The Art of Bonsai Project

Where Are The Innovations?
by Will Heath




Somewhere, long ago, maybe someone had the brilliant idea to put a plant into a pot of sorts so that the healing herb would be close at hand and would not need to be searched for when needed. Maybe instead, a plant was found growing out of a rock and the rock was carried home with its attached growth, where it no doubt was quite a conversation piece until it died. Maybe potted plants were invented as a way simply to keep plants alive during a journey.

This went on for many years and with many failures until the correct soil, watering, and care was finally mastered. These plants in pots were at first no doubt just for the convenience of being able to pull a leaf off here and there for tea or healing. Maybe plants were first potted in order to transport the plants over long distances.

Regardless of how plants were first introduced to pots, eventually someone started picking creatively and some shapes that were pleasing were created. Naturally, trimming and pruning for eye appeal soon followed and became the clip and grow method. The simple act of keeping a plant alive turned into a decoration.

Rough pots turned to highly finished works of art and the styles of what we now know as bonsai were defined. Rules were made, schools were formed and the art of bonsai was created.

Then along came ways to achieve this art, tools and techniques unheard of before like wire, concave cutters, soiless mixes, grafting, trunk chops, air layering etc were invented and expanded the art form.

And then, silence.

It would seem that we have come to a standstill, and the innovations have stopped. Is there nothing else to learn? Are there no other undiscovered techniques? Is there now so much to learn that there is no time left to experiment, to invent? Will we have to wait centuries to see any changes at all in the art? Will we suffer from stagnation?

Go there
http://internetbonsaiclub.org/smf/Itemi ... c,15981.0/
to see what wonderful encouragement one gets for innovations. The bonsai fundamentallists try hard to keep the status quo.
greetings
Walter

I don't think that we will see any breakthrough innovation in our lifetime. But bonsai is slowly changing, as people from various cultural background and with new ideas get involved. There is always a resistance from those who are unconfortable with change, and that is good. It's a self-preservation mechanism, and it ensures that change is slow and only very powerful ideas will have a lasting effect. Fast and easy change is not healthy, it can lead to a lot of dead-end streets and inbalance.
The fact that this website exists, is part of the proof that slow change does take place. 10 years ago discussions such as on this website could hardly be imagined.
BTW, thanks to Lisa for posting a link of Nick's gallery at the IBC website.
http://internetbonsaiclub.org/smf/Itemi ... c,16083.0/
Also, many thanks to Jim Lewis for reminding the IBC crowd that IBC is not the place to discuss art.
http://internetbonsaiclub.org/smf/Itemi ... ,15981.30/
He pointed the art-loving crowd to our website, the only website where the bonsai folks love to discuss art. Thanks again!

Just a quick thought. I don't think you will ever see any big changes in bonsai. It's taken it 4000 years to get this far. However, I don't believe that it has remained stagnant either. If it had been sitting still, then we wouldn't have the nick lenz gallery on this website.
I think that the art mimics the medium. In music it's possible to have a sudden change or evolution in the art as a whole because in the medium of music it's possible to shift violently or abruptly to a whole new mood.
In painting, it's possible to have a relatively immediate revolution because an artist can paint many new styles of paintings in a relatively short amount of time.
With bonsai, I think drastic change can only happen slowly, because the medium of bonsai is a very slow and subtle process. Masters like Walter and Nick are evidence that there is some change happening... It will take many years if not many lifetimes for other people to come along and copy them and then improve and let those "anomalies" evolve into another common facet of bonsai. And how much longer has it taken for those particular manifestations of the continuing change to appear on the surface?
True change only comes when one person or a small group of individuals is bold enough, naturally genius enough, or both to do something totally different in an art form that is just as good, if not wholly better than anything that has been done before. What cements that change is when a multitude of others come afterwards who either blatantly try to copy the the new style or are inspired to do something new that they never would have done before because of this new style.
In music we see evidence of this with the grunge explosion of the 90's. You had a small group of individuals, nirvana, pearl jam, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden that had an explosive new sound.. all the same, yet all distinctly different. It spawned a million rip offs, but also changed music forever because so many people realized that there was so much more you could do with music. You could trace it back even farther and realize that the grunge music was just a spawn of early punk.
The same thing happened (on a much larger scale) when the beatles appeared on the scene. There's hardly a song out on the radio now that doesn't sound like the beatles or inspired by the beatles.
So, to wrap up this 'quick' thought. I don't think you ever will see a change in bonsai. We are like the frog in the pot of water that is slowly being boiled. It happens so slow in this art, that we may never know it. But thankfully we do have guideposts and small reassurances that there is some forward progress of this art.
michael

Here is a change that I can easily imagine happening.
Do to the internet and globalization, more and more people are touched by bonsai in various parts of the world. As a result, there will be an increasing number of people practicing it. This is not a spectacular process, but it has to happen, by the sheer availability of information available through the electronic media.
Traditional bonsai will shrink to a smaller and smaller percentage, compared to the total number of works available. When the practitioners of bonsai reach a critical mass, and non traditional bonsai becomes so prevalent that it is not a novelty anymore to anyone, there will be an explosion of new applications. Not unlike the asteroid responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs.
In essence, there will be two categories of bonsai: traditional bonsai and plant art. BTW, a contemporary, or naturalistic style will still belong to the traditional bonsai category, as opposed to creations like the larch in a ball, which is the plant art.
This new plant art will combine various artforms, such as plants and potery and painting, even music. Traditional bonsai will have its revivals, periodically, but basically will be only one of the many forms of expressions.
Also, by this time, due to plate tectonics, parts of California will separate from the rest of the continental United States, the Italian boot will disappear, and Africa will be separate from the Middle East.
These continental shifts will cause climatic changes as well, forcing the bonsai practitioners to adopt new species in their collections.
Someone should stop me, I think I am getting a little ahead of myself...

Attila
Could it be that some day in the past a chinese saw what the japanese had made out of Penjing and then said about that, what you said?

I'd split the hair finer than that, Vance.
I find "Pop Bonsai" absolutely abhorrent. The term "Plant Art" would be far more appropriate, if only to ensure no-one makes the grievous error of thinking the nasty little things have anything to do with bonsai.

How interesting it is that
You'd think those old fuddy-duddies would be even more disgusted at the break with tradition than us rock&roll westerners.
Be it pee-pee crucifix or Popbonsai, the stuff got you talking, didn't it? You are now participating in the act of art that the artist was creating, even in your rejection of it. Does it make you feel used?