Charles,

what you are showing is not exactly of my taste. This is not a good naturalistic style, it is an amateurish effort. It is the old scalene triangle used as cookie cutter with the wrong material. It is a misunderstanding of what naturalistic design is all about. it is the understanding that naturalistic is the easy way out, a shortcut. This is wrong.

You are creating a rather stiff formal upright which does NOT remind of tropical fig trees. Go to your local park and look at the huge fig trees. Do they look like your virtual? No way.
They have enormous trunks with all sorts of roots dangling and very deep sitting lower branches which go oout far, very far. The tree is much wider than it is high. The top is NEVER a triangle, but a one-sided elllipse, a scalene half-ellipsis if something like this exists in the English language. the crown never has distinct branch layers, but ruther fuzzy, cloud-like huge layers. Not even an eagle can fly through between the branches, but it can fly in, one can see the inner structue of the tree.

Here is the tree that I got for demonstration. What could one do with it to teach and impress an eager crowd?

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Well, I chose to explain that this is absolutely unfit to be styled according to the standard cookie cutters. If one looks at a bonsai book and tries to design this in a classical form it is going to be a disaster. Even if one suceeds it is still not right. It would be a fig looking like a northern pine tree. A good looking transvestite at best.
It is terrible material for clasical styling, it is really and insult to a classical designer who gets paid a lot of money and then receives this pathetic piece of material.
Thanks god I am not a classical designer. I explained that one should look at a new cookie cutter her. Just go outside and look at what your fig tres look like in your parks and gardens. If viewed from this angle it is excellent material really.
After about fifteen cuts and almost no wire at all it looked like this. To me a pretty good cookie cutter for a tropical fig tree.

Now note: naturalsitic is NOT when you leave a piece of material more or less like it was and put it into a pot. This happed to be the case here by coincidence only. Naturalistic is the FEELING a bonsai gives to you. How this feeling is achieved does not matter. If one uses tons of wire and all sorts of artificail measures it can become a very good naturalsitic bonsai. Whereas if one puts a shrub into a pot and declares it naturalistc it will probably be pathetic and just make the misunderstanding apparent.

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This is the tree in a virtual pot.
Now if something like this were presented in a bonsai show and I had to critique it I would be full of compliments. This finally is not just an awkward silly copy of bonsai in books, this is a naturalsitic bonsai which was designed from the real thing. I might award it best in show. This is a cookie cutter that people should impress into their minds and use rather than the nrothern pine shape.

Now this is just my taste. Nobody has to agree with my taste, Nobody has to like my designs. All I am saying is that I have won more awards for classical trees (cookie cutter trees) than the rest of Central Europe together. I have radicallly changed my mind and I now believe that this was just for learning purposes but not worth my time anymore. It is a dead end street and it is a pity that people slavishly follow designs which just don't fit their tree species, their climate and their culture.

One could say: 'this is not a tree of my taste'. That's fine. But if one says 'this is a short-cut, an easy way out' one has not listened, or is a beginner who just cannot comprehend this in context yet, or just does not want to understand it and feels OK to stay an ignorant.

I have a lot of patience to discuss with people who know what they are talking about, or who do not and want to learn. I do get short tempered in discussions where I hear statements about something when the person has given this five minutes of thought while I have given this serious thought and endlsess consideration for twentyfive years.

You don't have to agree with me, but to take me for a fool is not the proper way.

best regards
Walter Pall

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Walter,

There is something I don't understand. I have followed the discussions about classic vs naturalistic bonsai on the IBC and this forum. I think I like about 90% of the naturalistic bonsai you have created very much. The rest is, as you said, probably a matter of taste. My own trees are all still classical because I feel I should master this first before I can advance to a naturalistic form (and this will take some years). I have noticed that you make naturlistic trees out of deciduous trees and that they do not confirm to the classic rules. However in some evergreens I see that you still make trees with triangles that do look like classical designs. I will post some pictures here to show you what I mean. Don't get me wrong, I like these trees, but I think they could easily be presented at a kokufu ten and be accepted. Why is that ?

regards, René

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René,

you did not get me wrong. These are close to classical trees and they are somewhat naturalistic at the same time.
THE classical tree is an idealized pine tree from the northern hemisphere and a harsh and rather cold climate.

It should ntotbe a surprise at all that my pine trees look a bit classical then, because that's their natural form and our climate is similar. The difference is that I think what is called refinement is often overdone in classical trees acording to my taste.

The spruce shows a clear triangle, it is besides the Redwood one of the trees which form scalene triangles for a crown even when they are old. No surprise there either. The spruce is only not as much refined as one would expect a classical tree althyough it is in training for more than 25 years.

Why that? Well, take a woman painting her face. Why does she doe that? Because it works. Why does it work? Because she get's to look closer to the ideal woman that way. She can go on improving and refinign the painting and will look more beatiful.
At one point some may think that she looks more like a model from the fashion magazines. Some will not lkike this anymore, the majority will like this, because it's the mainstrweam taste.
She continues refining and all of a sudden she looks like a doll.
Some still like this, because they happen to like dolls, but many will think that this is now too artificial. A cookie cutter woman face.

What does this have to do with cookie cutter bonsai? You can refine a tree and make it look more and more like THE ideal tree. at some point it will look artificial, as if it were of plastic.
I happen nowadys to stop way before this point is reached. But this is not the mainstream taste, yet?

Anyway, did I now confuse you enough?

I can do more of confusing. I have a lot of neoclassical trees in my collection. Tehy are still winning awards although I think they are good craft but not art. I may still do a classical design if I happen to have the kind of material that wants that. What is prepared over many years in bonsai nurseries is invariably material meant for classical shapes. So when I get one of these it would be kind of silly to force some other shape onto it.

This is often funny at conventions. They give me this 'outstanding' piece of material which is meant to become a classical tree. So this is what I do with it. While I style the tree I keep talking for two hours about my concept of naturaslitic styling. There is always the person who just does not understand.

With the fig it was the otehr way round. This was impossible material for classical styling and was crying for a naturalsitic shape.
It was not a big deal and to some it did not look like a temendous change. It obviously rather looked like the easy way out. Naturalistic styling seems to be for lazy people. Absolute misunderstanding here.

Attached is one of my famous cookie cuttter trees. It is a Chinese elm which has won lots of awards. I think it is really bonsai kitsch. It is a transvestite, an elm that desparately wants to look like a pine tree, an overstyled pine tree even, that is so abstract it could be of plastic.

This weekend I have a big garden party. More than 150 people are expected in my garden. I bet you, most will admire this elm while I smile.

best regards
Walter Pall

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Walter,
When I say short cut. I am referring to the fact that you could put years into that tree and make a beautiful banyon bonsai. The problem is that it needs a bit of branch selection and ramification to look like an old banyon tree in the wild.

Like I said before I never meant to offend you by saying it was a short cut. But with a lot of your final trees if you put many more years into them they would look like a cookie cutter bonsai. Meaning that cookie cutter takes a longer time.

Also, I know that you aren't taking the short cut way out because it is the quickest way. I am just pointing out that it seems easier to do it that way.

Charles, I guess I do not understand this cookie cutter vs naturalistic style thing. I do not think it would take longer to style a tree in either form. To me it is a fork in the road, either you go down one or the other. If I am correct both styles or I think Families is a better choice can be done in Formal and informal upright, slanting, cascade etc etc.

Walter please correct me if I am not getting this!

Jay,

you got it right.
It is an early decision and has nothing to do whith the length of cultivation.
It is possible, however, to change a tree later to either general style, but leave it's form.

best regarsd
Walter Pall

Walter,

Thanks for the explanation. I think I understand. I must admit that I really like your elm. Is this a lack of experience ?... But I also like most of your naturalistic trees a lot. So it appears I like both the classical and neo-classical designs. I recently borrowed a book with pictures of one of the kokufu ten shows. I find most of the trees in this book absolutely breathtaking. Not only are they examples of craftmanship, but also of art. ( or so I think ) I also think they really shouldn't be called cookie-cutter bonsai. I've attached a picture of what I would call cookie-cutters. I've seen them by the thousands in commercial nurseries. To call the japanese masterpieces cookie-cutters really wouldn't do them justice !
So what I'm trying to say is that it's perfectly ok to push the boundaries of an art form, but that it's wrong to call the classical designs kitsch or a transvestite. Both classical and neo-classical have their own charm. They are both beautiful, but in a different way.
Hope I'm making sense....

regards, René

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Hmm. I was just online looking for some bonsai cookie cutters. I thought that would be an appropriate tool for our next club meeting. Some real cookie cutter bonsai!

In any case, guess which link pops up first on Google?

http://www.google.com/search?source...e+cutter+bonsai

Sigh...