Dear All
Scooter the Mighty wrote:
I don't think there will be any more change than in the last 200 years,
unless people start genetically manipulating the plants with their
futuristic home gene-jockey kits.
"Billy M. Rhodes" wrote:
Hopefully not too different. Maybe some new species, new techniques.
To me Bonsai is about tradition not change.
Bonsai has transformed itself a number of times in the past two hundred
years and, as with all art, it will continue to change following fads
and fashions as it goes.
I don't have my references at hand but a look through the text section
of "Classic Bonsai of Japan" and and the history section of Korreshoff's
"Bonsai; its art science history and philosophy" will show how it has
developed over the past while.
Previously, pots were deeper, more "plant pot" like and ornate with
fancy coloured glazing while the more grotesque and fancy the tree the
more highly it was valued.
The 5 basic styles that we know and seem to love so much were only
really formalised 40 years ago by Yoshimura and Halford (The Japanese
Art of Miniature Trees and Landscapes). Nowadays artists are asserting
their own "Regional styles" as seen by Charles Ceronio in South Africa,
Nic Lenz in the US, Colin Lewis with some of his plantings and many
others around the planet.
The development in quality in the past twenty odd years has been
unprecedented, the "perfection" and extreme refinement seen in Japanese
trees with every needle (let alone branch) carefully positioned is
remarkable and very much in vogue at the moment. In years to come this
may well swing again to a more natural, wild look that allows the tree
to exhibit its own personality rather than looking like a textbook.
Thirty years ago deadwood was somewhat understated and little worked.
Kimura revolutionised this by creating the most fantastic deadwood
sculptural masterpieces using all sort of interesting power tools
previously unavailable to bonsai artists. This became a major fad with
statements such as "EVERY bonsai should contain deadwood" coming from
highly respect artists. (As a personal opinion, I am struck by how
dated some of the designs in "Bonsai art of Kimura" now look. Has
anybody else noticed this?)
Deborah Korreshoff sums this up with the following quote:
"One thing that we can say for certain about the future is that it will
not stay quite the same as it is now, or has been in the past. New
artists will come along, horticulturists will be born with fresh new
thoughts and so new advancements will be made. Yet there is much to be
said for the hobby as it is practised today. Fresh new ideas must
merge, not clash, with the conservative ones, for it is in this
evolutionary way that the good practises of old are preserved alongside
the best new thoughts."
My first contribution to this list, and a bit of a rant at that(!), but
I do think that it is important that we appreciate where we have come
from and realise that the present will soon become history.
Carl Morrow
Cape Town, South Africa.
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