result of the holiday blues:

Thoughts about Viewing Bonsai by Walter Pall Bonsai is the art of the visible. This is a statement that is commonly used in art theory for painting and sculpture. This seemingly trivial statement may be acceptable in the West. In Asia one would state the contrary: bonsai is the art of the invisible. A bonsai as piece of art is not an open platitude but it is like a four-line poem where the fourth line is missing. Bonsai is not the art of the visible, it is the art of making visible, while the process of seeing something happens within the viewer who sees something that is not there. From the point of view of the designer, bonsai is the art of making visible something that was not there previously, which belongs to the unknown and cannot be not understood with our intellect. The intellect can help in thinking about the story the tree is telling us about nature. But the intellect cannot help us in really making understood the emotions that this story evokes. The viewer is supposed to concentrate on the visible and what he feels, not with the technique that the artist has used. It does not help for comprehending a bonsai if one knows too much about the technique of designing it and about the artist himself. The knowledgeable viewer has a tendency to pull apart a tree, to immediately start to criticize it. He is biased and does not let the tree approach him, speak to him. Bonsai designers are often the worst critics. They tend to think what they would have done, how they could improve the tree instead of simply letting the tree have an impact on their feelings. They should try to accept, at least for a moment, the bonsai the way it is. This is why judging trees according to ‘judging criteria’ is problematic. Instead of letting the bonsai have an impact on the feelings to the soul and award points according to that impact, one picks the tree to pieces with the intellect. In the best case, craft can be judged like this; in the worst case a tree will be downgraded exactly because of an strong impact when the impact was generated with uncommon means. It is not being judged how a bonsai feels but how the feeling was created. The biased and preoccupied viewer does not get beyond the touchable, so he cannot reach the artistic. He wants to understand where there is nothing to understand – only to take up. Understanding happens with the left side of the brain, which, however, can never comprehend a piece of art because this is not an intellectual process. The intellect is not called upon. For the viewer who is used to be proud of his knowledge, of his intellect, the most humiliating feeling must be to touch onto something that is untouchable, incomprehensible; something which he cannot put in context with the real and comprehendible world of common bonsai design rules. In this case the viewer is put in an unused inferior opposition – he reacts with an arrogant intellectual pulling apart of the bonsai and hates it, because he hates his humiliation. This explains why bonsai which don’t conform to the well documented (Japanese) rules are often not accepted even when they are of much higher artistic value than the standard cliché-trees. This does not, of course, mean that a bonsai that does not conform to the rules is automatically a piece of art. Schopenhauer has said that one has to approach a piece of art like a person of high level. That means that one has to humbly wait until one is approached for communication. The energies that the artist put into his piece, reveal themselves to the viewer who relaxes completely and who puts his will aside. According to modern results of brain research one can also say that the relaxed viewer sets his left side of the brain (his will) to rest and admires the piece of art as it is with the right side, without putting critique in words immediately. It is assumed in this context that the bonsai in question is a piece of art. How to distinguish real art and an amateur effort, and who does that, is a totally new subject that requires a lengthy explanation in another article. For the viewer of a bonsai it is not helpful to stand in front of the tree and try hard to understand it, to penetrate it with his mind. It works much better if he stands in front of it and lets it sink in without preconditions. The viewer should casually feel that he has found these forms, these colors, as if he had created this bonsai.

The naïve viewer has an advantage. He does not have the handicap of intellectual reflexions. His prejudices are not deep. He has fewer demands, is more occupied with looking. Whatever he cannot grasp with his intellect he just leaves it at that. The naïve viewer will notice that the bonsai don’t really look like natural trees that he sees daily. He will ask why this is so. Well, they are not imitations of natural trees, but idealizations of natural trees. It is also a question of taste – but tastes can change. At the moment the Japanese taste dominates the bonsai world; but this can change again. The naïve viewer is like a an alien from a strange star who looks at fashion magazines and asks the question why the women don’t look like “real” women. The opinion of the general viewer, the “healthy common sense” are, however, suspicious of being dominated by the ruling averageness. A simple, naive taste is often a vulgar taste. The naïve viewer must not be too naïve, otherwise he will miss too much. The naïve viewer often raises surprise with the bonsai enthusiast. People would get bewildered by “dead” trees being exhibited when deciduous trees have no foliage in winter. The usage of much dead wood on a bonsai is seen by many as a sure sign that the tree is dead or will die soon. Large bonsai are often ignored, because they are not “real” bonsai; a real bonsai is a very small one. A bonsai is not an open book, the contents of which are apparent to everyone who looks at it. It consists of many hidden clues, in art theory called metaphors. He who does not understand the clues will just see a little tree in a pot. He who, e.g., does not know the message “triumph in the fight for survival”, will have problems with a bonsai with lots of dead wood, a very thin life line, but healthy looking foliage. The laymen will ask why a tree is exhibited that is already dead or will die or conveys such a sick feeling. He who does not accept the admiration for the old that is so normal for an Asian will rather be delighted by youngish-looking deciduous trees than by very old conifers. It is often a mystery to the experienced bonsai enthusiast why people stand in front of a great bonsai but don’t think it’s great. One would think that a good tree is just that and everybody should be able to see that, also a layman. This is not so. The tree, per se, is not beautiful or good, it only sends signals. The receiver must have learned to recognize the signals , to decipher them and to appreciate the tree. This takes a long education. Only the interpretation of signals leads to information, to evaluation, whether one sees a poor or a good bonsai. The information is not in the tree, but in the brain of the viewer. “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”. The way a viewer sees a bonsai is closely connected to the experience of a lifetime, to the collected wisdom of the viewer. It is interesting to note here that the wisdom stored is not only in language form but also in picture and emotional form. Many people have problems with the “excessive” usage of dead wood in the bonsai art. This is because they have not seen enough trees with lots of dead wood. One can sees such trees in nature, but only in extreme positions, like high mountains or in arid regions. A mountain farmer from Tyrol, who had never seen a bonsai in his life before, went to a bonsai exhibit. He did not ask “how old is it?”, “how much does it cost?”, no, he asked “how can it be that such a small tree got struck by lightning?”. He had the experience that at the timberline every other tree is struck by lightning, eventually. He did not question the usage of dead wood and extreme forms because of his daily experience. On the other hand one can find people who know very well what trees can look like in extreme positions, but they still are against extreme designs of bonsai. The reason is that often the viewer expects a bonsai to represent an “ideal” tree. The ideal tree being an average, but exceptionally beautiful tree, never an extreme one. This is hard to accept for the artist who is so bored by the normal trees that he learned to see the most extreme ones as ideal. These bonsai are getting so far away from the natural ideal that they are becoming abstract and not acceptable anymore for the average viewer. One can give the following advice to the viewer of a bonsai: get rid of thoughts about titles, descriptions, style, form, just let the tree as such penetrate you. Everything that can be said with words has not place with the viewer, only feelings count now. The viewer should look and not view. Looking is aimless seeing a bonsai, without any demands. The viewing is opposed to this, it is rational, targeted. One can say that the looking happens in the right side of the brain, whereas the viewing happens in the left side. He who accepts this advice will forget all the rules, just as the artist did when he created this bonsai. The bonsai be a feast for the eye and not for the intellect.

__________________
best regards
Walter Pall
http://walter-pall.de
I don't design bonsai, I design trees.
Tradition is not the custody of ashes but the propagation of fire.
NEW: The endless bonsai diary
http://walter-pall-bonsai.blogspot.com/

Well said Walter, consider this as a standing ovation!

An empty mind or empty cup is sometimes the best tool we have at our disposal. Excellent article, thank you.


Will Heath

Walter, this is one of my favorite quotes concerning art:
"No great artist sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist". Oscar Wilde
I hope someday to have a better understanding of it.

Regards

Mike

Walter,

Thank you for writing this - and thank you for writing it in English, so that we can appreciate it. I will take this approach of aimless, undemanding seeing with me the next time I go to view a bonsai exhibit or show.

Best wishes,
Carl

Walter,

THAK YOU!
Your entry above was worth reading and re-reading. Each time I read it I thought a little clearer. Each time I read it I was liberated a little more. And, I too must thank you for takeing the time to write this in English, for I unlike yourself and many others only understand English (a short coming I must live with).

Appreciatively
Jay

One of my Xmas presents is the book,Wabi-Sabi by Leonard Koren. I had just started struggling through it on this cold, rainy afternoon, when a quote stopped me cold and I had to share it.
"In the realm of aethetics, reason is almost always subordinate to perception."
I need to chew on that for awhile.

Mike

Added later:
Now I feel that I'm decending into confusion. I have gotten the feeling that the ostentatious perfection of the highest level of Japanese bonsai is counter to the principles of wabi-sabi. Can it be true that the more I learn, the less I know? Probably.

Mr. Walter,

Absolutely outstanding article, we are indeed fortunate that you got the holiday blues this year if these thoughts are the result...I am continually amazed at not only your ability to create great bonsai, but also your understanding of human nature as it relates to bonsai and art in general, and the ability to convey this understanding to others so clearly in more than one language...

After several readings of this wonderful article, this passage keeps jumping out at me...We so often see a tree or bonsai but we don't spend the time to really look and study it...We would probably all be better at creating good bonsai if we would only spend more time building our 'experience of a lifetime' and 'our collected wisdom' truly looking and studying trees both as bonsai and 'in the wild'...

I am reminded of an experience back in the early ‘80s, I was pursuing a career as a professional musician and on the road [away from home] most of the time…I was not growing trees in pots…this was a time between my first and second attempts at bonsai…the first time I used horticultural experience I had acquired growing many types of plants, and my inspiration and teaching was only photos, a one time encounter with a Korean bonsai grower, and a few actual sightings of bonsai trees…I had not even read a how-to book, and teachers and demos were unknown to me [not a very impressive start, and certainly not an impressive collection]…

While playing a gig in St. Louis, Missouri I made a trip early one morning to the St. Louis Botanical Gardens…I arrived as a bonsai exhibit was being set up [I think by a local club]…I had nothing else to do until about 6:00 that evening so I spent my day enjoying the many plants at the garden and spent much time in the central courtyard where the bonsai exhibit was set up…There were probably about a hundred trees on exhibit at the show, most of which I considered to be of good quality, and they had 3 very impressive tokanoma set up…the club members of course were gathered mostly in the area of the tokanoma displays answering questions and assisting people as well as giving a few demos throughout the day [mostly on basic bonsai technique and horticulture practices]…a very well organized event in my opinion…

The three trees that actually got my attention the most were displayed at the opposite end from the tokanoma area…they were a ‘flat-top styled bald cypress’ [my first experience with this style], a Japanese boxwood which was probably about 22 inches tall with a base of about 1 ½ inches, little taper and only a very gradual curve like half of the McDonald’s arch going from base to apex, with a very rounded crown [reminded me of many poplar or cottonwood trees I had seen along the banks of the Mississippi River], and an Alberta Spruce nearly 30 inches tall very straight, good taper, nice jin work, but with a base to height ratio of about 1 to 15 and the number one branch about ¾ of the way up the tree [looked much like a giant sequoia]…unfortunately the owner of the spruce was deceased and the owner of the bald cypress and boxwood was not at the show, I really would have enjoyed talking to them…There was a bench under a shade tree near these trees and I spent most of my day at the gardens on or near that bench… It seemed to me that the majority of the people that had some knowledge of the Japanese art of bonsai sort of passed over those trees…some even making comments like ‘it is nice but it’s not bonsai’…’I wonder how that got into this show’…most were obviously not impressed…However, the larger percentage of those viewing the exhibit that day seemed to be tourists, or people who had come to see the gardens and had no real concept of what a bonsai “should” look like, or the ‘rules and guidelines of “good” bonsai’…It was these people that made an impression on me that I will never forget…In my opinion these three were the trees in the exhibition that seemed to evoke the most emotion from the ‘general public’…many comments were about how the tree reminded them of a tree that had a special meaning in their life…I will never forget one middle aged lady when speaking of the boxwood made the comment “that looks just like the old sycamore over on Black River, you know the one with the rope swing, we really need to make a trip over there and take the kids”…

I have, since that experience, been very attentive to the people and their reactions at any showings and exhibits I have had the privilege to attend, as well as paying attention to the responses of those that have viewed my own collections…It seems to me the general non-bonsai-educated public appreciates and responds better to trees that they recognize, and trees that remind them of trees they see daily…My observations of the people as they looked at the different trees in the display, and the comments I heard that day had a definite impact on my second and third efforts of growing trees in pots…

Thanks again for these thoughts, and for bringing back some of the "experience of a lifetime" that has changed the way I view trees...

Regards
Behr

Thank you, Walter.

pootsie

Behr,

thank you for your excellent contribution.

Walter,

Your a man of few words.

I happen to have 2 University degrees, one in Horticulture and one in Psychology.
Through the years people have said, "what a strange combination".

Your words above show why the two go together well. You have thouched on what I would term, "The Psychology of Bonsai". That's how I would entitle your words above.

The whole question of "how do we know what we think we know" has been debated for centuries and is still at the heart of the human condition.

The study of Sensation and Perception is a complex study involving processes that are too great to go into here on this board but I'm am glad you wrote about it.
A bonsai is a stimulus and how each individual perceives it varies, as you have said.

There is one point I would like to touch on though. It deals with pre-emptory perception in regards to viewing bonsai exibits. It is very important to have the right state of mind before going into an exhibit. It helps to prepare your mind before the exhibit by freeing the mind of bias and preconcieved ideas. I think it helps to see better. It's not always an easy thing to do.
I call it "Clear channel seeing".

The poet William Blake wrote: "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite." Such cleansing would not be desirable. Without the protection of the doors of perception-that is, without the self-controlled chaotic activity of the cortex, from which perceptions spring-people and animals would be overwhelmed by eternity.

Perhaps this is why our brain has defense mechanisms built in to protect our mind. I don't know.

Thanks for writing what you did.