The Nature of a Masterpiece

bonsaial1

I have no idea what this thread has to do with my editorial. (I just wanted Bonsai Today to raise the bar a little and do some homework for a change)

Bunjinent's points of view or questions have no answer. Masters and masterpieces are just a means to an end. They are a learning tool complicated by cultural differences that have no bearing on bonsai. One does not have to study with masters to achieve artistry. You don't even have to study anything for that matter. When I lock myself in my garage for weeks on end to build tables to display bonsai on I have no books. No master's hint or tutelage. I have no video or set of blueprints or plans to construct a table. In fact the table sometimes changes right in the middle of construction if I have a brainstorm. I do it from my heart. Each table I make is an expression of Al Keppler. If someone finds solace in the lines or the wood or even the finish, fantastic.

If someone copies my design or creates cookie cutters of my tables, thats good too. I have created my share of cookie cutter tables too! There is nothing wrong with cookie cutter trees. I wish everyone had great cookie cutter trees, there would be less to read here!

This thread has fueled my editorial for November. Stay tuned it will be a blowtorch! ak

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BunjinEnt

Al, The reference to your post is merely to point out there were comments made WITHIN it that piqued my ire. However, I do understand artistry is different than becoming a master. Andy Warhol to me, is an example of this. He was an artist, but was he a master of art? Pop culture says so. Are his works masterpieces? Many think so. Van Gough was an artist but was not recognized as a Master until after his death. He also had no formal training, he was a pioneer.

Greg, I agree a masterpiece needs to make you feel WOW. Granite can be just as impressive as a ruby when it is a mountain or cut to create architecture. One would be hard pressed to make a building out of rubies. Mona Lisa doesn't illicit a WOW from me either, but to know it was a Da Vinci and may hold the secrets to an alternative religion is pretty cool. So, in that case, I feel the Master's name on the art made it a masterpiece.

Jon, so you have to have respect for the dedicaton it takes to become a Master to become one yourself? Or is it better to do the best you can do as an artist and let others decide? Bonsai Hobbyists can't be Masters? Only Bonsai Artists? And how many masterpieces did you say there were?

William

irene_b

Will the Masterpiece always remain a Masterpiece?

Or will it have to be worked on day after day to remain the same Masterpiece.
Trees are living things, they grow and change.
To Me it is Nature at it's best when it grows on it's own with the minimal work from "The Artist".
To be a Master is to be in total control from start to finish.
You control what you say and do "Therefor you are a Master!

No matter how much of a Master you are: Trees die.
No matter how much you spend to maintain your masterpiece: Trees die!
No matter how perfect you control the conditions around your masterpiece: Trees die!
So who is really in Control of your Masterpiece?
Not mankind.....Nature is the Master

Irene

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"From bonsai we receive peace of mind, health and a life’s pursuit. We can also learn generosity, patience and even philosophy about life. We can also have the good fortune to make friends of all nationalities and races with whom we share a mutual trust and respect. This is all thanks to bonsai." "Saburo Kato"




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lehket

William,

How long did it take you to come up with all those questions?

My wife, who has a keen interest in the origin of words and often knows little things like this, likes to point out that the term "masterpiece" originally referred to the piece of work that a craftsman or artisan did to gain the right to be called a master of their profession. For example, a journeyman cabinetmaker would, once his skills had developed sufficiently, build a cabinet without direction from his employer (the master cabinetmaker) and present it for inspection. If it passed, the journeyman had earned the right to call himself a master cabinetmaker and might then open his own shop.

Thus, the masteripeice was not his greatest work, but only the first independent work he did that was good enough to be called the work of a competent professional!

In the art world, of course, the word has morphed into "great work" if not "greatest work". We don't call competent but run-of-the-mill work a "masterpiece" anymore. We expect there to be something unusually, extraordinary, or profound about a masterpiece. Most of the time, a work has to be regarded as such by a collection of reasonably skilled people before it is called a masterpiece.

On the other hand, everyone has different tastes, so there will always be room for disagreement.

But one thing has not changed much: a master is a skilled and experienced practicioner of the art or profession. Trade unions still use the apprentice/journeyman/master designation to indicate levels of experience and skill. For them, the system of designations is very formalized. (My son-in-law is a journeyman ironworker, so I know a small bit about that. Not much but a small bit.)

According to some cognitive research I read a couple of decades ago, on average it takes about ten years of steady practice for a human being to become an expert in a field of any complexity. This of course is only an average and would vary with the individual, the specifics of the field, and the amount of work one can put on a regular basis.

So we might guess that in bonsai most people who have achieved a master's level of expertise have been doing it more or less steadily for around ten years (more or less). They have acquired considerable skill and produce works of art that the rest of us admire (maybe not every time, but a lot of the time). Most of the bonsai we would call masteripeices are probably created by masters, although conceivably a less skilled artist could achieve a result worthy of the name, too.

Clear as mud, no?

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Walter_Pall

A bonsai is a little tree in a container that touches my soul. If it dos not touch my soul it has no soul and it is just a tree in a container. It it touches my soul it is a piece of art. If it touches me very much it is a piece of great art, you can call it masterpiece. It has to do with craft, but then there is this extra thing which gives it soul and makes it art.

So what does that tell us? Is this the solution?
Probably not.

I have developed a certain taste over 25 years and doing this very intensively has sharpened my sense compared to most other people. So if it does not touch me it may well touch lots of others. If it touches me I may well be a minority.

OK, in the 'real' art world this is solved like this: there is a certain group of people who are the powers to be and if it touches the majority of them then it is great art. Since they are only human too they will tend to be on the save side and grant this title only to pieces which come from well known masters. In general. In the bonsai world it is the same. Now the big question is who are the powerds to be and who are the well known masters. It's your guess at this moment.

So where is the general crowd? Where is democracy? Where are all these polls on the internet and all these opinions that are voiced?

Bad news: They don't exist in this equation. It does not matter at all what the general crowd thinks. Bluntly, it does not matter what the majority in this forum thinks. Even the general inside crowd does not count. Or almost so. This has nothing to do with democracy, it is a purely elitarian game. It always was and alwas will be.
Why do you think the museums are full with stuff that the general crowd hates? Why are we not having a public opinion poll for our art museums? Well, this would be the end of civilization. For the powers to be for sure.

Bad news? Depends.

Don't like it? Hate it?
Well don't shoot the messenger.

Now please don't answer how you would LIKE it to be. I think we know that. I try to tell how it IS. Well, in my opinion anyway, which I have formed over decades.

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Walter Pall

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rockm

"Or will it have to be worked on day after day to remain the same Masterpiece.
Trees are living things, they grow and change.
To Me it is Nature at it's best when it grows on it's own with the minimal work from "The Artist".
To be a Master is to be in total control from start to finish.
You control what you say and do "Therefor you are a Master!"

THis is pretty confusing. A "master" does not have to be present from start to finish of a bonsai. He is better than nature at discerning what looks good on a tree from a human perspective, as by definition, he/she is a human. Nature isn't "best" at designing anything, as it isn't designing anything for anyone. It merely is. A "master" or at least someone who knows what they're doing, can certainly strip away all the unecessary, superfluous, and downright strange growth 'natural' trees come with.

The most "natural" looking bonsai are often trees that have had tremendous amounts of work and effort put into them by a number of "masters." Trees that have an effective, casual naturalness usually have the most blood and sweat on them. Serenity is very hard to achieve.

The thought that there are no masters and everyone can design a good bonsai leads down a very dark road to mediocrity

Kahoun

Hello All

Let it be known that I do not mean to oversimplify these areas, most of them are quite far reaching and complicated to explore, but I have to keep my ideas succinct for readability considering most of you will go to another post if the first paragraph doesn’t explain everything you are thinking and is totally agreeable to you.

I am a musician and also a teacher of my instrument. Art criticism and evaluation are pertinent and well thought about areas but seem to be neglected in a vast majority of educational systems. The effects of this are often disappointingly seen whenever someone utters the phrase “anyone can do art because it’s totally subjective”/ “everyone is an artist”, or words to that effect. Art can be judged on a number of levels, and three main categories can be effectively used to index them:

+PHILOSOPHY- the idea behind the art both broadly and specifically

+MECHANICS- the actual working skill it takes to make the art

+AESTHETICS- ‘beauty’ / ‘taste’ (and therefore lack of) is an area of art that can be discussed as well, granted that subjectivity plays some part.

If there is a logical flaw in the idea of the art it can be completely objectively discussed, the skill the artist possesses can be assessed objectively, and a great deal of what appeals to our senses can be followed through to what is known of our physiological drives and preferences.

There is no scale by which to measure who is a ‘master’, in the sense of it being an honorary title not a rated one. We honour those who spend time studying these three areas of their artistic field, not every ‘master’ is as achieved as the other in certain areas but we can be assured that their knowledge, skill and ideas are far reaching in all of them.

Traditionally one would train with a master whose understanding appeals to them, or fills a void in the students understanding, it is exactly the same in the academic world but the lack of education in the artistic field is disappointing. In the world of science “Genius” is a parallel honorary title that is often bestowed on the most advanced of their field, but there is no schooling to become a ‘genius’. They are well sought after by fans and students alike who want to work and study with them.

Let me end by saying that Popularity has never been the measure of good art, or good anything for that matter. Success is not a very good measure either, as it is often based in popularity. For anyone to advance in any field they must spend time doing it, and how far they take it will be the measure of their mastery.

Peter Kahoun

zoot

Between them Dale and Walter have summed it all up haven't they? As someone who is neither a master or capable of producing masterpieces I can only aspire.

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Zoot

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irene_b

[Irene] I do not believe so.
Irene

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Student of Nature

"From bonsai we receive peace of mind, health and a life’s pursuit. We can also learn generosity, patience and even philosophy about life. We can also have the good fortune to make friends of all nationalities and races with whom we share a mutual trust and respect. This is all thanks to bonsai." "Saburo Kato"




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