Is Bonsai Art?

[Joe Dupre']

To ME, the way I do it, bonsai is purely art. The trees are a combination of what they give me and my expression of that gift. I'm about the looks and the feeling of the tree..........period. I really don't care much about the history or the current trends or the guildelines. I do have to follow the craft of bonsai to get to my finished product. The skills of pruning, wiring, fertilizing and watering have to be followed. That can be learned. The art comes from inside the artist. I think it has to be there. It may need to be awakened, but I don't think you can teach it.

As a flimsy analogy. My wife and I have been dancing every weekend for 20 years. No lessons ever. We are not "fancy" but we've had dozens of people come up to us and complement our dancing. We've seen dozens of people that have taken lessons and can do the steps and the turns, but we can tell they just don't "have it". That "it" is the feeling and the rhythm. We feel that can't be taught, you have it or you don't.

 

[michaelj]

Noticed u were in OC. What museum is this?

Thanks

The Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. Kofu Kai has been doing a show there for the last few years (2020 excluded).

 

[dbonsaiw]

To ME, the way I do it, bonsai is purely art. The trees are a combination of what they give me and my expression of that gift. I'm about the looks and the feeling of the tree..........period. I really don't care much about the history or the current trends or the guildelines. I do have to follow the craft of bonsai to get to my finished product. The skills of pruning, wiring, fertilizing and watering have to be followed. That can be learned. The art comes from inside the artist. I think it has to be there. It may need to be awakened, but I don't think you can teach it.

Agreed. And this kind of brings us full circle on another thread about not following bonsai "rules". The rules, at least as they apply to aesthetics, are what have been learned from the artistic expression that viewers appreciated. Humans find certain characteristics appealing and we are drawn to art that captures those characteristics. The rules can be taught. I'm sure I can be taught how to play guitar with all the rules implicated in roots and scales etc. Ultimately, I would be able to copy the works of others. Doubtful that I would be able to create my own unique expression that others would appreciate. And then there are those that can also feel the "rules" instinctively. I doubt Hendrix needed much music theory - he understood it instinctively and was able to create.

Even though most of my time is spent on the horticultural aspects of bonsai, I don't view myself as a gardener. I need the horticulture to create the medium, just like a Renaissance painter needed to create his paints. I'm no more a gardener than they were chemists.

 

[badatusernames]

I think it sorta is and sorta isn't. I want to learn and grow in the art, but what draws me is the puttering around. I can kind of lose myself in it.

But if I'm going to spend the time, I also kind of want it to be going in a generally OK direction, which I guess means I want the end result to be art. Mostly I just like small trees tho.