This phrase "cookie cutter" I think has limited relevance to bonsai because of the rather unique medium bonsai is expressed through: living trees. It's a little like calling German Sheppards "Cookie Cutter dogs". I think very few dog owners would accept that as an apt description of their own particular pet. Nor would they require their dog to be different in important ways from others of its breed to feel that they were missing out on an important aspect of dog ownership (or "dog companionship") as a result.

I have profited greatly from the "Bonsai as Art" discussion on the forum but continue to feel that we are somehow missing out on something important when we seem to ignore the fact that trees are not inanimate material used simply as a vehicle for the artist to express his(her) own personal vision. Viewing living things as no more sigificant than the inanimate materials we construct the rest of our artificial world with has often been cited as one of the great errors of the modern Western World, even an error that, in the long run, may prove fatal to our society's existance.

As many of you may have already guessed, I'm not too crazy about the work of Nick Lenz. I don't know Nick personally, but I've always felt that in important ways, his work expresses a sort of irreverance towards the natural world that differs greatly from the spirit of reverence that I seem to find in most bonsai that is not to my liking. I do agree that Nick is probably the best example of "Ironic Bonsai" that might be found.

Fred

I think the closest correlation to "living bonsai art" is music.

It is "of the moment," plays out over time, is subject to rules that can be broken. It is both natural, manmade and a mix of the two. Bonsai is all of those things too. I'd liken bonsai artists more to composers than to sculptors.

Music is also highly relative when it comes to its "art." There are bird songs, symphonies and garage bands. All are appreciated by different people in different ways and arguments over what kind of music is best have raged for centuries and never been resolved.

Al,

I'm going to test the slippery slope here. Is your tree art? Yes it is. Does it have attributes? Yes, good trunk thickness and movement, a good silhouette, healthy. Faults? Yes (like all bonsai have), classically an informal upright should not be situated in the center of a pot, and yes, it is a little over-sized. Big deal.
It is overall a pleasing tree to look at, cookie cutter or not. Art is supposed to be viewed and produce some type of emotional response. It does this, hence it is art.

I guess we have to look at bonsai in the same light as say, paintings. Mass-produced copies of scenic views inundate my home, but a Thomas Kinkade lithograph has a special place (almost a tokonoma) in the great room, and several original oil paintings have places of honor. I like all of them, but to varying degrees. If I didn't like one, I would sell or give it away. If the new owner likes it, they have a work of art. My opinion becomes of little importance.

Like so many things, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. With bonsai, I rarely see a podocarpus I actually like, yet shefflera appeals to me. I can still appreciate that podocarpus bonsai is art, I just don't really want one. When you walk into an art gallery, surely most people see examples of works they do not personally care for, yet they may buy a painting/print from the exact same store that they consider the epitomy of artistry. Everything was in the same store, the store sells paintings, so logically all paintings have an inherent value, albeit varied. All are examples of art.

I know out there someone has framed a child's first finger painting and display it proudly in their home. Bravo for them. I wouldn't do it( fridge is okay), but for them to care about what I think is to cheapen the value of something they hold dear. Call it manners, tolerance, whatever, but I feel that should apply to all artistic expression. I'll keep my Kinkade (Painter of Light) with the variable light switch (so I can see all the subtle changes), regardless of who says it's just a glaring example of good marketing. To them I say, you do your thing and I'll do mine. By the way, the arrogant person who takes personal satisfaction in belittling others' attempts at art would be well advised to maintain excellent dental insurance. One day, someone may decide to stop that mouth from working, temporarily.
I guess my point is that anyone who makes an honest attempt at making a bonsai should be considered an artist. I referred to it the other day, but it's worth repeating: My daughter at about six years old received a picture she had drawn in school in a frame that beared the following remark from Picasso,"There is an artist in every child, the trick is to remain an artist when you grow up." Something like that anyway. The point is obvious though.

Just like paintings however, demand and rarity will greatly influence the "value" of bonsai. Established (or possibily,well-marketed) artists will command a more perceived "value" for their efforts. John Naka's worst tree is superior to my best one. Why would, or should, it be different?


Take care,

John

I am a youngin and don't understand a lot things still, thanks for the advice and clearing up what the discussion is about.

To all<
My only question is Why do you do bonsai

Over in the IBC gallery, Lo Minshuan posted this a stunning example of penjing art from an exhibition in Taiwan, as part of this thread.

Art? How could anyone possibly see it as otherwise?


--

The photograph after this one in the same thread is an interesting inversion of the bonsai concept -- and it illustrates that one can indeed capture in bonsai the sort post-structuralist playfulness that I associate with fiction writers such as Borges and Calvino.

Best regards,
Carl

Thank you Carl, those are two stunning pieces of art wherein the subjects are the art. In both the photograph is is simply a recording of the items, no art or artifice was used in their creation. Yet one can still see the creativity of the artists who's work was captured.

Thanks for the link there, Crow!
Of course, I already saw them in my daily IBC fix

I don't know what to say about that second piece except that it is art and it moves me. Not sure yet where it's taking me.

It may even have some irony in it

pootsie

al, to answer your question, i will have to borrow from JL when he said, "Al, the question is not "Is this Art" you should be defining words like good, quality, bad, mundane, retched." it is my belief that it is all art, it is just a matter of which level of appreciation it deems as such. for instance, i enjoy carls work, but abstract work is not my thing, but it is still art. i don't think we will all ever find an agreement in this matter for that very reason, whether or not it is art depends on who you ask, obviously the artist would say yes, but a viewer might see it differently. on the other hand someone might do bonsai as a hobby, while his/her friend that does not looks at the tree(s) as art.

chris

When this thread started, it seemed to me it was about the issue of what makes Bonsai such a unique and powerful form of art. How does it touch us and what are the charactaristics of Bonsai that limit how it can touch us and, within those limits, what is it that makes it so powerful.

Well, perhaps these were not exactly the questions that Carl brought up, but they seem to me to be closely enough related to his issues that I didn't feel it's much of a stretch to raise them within his thread.

I guess that for me, at least, this whole question of whether or not Bonsai is art is right up there with the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin in inspiring my interest. I guess the issue of the relationship between craftsmanship and artistry still interests me but, the question of whether or not bonsai is a legitimate medium for expressing artistry is a no brainer. Obviously.

I continue to think, however, that there is more to Bonsai and its ability to attract interest and, ultimately, devotion, than is explained by the "Western art paradigm". Bonsai seems to me to be both more limited and more powerful than other artforms. And Carl's raising the original question that started this thread has really brought this home to me.

There seems to be tremendous resistance, as mentioned on another current discussion going on at this site, to the notion that Bonsai has come out of a cultural tradition that is quite different from our Western traditions and represents a way of viewing the Natural World and man's nature rather differently than we do in the West. The fascination with the issue of "Is Bonsai art?" seems to me to reflect this. Well, yes, Bonsai is art, but not exactly Western Art. Somebody like Walter Pall seems to be able to fit Bonsai comfortably into his Art Paradigm, but for many of us, it just doesn't feel quite right and, however insistent the clamor is to declare it one and the same with Western Art, it continues to not feel quite right.

In the West, there is no other art form which developed as an organic development of Western sensibilities which uses living beings as the medium of artistic expression. Landscape architecture is looked down upon by "real artists" as being "mere horticulture". And who would say that dog breeding is an artistic enterprise? Yet, to me st least, certain aspects of these activities are just as useful in explaing and understanding the appeal of Bonsai as traditional Western Art.

To the Western artist, all "real" art forms involve the artist imposing his vision on inanimate materials. No great artist working with any other media would proclaim as Walter Pall has that a vital element of his work is choosing the right material. The medium itself (the tree), it seems, in Bonsai has a profound affect on the success of the art enterprise. And, in my view, the powerful effect that well executed bonsai, particularly those with great longevity, have upon us has little to do with whether similar trees have been developed in the past or at present.

No doubt, I'll recieve a rebuttal to these comments, but for me, the issue that Carl has raised has really helped me to clarify my thinking about the relationship of Bonsai to other, Western art forms. I continue to be convinced - and Carl's questions convince me even more - that there are critical charactaristics of Bonsai which have come out of a non-Western view of Mankind's character and the Natural World that make Bonsai very different from Western art forms, at once both more and less.

Respectfully submitted, Fred