I was looking around on the internet when I found an article like no other that I have ever seen…I highly recommend that you all read it despite the length:

Aims in Bonsai: A Psychological Perspective

Here is an excerpt; please click the link for the entire article:

Why do some trees in the wild look like bonsai?

I think there is often perhaps some confusion between the object (the tree) and the subject (our ideas concerning trees). When we view an object such as a tree, we are usually dealing with the projection of stereotypes or, more accurately, ’schemata’. The tree, objectively, looks like a tree. It only looks like a bonsai to someone with a schema for bonsai (i.e. a preconceived cognitive ‘template’ for the defining characteristics and form of a ‘bonsai’). With no a priori knowledge of bonsai at all, it would just look like an odd shaped tree; perhaps a caricature of a tree.

The ability to form schemata is a mechanism that allows us to classify and categorise things quickly. It happens below…

This article covers bonsai creation from an interesting perspective and may help many of us to understand what we are really doing when we create trees.

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