Two kinds of bonsai attitudes: Realists verses Traditionalists, or the Good Guys verses...

[Dav4]

Are they online somewhere?

If you're on Facebook, send him a friend request... he posts his trees fairly frequently... and he had a sale on some pretty sweet JBP shohin last week- not inexpensive but well priced... particularly if you appreciate taters . You can check out what's left in the link below.

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[coachspinks]

If you're on Facebook, send him a friend request... he posts his trees fairly frequently... and he had a sale on some pretty sweet JBP shohin last week- not inexpensive but well priced... particularly if you appreciate taters . You can check out what's left in the link below.

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Is this his current website? https://www.suthinbonsaistudio.com

 

[Dav4]

Is this his current website? https://www.suthinbonsaistudio.com

Sure looks like it . Suthin has a couple of decent trees there... I mean... if you can tolerate the classical Japanese aesthetic that oozes out of each tree.

 

[badatusernames]

If you're on Facebook, send him a friend request... he posts his trees fairly frequently... and he had a sale on some pretty sweet JBP shohin last week- not inexpensive but well priced... particularly if you appreciate taters . You can check out what's left in the link below.

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I do like taters! Thanks for the link.

 

[Adair M]

Sure looks like it . Suthin has a couple of decent trees there... I mean... if you can tolerate the classical Japanese aesthetic that oozes out of each tree.

Aesthetic ooze... so THAT’s the stuff all over your benches! I was wondering what that was! Silly me, I thought it was Groot drool.

 

[Vance Wood]

Here is a point that everyone who finds themselves overly critical of every expression of bonsai, for one reason or another, maybe it would help you to desigh what you think a bonsai should look like and discover just how difficult it is to come up with a decent bonsai in your way of seeing bonsai. Post the tree on the net and see the reactions and how you would react and defend to the responses you get.

 

[ShadyStump]

This, to me, is a great point that I had not considered. The word "bonsai" is Japanese, so it kind of points to Japanese bonsai.

According to wikipedia, bonsai translates to "tray planting", so we could just call everything else a tray planting. You'll have to change the website name to "Tray Planting Nut" so that we'll all be included.

But now I'm thinking we may have just planted landmines along this already particularly dangerous rabbit trail.
What have we done?

 

[erich_raudebaugh]

There is a style or type that appeals to everyone, and the more we look, the more we like. To each their own. The question of whether one form or another is or is not "good" bonsai because it is harder to achieve, or made to an ancient standard, or is a species favored by the old Japanese, is the real bone of contention. The world evolves in all aspects, maybe especially in artistic form and tastes. As much as the old masters (in European arts) are admired, modern artists don't spend much time trying to duplicate their works. And therein lies the rub. I have never heard of critiquing today's painters' works by comparing them side-by-side to the Mona Lisa, ad infinitum. While we study the old masters to acquire an understanding of how and why they achieve impact upon viewers, we don't limit ourselves to just reproducing copies of "traditional" art. Neither should bonsaiists.

The question of whether a tree in a pot that looks like a tree in nature is more worthy or less worthy than a highly stylized tree in a pot can't be answered in the absence of their presence, and especially in an abstract discussion. Artistic value and impact are like pornography, "I know it when I see it".

It's interesting that you bring up painting, because it can be used as a cultural analogue for this discussion. If you look at China's tradition of painting, it is highly stylized and often not based on direct observation of nature. Older styles of penjing are similar in that they are extremely stylized and not naturalistic at all. If you study Japanese art, it is also quite stylized but also based on observation of real places (especially woodblock prints). This has a parallel in bonsai I think.

European art, before the advent of modern styles that begins with Impressionism, is also stylized, but in a way that is somewhat hidden because we are so used to it. The old masters, for instance, used an enormous array of tricks that a casual viewer often won't notice. I've attempted to paint in a similar manner, and it's difficult to the extreme. Painters like Rembrandt began to break out of that mold in ways that are subtle, but the number of tricks that he used are also hidden from most viewers, in the same way that the techniques behind creating a naturalistic bonsai are hidden from people who know nothing of the art. It is not surprising that European bonsai is often naturalistic, by which I mean trying to hide the human hands that made it.

American bonsai is still trying to find its artistic way partially because we don't have a long tradition of art to draw from. Modern and contemporary art is difficult to approach and understand, and also pretty hard to bring to an art form like bonsai. Nick Lenz has done a decent job with this I think. If people in the New World (and other countries without a long cultural background) want to create a style or styles that are our own, we will have to experiment quite a bit, and also fail quite a bit. I like how Ryan Neil and Michael Hagedorn are pushing the boundaries of the art form, by creating trees that are more wild and less balanced than much of Japanese bonsai.

Picasso supposedly said “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist”.

 

[Iconoclast]

It’s odd that this thread was started by someone assuming that 50 year old beginner “rules” make “Japanese bonsai.” It’s as if he’d never seen “Japanese bonsai.”

 

[Shogun610]

Now I am very new compared to all commenting in this forum. But I do appreciate both the traditional Japanese bonsai styles, and the more naturalistic Walter Pall, Rodney Clemons, Hagedorn , and Ryan Neil etc. I want to have trees that are of both of those spectrums. Bonsai is an art form that uses engineering , science , design, material (ceramics), horticulture etc. in a dynamic living way. But all of those Aspects and styles in bonsai have core foundations I think people cannot stray from. Like others have mentioned I tried to go through every post but long day at the office. I think all bonsai should have a good foundations in water, oxygen,fertilization, inorganic medium that does proper percolation, nebari, taper , movement, apeccall design , ramification, a good container (if finished product otherwise not neccisary if growing), and sound manipulation techniques (tooling, pruning , wiring , repotting , bending etc.). Besides that I think it’s open to interpretation of the designer to show what inspires them, but IMO, those core foundations should be checked off. Again I am new to this but these are my core fundamentals that I’ve come to respect and plan to achieve.

 

[Shogun610]

I still see no point about this conversation.
It's definitely not about art.
It's definitely not about horticulture.
Is it about "doing things differently"? Well, China has bonsai and penjing.
Taiwan has nice bonsai, and so have Vietnam, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, the UK and the USA.
Think Northern Europe. Australia. Chile.
All can be in many degrees close to the Japanese style or absolutely different from it.
Al can be very good.
We have good tropical bonsai in Brazil. Some try to make a BRT look like a pine (it's useless); others grow pines in the Japanese tradition.
But in all cases, apart from tropicals wired like pines, there are good bonsai and bad bonsai. Beautiful and ugly. Credible and grotesque.
I can understand the effort of the bonsaists that follow all the rules of design to create good bonsai in the Japanese tradition (which of course evolves with time also);
and I understand the approach people call "naturalist" to many tree species foreign to Japan that have NOT a "Japanese Style".
Both can be beautiful and can be considered living pieces of art.
In the end...
The "I AM RIGHT YOU ARE WRONG" discussion is the pointless one.

Exactly, it’s like any other form of design or art. Their are foundations that all go back to a singular source of form art / design as foundations. But as other art forms , it expands and people push boundaries. But at the end of the day they all have that foundation that have to be followed other than that , there’s a lot of exploration and interpretation that happens. An abstract artist knows how to draw a perfect human anatomy but they don’t draw human anatomy as their expression, they paint non objective shapes and colors etc.

 

[Frithfolk]

I think probably everybody agrees that many different potted trees can be aesthetically pleasing and that it is very subjective.
The problem is with the term "bonsai". We have taken a term that means a very specific thing to it's originators and apply it in a very broad sense. Kind of like calling all kinds and styles of fighting "karate".
Maybe we need a new, general term for the hobby. Personally I usually call mine "little trees".

Yes, bonsai was borrowed into the English language, however, before that, it was borrowed into Japanese from the Chinese term pengzai. Pengzai literally means "potted plant". So, no, the Japanese are not the originators any more than Westerners and their, however narrow, interpretation of potted trees is hardly authoritative. The historic English term was "miniature potted trees" which is fairly close to the actual meaning of bonsai.

My meaning is that the Western usage of the word bonsai is in your own hands and nobody else's. Just as the English word spaghetti now means a very specific type of noodle and sauce combination despite its Italian meaning of simply "little strings".

 

[Frithfolk]

Stringettes lol

 

[Djtommy]

Me like like Japanese banzai

 

[River's Edge]

Me Too!

 

[Forsoothe!]

It’s odd that this thread was started by someone assuming that 50 year old beginner “rules” make “Japanese bonsai.” It’s as if he’d never seen “Japanese bonsai.”

I have absolutely no idea what this means.

 

[badatusernames]

Me like like Japanese banzai
View attachment 343040

Is that a grapefruit tree? I have a grapefruit tree I've been growing from seed for years and never thought to try to turn it into a bonsai... I have orange, lemon, and plum trees coming too. The leaves look different from mine which is why I'm curious, that's a heck of a trunk!

 

[River's Edge]

Sometimes it pops up overseas! Invading North America.

 

[Adair M]

Is that a grapefruit tree? I have a grapefruit tree I've been growing from seed for years and never thought to try to turn it into a bonsai... I have orange, lemon, and plum trees coming too. The leaves look different from mine which is why I'm curious, that's a heck of a trunk!

That looks like a Chinese Quince.

 

[Iconoclast]

I have absolutely no idea what this means.

Define “Japanese bonsai”