FredL

IMHO, there are at least two very dfifferent situations in which a critique might take place. The first would be within the context of a competitive situation in which the purpose of the critique is to explain or justify the evaluation which has been made of a tree. Certainly the effect on the feelings of the owner or artist is not the issue here; rather the only issue here is an objective evaluation of the quality of the tree and how that evaluation has been arrived at. The second situation is more collaberative in nature and at issue is how the tree might be improved. It seems entirely appropriate in this situation to couch the critique in such a way as to encourage the owner/artist in his(her) efforts and to place more emphasis on what has been done to the tree successfully to date as well as to indicate where future efforts may be focused. In the first situation, who cares what has been done to date; the issue is the current state of the tree, how it compares to other trees and to current artistic standards. The second situation is a teaching situation and the person doing the critique has all the responsibilities towards his(her) student that teachers everywhere have towards their students: the development of the student is just as important as the development of the tree.

Incidentally,this stuff about the European vs the American mentality has never made any sense to me. I have known plenty of very tough minded Americans and am also accutely aware of European attitudes towards our current "reckless" political leadership as expressed by European politicians and newspapers. I am sure that Walter has had alot more exposure to the European and American Bonsai communites than I have but if his observations about these two communities are accurate, these two subsets of the larger populations are two very strange groups indeed. Perhaps bonsai has a peculiar attraction for people that are unlike the norm in both Europe and the US.

Fred