When the impressionist masters (Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, etc.) initially tried to exhibit their paintings, the establishment ridiculed them and rejected their works from the Salon exhibits. The name "Impressionist" was an epithet, a jab at them to essentially label their works as not "real" art. The status quo of the establishment was that realism was the only game in town. Ultimately and inevitably, the establishment lost that argument. Of course Impressionist paintings were art! Some of them were great art.
What's the difference between a Realist painting and an Impressionist one? The principal difference is abstraction. Realism tries to faithfully create the look of a real world scene (or an imagined scene of real world surroundings) whereas Impressionism is disinterested in perfect fidelity of the scene and more interested in things like capturing how the light illuminated the scene in a brief moment or the general mood of the setting, etc.
Certainly, Japanese culture is well acquainted with realism. But, maybe Japanese culture is just not that into realism anymore, at least with respect to bonsai aesthetics. When I look at that photo of the tree Bjorn styled, what I see is abstraction. Instead of a faithful miniature depiction of an aged mountain tree, what we have here is something more like, "Impression, Tree".
! Personally seems Bjorn does not appear exactly proud to show this tree.
I had the same 
