Such A Thing As Too Much Trunk?

Will_Heath

This thread was not intended as a attack on anyones bonsai, in fact I purposely never gave examples as I did not want to offend anyone. I was just curious if this trend towards all trunk, no taper, little if any branch structure was new. I apoligize if I seemed to be singling out anyone.

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RonMartin(deceased)

Only those that can read would consider your post an attack.

Will_Heath

hmmmm? That would included everyone on this forum?

dbz12fan

I did not believe that you singled anyone out by asking this question. I do not know where you are seeing these sumo trees, but a proper sumo style tree should have strong taper from the base to the apex. Sometmes large chops are required to make this possible.

Here is a nice example of a proper sumo style tree that Suthin Sukosolovisit styled- http://www.royalbonsaigarden.com/pi...o1058037676.gif .

Suthin has other good examples as well:
Note on this one the size of the branches relative to the trunk. They are in good proportion- http://www.royalbonsaigarden.com/pi...o1069015819.gif

Another good example from Suthin- http://www.royalbonsaigarden.com/pi...10000-10152.gif

As you can see, Suthin pays a good deal of attention to the taper in these sumo trees. His branches are almost perfectly in scale as well. He has become a true master of the sumo style. We could all learn from his trees.

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Charles Bevan
Vero Beach, Fl

Will_Heath

dbz12fan,

thank you for the examples, I personally find #2 and #3 pleasing, however, something about #1 strikes me as deformed, drawfed, bizarre and is exactly the trend I was trying to portray.

I have taken a good hard look at some of my trees and made a desision to replant a few into the ground in order to develop taper and branching to better match the trunk size. I know most people plant in ground to develop trunk width but it is also a great way to develop other parts of the tree as well.

Carl_Bergstrom

David,

In retrospect, what I wrote a couple of years ago about sumo style is indeed just plain silly to apply to shohin well-styled with artistic considerations in mind:



Thanks for pointing this out.

I hadn't seen many good sumo-style shohin at the time. I railing against the idea of sumo for sumo's sake idea, rather than at the idea that in some circumstances, extreme taper can be used to further artistic aims.

I respect Suthin's work very much, and I like many of his trees. That said, I don't particularly like the first two that Charles posted, for the same reasons that Will mentions. I don't see this as artistically successful in the same way that some highly-tapered shohin are.

Best wishes,
Carl

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