rockm

The article is fine as far as it goes. However, the art of display is a very complex one. I understand the basics of it and enough to get me very confused. The accent plant; foreground--bonsai; middle ground-scroll; background is pretty fomulaic and followed strictly could be very limiting if considered the "only" way.

I think the Japanese contemplate display on a much more complex level. The plant doesn't necessarily have to be part of a scene, for instance. It can be aimed at creating a mood in the viewer and that doesn't necessarily have to do with scenery. In that case, the scoll could be a poel on life and death done in calligraphy, the accent plant a suiseki or even more abstract scholar stone used that looks like a man. The bonsai an old cracked plum tree. The context isn't a landscape, but life and death.

To create the same given mood, a Westerner might choose different objects and use them differently.

Also, the mood evoked by Japanese imagery viewed by a westerner could be directly opposite of what is intended, providing another wrinkle.

For instance, the image of cherry blossoms is much-used in Japan. However it's not because the flowers are beautiful and feminine. It's because they are fleeting. They die. Their short life and quick death for a greater beauty is what is admired, not the flower itself. The image of falling cherry blossoms also conjures up sacrifice and is associated with samurai. Here in the west, flowers are pretty and usually associated with the gentler sex. The connotations are different.

I'm not sure how this kind of thing translates in how a bonsai is displayed, but I do think that strictly adhering to the "Japanese" way limits how Westerners can "formally" display their trees.

Does that invalidate "formal" displays of bonsai in the Japanese tradition? Of course not, but it shouldn't be considered the end-all for bonsai display in the west.