A Few Ponderings of Naturalistic Style

[just.wing.it]

Does the "naturalistic" style apply to junipers??
How bout azaleas??

Have you ever seen a juniper bonsai that looks like a mature juniper???

How bout an azalea bonsai that looks like a mature Azalea???

What does a mature Azalea, in the wild, even look like???

Any examples?

 

[Velodog2]

Really, good questions!

It seems junipers were styled much more naturalistically 40-50 yrs ago and before, which is to say less refined. Much as they cam from the mountains it appeared.

 

[just.wing.it]

Really, good questions!

It seems junipers were styled much more naturalistically 40-50 yrs ago and before, which is to say less refined. Much as they cam from the mountains it appeared.

Thanks, and yes, I agree....from the pics I've seen of old paintings of bonsai, in books, the trees are more natural, or less refined, for sure.

 

[twisted trees]

Really, good questions!

It seems junipers were styled much more naturalistically 40-50 yrs ago and before, which is to say less refined. Much as they cam from the mountains it appeared.

The more stylized and highly refined style happened during the height of Japan's booming economy at the end of the lady century when bonsai artists could be paid to spend time wiring every branch.

 

[RKatzin]

I have a few acres that is covered with wild Azalea. They grow in clumps of long limbs, spindly and bent.

 

[Vance Wood]

Plausible and Surrealistic. These are the two concepts that best apply to the naturalistic style----IMHO. Plausible are those things that look like they could, would, should and might happen under the right circumstances. Surrealistic are those things that pass into the realm of fantasy and imagination and are often coupled with the Plausible. The terms chaos and anarchical are for the most part excluded from this debate because all life and form is in one way or another related to the Fibonacci sequence. So almost anything is doable as a bonsai style. You do not have to follow the age old "bonsai rules" that define styles and forms that have been practiced in bonsai started in the 7th Century, but you do have to adhere to the fundamentals of life, like the Fibonacci sequence in order to produce something that is plausible or Surrealistic.

 

[Velodog2]

Wow Vance, you pulled out all the stops for that reply! Great observations!

Azaleas are very popular around here and there are also many buried in the less frequented woods at the National Arboretum. They seem to vary possibly by species or by environment and can be nondescript bushes or beautifully elegant small trees with graceful layers of foliage. I think they naturally tend toward the latter given maturity and lack of pruning, based on my experience growing them in my yard.

 

[americanelmer]

"the Fibonacci sequence"

How does this relate to the original question?
Not snark really want to know.

Thanks
A_E

 

[Lazylightningny]

Plausible and Surrealistic. These are the two concepts that best apply to the naturalistic style----IMHO. Plausible are those things that look like they could, would, should and might happen under the right circumstances. Surrealistic are those things that pass into the realm of fantasy and imagination and are often coupled with the Plausible. The terms chaos and anarchical are for the most part excluded from this debate because all life and form is in one way or another related to the Fibonacci sequence. So almost anything is doable as a bonsai style. You do not have to follow the age old "bonsai rules" that define styles and forms that have been practiced in bonsai started in the 7th Century, but you do have to adhere to the fundamentals of life, like the Fibonacci sequence in order to produce something that is plausible or Surrealistic.

Ok, you totally lost me on that Fibo-whatchamacallit deal. Even when I googled it, I was scratching my head.

 

[just.wing.it]

Plausible and Surrealistic. These are the two concepts that best apply to the naturalistic style----IMHO. Plausible are those things that look like they could, would, should and might happen under the right circumstances. Surrealistic are those things that pass into the realm of fantasy and imagination and are often coupled with the Plausible. The terms chaos and anarchical are for the most part excluded from this debate because all life and form is in one way or another related to the Fibonacci sequence. So almost anything is doable as a bonsai style.

Educate us VW!

 

[Vance Wood]

"the Fibonacci sequence"

How does this relate to the original question?
Not snark really want to know.

Thanks
A_E

Fractal Geometry is the concept where it seems that a shape repeats itself over and over within the paramaters of the same object on the atomic level. You can look this stuff up even on Wikipedia it will probably give you better difinitions than I, but it is the seemingly repeatable sequence of the same pattern that makes up all living things. The Fibonacci sequence is the way they fall together best shown by the structure of the conch shell or things like that. It is essentially the mathematical relationship of five to one (like Pi) that forms these things.
Fibonacci numbers are closely related to Lucas numbers Ln

in that they form a complementary pair of Lucas sequences Un(1,−1)=Fn

and Vn(1,−1)=Ln

. They are intimately connected with the golden ratio; for example, the closest rational approximations to the ratio are 2/1, 3/2, 5/3, 8/5, ... .

Fibonacci numbers appear unexpectedly often in mathematics, so much so that there is an entire journal dedicated to their study, the Fibonacci Quarterly. Applications of Fibonacci numbers include computer algorithms such as the Fibonacci search technique and the Fibonacci heap data structure, and graphs called Fibonacci cubes used for interconnecting parallel and distributed systems. They also appear in biological settings,[10] such as branching in trees, phyllotaxis (the arrangement of leaves on a stem), the fruit sprouts of a pineapple,[11] the flowering of an artichoke, an uncurling fernand the arrangement of a pine cone's bracts.[12]

The above is a over-view pasted from Wikpedea. This deserves a lot more research and attention. How does this apply to the naturalistic style??? The Fibonacci sequence is at the foundation of all things, it's just the way it is. If you have a bonsai that does not work artistically you can analyze it by the traditional rules and find the reason it does not work or looks more than odd. When you are dealing with something like the Naturalistic style that in many cases does not follow the traditional rules you have to go to the rules of nature to find the answers, there you may encounter the Fibonaccu sequence.

 

[James W.]

My take on "naturalistic" style, and I might be all wet:
A plant that looks like a miniature of a tree one might find growing wild. Not necessarily how that particular species might grow. For instance I might try to make my boxwood look like an old, spreading live oak or style my privet to emulate a grand park elm.
So, juniper. To take shinkapu and style it to look like a miniature of an old gnarly mountain juniper would be naturalistic.
I am not sure an azalea bonsai will ever look like a miniature tree.

 

[Vance Wood]

My take on "naturalistic" style, and I might be all wet:
A plant that looks like a miniature of a tree one might find growing wild. Not necessarily how that particular species might grow. For instance I might try to make my boxwood look like an old, spreading live oak or style my privet to emulate a grand park elm.
So, juniper. To take shinkapu and style it to look like a miniature of an old gnarly mountain juniper would be naturalistic.
I am not sure an azalea bonsai will ever look like a miniature tree.

If it works and causes pause to look at,---- then it is a legitimate style. That's the whole problem here, it is ground being ploughed in virgin soil not defined by previous art but I must point out: It is limited by the reality of the Fibonacci sequence if it is to work.

 

[just.wing.it]

I am not sure an azalea bonsai will ever look like a miniature tree.

Well, I beg to differ here....
Many Azalea bonsai look like trees, you can make most any shrub into a tree form..... but what I was asking is, is there a naturalistic style for azaleas?...

 

[Vance Wood]

You can make anything into a naturalistic style, it is a matter of the artistry selling image and the Fibonacci numbers justifying it if you want to get technical. I remember when I first started growing bonsai on of my favorite images was of an Azalea that looked more like a Trident Maple and it was beautiful. I am thinking that you need to define what you mean by a naturalistic style and see if we are talking about the same thing.

 

[just.wing.it]

You can make anything into a naturalistic style, it is a matter of the artistry selling image and the Fibonacci numbers justifying it if you want to get technical. I remember when I first started growing bonsai on of my favorite images was of an Azalea that looked more like a Trident Maple and it was beautiful. I am thinking that you need to define what you mean by a naturalistic style and see if we are talking about the same thing.

Yes you're right.
What I'm referring to is a style that is naturalistic for the given species....
So, a black pine styled like a mature natural black pine.
Or, a Trident Maple styled like a mature natural trident maple...
And so on....
But I've never seen mature azaleas in nature, and I don't know what they look like....does the internet have any examples? And has a bonsai artist created an Azalea bonsai in the form an a mature natural Azalea?

 

[James W.]

"I am not sure an azalea bonsai will ever look like a miniature tree.

I was thinking of the size of flowers. When not in bloom, certainly could look like a miniature tree.

 

[AZbonsai]

Fibonacci in plants explained.

http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/emat6680/parveen/fib_nature.htm

 

[just.wing.it]

[QUOTE="I am not sure an azalea bonsai will ever look like a miniature tree.

Oh yes, haha! Indeed the flowers ruin the illusion, certainly.....but they're pretty, so they get away with it.

 

[Cadillactaste]

I was thinking of the size of flowers. When not in bloom, certainly could look like a miniature tree.

If one can not appreciate the short lived blooms of an azalea...then, one might wish not to add it to their bench. For its a lovely show that needs appreciated.

For surely these look nothing like a miniature tree...with blooms on it.