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Bonsai nare-do-well
Join Date: Jan-2003
Location: Summerville SC
Country: USA
Posts: 4,653
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arnie
Anyone know the history of the thinking behind odd numbers for group plantings? always seemed a bit odd to me.....excuse the pun.
I mean, whats more imortant, the number of trees or the energy, composition and impression of perspective that the viewer feels.
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From the FWIW department here is part of an article that I am writing. May not answer your question but it gives my thoughts on the subject.
The numbers game. How many trees? Does it always have to be an odd number
All to often it seems like there is a tendency to see how many trees can be put into the pot. A better approach would be how many trees would look good in that pot.
Most forest plantings have between five and nine trees. Less than five and it looks too much like a clump style bonsai. For the most part these remind me more of a tropical island with cocoanut trees on it than a forest.
More than nine trees must be done with great care. After nine trees it is awfully easy to overwhelm the viewer with a confusion of trunks and branches. The eyes can get lost in the complexity of it all. It can be done but it does get a bit harder to do after the ninth tree goes into that pot.
Conventional wisdom is to always use an odd number of trees in your forest. One hears all the time that nature very seldom does anything in even numbers. This might be true but I think that it is just easier to compose odd numbers into a believable composition. Even numbers almost always seem to give you a boxy affair.
Less than nine trees in a forest and the eyes can still see individual trees. But once the tenth tree is put into the composition the eyes get somewhat confused and stop looking at individual trees and start taking them in as a group. For this reason the numbers are less important when more than nine trees are used. Odd and even are just about the same, to the eyes anyway.
Problem is that someone will always count the number of trees in your forest. Good, bad or indifferent it will always be judged on odd vs. even. A pity that few can see beyond the numbers and take in the total impact of the composition.
For a little over a year I have been working on a group planting of bald cypress. Quite a large thing. The pot is a little over 4 foot wide. I was going to put 57 trees in it. A bit of vanity as I was 57 when I started on it. As I was working there came a point where it was just getting too busy and I stopped well short of that fifty seven. I have gotten a lot of nice comments on that forest. Most everyone likes it.
Didn’t take too long before the counting started though. Now I hear “Nice forest but it only has twenty eight trees in it“.
If it looks good who cares how many trees are in it. Sometimes those bonsai “rules” do get in the way of making good bonsai. ;o)
I may get a lot of criticism over this but here is my best advise on the number of trees to put in that pot. Put them in as long as it makes for an aesthetically pleasing composition. Stop before it goes past that point. Simple isn't it.
Let the bean counters count while you make a pleasing composition. The numbers will take care of themselves when you have ten or more trees. Nine or less trees makes the odd numbers more important but not everything. Ascetics is really the only real consideration
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