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bonsai is not my hobby
Join Date: Oct-2001
Location: Egling, south of Munich
Country: Germany
Posts: 1,433
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Juan,
this fits very well into this section here. It is a very well designed tree on a rock. The present style is the old traditional style. By this I mean what was state of the art in Japan around 1960 and is in general being taught in the western world as 'traditional' style. According to the 'rules' that apply to this style it is well done. It shows the typical patterns: clear triangle, flat foliage pads with big spaces between all or almost all layers of foliage.
Bonsai has moved on since then. In present traditional style (what is state of the art in Japan now, today in 'traditional' styling) the triangle is avoided as well as the big and clear spaces between flat folige layers. Instead the crown is roundish and absolutely not a clear traingle, the foliage layers have a lot more volume and in general NO or very little negative space. The old sterotypes, clichees are being avoided. They are not natural anyway, they are very abstract and they have been beaten to death.
In addition there is something that I call 'modern' bonsai style. This has round crowns, very little to no holes 'where the birds can fly through' and in general tries to make the tree appear as powerful and as impressive as possible. Usually with a lot of deadwood, which does not make sense to your tree and /or with an enermous trunk compared to the crown. Usually the crown is made as small as possible to make the trunk appear bigger. I chose, for a change to make the crown BIGGER, because I want to make use of the stone which somehow now appears as this big trunk and thus makes the whole composition appear more impressive.
I clearly prefer the modern style in general personally. But it is a question of taste what you want. You already have a very good old traditional tree, I show a new traditional version of it and a modern version. I think a naturalistic version (which would be a very realistic tree which is much less abstract than what is shown here; it can also be called post-modern bonsai style) does not make much sense with your specific tree and the rock.
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