Should it be called "bonsai"? Article in the ABS journal
- Thread starter Walter Pall
- Start date
AlainK
Imperial Masterpiece
I'm sure some people get paid to place names anywhere so that seach engines, and people, go beserk
Must be the Russian democrats...
And actually, American football was derived from Rugby, not soccer (by whatever name you want to call it.)
Joe Dupre'
Omono
Words have usage...........not definitions. Usage changes over time and in different situations. If you don't think so, refer to someone as a "queer fellow". Perfectly acceptable 100 years ago. Today, you might just get decked or ruin your career.
No, they bring their trees to Kimura because he’s a great bonsai artist. Actually, when Kimuragraduated from his apprenticeship, and went out on his own, and started styling HIS way, he was not immediately accepted by the general bonsai community. His way was more naturalistic than the old ways! More free form! Now, 40 years later, his styling is mainstream.
In Japan, it’s common that an owner will employ bonsai professionals to style their trees. Oh sure it’s a hobby for the masses as well, but usually the really great trees are owned by rich businessmen, but styled by professionals.
We’re more hands on, DYI.
rockm
Spuds Moyogi
FWIW, I ran across this article that is pertinent to the "Western" vs "Japanese" bonsai arguments. It is well worth the read. Fascinating stuff, such as Japanese bonsai doesn't use the nation's time-honored "iemoto" systems of setting standards and practices for formal arts handed down via generations, such as in Noh, Kabuki and music. It uses the "modern social phenomenon of the exhibition, imported from the West in the Meiji era" to transmit accepted forms and practices and judge skills...
https://www.japanpolicyforum.jp/archives/culture/pt20100928160529.html
Another interesting passage--
"In bonsai circles in modern Japan, the most important criterion is assessing the value of a bonsai is its ownership history–ideally consisting of several generations of socially and historically important figures, particularly if they happen to have been influential in political or economic circles. By taking temporary custody of the tree and looking after it on a daily basis, the individual cultivator or nursery is able to bask in the reflected glory of the tree’s superior pedigree. In an extreme case, even a tree of no particular merit might be praised as a masterpiece if it comes from a sufficiently impressive lineage. This is reminiscent of the way that tea utensils are evaluated by connoisseurs of the tea ceremony."
And this:
"There are certain nationalistic bonsai aficionados who take this as reason to assert loudly that “bonsai was invented in Japan and can only be found here,” or to posit China’s penjing, Korea’s bunjae, or even Vietnam’s hòn non bộ as “enemies” somehow of the Japanese tradition. These people also treat the art of bonsai growers in Europe, North America, Australia, South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa as “offshoots” of the original traditions of China’s penjing and Japan’s bonsai. These statements are as foolish as they are wrong, though. Today every region of the world is seeing the rise of unique forms of bonsai that match the cultural spheres and traditions in which they are developing. We should all accept this rich diversity and view it as a cause for celebration."
https://www.japanpolicyforum.jp/archives/culture/pt20100928160529.html
Another interesting passage--
"In bonsai circles in modern Japan, the most important criterion is assessing the value of a bonsai is its ownership history–ideally consisting of several generations of socially and historically important figures, particularly if they happen to have been influential in political or economic circles. By taking temporary custody of the tree and looking after it on a daily basis, the individual cultivator or nursery is able to bask in the reflected glory of the tree’s superior pedigree. In an extreme case, even a tree of no particular merit might be praised as a masterpiece if it comes from a sufficiently impressive lineage. This is reminiscent of the way that tea utensils are evaluated by connoisseurs of the tea ceremony."
And this:
"There are certain nationalistic bonsai aficionados who take this as reason to assert loudly that “bonsai was invented in Japan and can only be found here,” or to posit China’s penjing, Korea’s bunjae, or even Vietnam’s hòn non bộ as “enemies” somehow of the Japanese tradition. These people also treat the art of bonsai growers in Europe, North America, Australia, South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa as “offshoots” of the original traditions of China’s penjing and Japan’s bonsai. These statements are as foolish as they are wrong, though. Today every region of the world is seeing the rise of unique forms of bonsai that match the cultural spheres and traditions in which they are developing. We should all accept this rich diversity and view it as a cause for celebration."
D
Deleted member 21616
Guest
I think this plays on our basic biology, albeit as a social caricature of the fundamental sentiment: the sweater that i wear that was my grandfather's means more to mean that the one i bought at the store.
M. Frary
Bonsai Godzilla
coh
Imperial Masterpiece
LOCK HIM UP!
It would be so great if that turns out to be what happens. Talk about irony...or maybe karma!
yes, I definitely think so.
JudyB
Queen of the Nuts
It seems like semantics to me. Everyone everywhere is seemingly influenced by their regional differences. To me it's just bonsai.
coh
Imperial Masterpiece
That's the viewpoint I'm coming around to. The material and my likes/experiences determine how it is styled but I don't worry about whether it is called literati (or bunjin), or slanting, or informal upright, etc.
That said...your question was "Does it really matter to anyone" and it's obvious that it does, for whatever reason. People like labels, they like to put things in boxes. To each his or her own!
AlainK
Imperial Masterpiece
JudyB
Queen of the Nuts
AlainK
Imperial Masterpiece
bonsaichile
Omono
I agree with @Adair M in that it is incorrect to assume that "art" can only be found in the West (which is the underlying assumption of @Walter Pall) Just because a culture values individuality less than another, that does not mean what they do is a craft instead of an art. In fact, in tje Wedt the idea that art should first and foremost express the individual self is relatively new, arising with the Romantics in the early 1800s. The whole article by @Walter Pall stroke me as a problematic mix of fallacies, common places and poorly understood analogies (fútbol, anyone?) resulting in yet another person trying to give respectability to the noxious idea of Western cultural superiority. @Walter Pall 's trees are absolutely fantastic, and always an inspiration. But his article was just pure drivel, in my opinion.
Please give an example of what you might consider to be a ''new rule'' in bonsai.
Bonsai can never be art. Firstly, the tree has as much a say in it's appearance as the one who cuts the branches. We may think we are in total control of the outcome but this is a complete fallacy. Only someone who has grown a tree from seed or a cutting and kept it for more than thirty years can really understand this. The final result is always just an approximation of the initial thought. We can never visualize exactly how it will look in the future. Therefore the tree is not a vision of the creator and therefore not true art but a craft. Art is not a collaboration between a non thinking entity which remains a mystery to us, and a thinking entity. Secondly, it is often the tree which shows us the best way forward as it grows, something which we would never have thought of. This is hardly art.
Needless to say the above is only my opinion.
How radical and still be a tree in the commonly understood sense?
From what I have seen of your trees Walter you follow all the rules everyone else does and deviate from them in very minor ways. Probably because that is all you can do when trying to make a tree.
I think you are overstating the radical difference that is possible. I have not seen any radicalism in bonsai. Just change in fashion or interpretation.
The Japanese are perfectionists and it's completely inevitable that given enough time, they should keep perfecting their trees to the point where they lose the original idea of the natural beauty they so longed for and end up with a caricature of it. The fact that in the West, many of us do not have the same drive to add perfection onto perfection, is not a ''radical'' idea but simply a more relaxed approach. This could very easily change too. For example, if you strive too hard for naturalism you could easily end up with it's opposite just as the Japanese have done in some cases.
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M. Frary
Bonsai Godzilla
Irony to the max.
That Rush Limpwrist guy was quoted here recently by a member who is a supporter of the grifter. Follow the money was what the drug addict was quoted as saying. That's what they're doing alright.
It's not looking good for the oranges.
Eating karma burgers in a N.Y. state penitentiary does have a nice ring to it.
I agree that semantics are nothing but linguistic trivia. Arguing about words is infantile mostly, none of it matters, yet it does, in visceral dissection, sometimes amazing parallels and ironies are revealed. The unattached vegetable soup that floats from our causally educated mouths matters not as individual words--but there is a sacredity in that they are the Add-men (women) of our own ideas, they stand for thing bigger than there definitions. I know this is a cumbersome comparison but look at the trajectory of feminism: Over the years our language has migrated from a ridiculously male-dominated, male dominating framework to one more realistic and less divisive and demeaning. Words drag meanings with, they shape and taint the mind--words are cultural purveyors. Studies show that legal sanctioning of the language really led the way to cultural change within the context of feminism, rather than naturally following as a result of the change, as one would think. Any endeavor of the mind with big complex spiritual ideas comes with a certain pervasive poetry. In a certain very famous ancient book of letters and stories, a quote ''In the beginning was the Word'', a fascinating and revealing ideology. Its kind of funny that Walter headed his forum post as he did, the actual ABS article was, "Bonsai in America or American bonsai" by Saimir Organaja. The article opens with ruminations essentially about the term and mentality of "American Bonsai", then moved on to the interviews. The article was interesting mostly because of who was posed this question (Joura, Pall,Bjorn, Ryan, Kempinski). Of course, all these articles are restrained from getting too raw, and some deeper things were touched on, but I believe the real substantive issue is about the consequences within ourselves of the long-term dogma of duplication, the precarious cost of outdated and culturally over-focused display and judging modes and maybe more importantly and progressively, about passion and pride in competition. Yes, American Bonsai is a thing, whether one acknowledges it or not, the real question is whether we American can or care to intentionally jettison the limiting and diluting cultural baggage that tends to favor dogma and duplication over creativity and authenticity.
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I don't agree. Perhaps the word radical is the thing though. I do believe that what styles are trending and evolving in bonsai would, not many years ago, be rejected as credible. Interestingly what and how is being cultivated or collected is significantly being influence by these changes--what was rejected and walked past as material just 10 years ago is being gathered and coveted at the highest level and those plants with more old-school shapes are being passed over as mundane. I suspect Australia's evolution is parallel.
