The following comment is my view on the case, a personal way of thinking. This is in no way an assault, critique or attack. My phrasing might be off, might come off hard or weird, but that's most likely because this isn't my first language. It's hard to find words in another language if you haven't used those words in ten years. Also, my views can always change, I'm open for discussion.
One thing I got out of the video, is that the Japanese changed Penjing to their own liking and thus created bonsai. I'm sure this doesn't cover it completely but, the Japanese removed the 'tiny landscape' element and created individual trees instead. Ryan said something like the trees in Japanese bonsai are more stylized in a way that romanticizes the tree itself (I can't remember the exact phrasing).
For now, Valavanis said the following in the All American Bonsai Award thread:
Personally, I do not see an American style of bonsai. But there are bonsai in America. When I view a bonsai I don't look for an American or Japanese or Chinese flag. Only the beauty of art is enjoyed by my eye. Many bonsai artists try very hard to design an "American style" bonsai and end up failing because they forgot about the basic design elements and create a poor bonsai..... Then they name it an "American bonsai."
As far as I know, and that's very little to be honest, Valavanis is schooled in Japan. His vision on bonsai is sculpted for a large part by the Japanese style and form. He says here that basic elements are forgotten and people create poor bonsai that way. But that's based on the Japanese school, based on the Japanese ways and taboos in bonsai. But if we
hypothetically move away from the Japanese style and view that comment on its own, one could say something like "In the US people don't always follow the Japanese guidelines and sometimes reject the classical basic design elements, thus creating American Bonsai."
It's a less negative phrasing if you view it as a part of the Americansai (made up word) style characteristic.
Art isn't always defined by what the experts think about it, it's often about what the artists make out of it. No expert has called Dada art by the name Dada art before the artists signed a toilet bowl and called it dada. Maybe the Americansai is evolving just like that, it's moving away from traditional standards. It's very understandable that traditional artists wouldn't like that. I don't like Pollock because I'm more of a surrealism and hyperrealism fan. I grew up visiting European museums, surrounded by European classical paintings. I personally think Jackson Pollock has made the shittiest art in the world and that it shouldn't even be called art, it's just shitslings of paint on a canvas with a story fabricated to be able to call it art. It defies a lot of rules of classical painting. But it
is art. He
is an artist. Classical artists weren't happy about it either. They don't think it's art, they think it's crap. But that's usually because they're European schooled artists, judging the art from an European classical view. See how this relates to the bonsai art form?
It's one of the reasons why I asked about the judges, they are not American. They judge the All American Bonsai through mostly Japanese schooled glasses. There's nothing wrong with that, of course not! It's a bonsai competition, and bonsai are Japanese. But it did make me wonder, it made me think that for some reason, maybe the US hasn't found it's own style yet. There is not much difference, unless somebody will stand up and have the balls to redefine the art form with an all American signature. And that person will possibly be spewed out for the first 5 years, maybe even rejected from entering the bonsai competition.. Because it's just not bonsai.
I think it's too soon to say that there's enough deviation from traditional bonsai to call it something different. As much as I want you guys to evolve and develop your own style and art form, I really think it's not different enough.
The all American bonsai award was given to a bonsai tree, native to the US, in a US pot. But that's less of a difference than how the Japanese and Chinese art forms differ. It's basically the same result with different products.
Food for thought:
You can make Italian pasta dishes with American vegetables, American pasta, and American meat, served on an American plate, but as long as the recipe is Italian and the outcome is the same as in Italy, I'd consider it an Italian dish.
But when you guys make Mac'n'Cheese, it's far from Italian in my view. That's because the recipe is different, and so is the outcome. It isn't meant as a copy, it's meant as a dish on its own. It can be called a pasta, or impasta (pun intended) but I wouldn't dare call it Italian.
