DON'T open this post if you think bonsai isn't art.

[Ryceman3]

Isn't it Pollock... Not Pollack?? (just so I know I'm thinking of the same artist...)

[delisea]

Isn't it Pollock... Not Pollack?? (just so I know I'm thinking of the same artist...)

Yep sorry, typo.

[benbonsai]

The definition of art is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination

.

So making a cup of coffee and adding some salt to it and serving it in a cassette case does those things. Am I doing art now? By your definition, yes!
Where do you draw the Line? Is there a line?
We come down to the contention that everything we do is art and to me, ''art'' then no longer has any meaning. It's just ''living''.

That's not my definition, that's oxford dictionary's.

[Nate.bonsai]

="Rory"]

No creativity involved so far.

That statement is really dispiriting.

I like your trees, as do many other people on here, clearly. I like your skill and I like the fact that you are so knowledgable. I can understand that if I had grown and pre-styled 7,000 tridents, I might get a bit jaded or find myself in a creative rut - mass exposure is bound to drain a bit of passion and creativity.

BUT, if I shared your view, I would immediately stop doing bonsai.

I guess it is just a different approach, which is perfectly valid. For some people, 'painting' means paint by numbers and fine art painting doesn't register, or 'art' means paint on canvas and they don't contemplate sculpture as being art etc.

While I feel dispirited reading your posts in this thread - you are clearly very good at what you do, you are very generous with your time and valuable advice and you clearly get what you need out of your practice. If you practice a craft, you do a bloody great job of it.

But, I practice art - I am just not very good at it, but I enjoy approaching bonsai from a creative and artistic viewpoint.


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[Nate.bonsai]

The quote didn't appear - it was "no creativity involved so far".


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[Keep Calm and Ramify]

It is fun
It is disappointment
It is hope & regret.
It is devotion
It is aspiration
It is peaceful... undiscovered intent.

Is it "Art?"
Is it "Craft?"
Is it "Quality"
Is it a "Banana Octopus?"
It is much much more
We are practising on Life.

[alpineart]

Some reading material for the wannabe guru's

Bonsai .Its Art , Science , History and philosophy By Debrorah R Koreshoff

The Living Art of Bonsai by Professor Amy Liang

The Art Of Bonsai by Giovanna M Halford and Yuji Yoshimura

The Art of Bonsai by Peter Adams

Its an Art to some , a craft to others , a hobby to many and an Obsession to a few , so who's wrong and who's right and at the end of the day who gives a toss .

As long as you enjoy its Art and Craft there shouldn't be an issue .

Cheers . Alpineart

p.s or is it Alpinecraft or Alpinecraftyart or Alpineartandcraft

[treeman]

Pollack was the biggest joke ever to pick up paint. Lee krasner basically told him what to ''paint'' and how to sell it. There is no such thing as a ''drip'' painting. It's just drips of paint.

Oh Treeman, really? It all becomes clear. If you have genuinely looked at his work and cannot see what the fuss is about I now know why you see bonsai as a craft. All of our brains work differently, and you may honestly see things differently.

If anyone is interested in why Jackson Pollack was in fact distilling the essence of landscapes/trees read this.

http://authenticationinart.org/pdf/lite ... -Chaos.pdf

Cheers,
Symon

The way I see it Symon is that Pollock was concerned only with technique and the subsequent manifestation of form that would result from that technique. His ''paintings'' were a display of technique. When you swing a dripping can of paint over a canvas for example you have no idea what will result. That is purely a question of physics. Do it for long enough you will start to see form. That kind of technique as any other is developed by practice. In good art you need more that just technique. I will continue to regard him as having very limited artistic skill. The fact that computer analysis discovered natural naturally occurring rhythms in his work is neither surprizing nor of any great consequence as far as I'm concerned. To me, Jackson Pollock will always be a disturbed drunken hack.

[treeman]

="Nate.bonsai"

BUT, if I shared your view, I would immediately stop doing bonsai.

Well I don't know about that Nate., I can't say for certain that I personally know anyone who is more passionate or who get more pleasure from growing bonsai than me. Even though I know there is. I just find it irritating when I see articles which state things like ''this artist did this or the artist did that'' when I know perfectly well how they did what they did and the reason behind it. I would prefer the term craftsman. But I'll get over it...
But don't be dispirited, bonsai is/can be very emotional, uplifting and satisfying.

But, I practice art - I am just not very good at it, but I enjoy approaching bonsai from a creative and artistic viewpoint.

I'm sure you have read the words ''creation pruning'' in your mags. It refers to the act of pruning away unwanted branches to form the tree's basic structure. It is an indispensable technique we all need to do but you don't need to be ''creative'' to do it. You just follow best practice.
You may decide to cut this branch and leave that one instead of the other way round but you are still bound by what is acceptable to both the tree and the final image. Everything about bonsai is pretty much the same from pruning twigs to selecting a pot. If bonsai practice was truly a creative, there would be no such limitations. But there are. You can have a straight tree, a leaning tree, a multiple trunk tree, a cascade tree, but you can't have an upside down tree or a water floating tree or a tree with branches painted blue.
Well you could but then that wouldn't bonsai... That would be art.

[delisea]

I think Alpinecraft it on the head - as long as we are having fun all is good. I personally call it a sport.

Treeman, I'm sorry you don't get Pollock, but many find abstraction difficult and that is OK.

I'll cap this one off with a nice tree - only a exceptional craftsman could create a piece of art like this.
Cheers, Symon

[treeman]

I think Alpinecraft it on the head - as long as we are having fun all is good. I personally call it a sport.

Treeman, I'm sorry you don't get Pollock, but many find abstraction difficult and that is OK.

I'll cap this one off with a nice tree - only a exceptional craftsman could create a piece of art like this.


Cheers, Symon

Yes that is one of my favourite trees of all time.

It's not that I don't ''get'' Pollock, It's that is there IS nothing to get...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsN40iv5nzg

[bunce]

Mike I'm curious, whats your definition of art?

I think what most people first think of art when asked 'do you like art?' or 'What is art?'; Is something of a visual non-moving form, and slowly it digresses into other mediums. So then many of us tend to file Bonsai into the first category, or maybe even define its own category of art.

I don't disagree with Mike that Bonsai is a craft, in fact, I second that. However, i do believe it's an artistic craft. While not all bonsai is art, well-crafted bonsai is. And you can bet your bottom dollar that that the exact mentality behind the major bonsai exhibition's curators too.

Mike, you talked about Pollock not being an artist because he didn't have control of his medium. And that was a problem for you because it was random. The beauty obviously wasn't held in your behold. But it was Pollock's vision, of something he wanted to create, and set about doing that with a medium he was comfortable with, and his vision was to, by the application he chose, was by nature, unpredictable. But I think that what he was trying to capture, and maybe even communicate in the artworks, was that the world is unpredictable, and he chose that application of his medium to communicate that.

Additionally, I think all arts, in all mediums, ultimately have constraints, which is why the creativity to use those constraints make the work, artwork. Artists cannot paint a painting as large as the universe, nor as small and an atom. So they settle with a constraint, which is a painting the size of something they can handle. A film maker cannot make an everlasting film. A poet must fit their rhyme in a number of lines. Songs can only be so long and so on. So to say that constraints or lack of define what is and isn't art are a mute point. Art would be a combination of two things, a creative way of exploiting the restraints, and period (time) significance or relevance. Some people would consider beautiful cars artworks.

Bonsai are similar, no doubt, because like all impressionist artworks all look similar because they are all guided by the same set of defining outlines, so too are bonsais of the same style. But what makes them artwork, is the creativity of the craftsman to change them from a bush into something that resembles a much larger tree. I would even go so far as to say that the constraints of bonsai are what make it art.

I would not say that all bonsai craftsman/and women are not creating artworks like you said Mike; it takes a lifetime to become a master at your craft. I would only go far as to say the trees which have set out to meet the constraints of bonsai transcend the craft into art; only a select few would be considered art. The best thing about bonsai is some trees cannot be considered art for a long time, and then become art, and that's usually because they transcend one creaftsman from generation to generation.

While I have outlined why I think it is art, I like Tolstoy's definition too:

Leo Tolstoy
Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.

It's kind of nifty that bonsai has brought us all together to discuss "what is art?" and "is bonsai art?"

Matt

[bunce]

I found something I think might fall more in-line with what you might like Mike:

Oscar Wilde in The Soul of Man Under Socialism:

"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."

Or maybe I dont know you well enough yet

Matt

[treeman]

I found something I think might fall more in-line with what you might like Mike:

Oscar Wilde in The Soul of Man Under Socialism:

"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."

Or maybe I dont know you well enough yet

Matt

Hi Matt
This is one of my favourite sayings regarding art. It is simple and to the point. Now with this quote in mind, have another look at bonsai.
There are great bonsai and crappy bonsai and everything in between but none of that necessarily makes them intensely individual.

[bunce]

I found something I think might fall more in-line with what you might like Mike:

Oscar Wilde in The Soul of Man Under Socialism:

"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."

Or maybe I don't know you well enough yet

Matt

Hi Matt
This is one of my favourite sayings regarding art. It is simple and to the point. Now with this quote in mind, have another look at bonsai.
There are great bonsai and crappy bonsai and everything in between but none of that necessarily makes them intensely individual.

How the artist... no, sorry; craftsman got there would be the individual thing

I'm with you on this one. I would call Bonsai people craftsmen, but I do believe bonsai can be art.

Matt