An offhand remark that I made today got me thinking about some of our recent discussions about bonsai and art in the West.

There is a curious thing about bonsai in the West. It is art, but yet here we tend not to really appreciate the art of bonsai unless we also practice it. I'm not say that people don't enjoy walking through a bonsai show for the "first time," I am just saying that there are few people who are obsessed with bonsai but don't actually grow trees. Just take this forum for example - I think every active member of this forum grows trees herself or himself.

In bonsai one gets so used to this being the state of affairs that it hardly seems remarkable. But art decidedly need not be this way. Take classical music. Tens or hundreds of thousands of people - maybe even millions - are passionate about classical music. What fraction of them actually play? A half? A tenth? Not 99 percent, that is for certain! Ditto jazz. Plenty of people are obsessed with sculpture, yet never have held a chisel. Art-house film enthusiasts are some of the most knowledgable and enthusiastic audiences of any art form I know, and yet these folks quite rarely act or direct or produce or write themselves.

So what is going on with bonsai? Is it this way in Japan as well? (I very much doubt it, though perhaps I am wrong - can anyone tell me?) Is it so new to the West that we don't have the culturally literate population present to enjoy this artform irrespective of practicing it? Is it because there is something different about bonsai - one cannot collect with also participating in creation? Why do so many people - myself included - love classical and read about it and discuss it and argue about it and attend performances and so forth, without ever displaying a whit of talent at that art form? Why do we sometimes almost think that the value of an opinion is proporational to the quality of trees produced by its bearer? (A corresponding attitude would pull the rug out from under just about all film, painting, and music critics!)

I don't have any easy answers here. I suppose if I did, I wouldn't be asking.

Looking forward to your responses,
Carl aka Old Mister Crow

Morning Carl and all (at list at our end…),
The question aroused by you is a very old question concerning as well many other fields of life, not only art, and for example sports reporters.

My "2 cents", there is a great difference between enjoying and appreciating the art of bonsai to criticizing and teaching, especially in art of bonsai, you cannot tech without having your own experience.

I think it is easy to kid oneself that the little twigs one has in pots are bonsai, or will be bonsai real soon.

It is less easy to kid oneself that the raucous cacaphony screeching from one's voilin is classical music, or will be classical music real soon.

Just brief observations, probably full of holes...

Regards,

Chris / TB

Greetings,

>
I think all art forms (visual, audio, physical) are languages that you need at least a minimum vocabulary in to be able to appreciate. I’ve had many a similar discussion regarding music, especially the more ‘out’ forms; free improvisation, atonal minimalism, electro-acoustics, noise music, glitch etc. A person with no background in that sort of thing will have nothing to base what they are experiencing on. For example, someone hearing Derek Bailey (English free improv guitarist) for the first time might just hear what they consider to be bad guitar playing, they don’t recognize the obscure scales or extended technique that he’s using. A guitarist, on the other hand, will probably recognize a lot more of that’s happening musically, and therefore be able to appreciate (or criticize) it a bit more effectively. But in the musical languages out there, the vast majorities have an understanding of, and opinions formed around, what they like, so maybe the gap between bubblegum pop music and atonal minimalism is less than the gap between bonsai growing and, say, …a rodeo clown, but a gardener would have the necessary base vocabulary to be able to ‘get’ bonsai a bit more…

As far as opinions go, I think we just tend to gravitate towards the opinions of people we think have enough experience to be of use to us. Maybe a little subconscious snobbery in play here…

__________


I just reread what I wrote and HOLY COW do I sound like an elitist snob-which I am-but I’ll just let you all know that I am a really FRIENDLY elitist snob!

For the record I’m really new to bonsai and I have yet to style a tree myself.
Also I like everything from Southern Gospel Choirs to pure blistering noise music!
I also have a lot of experience in unskilled labor.

-Cody

Greetings Chris,

For an excellent example of raucous violin screeching as classical music, check out “Four Violins” (1964) by Tony Conrad. Almost an hour of vintage microtonal drone music…

sweeeeeeet....

-Cody

Carl et all
Hope everyone here realizes that I am just stating an opinion. One that I am not really sure I have thought out as well as I should and maybe I am totally wrong.
Bonsai in the west is not really practiced like it is elsewhere. Not in the US anyway.
Here there are only experienced practitioners and those that want to get into the art. The experienced seem to want to keep their knowledge to themselves but will begrudgingly give it up after a bit of begging by the new people. But for some reason we want to make them work really hard at it.
As a group we are more critical and less prone to praise. We make everyone believe that it takes years to master the basic skills like watering and trimming.
We have bonsai conventions but make them so expensive that few can attend. We have our bonsai collections but usually hide them from view.
But mostly we don't invite people in to enjoy bonsai. We convince them that it is all work and study.
Given all this why would the casual person want to have a bonsai collection . Why would they want to be a part of it. Then they to would have to become as paranoid as us bonsai nuts.
People collect things because they bring enjoyment. We run around like some secret society so no one else knows what joy our little trees can bring to them.
Maybe when we change the there will be people that just have bonsai for the fun of it.

Ron, perhaps I was not clear enough in my post. My observation was not that there is a lack of people who are casual bonsai growers, growing trees just for the fun of it. My point was that there is a lack of people who are passionate bonsai enthusiasts but do not actually grow trees themselves.

Other artforms are not like this. Maybe this is part of why bonsai is not considered an artform as widely as it should be.

-Carl

Old crow, Ron et al:
I think one of the problems is that most of the people who would like to collect Bonsai were burned by the commercial Mallsai that we are all well aware of, especially around Christmas.

Good thinking people buy them and give them as gifts. The recipient thinks, wow, how nice and waters the poor dead Juniper (with glued on rocks) for months wondering why it is turning brown!

If you realize that hundreds of thousands of these dead Bonsai are proffered on to the public every year, it is no wonder that most people are turned off after their sad experience.

Sure, once in awhile a small percentage of the multitudes are able to find a "live" one, and their little tree survives, and they are hooked, but most are turned off by becoming members of the Dead Bonsai Society they have unwillingly joined!

The thing with bonsai as an art form is it's a living thing, and needs caring for,. It implies some responsibility,unlike a painting which is finished at some stage.
Most non bonsai growers see bonsai as 'realy neat trees, must be hard work' yet go and get one anyway cos it looks cool, and then wonder why it dies!
In short, the thought of having to look after it puts joe public off, not a bad thing in itself.
I hear from many who see my bonsai and say, 'thats real neat, i had one once but it died'.!And thats as far as it gets, unless a light bulb goes on and they think, hey i quite fancy this!
Thats when the hook gets you and youre gone!

I think Carl's point is that John Q. could appreciate a lot of other activities (like concert piano, car racing, or pro wrestling) without practicing scales, turning laps, or bodybuilding, respectively. And the participants are actually the minority of those concerned with those activities.

So where are the bonsai groupies? The non-participatory critics and hangers-on, the black thumb crowd, the wannabons? I think I posted before that in places like Singapore, they get thousands of people lined up to see a bonsai show. Here in the US we often have to send out invitations to get a good turnout.

Regards,

Matt