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Quote:

Originally Posted by Joanie

Raj, your comparison doesn't work, because bonsai trees grow and change. If you hang a painting on the wall, or put a sculpture on the mantlepiece, it will never change. The original artist's concepts remain whole. However, with bonsai, the tree needs to grow and change. It doesn't matter how much the new owner paid for it, they also have to keep it alive and healthy. They have to trim and prune it, fertilize it, and rework it when it outgrows the design. Even the slowest growing bonsai will eventually need working over. See how many articles in Bonsai Today are about completely restyling a very old bonsai.

No two people would ever be able to wire a tree exactly the same. There are a hundred choices to be made. And the last wiring can be completely changed by the next wiring, which can be wiped out by an infestation of spider mites or a hailstorm.

Art is static, and doesn't change. An owner with big bucks can put it somewhere safe, and it will be the same a hundred years from now. If he stuck that bonsai into a storage room, a hundred years from now all he would have is a dead husk.

Joanie

I understand what you are saying but this is not entirely true. Most paintings of any note are not exactly as they were originally produced due to numerous restorations by conservators and museums trying to clean and or preserve them. The Last Supper, as originally painted, did not have a door in the middle of the bottom, and because DaVinci used an experimental tempera in painting it, it started to deteriorate with in his life time. I know I am stretching things a bit but master piece works of art are not unchangeable, or for the most part totally original.