Hello Walter,
Thank you for
sharing your impressions of the state of bonsai in the EU. You
stressed that what you offered were your opinions only, and I want to
assure you I understand them to be such. Much as I admire what you do
and what you know I never confuse your opinions with objective fact.
I seek your opinion, though, not only because I think it to be well
informed but because you make it so abundantly available! It is only
half a joke for me to say that - at present you are the only EU-based
bonsai professional who regularly participates on the IBC public
forum. It used to be that others did, too. In fact, a friend of mine
once said, when I asked him why he participated on another bonsai
forum and not the IBC, he did not post here because the IBC was too
"Eurocentric". At one time he might have been able to make
a good case for that, but no longer.
I want to clarify my
position as regards the issue of Japanese influence in American and,
from what you say, European bonsai. I have no desire to throw away
all the valuable information we have learned from our Japanese
teachers, starting over from scratch, any more than I mean to
disrespect the Japanese when I acknowledge how they have promoted and
reinforced the idea of the bonsai concept being a Japanese product.
My primary bonsai teacher was Yuji Yoshimura. I spent time studying
bonsai in Japan with Susumu Nakamura in an arrangement facilitated by
the Nippon Bonsai Association. I am, as previously stated on several
occasions, grateful for what was shared with me personally by
Japanese teachers, and I am grateful for what the Japanese bonsai
industry did in bringing the art of bonsai to the Western world. That
should be entirely understood. My perspective, however, is that
whatever our beginnings might be we should move on from there,
hopefully in a direction that proves to be forward.
Here is a personal
statement I have been making for a long time: [b]Bonsai is not an end
in itself; it is a means to an end[/b].
I do not do bonsai
because I want to own bonsai. As a matter of fact, I do not own
bonsai and do not wish to acquire any. Likewise, the primary end I
seek through bonsai is not to earn a paycheck, although I am
fortunate enough to have that arrangement. If the end I sought was
primarily money I would have quit bonsai a long time ago and found
some better means toward that end. And at the risk of saying the same
thing over and over, or repeating myself, or otherwise being
redundant, I do not care enough about any foreign culture to do
bonsai as a means to express that appreciation.
My own strongest
inclinations are toward creative expression, coupled with an
appreciation of the wonder of the natural world. Additionally, as a
human being, for reasons completely beyond my control (and frequently
enough also beyond my understanding) I have a compelling need to
communicate with other human beings, in a way that goes beyond the
basic sort of verbalization required of any of us to successfully
navigate our way through everyday life. Without my ever having
consciously sought it out, bonsai presented itself to me as a vehicle
for achieving all three of these personal needs.
Bonsai is a
challenging form of creative expression. As a creatively inclined
individual I have worked in a number of different mediums, and I find
bonsai to be unique for a variety of reasons. Perhaps one of the most
intriguing aspects of it is that the medium is alive and growing,
which means constantly changing. It is also growing at a relatively
slow rate which brings in the element of time, as in prolonged
periods of waiting for developments to occur before the work may
progress, which demands a level of patience that is not called for in
other creative mediums. Plants do not think, as far as I know, but
they behave as if they have minds of their own, and a bonsai grower
is therefore obliged to share the creative process with the subject
that is being shaped. Most critically, the medium is alive and must
be kept alive in order to maintain its integrity, which demands the
grower be capable of keeping it alive, perpetually.
In this way bonsai
connects directly with the natural world, as it uses a piece of
nature as the medium. Beyond that, however, the bonsai medium can be
used to reflect an experience of nature as its message. It [i]can[/i]
be used that way, but it does not have to be. I prefer it that way
because whatever medium I might choose to use as my creative vehicle
I mostly want to communicate about my experience of the natural
world. This is why I find more personal attraction in Naturalistic
style bonsai than any other. Classical bonsai is an expression of
nature viewed through the lens of a (for me) foreign culture.
Neoclassical bonsai is an interpretation, a second-hand retelling, of
an expression of nature viewed through the lens of foreign culture.
Modern bonsai style subordinates nature almost entirely to a human
impulse toward abstraction and a design theory predicated on precise
and total control. Naturalistic bonsai involves a human being
observing and otherwise experiencing nature and then creating
something that expresses what he or she learned and felt as a result
of doing so.
When I wrote the
passage you just read I had to struggle to come up with the right
words to express myself. When I create a naturalistic bonsai all I
have to do is put it in front of another human being:
[url=http://www.servimg.com/view/18135461/973][img]http://i84.servimg.com/u/f84/18/13/54/61/img_8911.jpg[/img][/url]
Bonsai allows me to
communicate with other human beings on a level that supersedes
speech.
Why am I writing
these things to you? Well, of all the other bonsai professionals I
have met you are one of the very few who seems to think about bonsai
in a way reasonably similar to my own. Even if we do not agree on all
points, and I know we do not, I think you well understand where I am
coming from. And in much of your work I can discern the spirit of
someone who has a sensitivity to the wonder of trees in nature, feels
the need to express it, and has the creative wherewithal to do so
with artistic flair (I cannot say I see these things in all your
bonsai because your modernistic work has little to do with the wonder
of trees in nature and everything to do with artistic flair.) You
also have the ego that allows (demands) you to project your ideas out
into the world and the intellect to express those ideas effectively
with words. It helps, too, that you make yourself accessible through
the Internet, and who else among the big dogs of bonsai does that?
Of course, I am not
writing these things only to you. The obvious intent of this open
correspondence is to invite others to eavesdrop on the exchange. I am
ostensibly writing to you, but I am really writing to anyone who
cares to read it, and you are replying in kind. That is the very
nature of an open correspondence. We are doing this on a public
forum, as one reader so astutely pointed out, so naturally we have
put this exchange out there for others to comment on as they see fit.
There has been a little bit of response and some of it has been worth
reading, but overall we do not seem to be generating all that much
interest. The usual handful of people who are active on the forum
have contributed to this discussion and I appreciate their
involvement. Part of the problem is that so few people are active
anymore. In the old days of the IBC, when the forum was alive with
many participants, some of whom were professionals and many others of
whom were longtime hobbyists with a lot of experience and very good
personal collections, such a correspondence as we are having now
might have crashed the site! We would have had so many responses we
might not have gotten in another word edgewise, and we would have
taken so much abuse from those of the fundamentalist persuasion that
we might have backed down in fear of their verbal violence. Well, I
might have. I am certain you would have risen to the occasion.
Dear Arthur,
[quote="Arthur
Joura"]
My perspective,
however, is that whatever our beginnings might be we should move on
from there, hopefully in a direction that proves to be
forward.[/quote]
Sure, I absolutely
agree. The bonsai scene often enough makes me state that this is the
most backward looking art scene that I know of. In every other art
form they compete in who is the most rebellious, who has invented the
most unique thing. In bonsai they argue about who is following rules.
[quote="Arthur
Joura"]Here is a personal statement I have been making for a
long time: [b]Bonsai is not an end in itself; it is a means to an
end[/b].[/quote]
Absolutely!
[quote="Arthur
Joura"]Most critically, the medium is alive and must be kept
alive in order to maintain its integrity, which demands the grower be
capable of keeping it alive, perpetually.[/quote]
You have not touched
an aspect that is more and more important to me and probably to many
others. One cannot choose to do bonsai whenever you feel like it and
leave the trees alone in the meanwhile. Whether you like it or not,
you have to watch and care for them every day. It is much like an old
fashioned farmer. Whether he likes it or not, he is forced to care
for his farm every single day of the year. This keeps him busy and
healthy, mentally and physically, much like a bonsai master. Bonsai
masters become very old most of the time. They are forced to work
physically and mentally every single day. And they have a good reason
to see the next spring again.
The other phenomenon
is that your trees are getting better the older you are if you know
what you are doing. Your skills are getting better by the nature of
the beast called bonsai. In most fields in life you are done after a
certain age. You are not taken for serious anymore one day - sooner
than you like. Not so in bonsai. You can progress much longer than in
most fields. One can be VERY old and still be a respected master.
[quote="Arthur
Joura"]Of course, I am not writing these things only to you. The
obvious intent of this open correspondence is to invite others to
eavesdrop on the exchange. I am ostensibly writing to you, but I am
really writing to anyone who cares to read it, and you are replying
in kind. That is the very nature of an open correspondence. We are
doing this on a public forum, as one reader so astutely pointed out,
so naturally we have put this exchange out there for others to
comment on as they see fit. [/quote]
This is the internet
way of a podium discussion. A couple of well chosen folks are on
stage and discuss stuff. The audience can listen to everything. The
audience has an opinion and can voice it. They can discuss this under
themselves. But the panel goes on with their discussion as if there
were no viewers. But it is, of course, all for these viewers. Why
then does the panel not discuss with the audience? Because that would
interrupt the flow of thoughts too much. There is a very wide range
of know how, intellect, linguistic abilities, opinions etc. If
everyone had a say we would end like this other forum – The end of
civilization.
