are "great maples" chopped ? - come share your thoughts

[leatherback]

Is it snobbish or elitist to be able to discern and appreciate the sound of the New York Philharmonic playing a Beethoven symphony than a high school orchestra playing the same piece? Both pieces of music can be beautiful to listen to, but there will be subtleties and nuances that the professionals can make that less experienced musicians cannot achieve.

Thank you. Exactly what I was thinking.

 

[rockm]

And that’s why the Japanese are considered the pinnacle of bonsai. They took something the Chinese invented, and perfected it.

That's the problem. The Japanese didn't "perfect" bonsai. They adapted it to their tastes. The Japanese tend to be pretty anal retentive. I know I worked for a Japanese company. Their ideas of "perfection" are an illusion. They can come with a considerable downside.

Chinese bonsai is no better or worse than Japanese. It's just different. Assuming the Japanese are the "pinnacle" at the expense of other forms is shortsighted and excludes a lot of excellent trees.

 

[Deleted member 21616]

The Japanese tend to be pretty anal retentive. I know I worked for a Japanese company. Their ideas of "perfection" are an illusion.

@Bonsai Nut

i'm sorry, there's no place for stereotypes in my thread. @rockm What you're imagining is a caricature of an entire population, based on a specific aspect that the rest of the world has found interesting or peculiar about a particular group or population. Not all the french eat baguettes and smoke cigarettes, not all columbian are in the cocaine business, and not all danes are furniture designers.

First you pigeon-holed all people as snobs if they simply don't hold the view that you hold, and now this sweeping statement about all japanese people

you may not agree with others, but stating an opposing view (which is welcome--indeed, it's encouraged) does not need to be framed as a direct challenge or insult to an individual or entire population.

to get back to the point, when @Adair M said the Japanese are the pinnacle of bonsai, he obviously meant that bonsai practitioners in Japan individually and collectively accelerated the otherwise global progression and improvement of bonsai techniques. Put otherwise, if you erase Japan from the history of bonsai the techniques would not be, or at least would not yet be, where they are today. I don't think there is anybody who would disagree with this. @rockm I hope you can come around to reading the meaning and intentions behind the messages of others a little more sympathetically, rather than focusing on the words

 

[Wilson]

I appreciate both the patience of growing without chops, and the process of chopping. If we are trying to replicate natural trees, deciduous I have seen across our fine country are all kinds of weird shapes. Drastic movements, straight, gentle curves, they all can look good or bad. I find it pointless for me to think certain trees can't have scars, or deadwood. It all comes down to what material you have, and what design pleases you.

 

[rockm]

@Bonsai Nut

i'm sorry, there's no place for stereotypes in my thread. @rockm What you're imagining is a caricature of an entire population, based on a specific aspect that the rest of the world has found interesting or peculiar about a particular group or population. Not all the french eat baguettes and smoke cigarettes, not all columbian are in the cocaine business, and not all danes are furniture designers.

First you pigeon-holed all people as snobs if they simply don't hold the view that you hold, and now this.

you may not agree with others, but stating an opposing view (which is welcome--indeed, it's encouraged) does not need to be framed as a direct challenge or insult to an individual or entire population.

to get back to the point, when @Adair M said the Japanese are the pinnacle of bonsai, he obviously meant that bonsai practitioners in Japan individually and collectively accelerated the otherwise global progression and improvement of bonsai techniques. Put otherwise, if you erase Japan from the history of bonsai the techniques would not be, or at least would not yet be, where they are today. I don't think there is anybody who would disagree with this. @rockm I hope you can come around to reading the meaning and intentions behind the messages of others a little more sympathetically, rather than focusing on the words

well, uh. Like I said, I worked for a Japanese company. found that firsthand. You may not like the characterization, but I've seen it in action. Not all French eat baguettes and smoke but ALOT of them do.
I now expect to be called 'racist' and worse, have at it, but give this a thought or two--Why is it assumed that the Japanese "perfected" bonsai? That's a rather racial thought and a characterization of an entire population, or rather two populations--the Chinese (who's work you infer is inferior and needed help from the superior Japanese). You just happen to agree with it.

 

[Deleted member 21616]

i'll try to clarify one more time.

Why is it assumed that the Japanese "perfected" bonsai? That's a rather racial thought and a characterization of an entire population, or rather two populations.

no. it has to do with group agency and collective effort. I recommend the classic by phillip petit, for starters.

to speak of a nation collectively achieving a goal is simply to convey what group we are referring to. when you say women collectively altered their social status in the second half of the 20th century, you aren't being sexist against women, you're simply conveying what group did what you're referring to.

the Chinese (who's work you infer is inferior and needed help from the superior Japanese).

Assuming the Japanese are the "pinnacle" at the expense of other forms is shortsighted and excludes a lot of excellent trees.

you're overlooking the linear historical progression of the dynamic development of an art/practice. What @Adair M said had nothing to do with who did what first, or who ended up with better trees. The observation is comparatively simple: a group X were doing things for a while, and when group Y came along they advanced certain practices more rapidly than might have otherwise occurred. This is not to say that, as the developments were occurring, group Y was practicing in isolation from group X.

Nor is it to say (to respond to you directly) that aesthetically and historically, the improvements made by group Y yielded "better" results than group X. For this reason, it is possible to simultaneously appreciate Jackson Pollock's art for what it is, and also jacques-louis david's art for what it is. That said, I don't think there is anybody on the planet who would disagree with the fact that jacques-louis david's art, and neo-classicism in general, exhibits a technical mastery that is not present in the work of pollock, all the while recognizing that this says nothing about the merits of each of their works or whether one should be appreciated to a greater extent than another, or whether one is more or better 'art' than the other. (note that it is possible to speak of neo-classicists without it being 'racist' against them)

It's important to keep in mind that this thread is about technical mastery and both personal and global tastes. So to say that the japanese improved on the practice in a technical sense is not to say that, since then, the chinese have never produced a tree worthy of our appreciation.

while we're on the topic, you took issue with my statement earlier:

I admittedly started this thread with the assumption that trees that were not chopped were, in some sense, 'truer' to the notional or imagined 'ideal' of itself

i didn't feel like responding to you in much detail, but i will now with 2 points:

1 - the notion of 'truer' that i employed here did not carry a veridical sense. i meant truer in the way that one can 'true' a wheel. for example, all works painted by van gogh are van goghs, but because of the notional or imagined ideal that each of us has in mind it is possible to refer to some works by van gogh as truer to the notion of van gogh than are other works by van gogh (those of us in the field -- hello! -- employ this terminology regularly). To oversimplify, I can show someone 10 works by van gogh, and some will strike you as obviously van gogh while others may be questionably van gogh or appear to be not van gogh at all.

2 - each of us may have a notional or imagined ideal for each of their trees. when i look at my deshojo, and when i use a photo of it to trace out the form i am aspiring to, i am creating for myself an imagined ideal of my tree. this notional ideal of my deshojo becomes the elusive 'van gogh'. in my case, i never deliberately imagine my tree as having a clear and obvious chop as part of its finished design. (do you?)

Therefore, the work that i do on my tree is performed with aspirations towards this notional or imagined ideal of that very tree, and my goal is to be as true to this ideal as possible. If one needs to perform a major trunk chop to achieve that goal, one might do so, but that chop is a means to an end and not a desired end in and of itself. In fact, it seems like anybody who does perform a job is especially concerned with 'hiding' it, 'healing' it, or in one way or another allowing it to recede into the background of the overall experience of the tree.

i hope this stimulate further discussion - my own view is inevitably based in the philosophy of art, and it's unclear to me whether it is a relevant view for bonsai

 

[rockm]

i'll try to clarify one more time.



no. it has to do with group agency and collective effort. I recommend the classic by phillip petit, for starters.

to speak of a nation collectively achieving a goal is simply to convey what group we are referring to. when you say women collectively altered their social status in the second half of the 20th century, you aren't being sexist against women, you're simply conveying what group did what you're referring to.





you're overlooking the linear historical progression of the dynamic development of an art/practice. What @Adair M said had nothing to do with who did what first, or who ended up with better trees. The observation is comparatively simple: a group X were doing things for a while, and when group Y came along they advanced certain practices more rapidly than might have otherwise occurred. This is not to say that, as the developments were occurring, group Y was practicing in isolation from group X.

Nor is it to say (to respond to you directly) that aesthetically and historically, the improvements made by group Y yielded "better" results than group X. For this reason, it is possible to simultaneously appreciate Jackson Pollock's art for what it is, and also jacques-louis david's art for what it is. That said, I don't think there is anybody on the planet who would disagree with the fact that jacques-louis david's art, and neo-classicism in general, exhibits a technical mastery that is not present in the work of pollock, all the while recognizing that this says nothing about the merits of each of their works or whether one should be appreciated to a greater extent than another, or whether one is more or better 'art' than the other. (note that it is possible to speak of neo-classicists without it being 'racist' against them)

It's important to keep in mind that this thread is about technical mastery and both personal and global tastes. So to say that the japanese improved on the practice in a technical sense is not to say that, since then, the chinese have never produced a tree worthy of our appreciation.

while we're on the topic, you took issue with my statement earlier:



i didn't feel like responding to you in much detail, but i will now with 2 points:

1 - the notion of 'truer' that i employed here did not carry a veridical sense. i meant truer in the way that one can 'true' a wheel. for example, all works painted by van gogh are van goghs, but because of the notional or imagined ideal that each of us has in mind it is possible to refer to some works by van gogh as truer to the notion of van gogh than are other works by van gogh (those of us in the field -- hello! -- employ this terminology regularly). To oversimplify, I can show someone 10 works by van gogh, and some will strike you as obviously van gogh while others may be questionably van gogh or appear to be not van gogh at all.

2 - each of us may have a notional or imagined ideal for each of their trees. when i look at my deshojo, and when i use a photo of it to trace out the form i am aspiring to, i am creating for myself an imagined ideal of my tree. in my case, i never deliberately imagine my tree as having a clear and obvious chop as part of its finished design. this notional ideal of my deshojo becomes the elusive 'van gogh'.

Therefore, the work that i do on my tree is performed with aspirations towards this notional or imagined ideal of that very tree, and my goal is to be as true to this ideal as possible. If one needs to perform a major trunk chop to achieve that goal, one might do so, but that chop is a means to an end and not a desired end in and of itself.

Talk down to me and rationalize all you want. It's what Canadians do for Americans...the statement was NOT about "improvement" it was about "perfecting" an appropriated Chinese art...referring to the Chinese as junior varsity as the Japanese to the New York Philharmonic in (yes) a collective ability is questionable racially, given the long history of the two countries.

 

[Paulpash]

Far more quality maples are ruined by chops than are created by them. They are one of the few species that I would not ground grow if I had to do over.

 

[BobbyLane]

Far more quality maples are ruined by chops than are created by them. They are one of the few species that I would not ground grow if I had to do over.

Are you applying that to field maple too Paul, or just the japanese variety?

 

[Deleted member 21616]

They are one of the few species that I would not ground grow if I had to do over.

wow it's really interesting to hear that. what would you have done instead?

at the moment, most of my trees look like the attached photo (the photo is a year old now). my goal was to put half of them directly in the ground in spring, and keep the other half in pots. very interested by what you said

does ground-growing inherently entail an eventual chop? it isn't possible to control the growth as well as can be done in a container? just curious

 

[Wilson]

Canadians can't talk down to anyone, have you seen them? They're all drunk!

 

[Adair M]

Here is a picture of Peter Tea’s big trident maple. He just posted on Facebook.



What do you think if it?

 

[Deleted member 21616]

@Adair M i actually don't know if this was chopped or not, i'm assuming it was because of the severity of the taper?

the trunk is far too triangular for me, personally. I can, of course, see how others might like it.

i recently had a discussion about this with @Bananaman

https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/whats-next-trident.36150/

As an aside, why do these 'triangle trunk' tridents often look like the primary branches--usually the lowest branches--don't belong on the tree? are they just too thin in relation to the tremendous girth of the trunk? Maybe i just haven't learned how to look at these trees

 

[coh]

I like that tree. It looks like there is a relatively recent chop near the top, and possibly a couple other older chops in the middle part of the tree (all circled in red). Or maybe some of those lumps in the middle part of the trunk are places where old branches were removed, hard to tell - a trunk chop scar could be present on the back of the tree in that area.

The branch size thing is something that has bothered me on some trees. Certainly if a tree had grown to this kind of size in nature (scaled up to a full size tree), I'd expect those lower branches to have more size on them. But having them smaller makes the trunk look more impressive, at least I think that is the reasoning. It seems to work to make the trunk look more impressive perhaps at the expense of looking more like a real tree would. "Classical bonsai" versus "naturalistic bonsai", perhaps? Not to open another can of worms...

 

[Paulpash]

Are you applying that to field maple too Paul, or just the japanese variety?

Just Acer Palmatum Bobby. Field Maple chopping has much less chance of dieback than jap maple IME. Field maple are pretty bulletproof, especially in the trunk building phase. The challenge comes when it's time to build a good branch structure - reigning it in. Pinching, defoliation, keeping on many more branches than needed, replacing longer internode branches with their base budding twin, keeping it tightly confined in a small ish container & postponing cutback til after the first push are all strategies needed for forming a decent bonsai branch structure.

 

[Adair M]

That's the problem. The Japanese didn't "perfect" bonsai. They adapted it to their tastes. The Japanese tend to be pretty anal retentive. I know I worked for a Japanese company. Their ideas of "perfection" are an illusion. They can come with a considerable downside.

Chinese bonsai is no better or worse than Japanese. It's just different. Assuming the Japanese are the "pinnacle" at the expense of other forms is shortsighted and excludes a lot of excellent trees.

@rockm,

The Chinese were the first to bring naturally dwarfed trees down from the mountains and keep them in pots.

When the Japanese started copying them, they changed the styling from Penjing to Bonsai.

The Lingnan style of radical cuts and abrupt direction changes is a way of styling Penjing. Not so much Bonsai.

If you prefer Penjing to Bonsai, that’s your prerogative. But it is Bonsai that the Western world discovered after WWII that most of us who make miniature trees strive to emulate. Japanese bonsai.

It’s possible to argue over Penjing vs Bonsai all night, but in the end, it comes down to personal preference.

Personally, I don’t care for the coarseness of Penjing. I prefer refinement of bonsai. But that’s my preference.

 

[Adair M]

I like that tree. It looks like there is a relatively recent chop near the top, and possibly a couple other older chops in the middle part of the tree (all circled in red). Or maybe some of those lumps in the middle part of the trunk are places where old branches were removed, hard to tell - a trunk chop scar could be present on the back of the tree in that area.

The branch size thing is something that has bothered me on some trees. Certainly if a tree had grown to this kind of size in nature (scaled up to a full size tree), I'd expect those lower branches to have more size on them. But having them smaller makes the trunk look more impressive, at least I think that is the reasoning. It seems to work to make the trunk look more impressive perhaps at the expense of looking more like a real tree would. "Classical bonsai" versus "naturalistic bonsai", perhaps? Not to open another can of worms...

View attachment 218783

Where you circled in red up at the top was the former apex. It was airlsyered off! And currently lives on one of Boon’s benches!

That picture above was taken 8 years ago. Here is what it looks like today:



Notice any changes?

 

[Paulpash]

wow it's really interesting to hear that. what would you have done instead?

at the moment, most of my trees look like the attached photo (the photo is a year old now). my goal was to put half of them directly in the ground in spring, and keep the other half in pots. very interested by what you said

does ground-growing inherently entail an eventual chop? it isn't possible to control the growth as well as can be done in a container? just curious

By the very nature of putting them in the ground you will greatly accelerate their ability to thicken. Bigger chops are inevitable which equates to higher risk & severity of dieback. Internodal length increases so you may have to graft. Watch out for what I call 'necking' too. What is necking? I have seen it happen post chop where you cut and really let a shoot fly, thinking great, I'm really gonna let this next trunk section thicken fast but it is devoid of side branches so you have jack shit to cut back to. In most deciduous you'd probably get a dormant bud to pop but it's a crap shoot with mountain maple.

Keep it in a generous sized pot. Yes, it will take longer. Yes it won't be as thick or have as good taper as it's chopped equivalent for the years invested.

However, it will have a better nebari; you can view it at eye level so you can plan and execute cuts more efficiently; you can select & build branches with greater ease. Cuts will be less severe so you won't have massive wounds to heal. Pot grown trees are (generally) less prone to some of the more serious Acer diseases. You can also identify problems faster if you walk past it every day rather than it being at the back of a grow bed. The last two maples still in my beds will be dug up next Spring and potted.

 

[_#1_]

And that’s why the Japanese are considered the pinnacle of bonsai. They took something the Chinese invented, and perfected it.

The Chinese were the first to bring naturally dwarfed trees down from the mountains and keep them in pots.

When the Japanese started copying them, they changed the styling from Penjing to Bonsai.

The Lingnan style of radical cuts and abrupt direction changes is a way of styling Penjing. Not so much Bonsai.

If you prefer Penjing to Bonsai, that’s your prerogative. But it is Bonsai that the Western world discovered after WWII that most of us who make miniature trees strive to emulate. Japanese bonsai.

It’s possible to argue over Penjing vs Bonsai all night, but in the end, it comes down to personal preference.

Personally, I don’t care for the coarseness of Penjing. I prefer refinement of bonsai. But that’s my preference.

Not to be augmentative but is the the statement Japanese bonsai IS the pinnacle and dismissing Penjing as inferior a fact or merely one's opinion?

Is it true Penjing are more about evoking a feeling via artistic expression of the tree and overall composition? And Japanese Bonsai are view not just for the beauty but also strict rules of what makes a superior tree and/or composition? Maybe that's why Japanese Bonsai are easier to judge because there are flaws to look for and adhere to?

 

[Lorax7]

I don't think there is anybody on the planet who would disagree with the fact that jacques-louis david's art, and neo-classicism in general, exhibits a technical mastery that is not present in the work of pollock, all the while recognizing that this says nothing about the merits of each of their works or whether one should be appreciated to a greater extent than another, or whether one is more or better 'art' than the other.

Congratulations! You have found me (the one person who will argue that the technical mastery of Jacques-Louis David is not superior to that of Jackson Pollock). People have a tendency to overestimate the difficulty of painting depictions of scenes of recognizable real-world subject matter and drastically underestimate the difficulty of painting a balanced, harmonious, aesthetically pleasing, and emotionally/intellectually relevant work of abstract expressionism. The reason for the bias is simple: virtually everyone has tried drawing or painting scenes of real-world subject matter, at home or in school. Typically they were given little technical instruction, the results were mediocre (or worse), they experienced the judgments of their peers (probably some of which were unkind), they didn’t stick with it, and they were left with the lasting impression that drawing/painting in a realistic style is really hard. Probably the vast majority of those same people have never even attempted to make abstract art. They look at it and think that it must be easier because it doesn’t have to satisfy the constraint of being a recognizable and true likeness of real-world people/things. What they don’t realize is that the lack of that constraint is actually a source of great difficulty. The fact that you could, in theory, lay down paint in any configuration whatsoever is deceptive. It obscures the reality that some sort of structure is required to compose visual features on the picture plane in a way that is aesthetically appealing to people and stimulates associative memory to provoke thoughts and feelings. That’s hard to do and requires considerable technical mastery. The technical mastery involved is not inferior to that required to make realistic renderings in paint. It is simply different.

Edit: somehow the quote got attributed to the wrong person. I was quoting derek7745, not rockm. Not sure how to fix it.