Natural vs Artistic

[Hornet]

Whats your opinions here? Many top quality bonsai i see, while they look great, they dont look all that natural. My idea of bonsai is to mirror natural tree's but many dont do that at all. What do you guys think?

[astroboy76]

personally i feel a healthy balance of both is a good place to start.

as walter pall said, our bonsai should look liek trees, not our trees look like bonsai. (or something to that affect).

this is a topic that coudl go both ways for a long distance without having every agreeing on the solution.

quite often i find the shape of some of these "non realistic" trees quite pleasing to the eye. in these situations the artform has performed its duty in my opinion. Often when a tree is too contrived it can detract from the appeal as well.

but if you go in the other direction, if we mimiced a tree exact, same ratio and aspect etc what you end up with in your pot may not look how you envisioned an exact mirroring should look.

with any artform there is an element of evoltuion involed. rules or guidlines etc. but at the end of the day what appeals to one as art may not appeal to others. who is to truly say what is the better choice.

[kcpoole]

The art of Bonsai is to make a small tree give the impression like it is a much larger and older tree
This can be done many ways and every person has their own opinions on what looks "natural". Got any examples of what you mean?

I find that most of Walter Pall, Pavel Slovak, Tony Tickle, etc trees look real nice and mine on the other hand don't , maybe in quite a few more years that will change

Ken

[Rowdy]

I know when I visit bonsai shows where you vote for your favourite tree, I don’t walk around looking for the tree that looks most like a tree.
I look for something that makes me think “That’s Awsome” more than the others.
So at first I was leaning towards Artistic
But then I started thinking whats awesome about a tree, and for me that’s things that look like old rugged Methuselahs that have lived a hard life and have character, not pretty trees with everything in the right spot. And that is leaning towards natrual.

So I am still uncertain.

[Walter Pall]

Hornet,

you have put a large stick into a hornet's nest here.

[Bretts]

I think this got left alone a little as we had a similar thread going at the same time Walter.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8817

[dave]

I see Beauty in both (styles?) you talk of,as long as the practitioner is happy with their creation,but my idea may be different to yours and yet the same as others....AAAAhhhh the beauty of Bonsia....

[bonzaidog]

Although a bit of a bougainvillea fan,I wouldn't want a natural looking bougainvillea in a bonsai pot! ....Dog.

[Joel]

Naturalistic and artistic aren't mutually exclusive.

Joel

[chrisatrocky]

Bonsai is an art, and as such you will find the good the not so good, the realistic and the abstract, as you would in any other art form. And as art, it is you the viewer who chooses if it is good or not. That's all the artist wants from you. Myself, I enjoy a lot of different forms of bonsai, as I do music, paintings and dance. there is a saying. "Beauty is in the I of the beholder".

[Matt Jermy]

I once read about how Bonsai IS the art of convincing the viewer that they are looking at a large tree.
This may mean a tree is grown and styled differently to how it would in nature, but to great effect in terms of visual age.
This is why mame//shohin present soo many challenges... you have to create an illusion with very few parts ...
So one may have a tree in a pot, but is it Bonsai..?

Matt.