Re: Australian Style. . . what is it
Posted: January 2nd, 2009, 4:46 pm
I've much enjoyed reading the posts on this topic to date. The range of ideas and feelings is good to see, as is the identification of both aspirations about Australian styles, and something of what 'styles' mean too.
I've been one of those who's pondered this topic over many years too. I've asked quite a number of people of varying experience for their views. Basically, the closest any wanted to come to naming a style was some variation around the ideas of eucalypts but even then they were concerned about the enormous range of variety there. Most wouldn't come at trying to name one. The reasons were not too dissimilar to what people here have noted already: such a wide variation in tree forms across a complex and diverse continent, but also it depends on where you come from or have experienced in the country as to what stirs your feelings most: pencil pines or mangroves, desert oaks or mallees etc.
I was interested when some of my friends pointed out that the 'Japanese styles' of formal/informal.slanting/cascade come from the middle of the last century as bonsai was moving out of Japan to America. A Japanese man, whose name I've forgotten, listed the classes of bonsai as a means of making communication easier given the broad variety of bonsai forms that one can find in Japan and China. These named 'styles' were not used by the Japanese to limit what they did with shaping their bonsai, but they certainly have morphed into rules, guidelines and the like that DO limit what a number of people around the world will admit into their practice of bonsai.
For me, the pursuit of a definable 'Australian style' has become less of a focus, though I am still interested in how others are handling the ideas. We don't need a defined Aus style to practice our bonsai. We do need careful observation of how trees grow in various places, the same way that an artist carefully observes what they are drawing. Out of this will come great trees that evoke feelings of 'I know that kind of tree or place'.
It could help if we see a language develop that allows broad and easy communication of what trees look like without having to write an essay. We have a few names that may be species based such as riverine eucalypt, or pencil pine, or Heysenesque-eucalypts, mulga etc, but these need time to be developed and proven to be feasible in bonsai. I'm willing to wait and see how things develop, including various attempts at putting the actions into words. One never knows which words will mature into something that eveyone instantly understands.
I like working with a number of species that often grow only as shrubs, but have wonderfully interesting forms of trunk, crown, bark and flowers. Sometimes they also grow as small trees. The distinction between tree and shrub in Australia is not so well marked as in many northern hemisphere temperate locations. The dividing line here is not so much a 'line' as it is a wide grey zone of great variety and excitement. That opens a wide area to explore and gain inspiration from. So for me, even focussing just on 'tree' is not a vital component of my bonsai so much as internalising the feeling of what the essence of the trees/shrubs that I've seen and greatly liked and then how to create that essence in 'bonsai'.
Cheers and Happy New Year
Kunzea
I've been one of those who's pondered this topic over many years too. I've asked quite a number of people of varying experience for their views. Basically, the closest any wanted to come to naming a style was some variation around the ideas of eucalypts but even then they were concerned about the enormous range of variety there. Most wouldn't come at trying to name one. The reasons were not too dissimilar to what people here have noted already: such a wide variation in tree forms across a complex and diverse continent, but also it depends on where you come from or have experienced in the country as to what stirs your feelings most: pencil pines or mangroves, desert oaks or mallees etc.
I was interested when some of my friends pointed out that the 'Japanese styles' of formal/informal.slanting/cascade come from the middle of the last century as bonsai was moving out of Japan to America. A Japanese man, whose name I've forgotten, listed the classes of bonsai as a means of making communication easier given the broad variety of bonsai forms that one can find in Japan and China. These named 'styles' were not used by the Japanese to limit what they did with shaping their bonsai, but they certainly have morphed into rules, guidelines and the like that DO limit what a number of people around the world will admit into their practice of bonsai.
For me, the pursuit of a definable 'Australian style' has become less of a focus, though I am still interested in how others are handling the ideas. We don't need a defined Aus style to practice our bonsai. We do need careful observation of how trees grow in various places, the same way that an artist carefully observes what they are drawing. Out of this will come great trees that evoke feelings of 'I know that kind of tree or place'.
It could help if we see a language develop that allows broad and easy communication of what trees look like without having to write an essay. We have a few names that may be species based such as riverine eucalypt, or pencil pine, or Heysenesque-eucalypts, mulga etc, but these need time to be developed and proven to be feasible in bonsai. I'm willing to wait and see how things develop, including various attempts at putting the actions into words. One never knows which words will mature into something that eveyone instantly understands.
I like working with a number of species that often grow only as shrubs, but have wonderfully interesting forms of trunk, crown, bark and flowers. Sometimes they also grow as small trees. The distinction between tree and shrub in Australia is not so well marked as in many northern hemisphere temperate locations. The dividing line here is not so much a 'line' as it is a wide grey zone of great variety and excitement. That opens a wide area to explore and gain inspiration from. So for me, even focussing just on 'tree' is not a vital component of my bonsai so much as internalising the feeling of what the essence of the trees/shrubs that I've seen and greatly liked and then how to create that essence in 'bonsai'.
Cheers and Happy New Year
Kunzea