BONSAI. TREES OR SCULPTURE?

I will share with you the following opinion that reflects my philosophy of bonsai, I hope your comments.

Personally, bonsai immersed me in a state of total communion with nature, is a mystical feeling I would say. It is also a road and not an end, so that it lives every day intensely. As art, the practice of bonsai has undergone an evolution over many years the fruit of new techniques and new artists, I reiterate I am novice in this, but I think we should model that resemble trees trees and trees that look like bonsai and above all try to mimic the characteristics of their counterparts in nature. Imagine for a moment a willow branches grow upright or cotoneaster moyogui style in the personal in nature would never have seen them growing well. There are many stereotypes about is to get us out of the mind, but of course as there are fashions in everything. But I'm not a purist and seen modeled as if they were deciduous conifers and other aberrations and back again, even trees that has nothing to trees and the most remote or look like their brothers who grow up in nature. As I believe art is good, because then we could say that these plants would become a kind of sculpture show that if the great skill of its creators, I am neither for nor against, or say it is neither good nor bad , personally I prefer trees that look like real trees and are the only view that when you generate respect and will only transmit this feeling of knowing you are standing in front of a real tree. The following examples illustrate my point of view:

This is a growing cotoneaster in nature:



These are the stereotypical images of bonsai cotoneaster, ordinary and common





This is a cotoneaster bonsai that looks like a cotoneaster, has a few decades, is owned by Isamu Murata Japanese teacher in the nursery Kiukaen Mr. Murata, in Omiya, working only with scissors, pruning and pinched Never use the fence or to other techniques, this is the ideal, a bonsai that looks like their brethren living in the countryside.

I think the pictures say it all:



Friends, I hope your comments ...

bonsaimadeinecuador.blogspot.com

With great respect, I want to share another example:

Bonsai olive



Olivo in nature





I wonder, are alike in anything?????¡¡¡¡¡¡..........

So where does this one fit in with your ideas?

You are a person of rare discernment.

Too many of the bonsai we see here and at shows are, I believe, showing very little "tree-ness." Many of them are designed to look like someone else's "traditional" bonsai (triangle, first branch here, second branch there, back branch there, every leaf in its place); or, the junipers are clones of one of Kimura's designed-by-Medusa Shimpaku. Few of them seem to take Mother Nature's basic tree design into account.

Serendipitously, here's a small Cotoneaster of mine. I show it only because it tends to look like a Cotoneaster.

Andino,

La segunda foto que utilizas, no es un cotoneaster, sino un Acer Buergeranium propiedad de la Sra. Yueh Mei Liang (Amy Liang).

Por otro lado, el punto filosófico que encarnas ha sido diseminado por el mundo por varios maestros. Por ejemplo, el gran Kato Saburo
(QEPD), recreaba los paisajes de Kumashiro al norte de Japón con gran exactitud. El Sr. He Gan Sen de China, emula los árboles abatidos por el viento con extrema precisión. Mi maestro, el Sr. Cheng Cheng Kung, utiliza como modelo el ecosistema en donde prolifera cada especie, transportandola a sus creaciones. El Sr. Lo Min Hsuan y sus creaciones con el celits sinensis, ejemplifican este punto. De igual manera, Naka Yoshio (QEPD), en su obra de dos tomos, muestra las características de cada especie, a utilizarse como modelo en cada trabajo.

El utilizar las formas tradicionales, tal y como han sido dictadas por los maestros japoneses es un medio válido de expresión. En este arte existe lugar para el desarrollo continuo y la experimentación con diversos métodos de creación. En la naturaleza existen caracteristicas que no se adaptan adecuadamente al bonsai. Al ver tu página me percaté de un dibujo hecho por Lao Tze Cheng. En varias ocasiones y durante los recorrodos que Lao Tze Cheng Cheng Kung celebra con sus alumnos para observar y aprender de la naturaleza, ha destacado que aunque la naturaleza es el mejor maestro, no todas las características que se presentan son escencialmente bellas. Es precisamente este balance, estética/belleza v. naturaleza, el que un artísta debe conseguir en sus creaciones. Es en esta dicotomía que reside la grandeza o mediocridad de una obra.

Andino,

The second picture you posted is not a cotoneaster. It's an Acer Buergeranium, property of Liang Yueh Mei (Amy Liang).

On another note, the philosophical back-ground you are trying to portray has been extensively recorded by many teachers. For example, Mr. Kato Saburo (R.I.P.), recreated with great precision the great ladscapes of Kumashiro in northern Japan. Mr. He Gan Sen of China, emulates wind swept trees in great detail. My Lao Tze, Mr. Cheng Cheng Kung, uses as a guide the natural surroundings and conditions of each particular species, later recreating them in his creations. Mr. Lo Min Hsuan, with his creations using Celtis Sinensis material, give strentgth to this point. Equally, Mr. Naka Yoshio (R.I.P.), in his two volume series, exemplifies the particularities of each species, to be later used in each of the works.

The use of traditional shapes, very much in the way that was taught by the japanese, is a valid form of expresion. In bonsai, there is always room to grow, and experimenting with new ways in whcih to shape and create our trees is a natural result of evolutionary creation. In nature, we can see a lot of features that cannot be properly adapted to bonsai. While viewing your blog, I was able to see a picture made by Lao Tze Cheng Cheng Kung. It made me think of some of the trips he conducts with his students to see and learn form ancient trees in the Taiweanese mountains. He often pointed out that, although nature is always the best teacher (Lao Tze), not al characteristics and traits presented by nature are essentially beautiful. The artist has to find a balance between beauty/aesthetics vs. naturality in every work. In this fact, resides the failure or success of a bonsai creation.


Azalea in He Huashan mountain, Puli, Taiwan

Kind regards,
Jose Luis

This image is of a real tree. A Bristlecone Pine in the California White Mountains.

Hi Andino,
How many times have I heard bonsai folk say "I have never seen trees like that in nature" my answer is you should get out more!

A Bonsai tree must look like a tree as it grows in nature... huuuum, you show an example of a Cotoneaster but this is really a shrub. how would you style a Juniper, would it be like this one?



You need to be less narrow minded and more open to creativity.

well said tony i agree.

Enough said Tony

will what is that tree of yours above

privet?

Tony,

Great juniper. Do you have any other pictures from that area?

Kind regards,
Jose Luis

Hello Harry. It's not one of my trees, it's one of Andino's from another post.

Well, we've all seen those bristlecones and weather worn juniper, but none of us would put either in a pot without "fixing them up." They'd suddenly get a triangular top; odd branches would no longer poke out in any which way; no leaves would dangle underneath the carefully polished bark. In short, they'd turn into something they're not.

And then, we'd coat the deadwood in lime sulfur, mking the deadwood as pasty as a mime's face



Just stirring the pot.

Maybe we ought to leave the trees in the ground Jim and forget about bonsai as an ART.

Jose Luis, por cierto la imagen del arce que tu citas es para plantear ese contraste con la imagen del cotoneaster de más abajo...claro que es un bonsai pero en la forma en que esta modelado se parece más a un arce. Obviamente que no podremos replicar totalmente un {árbol de la naturaleza y estoy de acuerdo contigo en la percepción que debemos de tomar de la naturaleza los elementos que nos sirven para el diseño...y con el trabajo de los años mientras más parecido nuestros arbolitos a sus hermanos que crecen en forma natural mucho mejor.

Jose Luis, by the way the image of maple that your appointments is to raise the contrast with the image of cotoneaster from below ... of course it is a bonsai but the way this model looks more like a maple. Obviously we can not fully replicate a tree (nature and I agree with you on the perception that we should take from nature the elements that allow us to design ... and work more like the years when our trees his brothers that grow naturally much better.

Tony, thanks for the recommendation. I agree with you, the junipers are suitable for modeling most extreme and obviously reflect the nature of his brothers grow in nature, as the person with whom rests in the photo. Very good.

To paraphrase others, bonsai look like trees in nature, only better. To that I add that bonsai look like what trees could look like in nature. All bonsai have to be plausible and as some pics on this thread have shown, there is much that is possible in nature.

If anyone wants, and some do, they are perfectly welcome to present bonsai that look more like the typical "natural" tree. I pass many of them on my way to work each day and although perfectly natural they are neither as special nor as beautiful as I want my bonsai to look. These trees are instead mostly quite common and while not necessarily ugly, they are not as beautiful as a tree could look. Why would I want my bonsai to look like that when I can help it be a model of an extraordinary, beautiful tree? This is where the challenge of bonsai comes from apart from simple husbandry.

Some could also say that any tree is beautiful, by virtue of it simply being a tree. That's fine also, I just don't agree. Perhaps suiseki enthusiasts could also argue that any rock is beautiful, just because it is a rock and it is natural. Aesthetics play a role here which are fluid, cultural, can be developed and changed, and vary by person making their discussion interesting. The cotoneaster presented by the op is a good example. Although beautifully presented I don't think it is beautiful other than by virtue of it being a living thing. I would never bother to grow a cotoneaster bonsai if that is what it had to look like. Fortunately cotoneaster is a plant that is easy to make mimic other types of trees. In this way they can become beautiful to me beyond what is natural for their species, but not for trees in general.

Andino, please use your best English for this forum:

Google translate for now:

Jose Luis, by the way the image of maple that your appointments is to raise the contrast with the image of cotoneaster from below ... of course it is a bonsai but the way this model looks more like a maple. Obviously, we can not fully replicate a tree (nature and I agree with you on the perception that we should take from nature the elements that allow us to design ... and work more like the years when our trees his brothers that grow naturally much better.

Tony

bonsai look like trees in nature, only better.

Oh, my! But they aren't. Often, they're caricatures of trees in nature. And some folks must have a broad definition of plausibility.

I'm aware that mine is an unwinnable position. It would just be nice if bonsaiests would at least think about coloring outside the lines occasionally. I get so tired of seeing the same trees designed by so many different people.

Maybe we ought to leave the trees in the ground Jim and forget about bonsai as an ART.

Well, as people who know me will tell you, that's pretty much how I feel -- unless the tree in question is in the way of the logging crews or bulldozers. But THAT's another discussion. And I'm not sure what digging up a tree has to do with "art."

Grow your little trees in pots and play. Enjoy! Nuff said.

Selecting and collecting, seeing a future image within that material and following your thoughts through all those years is art.

Grow your little trees in pots and play. Enjoy

I like it. That's the right attitude.

Does this bonsai look like a tree? Hornbeam, 9" and trained from a branchless stump.

JimLewis wrote:

e]Maybe we ought to leave the trees in the ground Jim and forget about bonsai as an ART.

Well, as people who know me will tell you, that's pretty much how I feel -- unless the tree in question is in the way of the logging crews or bulldozers. But THAT's another discussion. And I'm not sure what digging up a tree has to do with "art."

Gracious Jim! Why indeed are you involved in bonsai anyway then?

will baddeley wrote:[/url]

Is this tree your work Will? Beautiful!