complete article on bonsai at link

http://www.houseofjapan.com/gardens/as-bonsai-goes-global-aesthetic-standards-vary


Bonsai, the botanical marvel that epitomizes Japanese sensibilities about nature, is facing stiff competition from overseas. And it has left bonsai masters in Japan scratching their heads.

Japan is widely perceived as having set the standard for what constitutes the perfect bonsai. But beauty, as the saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder. The definition of bonsai beauty is becoming quite different in other countries--so much so that Japanese bonsai masters wonder whether local varieties can be still called bonsai.

Bonsai literally translates as plantings in a tray. It is the classical art of dwarfing and shaping of a tree in a small container through wiring and pruning to resemble one in the wild. Japan adapted the art from China in ancient times and developed the technique to artfully sculpt such plants.

Although a mature but miniature tree in a shallow pot is the conventional image of bonsai, specimens can be quite the reverse in Vietnam, where, as in China, the art is thriving. In those countries, displays can be massive.

In Vietnam, Ninh Binh province close to Hanoi, is considered the home of bonsai.

Nguyen Trong Hung, director of the Ninh Binh Ornamental Plants Preserve and Develop Center in the province, says Vietnam has two schools of bonsai.

One, called “mini,” is similar to Japan’s.

The other involves a large tree, with its roots arranged to crawl into cracks and holes in limestone. Such trees dwarf the Japanese concept of bonsai: They can stand 8 meters tall and weigh 10 tons.

Robert,

it's a hobby for most, and what you do in your backyard, well if it brings you peace and contentment, isn't that what is most important?

As age takes over, large things can become very heavy, and more or younger hands may become a necessity or a size change.

If you have limited space for growing, size control takes over.

Grow and clip, need not be coarse, actually with attention and care, results can be very refined, see work possible on the Chinese serissa or Sageretia t.

It is wonderful that there is so much variety.
Later.
Khaimraj

* I am not however a great lover of figures and houses stuck around a tree/s, feels too much like big folk playing at dolly house.  

Khaimraj Seepersad wrote: I am not however a great lover of figures and houses stuck around a tree/s, feels too much like big folk playing at dolly house.  

Hahahaha. That made me laugh out loud.

Although funnily enough I was at an event not that long ago and there was a doll's house fair on in the next hall. Probably the majority of the visitors were adults rather than kids.

No matter what country, no matter what variation, no matter how passionate people adhere to a new trend, in the end attempts to change the image of bonsai or to claim a new provenance remain mostly side-bars to the greater truth. Bonsai is and are, beautifully sculptured trees in pots. All the changes have accomplished, if accepted over time, is to improve the image of bonsai as it was originally imagined by those maybe a thousand years ago.

Just to tease you Vance,

wouldn't it be better to say - Beautifully Grown trees in pots - the idea being that should be no trace of the technique ?

As leaves to a tree or not at all - apologies to John Keats.
Later.
Khaimraj

Khaimraj Seepersad wrote:Just to tease you Vance,

wouldn't it be better to say - Beautifully Grown trees in pots - the idea being that should be no trace of the technique ?

As leaves to a tree or not at all - apologies to John Keats.
Later.
Khaimraj

Regardless---I believe that the literal definition of bonsai is tree in container?  I know we stretch that concept to include a lot, and not wrongly so, for the sake and advancement of the art.  But we do at times, get to a  point in the forward movement of things that the bonsai community in general will not accept some ideas or concepts to the point that they become infused into the art.  Generally those things kind of fall off the table to re-appear latter on to be accepted or again rejected.  A good case in point, and there may be some here that remember this.  In his last years Yuji Yoshimura experimented with a new concept of doing forest or group plantings that were designed to be viewed from one side of a rectangle where the long direction of the pot was utilized to create perspective and depth in a group.  Though the concept was more or less successful it did not catch on and, as of now, has been relegated to the bone pile of other rejected ideas.

As to traces of technique:? That has always been a goal of really good bonsai. The idea that your bonsai should look as though nature created it in all of its bends wiggles foliage pads, dead wood and exposed roots is the holy grail of bonsai creation. This goal is largely missed. Unless your trees are not cultivated or trained at all they will look as though they have not been cultivated or trained, being nothing more than trees stuck in pots. The point being that you cannot train a tree without training it and most of the time training will leave signs. If you have been in bonsai for a while you can see that the form of a tree is influenced by the hand of the owner.