Thursday, March 27, 2014

Japanese yew #2 redesigned

Japanese yew, Taxus cuspidata, imported from Japan in 2013. I acquired the tree in may 2013 and started to redesign immediately. I somehow felt that it was a good tree, but not really great. to me it was too nice, too symmetrical, too much man-made, too much bonsai and too little tree, too little soul, more form than soul, too traditional. Anyway I decided recently to drastically change the style: rotate the tree one hour clockwise, tilt it 10° to the left, cut out a few branches so one can see the interesting trunk and deadwood, cut some long branches on the right, bring down the right main branch and make a move to the left, on the left everything long, new pot. The result is clearly a different tree, a tree which does not want to be a standard bonsai, more of a tree then a bonsai, it is in the Fairy Tale Bonsai Style. The new pot is by Walter Venne form Germany. When I showed this work on the German Forum I got the remarks that the tree was great, but the pot was not liked - it 'looks like a rusty iron box'. my response was 'good description, that's exactly what it is supposed to look like. We might get used to it.'