bonsaiTALK Community - View Single Post - Bonsai isn't art- defined.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cantstopsmilin

in my opinion, bonsai is definitely an artform, i mean you can't create a good bonsai if you don't have an artistic eye, thats why you need practice, to learn how to control you tree and make it into something beautiful, an art piece, you are trying to create the illusion of an old tree. Compare this to painting, you use light and dark to create the illuion of depth, in bonsai, you also strive to achieve great depth, and some may say it is just a hobby, or a craft, but then couldn't you argue that painting is just a hobby. And what about sculpting, who decided that was an art and not a craft, you're just using clay to build something. Bonsai has to be an artform, not everyone could do it, it takes practice and experience, you also need to know about color, balance, negative space probably, and flow. THere is a lot to growing and making bonsai. Anyways, since when was there one definite definition of art?

You are of course correct, but in accordance with the direction this thread has now taken, which incidentally is the premises with which it started, it is often the actions and opinions of an organization or bureaucracy that sets the standards for reasons of its own, not always based on logic, reason, or even common sense. The problems arise directly proportionate to the agreed credibility of the above organization or bureaucracy where by something like bonsai will be deemed by "Them" to not be art.