René,

intersting, I like my elm too. But from a sophisticated artistic pont of view I know that it is kitsch.

It is like popular music. From a sophisticated point of view most fo what is called 'country and western music' or in Europe 'popular folks music' is absolutely kitsch.
Guess what I listen to when on the road: popular folks music and classical music.

Never mind
Walter Pall

Walter's remarks about "sophisticated art" vs. "kitsch (meaning cheap, uneducated, pop-art)" brings back some interesting memories from the time when I still lived in Europe (Budapest, Wienna, Salzburg and Paris).

I used to hang out (be part of) with the intellectual elite, like poets, actors, painters. We used to look down on the taste of the crowd with less artistic sophistication (never mind that sometimes they had much more fun than us). I've seen with my own eyes that sometimes "artistic sophistication" can lead to a road where art become "intellectualized" and thus it is no fun anymore (like listening to some modern classical music and desperately trying to enjoy it). It loses it's main ingredient, which is innocence.

Anyway, I am happy that after many years and after moving to Canada and the USA I got rid of that "elitist" mentality and I've learned to look at art with the "beginner's eye".

My point is that when I look at Walter's elm tree, I don't want to think that its is an elm tree or that it is classical style and it wants to look like a pine. Those thoughts are part of creation process, but have nothing to do with the end result.

I just look at it and I like it very much.

When sophistication itself becomes the goal, that can also be a dead-end street (I hope that's not the case with Walter. After all, he enjoys pop music).

Kind regards,
Attila

Well I must be a complete idiot, Walter. When I look at your elm, I see not a "classic bonsai style" or "pine style," bonsai, but rather a natural style bonsai. It evokes a perfectly natural elm standing in a park or in a peaceful meadow.

The formation of the physical elements, however contrived, perfectly portray what I see when I think of the many beautiful trees I've seen in meadows. It is certainly not a tortured tree on the mountain side, but is is perfectly natural for a meadow.

Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
www.bonsai365.com/
zone 8, Texas

Walter,

If you style a pine in its naturalistic style does that mean that you are not supposed to tidy up the needles before a show?

Yes LivingArt is correct. We are pretty much agreeing. Walter just prefers naturalistic and I prefer cookie cutter.

My final point before I let this thread go is that if a poll was made on preference, cookie cutter vs. naturalistic, the percent of the people would probably lean towards cookie cutter. This also means that more value can be found in cookie cutter trees, and if you own a nursury you would probably earn more money that way. Am I correct on that statement or just lost in my own thoughts?

I have been sitting here for the last five minutes gazing at Walter's "Cookie Cutter" Elm. I have been trying not to like it, realizing that two do so marks me as hopelessly not-in -the-know, unsophisticated and naive. Despite my best efforts, I find myself filled with a wonderful sense of peace and tranquility, the wonder of nature and the marvel of its simple beauty. Well, not so simple at all, really.

I guess the forest behind my house here in the Ozarks is filled with "Cookie Cutter" forest trees. Yet, to me, each is very much an individual. Each is worthy of having its beauty marveled at.

When I was young, I found it difficult to tell Asian people apart. I was so struck by their apparent similarity that, to my unfamiliar eye, they truly "all looked alike to me". Now, I find that my Asian wife is truly very much an individual and very different from her, well, our, many Asian friends. As they all differ profoundly, one from another. (My wife tells me that, as a child, she had the same problem with Americans!)

Maybe, I just haven't looked at enough Bonsai. I find them all to be quite different, though many, many of them have been developed following the same design precepts. I am constantly delighted by the profound differences that I see even in year old seedlings from the same parent tree. I guess I need a more sophisticated eye to see the boring similarity that I now know they surely must all possess.

Either that or might I wonder whether there are, perhaps, subtlely different rules to art that involves living beings rather than the lifeless materials used by other types of artists?

Woops!!! Don't want to go there! I surely don't want to get into the whole thing about Bonsai having souls, trees suffering as the result of pruning and wiring and all that nonsense!!!

Best regards, Fred

Andy,

I don't know about you but I have never seen an elm look like Walter's tree in nature. And I live in an area where they're impossible to kill.

Perhaps they're different in other areas...

Mittar,

apologies to Andy for speaking on his behalf,
I don't think Andy said that Walter's elm looks like a real elm.

He said that "it evokes" an elm. There is a subtle difference.

Attila

I must've missed that.

First, I too like the elm, however it seem to invoke either a Juniper or a Pinon tree to me. I guess pinon more as junipers tend to be a little bit lower and bushier around my neck of the woods.

i'm a bigger fan of naturalistic style trees. just because it's a natural style tree does not mean that bonsai techniques aren't applied. that's kinda the vibe i'm getting from some people in this thread. i keep getting from dbz12fan's posts that he thinks of naturalistic style trees as just letting them go wild, no bonsai training involved. this is entirely untrue. i think that the classical style could just as easily be considered the "easy way out" (if any form of bonsai could be considered easy). to make a classical style tree, just open a bonsai book and follow the "directions." whereas to make a naturalistic tree, you must learn to take ideas from nature, and sort of look at natural trees and think "how could i emulate this in bonsai?" walter has some AMAZING infromal broom trees, and as he said in a previous thread, you wont find the style in any of your bonsai books, but it's the most common style for natural trees. his informal broom trees are my most favorite trees i've ever seen. for some reason they just stick in my head.

amen, nickbackman,
well put

attila