by John Pennington | Aug 1st, 07What Makes Bonsai So Fascinating?
Why is it that some bonsai keep us standing before them for so long, calling us back again and again for one more look? In my opinion, three things contribute to this: bonsai as idealized nature, age as a metaphor for the human condition, and artistic composition.
Is bonsai art? That’s a complex and ongoing discussion—or argument. In my opinion the answer depends on how you define art, and agreement on a definition appears to be impossible. What draws us to art is not the object itself, in my opinion, but the emotions it arouses in us. From this viewpoint great bonsai are works of art because they arouse emotions in the same way that other arts can.
Bonsai can be a metaphor for human life, and in fact, many bonsai writers’ words can only be interpreted that way. When we see a great bonsai, which is almost always one that appears to have great age, we find in it echoes our own aspiration for long life and the ability to thrive in spite of adversity.
Below is an example of what often happens to trees in the wild.
Those who believe that we cruelly “torture” or “abuse” trees to make bonsai should take a closer look at nature. Bonsai are pampered like thoroughbred race horses that get nothing but the best. If they are abused they will simply die. Severe tree damage and death in the wild, on the other hand, are common, and can result from any of dozens of causes.
This is a willow in Glen Canyon that was apparently trapped under another tree that fell against it. The other tree held it down for so long that the willow kept the angle we see even after the other tree was removed. Trees in the wild can be crushed by falling rock, their roots exposed by erosion, their branches bent low or broken by snow, and so on. When we see a bonsai that has been distorted to look as if some event like this happened to it, it is not that the bonsai is exactly like a tree in the wild. (This willow is hardly a candidate for an inspiring bonsai, even if it were small enough.) Rather, it is that the bonsai captures the record of its presumably strenuous life and presents it to us in a form that speaks to us directly. It evokes the pure feeling we might have experienced by seeing such a tree in the wild. But bonsai aren’t exactly like trees in the wild. There are additional elements in bonsai that contribute to this feeling.
Here is one of Eric Schrader’s shots from a 2006 hike. It’s a pine that has somehow grown in a crack in the rocks at high altitude. There appears to be very little soil and minimal water, but there it is, probably well over 100 years old. There is something about it we admire, the perseverance to thrive in spite of all. (All of the pictures used here are the property of members of BSSF with one exception, and all are used by permission. Member photos can all be viewed at the BSSF Galleries on this website.)
Here are four more of Eric’s shots. This one appears to be a great ancient juniper, with an astonishing gnarly and huge twisted deadwood trunk. Yet it is living. Anyone who isn’t amazed by such a sight isn’t paying attention, or is somehow numb to wonder. When we see the great old yamadori bonsai, the ones most of us can never hope to own, does it not arouse in us the same sorts of emotions as this funky wild tree?
This is a live oak Eric shot on another trip. It shows the characteristic sprawling, irregular nature and massive branching of the live oak, as well as the relative sparseness of the leaves. Live oaks often seem to be barely hanging on, having lived for centuries under adverse conditions, and maybe that’s the reason they and live oak bonsai are so fascinating.
This little pine has found a toehold in a crack in the rock. Many such trees grow in unlikely places, and can reach significant size.
This pine has grown in the rocks and spilled downward, and shows well where the cascade style of bonsai came from.
Here is an outstanding example of a bristlecone pine, photographed by Aaron Newton. The oldest living things on Earth, bristlecones stand like sentinels in the higher altitudes of the American Southwest desert (look at the background!), just as they have for millennia. The oldest living tree is about 4700 years old, predating the Egyptian pyramids and the earliest books of the Bible. Yet most bristlecones appear to be all but dead. How is it that they inspire us? Is it just that we are stunned, we with our brief lives, by a still-living thing that was present at the dawn of written history nearly 2000 human generations ago? Part of it is that, surely, and perhaps something similar is evoked when we see a truly great bonsai that may have lived for hundreds of years, but looks much older than that.
This magnificent California juniper is part of the Golden State Bonsai Federation’s Northern California Collection in Oakland (photo by Linda Ferzoco, used with permission. GSBF bonsai can be viewed at http://www.gsbf-bonsai.org/ under Collections). In it we can perceive an echo of the astonishing wild juniper and bristlecone pine we see above. The twisting trunk and branching, most of it deadwood, suggest great age, probably even greater than its actual age. But the overall composition of the image, showing classical proportions, is more pleasing than the wild trees that grow as they are, whether or not humans are there to look at them.
Below are three examples of outstanding bonsai by BSSF members. These and many more can be seen at the Galleries section of this website.
Craig Thompson’s Seju elm: The trunk is massive and tapered, as if it were fifty feet tall, but curved and bent by some event in the tree’s youth, which would seem to be long be-fore any of us were born. And yet, the green foliage, sparse but obviously healthy, tells us the tree is in the prime of life, and will be living still when our grandchildren pass away. Or so it would seem, and in fact, with luck and a series of careful bonsai artists, this could actually happen.
Tim Kong’s redwood. Ancient redwoods can be 2000 years old. When redwoods die, they are often renewed by suckers, sprouts from the roots. This wonderful example looks like an ancient fallen giant that has experienced one or more forest fires, then rejuvenation.
Steve Jang’s dwarf Alberta spruce forest: What makes the bonsai forest intriguing is the impression of depth and darkness, which evokes the same feelings one would get from a pleasant walk in a quiet woods. This forest has a path through the center that leads us in and then curves left to show us a hidden path that continues into the distance.
All these bonsai were altered to make them look old, survivors of the worst that nature could throw at them. Why would we do that? Because there is something in us that admires a living thing that has overcome great adversity and survived to advanced old age, perhaps because it gives us hope that we too will live a long time.
Above I spoke of “additional elements” in bonsai that trees in nature don’t have. These elements are the artistic elements. It’s what makes the difference between “tree in a pot” bonsai and the beautiful artistic bonsai that we find so fascinating.
There is no clear demarcation between the technique of bonsai and the art of bonsai, because the techniques support and make possible the art. We want branching on the outside of curves because of the artistic effect, never mind that branches in nature can occur on the inside. Any good book on bonsai will show you ways to make your trees, not more natural, but more artistic, like an idealized tree in nature, and therefore better able to evoke the emotions we seek.
The best bonsai, I am sure, make use of the Golden Mean, or the Golden Rectangle, which has been part of art since the Golden Age of Greece. The golden mean is a ratio of approximately 1:1.618, and is found in most artistic layouts, usually as the golden rectangle. A golden rectangle can be drawn with ruler and compass, beginning with a square divided into two equal rectangles and adding another rectangle by using the dividing line of the square as a radius that intersects its base line, which then is used to form an additional rectangle. (You can Google all this stuff.) When a square is extended this way the new end of the resulting rectangle is wider than the halves of the square from which it is built: the lines between rectangles do not divide the larger rectangle into thirds, quite. But one can approximate a golden rectangle in bonsai design (and many other endeavors) with the “rule of thirds”. By mentally ruling off the design into three equal parts both horizontally and vertically, and placing the primary center of visual interest at one of the intersections of these dividing lines, you will be approximating the Golden Mean and helping your design to become more pleasing.
Look again at the GSBF collection juniper, above. If you mentally divide the upright rectangle formed by the outer limits of the tree itself using the rule of thirds, the point where the trunk curves the strongest is at the lower right intersection of thirds, and this is where our eye is most strongly drawn for this tree. Look at the other three bonsai. In each case, the primary focal point, where our eye is most strongly drawn, is near one of the four intersections.
Also look again at the trees in the wild. Try to apply the rule of thirds to these trees. You will find that in most cases your eye is not drawn to any of the intersections, and that is probably the reason they seem sprawling and uncontrolled to us.
If we return to the question that is the title of this article, it is apparent that for me at least the element of evoked emotions is all important. Bonsai can arouse these feelings in the same way that great natural beauty can, but bonsai are once removed from nature. This gives them a certain advantage because they can be manipulated using methods similar to those used by artists in other media. They can be made to assume poised shapes that conform to artistic ideals such as the Golden Mean, and altered in ways that suggest great age and overcoming great adversity, while still remaining alive and healthy. Because they do this, we tend to see them as metaphorical representations of the human ideal. For me the emotions they recall can be more pure than those I gain by contemplating nature. They are the emotions aroused by art, and while they are similar, they are not necessarily the same as those evoked by nature. The techniques of bonsai and an understanding of their aesthetics are the things that allow bonsai to become art capable of eliciting these emotions. Without them, bonsai are just pretty trees in pots.
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