looks to me like alot of reinforcement of salient points...

(i know arthur directed his last post directly to walter, but if they truly wanted a private conversation they probably have several ways of doing that outside of a public forum... i gotta feeling this is being put forth publicly in order to get the public thinking and exchanging thoughts... whether or not they agree)

Scotland is the original home of golf and has some world class courses.

However, it's been a long time since the top players came from Scotland and there are better courses in other countries...

You can take the Scotland out of golf and it remains golf...

Jerry Norbury wrote:Scotland is the original home of golf and has some world class courses.

However, it's been a long time since the top players came from Scotland and there are better courses in other countries...

You can take the Scotland out of golf and it remains golf...

You're right, but the location of golf does not seem to have significantly changed the sport, nor can an argument claiming a different source for the invention of golf change the fact it is still golf. If the rules change so significantly that the sport is no longer recognizable as Golf then we might be discussing Apples and Apples.

Tree trained to stay small living in a shallow pot - trees grow world wide - different shapes;

Someone did it first - Babylon ? - India - Auyer vedic ? - Caveman Ogg ?

Volume, Pattern, Negative / positive space, health and Design

World wide - called Tree Penjing / Punsai / Bonsai and no real word in English / Espanol / Italiano etc.

Hobby, profession, or gardener trained to do.

Some like Japanese things ways, others Chinese, some English and so on.................

So we can do Bonsai with oriental art rules or European or other.

Does any of this matter ?

The original idea behind - shaped trees - was to stimulate the mind towards the Higher Art Forms - Calligraphy, Ink Painting, Poetry and whatever
else.

Very glad I am into this as a Hobby,a hobby that stimulates my mind and peace of mind.

Arthur you are the man!!!
Enjoying.
Khaimraj [ look Kev, fading away again ]

Jerry Norbury wrote: You can take the Scotland out of golf and it remains golf...

But it still retains that massive association and that seems to be pretty much what the point is in this section of the thread regarding the association of Bonsai with Japan.

And if you want to continue the analogy, Scotland may not produce the best players and courses at the moment, but it still is in charge of the rules. How does that tie in with Bonsai and Japan then?


ps golf is for big jessies anyway (sorry Rob K). You want real sport, come try our shinty. LOL

Khaimraj Seepersad wrote:Tree trained to stay small living in a shallow pot - trees grow world wide - different shapes;

Someone did it first - Babylon ? - India - Auyer vedic ? - Caveman Ogg ?

Volume, Pattern, Negative / positive space, health and Design

World wide - called Tree Penjing / Punsai / Bonsai and no real word in English / Espanol / Italiano etc.

Hobby, profession, or gardener trained to do.

Some like Japanese things ways, others Chinese, some English and so on.................

So we can do Bonsai with oriental art rules or European or other.

Does any of this matter ?

The original idea behind - shaped trees - was to stimulate the mind towards the Higher Art Forms - Calligraphy, Ink Painting, Poetry and whatever
else.

Very glad I am into this as a Hobby,a hobby that stimulates my mind and peace of mind.    

Arthur you are the man!!!
Enjoying.
Khaimraj [ look Kev, fading away again ]

You wrote:  The original idea behind - shaped trees - was to stimulate the mind towards the Higher Art Forms - Calligraphy, Ink Painting, Poetry and what ever else.  You cannot say this, you can only speculate this position. You were not there and historical evidence simply does not support this opinion.   There is abundant evidence that the art of bonsai has been around  in the Chinese culture as far back as the Seventh Century AD.  As far as stimulating interest in what you call "The Higher Arts"??, that too is only imagining what may and most likely  not be true a scenario.  We move on to Japan.  Again; from much of what I have read in a search of this subject, bonsai most likely entered Japan in the Seventh-Century under Prince Shotoku who instructed his emisaries to go to China and learn everything there was to learn that was Chinese.  Shotoku was the first leader that had united the Feudal Lords into a semblance of a central government of a sort:  An Empire system.  This too was the birth of the Feudal system.

Stimulating interest in anything within the Samurai culture was not so great an issue, and do not think that the general population was practicing bonsai any further than caring for their Samurai Lord's collections.  The peasant did not even own their own lives.  Under the Samurai code a Samurai could take the head of a peasant just because they wanted to.  Making an assumption that these men were interested in stimulating interest in Calligraphy and the other things you mention, suggesting that this was for the general population, is, from my historic research an absurd conclusion.

The Feudal system in Japan, when bonsai got it's start, was a violent period that was as far removed from our ideas of a civilized society as that of the Mayans and Aztec's were, when a couple of hundred years later  the Spanish encountered their practices of Human sacrifices.  Thinking that anything like bonsai could be promoted in order to stimulate interest in Calligraphy etc, is a fantasy, sorry this idea does not fly.  It's nice to think about.  It's frighten  to think that the people that gave us this beautiful art of bonsai could on the other hand be the same violent sociopaths we had to face in WWII  under another art form from the Japanese; Bushido.

...yet these barbarians perpetuated the art form they "got" from china...

so vance, are you saying that they did not look at it as an art form ?
and if they did, then perhaps khai's point is not so preposterous.

even cave men would draw on walls after doing battle with other cave men or sabre tooth tigers or bigfoot
(or dinosaurs if creationism is to be believed)

the Zappa reference reminds me of...
Original Black American Blues, electrified by guys in Britain in the 60's , (including Hendrix -largely British contemporarily influenced )
eventually resulting in Anglo-American classic 70's Rock. See any parallels?

Vance

It's always a mistake I think to assume that great civilisations are going to be particularly moral just because they give rise to great innovations in art, culture, science, medicine or anything else. History suggests that the opposite is far more frequently the case. This is as true in the west as it is in the east and as true today as it was in ancient times.

No doubt feudal Japan was a brutal place to live for many but so too was feudal Europe.

This reality is well worth remembering but it need no more diminish our appreciation of bonsai than our recognition of the grotesque atrocities committed in the name of religion need diminish our appreciation of Europe's beautiful medieval cathedrals.

Regards

Richard

beer city snake wrote:...yet these barbarians perpetuated the art form they "got" from china...

so vance, are you saying that they did not look at it as an art form ?
and if they did, then perhaps khai's point is not so preposterous.

even cave men would draw on walls after doing battle with other cave men or sabre tooth tigers or bigfoot
(or dinosaurs if creationism is to be believed)

I am not saying that they did not understand art quite the opposite. They felt that their entire existence was to glorify the Emperor even in the excellence of artistic endeavors. The entire society was a contradiction. Remember barbarism is a difference of an understanding of cultural norms and goals. This is why our culture has such a problem with other cultures. We tend to judge everything by our own set of standards as the norm.

Hellooooo Kevin,

you know, looking at my passport made me realise that, when I came across Bonsai, it was a day at P.E, and I was admiring a great
old saaman tree. A friend who was half Irish said try Bonsai.

Aside -
I grew up in a place called, Forest Reserve, or the jungle if you prefer.
Trees, such as the silk cotton, just across there, the local almond, the casuarinas where the English beautified the area. It was hill, with
two houses, about 500 feet apart.
Guavas, 3, my own the tallest, climable, King Guava, my sister's Queen Guava, and little brother's Prince Guava.
There was a conifer from Italy, the "male" form of the cypress as the Italians say it.
Had a stingless bee nest in the heart, which I would interfere with and be running like a madman across the lawn

Down the hill, lay-lay with it's bright orange and yellow berries, a delonia rex of orange flowers [ come in cold red,yellow red, lime and golden
yellow as well. ]

Trees with vines to swing from, a boy's wonderworld and ravines with water for guppies and guabines.

Continue -
Anyhow sometime when I was 14 or 15, I looked into an encyclopedia and found an image of a black pine.

You know when I was 10 or so, I came across a book at my mother's friend's house - "We are not the first" by Eric Von Daniken.
Mayans, Incas and Aztecs, gods and spacemen [ read more of his books ] wanted to be an Archaeologist, but the desire the desire
to create overcame the desire to dig up.
I lived on books of Mayans, Incas and some Aztec, as well as Mythology and Chinese stuffies.

When I finished school at 16 / 17 after A'levels [ exams for entry into University ] I worked for 3 months at an art store, waiting to
go to P.A.F,A [ Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts ]
With my $9.00 US for 5 and 1/2 days of work, I bought Kamuti and Successful Bonsai Growing.

My first victim was a Poui [ tabebuia serratifolia ] in yard clay.
I snuck it to the US, didn't know about plant restrictions.
The rooster ate it when we went Lafayette, L.a,, and then the winter got him, poetic justice.

In Pennsylvania,Philadelphia, I saw Chase Rosade's, exhibition at Wannamakers [ spelling ? ] and I visited his nursery later that
year.
Next two years found me at Innocenti's outside Florence, Italy.

The rest is my history.

You know what, my love of trees got me into Bonsai, and because of my Chinese books on Ceramics, Pottery, Ink Painting
and Literature, I wanted. like my painting to learn the technique of how - the craft.
So in Studio Cecil-Graves [ now the Florence Academy and Studio Cecil ] I learnt the craft of oil painting, the traditional
way of how to draw and oil paint.
So too with Bonsai, I learnt the craft.

You know what for a young boy, just learning the craft was exciting, and I didn't know anything about all these politics.
When I read about what goes on in the world of Bonsai -------------- it makes me sad ---------

I am extremely glad that I learnt - the how - minus the bits about whose Bonsai is better, or style is more important
and that is part of why I am fading away.
This bickering and chest pounding and money making has become too painful.

I just love trees.
Until.
Khaimraj

Vance,

the Chinese Intellectual, would use Scholar stones, tea, wine, a form of early Tree Penjing [ Bonsai ] to stimulate the mind,
for Calligraphy, Ink painting and Poetry.

Just read more deeply.

What exists today is a watered down version for John Publics practice.

Additionally, the Chinese books called Tree Penjing ------- Garden Craft.

It only became ART when $$$ for sales to the West became popular.
Difference between ART and craft = $$$ [ from the folk on the Clay Art Forum]

I no longer bother with the Bonsai = Art part, as I learnt, that when you die, the trees get sold and the new owner's name
goes with the tree.
You cease to exist.

Not quite like paintings with a signature, in a museum.
Restoration goes to great extremes, to keep the work ------- original ------- under the signed name.

The tree lives on, you don't and are forgotten. Not quite fame or immortality or an achievement or even a memory.

Vance,

Chinese scholars and Japanese wannabes are too different worlds.
Please read more deeply.
Respectfully.
Khaimraj

Richard S wrote:Vance

It's always a mistake I think to assume that great civilisations are going to be particularly moral just because they give rise to great innovations in art, culture, science, medicine or anything else. History suggests that the opposite is far more frequently the case. This is as true in the west as it is in the east and as true today as it was in ancient times.

No doubt feudal Japan was a brutal place to live for many but so too was feudal Europe.

This reality is well worth remembering but it need no more diminish our appreciation of bonsai than our recognition of the grotesque atrocities committed in the name of religion need diminish our appreciation of Europe's beautiful medieval cathedrals.

Regards

Richard

I am not sure now how we got to this point but; someone was commenting on what was a stated fact, that bonsai was a stepping stone contrived to stimulate interest in other artistic endeavors, a point I argued against. I was not trying to justify or condemn specifically the moral foundation of a culture, just my perceived hypocrisy of it being so enlightened and so brutal at the same time.

Gentlemen and lady,
Not sure I quite get the golf analogy. Hitting a ball with a stick is as artless as it gets. I do see a parallel regarding the Black American Blues: None of the subsequent forms were an improvement.

Perhaps the real struggle here is a struggle for an identity. What besides a tin-horn dictator does every break-away republic need? A Flag. Something to rally ‘round. A name would be good. Western Bonsai or American Bonsai doesn’t work. Those names will be forever be connected to Japan through the language (bonsai). Naturalistic Container Gardening doesn’t exactly trip lightly off the tongue. That dog won’t hunt. Ideas?

redmoon wrote:Gentlemen and lady,
Not sure I quite get the golf analogy. Hitting a ball with a stick is as artless as it gets. I do see a parallel regarding the Black American Blues: None of the subsequent forms were an improvement.

Perhaps the real struggle here is a struggle for an identity. What besides a tin-horn dictator does every break-away republic need? A Flag. Something to rally ‘round. A name would be good. Western Bonsai or American Bonsai doesn’t work. Those names will be forever be connected to Japan through the language (bonsai). Naturalistic Container Gardening doesn’t exactly trip lightly off the tongue. That dog won’t hunt. Ideas?

A Wheel by any other name is still a wheel, don't try to re-invent the thing, only make it better.

Vance Wood wrote:If it were not for the artistic foundation of Japanese bonsai, and if it were not for the Japanese artists teaching and sharing their culture with us, there would be no interest in bonsai at all.

When something occurs in one fashion, there's no way it could have possibly occurred in any other way?

Vance Wood wrote:The art by itself, being expressed as trees in pots, would not have enough unique beauty to attract the kind of following that bonsai has today, without the beauty imparted by the Japanese.

Vance Wood wrote:There is one thing that has to be present in Bonsai no matter what style we  prefer to follow;  The tree must be beautiful.  Beautiful always flys no matter how many rules it breaks; no matter what artistic school it embraces.  If you cannot produce beauty in your trees they don't matter.

 
Without the elements and principles of art being applied in a single style, they can are no longer effective?

According to whose definition of beauty?  If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, how is an artist to know whether he has crossed the threshold for his expression to matter while he is in the process of expressing it?  And if he isn't to know, why should he care whether his expression is "beautiful" and therefore "matters" to the beholder or not?

Vance Wood wrote:If you say the word bonsai almost everyone will picture in their minds a little Japanese looking tree in a pot.  If you say Pensai, Penjing, and other forms of the Chinese word most people would be asking for an explanation.

This is why we have languages.  They're an attempt to standardize communication, but they're far from being as perfect as you imply.  If I say the word "red" and you picture the shade "Scarlet", I might picture the shade "Ruby".  You're attempting to standardize a broad term, "bonsai", into something that's very specific to you personally, a "Japanese looking tree", and you expect everyone else to do the same.  Sorry, it's not going to happen!

Vance Wood wrote:I am not certain that I am welcome to post any kind of reply to this question, understanding that I seem to create havoc wherever I intrude myself even understanding that this is a public forum.

That, once again, is your opinion.  However, I believe it may be caused by your continual stating of personal opinions as facts, subjecting other peoples' forms of expression to those opinions in a sweeping fashion, and receiving equally strong opinions stated to the contrary of your own.

Vance

I think most civilisations manage to balance being enlightened and brutal at the same time. It appears to be part of the human condition. My only point was that feudal Japan was probably not unique in this sense and that it need not effect our appreciation of their bonsai.

Moving swiftly on to an arguably more relevant point, I'd like to comment on your view that bonsai should be beautiful.

I have no problem with beautiful bonsai (a delicately ramified, multi trunk Japanese Maple in a shallow container springs to mind) but then I rather like the grotesque as well. I'm thinking perhaps of Sebastian Sandev's Carpinus collection! Ok so some of Sebastian's trees are beautiful and some exhibit beauty in their own way but many of his best known are not really beautiful at all. In fact some could be described as quite ugly in conventional terms.

They are still powerfully impressive bonsai though, at least in my opinion.

An analogy might be to something like Picasso's Guernica. Not I think by any bodies standards a "beautiful" painting and certainly not to every bodies taste but still I think most would agree that it is a powerfully impressive piece of art.

I think your right to say that beauty will always fly, in the sense that it will always have it's place but I don't necessarily agree that it need be the defining characteristic of great bonsai.

Regards

Richard

richard - many of us find the grotesque to be beautiful.

khai - so glad you havent actually left us and i really appreciate the brief story of your youth... i had seen bits and pieces here and there, but never the timeline of snapshots you provided... and i do see them in my mind as snapshots... things i can actually picture, from the guava trees to the vine swinging to the guppies... it very much parallels my childhood (minus the later higher edjamakashun), except for me it was oaks, maples and pines - and we did have vines to swing from like johnny wisemueller and guppies to catch and fill our buckets with... and erik van danniken was also my introduction the the possibilities of us not being as alone as our collective hubris may imply.

as i wrote the above i realized it has not much to do with the subject at hand, but the subject at hand is getting tiresome for the same reasons you stated... so tough shit if i stray...

and you have made me melancholy for youth, but also you have made me glad to have never fully matured to the point that i can not take my grandsons, nieces and nephews out into the forest to explore the same things... and if through that, bonsai follows, well that would just be icing on an already delicious cake (my niece is already enthralled, but she is 12 so lets hope it lasts)...

huh... maybe i did somehow bring it back to the subject at hand... ?

kingsnake wrote:

Vance Wood wrote:If it were not for the artistic foundation of Japanese bonsai, and if it were not for the Japanese artists teaching and sharing their culture with us, there would be no interest in bonsai at all.

When something occurs in one fashion, there's no way it could have possibly occurred in any other way?

Vance Wood wrote:The art by itself, being expressed as trees in pots, would not have enough unique beauty to attract the kind of following that bonsai has today, without the beauty imparted by the Japanese.

Vance Wood wrote:There is one thing that has to be present in Bonsai no matter what style we  prefer to follow;  The tree must be beautiful.  Beautiful always flys no matter how many rules it breaks; no matter what artistic school it embraces.  If you cannot produce beauty in your trees they don't matter.

 
Without the elements and principles of art being applied in a single style, they can are no longer effective?

According to whose definition of beauty?  If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, how is an artist to know whether he has crossed the threshold for his expression to matter while he is in the process of expressing it?  And if he isn't to know, why should he care whether his expression is "beautiful" and therefore "matters" to the beholder or not?

Vance Wood wrote:If you say the word bonsai almost everyone will picture in their minds a little Japanese looking tree in a pot.  If you say Pensai, Penjing, and other forms of the Chinese word most people would be asking for an explanation.

This is why we have languages.  They're an attempt to standardize communication, but they're far from being as perfect as you imply.  If I say the word "red" and you picture the shade "Scarlet", I might picture the shade "Ruby".  You're attempting to standardize a broad term, "bonsai", into something that's very specific to you personally, a "Japanese looking tree", and you expect everyone else to do the same.  Sorry, it's not going to happen!

Vance Wood wrote:I am not certain that I am welcome to post any kind of reply to this question, understanding that I seem to create havoc wherever I intrude myself even understanding that this is a public forum.

That, once again, is your opinion.  However, I believe it may be caused by your continual stating of personal opinions as facts, subjecting other peoples' forms of expression to those opinions in a sweeping fashion, and receiving equally strong opinions stated to the contrary of your own.

Snake:  You wrote:  When something occurs in one fashion, there's no way it could have possibly occurred in any other way?

Are you asking or telling me?  The fact remains that it did not happen in any other way.  It is as I said previously;  if you say bonsai almost any one with a modicum of knowledge of what's happening around them will know, or have an idea of what you are talking about.   If you use one of the Chinese terms to some of the same people, they may be asking you for an explanation.  Here again; if you say golf most people will know what you are talking about.  My father was fond of calling golf, Cow Pasture Pool.  I don't think I have to explain this further.

It seems we keep coming back to the same place:  Art.  You focused on my statement that a bonsai, regardless of what style or what rules are violated, must be beautiful.    It must have appeal would probably be a better word.  However;  you can make a bonsai look like a pepperoni pizza if you wish, but understand that Khai is right, the tree will not live longer, as a work of art, credited to you, after you pass. The fact that you did this to this tree or did that to it will be irrelevant.

Vance Wood wrote:
Snake:  You wrote:

no i didnt... perhaps kingsnake would like to toss out a real name to avoid any further confusion.

beer city snake (nickname since teenager) = kevin stoeveken

kingsnake (new handle for long time visitor) = ___________________ ?

beer city snake wrote:

Vance Wood wrote:
Snake:  You wrote:

no i didnt... perhaps kingsnake would like to toss out a real name to avoid any further confusion.

beer city snake (nickname since teenager) = kevin stoeveken

kingsnake (new handle for long time visitor) = ___________________ ?

You are right, my bad, and this is the reason I dispise pseudonyms, it is too hard to remember one and always associate it with an individual. The tendency for me to confuse them is a constant threat understanding that I have a problem with names to begin with.

no sweat and understandable...
sent you a PM

To many people, "bonsai" is simply a small tree in a pot.  For Dan Robinson it's something that resembles the trees that he has personally seen.  For Nick Lenz it's a way for him to combine a tree with something else... for what purpose I do not know...

The association of the word "bonsai" is going to be different for each person that you ask.  I would venture to guess that most people know very little about Japanese aesthetics, styles, rules, traditions, culture, or any other method of characterizing a bonsai as being uniquely Japanese, other than origins of the word and its geographical associations.  There is hardly an "understanding" present at all.  It's only later, when the "rules" of bonsai and Japanese traditions, and styles are used as a filter through which a person's tree must pass in order to be acknowledged institutionally, might a person begin to associate the word "bonsai" with the Japanese; or they may associate it with something else entirely different.

I say "as it is practiced today" because even Japan's own "traditions" have hardly remained static over time, despite perhaps popular belief to the contrary.  This change in style seems to be a normal part of human nature, perhaps due to desire for change, rebellion, innovation, or whatever multitude of reasons.  Clothing has undergone changes from today, the 1990's, the 1980's, 1970's, 1960's, etc.  Style changes quickly.  A shirt from the 70's might be created from the same material in common with a shirt from the 1800's.  It also has holes for your arms and head.  However, there are very few people who would hear a shirt in the 1970's and associate it with its 1800's predecessors.  Instead, they hear the word "shirt" and associate it with the style that's either the most prevalent currently or is currently preferred by them personally; it will always be a garment, often made of cotton, with some form of sleeves and a hole to put your head through at the top.

People hear the word "bonsai" and will probably always associate it with a tree, a container, and the elements and principles of art in some form.  Those elements seem to be systematic to the term.  How those elements are applied and arranged does change, perhaps dramatically.  This is known as style.  With enough changes of style and innovation of tools and techniques, few (if any) people may actively associate the cultural roots of bonsai with Japan and any of its styles anymore than they associate the cultural roots of a shirt with its origins.  The elements and principles of art, which are as systematic to bonsai as they are to oil paint, marble, vector, or any other medium, and will be present regardless of what stylistic associations people may hold with the word "bonsai" either now or in the future.

To imply that most peoples' "understanding" of bonsai comes from a but single style, Japanese or otherwise, is a generalization which is bound to be inaccurate currently and highly subject to further change later on.  This is not due to the merits, or lack-there-of, pertaining to anything Japanese, but rather to the broad range of influences a person is exposed to.  For Dan Robinson, these were the trees he on the West Coast.  To Walter Pall it was the Alps.  For others it might be street trees in the city, bonsai for sale in a mall, or photos they've seen online; none of which are Japanese.

Contrary to other facets of life, when it comes to bonsai, people seem to be desperately clinging to a single style, Japanese or otherwise, and attempting to enforce theirs as the "official" standard that must be accepted and propagated.  I treat this as being equal to the fallacy of King Canute.  Any single style, regardless of its origination, is unlikely to survive and those people are likely to become irrelevant.  To imply that any style is the pinnacle is purely personal opinion and should be treated as such.  To imply that a style is the alpha and omega is simply ignorance and should be treated accordingly as well.