HankDio
Yamadori
This is my exact point, I am not disparaging Peter Chang at all.
Thoughts on Peter Chan? (Herons Bonsai)
- Thread starter Blimpsandmtn
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Cajunrider
Imperial Masterpiece
Didn't think you were. I just reiterated how difficult it is.
rockm
Spuds Moyogi
I find the analogy between Peter Chan and Bob Ross pretty interesting. Chan is still an expert at wowing beginners. Ross was as well. I read Chan's books extensively back in the 90's. His books showed --from what I could tell-- the details of collecting and trunk chopping nursery stock--a revelation at the time when there wasn't an Internet.
And as for the "wishy washy I don't like it" opinion of Ross' painting, that's kind of the whole deal of being a painter or bonsaist who exhibit their work. In the end, both have to appeal to the viewer. It's certainly a measure of the artists' abilities and capabilitiese. ...And FWIW, I've always found Ross' work amateurish and hackneyed-which is why some find it appealing. To each his own...
Matthew Rudling
Sapling
I’m thoroughly a beginner and I think Peter Chan is great. He demystified the whole process of nursery stock to bonsai pot. When I get my trees into a bonsai pot I’ll refine my knowledge on other channels if necessary. For the next few years of creating thick trunks and movement I have Peter to thank for biting the bullet and chopping trunks!
I’m specifically talking about technique. I’m not talking about whether or not the work speaks to you, says something worth saying, agrees with your sense of style/taste. Technique is solely about whether or not the mechanics of the thing are done competently.
There are authors whose books would infuriate me with their ideological content or bore me to death with descriptions of things that I care nothing about. Another person may find those same books delightful, fascinating. That’s the “art” part of it. Do you have something to say and, if so, is it something that I can be persuaded to give a damn about?
Technique/craft is a separate issue. Are the sentences grammatically correct? Are the paragraphs coherent? Does the author have a good understanding of the meaning of the words or do they keep using the word “dusk” when the context is that the main character just woke with the sun and ate a stack of pancakes? If a poet writes a haiku and the first line has 4 syllables, their technique is not very good. What they wrote might be inspiring and provoke deep emotion, but those things are separate from technique.
Personally, I can’t stand Thomas Kinkade’s paintings. You couldn’t pay me to hang one on my wall. His style is not for me. But, I wouldn’t fault his technique. He uses perspective correctly. You can tell what direction the light is coming from in his paintings and it is consistent and logical throughout the picture plane. He understands color harmony. He can blend paints. Things in the foreground are in sharper focus and things in the distance are hazy. He successfully creates the illusion of texture. He is obviously not a bad painter. You can like or dislike his paintings. You can call them good or bad art, or perhaps even argue that they’re “not art”. That’s all just personal preference. But, if someone says his technique is bad, they’re just discrediting themselves in the eyes of anyone who knows enough about painting to know better.
Personally, I love Salvador Dali’s paintings. I’m sure there are people who genuinely dislike his paintings. However, if they say his technique was bad, anyone who knows anything about painting is going to infer that the person saying that doesn’t know what they are talking about.
That’s the point I’m making about Bob Ross. Whether or not you like his work is irrelevant to the question of whether or not he was a skilled painter. There’s abundant evidence that he could competently paint landscape scenes with oil paints. When someone claims he was technically unskilled, that’s a flashing neon light to anyone who actually paints that the person espousing the opinion doesn’t know much about painting technique.
coh
Imperial Masterpiece
I've been debating whether to weigh in on this issue and your comment about Kinkade provided the impetus, as I was thinking about bringing him up as a comparison to Bob Ross.
First of all, I have no opinion on Peter Chan as I've never watched any of his videos. That said...I've always "dabbled" in painting and about 10 years ago left my job to pursue painting seriously. That lasted about 5-6 years and during that time I painted (outdoors, plein air mainly) with many talented individuals and also participated in a number of workshops, including several with very well known artists. During these events conversation often turned to...Bob Ross and especially Thomas Kinkade.
I can't stand Kinkade's current work which can be found almost everywhere. However, I have talked to people who went to art school with him and he was considered to be one of the most technically proficient artists they'd ever seen. He chose a certain path which obviously rewarded him quite well, at least financially. In fact, many artists are quite jealous of his success, but they also consider him a sellout who has wasted his talents painting "kitsch."
On the other hand, I've never heard another painter of note say anything positive about Bob Ross's skills. Ross never went to art school - he basically learned/copied the wet in wet painting technique of another artist (Bill Alexander). Most artists I've talked to consider his technique and resulting paintings to be quite crude and repetitive/limited. But, as others have noted, he produced an entertaining television show that introduced painting to many, and his method was something that could be easily emulated...so people could produce "paintings", even if they all looked like Ross paintings. Nothing really wrong with that but was Bob Ross a skilled painter...he learned one technique that produced rather crude imaginative paintings and he had charisma. Compared to many artists out there, he was very unskilled.
He didn't go to art school. No big deal. He did have a mentor and that's all that's really necessary to learn the technical skills one needs to be a painter. Nowadays, art schools barely teach technique anyway. They're heavily focused on art historical reference and conceptual stuff (construction of deeply layered meanings, etc.). Contemporary art marches in the footsteps of Duchamp much more than the footsteps of Ingres. There's no shortage of high concept contemporary painting with crude technical execution being churned out by recent art school graduates and shown at major venues like Art Basel Miami Beach (see example below).
Much of Bob Ross's brushwork is done in a thick impasto, which is a stylistic choice that some people may regard as "crude". Monet and Van Gogh also used heavy brush strokes. Again, that's a stylistic choice, not a technical flaw. And Ross clearly could (and did) use thin applications of paint when he wanted to. Typically, his skies and bodies of water with reflections in them were done with a thin paint application.
I think the big source of confusion is that Bob Ross, like Thomas Kinkade, painted a lot of very conventional, banal subject matter. As landscape painters go, he's no J.M.W. Turner or Marcus Larson, but it's also incorrect to say he was unskilled.
coh
Imperial Masterpiece
@Lorax7, I'm not interested in an endless debate on the subject and it doesn't really matter what art schools are teaching today, or what passes for art today. And my main point was not that Ross didn't go to art school (though I think you know that). Bob Ross had a very limited technical skillset. He made it work for him but anyone claiming that Ross was a highly technically skilled painter is kidding themselves. Kinkade, from what I was told, could paint circles around Ross and most of the other students at the time. Even though I don't like what he wound up painting, if you put the bodies of work side by side...Kinkade vs Ross...there's really no comparison. They're on totally different levels.
I’m not arguing that Bob Ross was a highly technically skilled painter. I’m arguing against the people who dismiss him as an unskilled hack. He was respectably skilled.
I think the same could be said for Peter Chan. Respectable. Of course, put him next to Kimura and there’s no comparison. Kimura’s bonsai can eat Peter for breakfast. But it’s also wrong to suggest that Peter Chan is an old n00b masquerading as a bonsai professional. I don’t agree with everything he does, but he’s certainly demonstrated that he can do bonsai at a respectable level. Being self-taught, you can occasionally see where he has a knowledge gap. Typically, this shows up in the form of anthropomorphising trees because he doesn’t have the scientific explanation of what’s happening with hormone signaling in mind as he’s talking to his viewers about what he’s doing to the tree. He knows from experience what the tree will do, but the explanation of why is rather hand-wavy. In contrast, with Ryan Neil performing the same task you’d get a detailed play by play of what’s going to be happening with various hormones being transported and what goes which direction in the xylem and phloem (but the delivery might sound a bit like a salesman trying to sell you a used Chevy). Everyone has their quirks. I get value from watching Peter’s videos and Ryan’s videos and even from watching some Japanese bonsai videos that don’t have subtitles. Absorb what is useful to you and discard the rest.
BonjourBonsai
Chumono
Wouldn't it be cool if art schools offered classes in bonsai?
berzerkules
Shohin
This video is a good example of why I like Peter.Plenty of life left in the old boy yet judging by the way Peter tackles this elm that has rooted into the ground!
He's even got his hedgers out for the lads
The guy has to be pushing 80 and he's out there throwing around a big 'ol tree in mismatching mud boots, one glove, Hawaiian shirt and big smile on his face. How many people here would want to wrestle a tree that size at half his age? He could have easily gotten any one of his employees to move that tree for him but he loves big trees. He seems like the type of guy that's not going to ask his employees to do things he wouldn't do himself. He's also putting out a lot of information for free and getting people into bonsai by making it look easy like anyone can do it. I can respect the guy.
I've seen people say he doesn't have nice trees and he's expensive. If you go looking he's made some nice looking trees over the years. He's also running a nursery, it's easier to sell many starter trees to the masses than it is high end trees to a select few and like everything in bonsai, if you're well known people will pay for the name. Can't fault the guy for running a successful business doing what he loves.
The brushstroke comment made me think - I always like drawings/paintings where a lot of image detail appears in the viewer’s mind in spite of a minimal number if marks in the artwork. And in fact that’s usually where we end up with bonsai, rarely is it an accurate scale model of a full size tree with enough branches/twigs etc….although large broom Zelkova do get pretty close!He didn't go to art school. No big deal. He did have a mentor and that's all that's really necessary to learn the technical skills one needs to be a painter. Nowadays, art schools barely teach technique anyway. They're heavily focused on art historical reference and conceptual stuff (construction of deeply layered meanings, etc.). Contemporary art marches in the footsteps of Duchamp much more than the footsteps of Ingres. There's no shortage of high concept contemporary painting with crude technical execution being churned out by recent art school graduates and shown at major venues like Art Basel Miami Beach (see example below).
Much of Bob Ross's brushwork is done in a thick impasto, which is a stylistic choice that some people may regard as "crude". Monet and Van Gogh also used heavy brush strokes. Again, that's a stylistic choice, not a technical flaw. And Ross clearly could (and did) use thin applications of paint when he wanted to. Typically, his skies and bodies of water with reflections in them were done with a thin paint application.
I think the big source of confusion is that Bob Ross, like Thomas Kinkade, painted a lot of very conventional, banal subject matter. As landscape painters go, he's no J.M.W. Turner or Marcus Larson, but it's also incorrect to say he was unskilled.
coh
Imperial Masterpiece
I can agree with that. Ross was not an "unskilled hack", but he was relatively low on skills compared to many other artists. But he made what he had, count.
I also don't want to give the impression that I believe people with lesser skills are incapable of producing compelling or beautiful works of art. In some cases inspiration or creativity/imagination (or just relentless hard work) can overcome limited skills. In the painting context, I've seen people with great technical skills still struggle to produce "good" (subjective, I know) paintings because they have trouble seeing what is important about a subject. They can be standing in front of an amazingly beautiful landscape and be unable to figure out how to convey what they are seeing onto a canvas, how to crop a scene, etc. In those cases they might paint something that looks just like the scene but has no "feeling" (another subjective statement, I know). Similarly in bonsai, I go to the National Exhibition and see lots of trees that are technically well done, but they don't speak to me or they look like so many other trees I've already seen.
As I said, I'm not really familiar with Chan's work but I've always been amazed at how much controversy (not sure if that's the right word) he generates...Saunders too. There is plenty of room for everyone and many ways to produce bonsai.
I don’t think they’d ever do that. Professional artists working in the sort of media that gets displayed in museums, sold in galleries, etc. generally regard bonsai as craft, not art. There may be individual works that they’d make an exception for and regard as art. But, the vast majority of bonsai are outside of how they define art.
Imagine writing an artist’s statement for a solo exhibition of your bonsai. What are you going to say about the meaning, art historical context, etc. of your practice of bonsai? Because if the bonsai trees don’t have a deeper meaning beyond “it’s a pretty tree that looks like an old tree in miniature”, art world people aren’t interested in it. Ironically, the bonsai that are most likely to be be regarded as art by art school people are the ones most likely to make bonsai people think, “That’s an interesting tree sculpture thing you have there, but I’m not so sure I would call it bonsai.”
leatherback
The Treedeemer
I think that would be good wall text for a bonsai exhibit in a history museum, but I don’t think it would convince a curator to display your bonsai in an art museum. Unlike a history museum, an art museum demands novelty. The problem with that as an artist’s statement for an art museum is that it could be the artist’s statement for any bonsai artist’s solo exhibit. An art museum is primarily interested in what about your work is absolutely unique, different from the work of every other bonsai artist who has ever lived. The other focus of the art museum is on the communicative aspects of the work. When a viewer stands in front of your bonsai and carefully contemplates it, what messages does the visual language of the work convey? What does this bonsai say that is different from what this other bonsai says?
Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine that you’re Picasso in an alternate universe where Picasso is a bonsai artist. You’re going to make Guernica, but it will be bonsai instead of a painting. How will you design your tree to convey all of the meaning that we in our universe get out of viewing the Guernica painting? If you manage to successfully express all that meaning in tree form, is it still bonsai? Next up, figure out how you’re going to make Les Demoiselles D’Avignon in bonsai tree form.
rockm
Spuds Moyogi
"The problem with that as an artist’s statement for an art museum is that it could be the artist’s statement for any bonsai artist’s solo exhibit."
like any blanket statement, there are exceptions. I think that thinking it terms of "traditional" art doesn't quite cover bonsai. I don't think that "craft" covers it either. Bonsai can be an individual statement, or a statement by a group (since trees have longer lives than humans and many people imprint their "vision" on bonsai over the years. That statement can simply be "endurance," "struggle," "prosperity" or any other emotion expressed through the design elements including and nurtured in a bonsai. Bonsai is not really about trees. It is about human emotion. The tree is used as a trigger for those emotions in the viewer, just like any other art.
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Traditional bonsai are beautiful and captivating on their own, but have you ever wondered what might happen if you introduced an air of eccentricity to the classic presentation? Enter: Nick Lenz. Lenz is an American bonsai artist well known for his provocative styling of trees collected from fore
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The Artisans Cup
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leatherback
The Treedeemer
Yet, in May 2019 this happened.. Art gallery + bonsai.
rockm
Spuds Moyogi
Duchamp's Fountain of the bonsai world.
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hinmo24t
Masterpiece
subjectivity from someone who doesnt know much art except i have a Jonas Claesson painting:
Kinkade seems impressive to me
maybe a bit redundant ^
jonas claesson
peter chan
my friend johns art, won Luxemburg art prize 2017ish, $25,000
seems sloppy but notice the details, great with 'hands' too
Kinkade seems impressive to me
maybe a bit redundant ^
jonas claesson
peter chan
my friend johns art, won Luxemburg art prize 2017ish, $25,000
seems sloppy but notice the details, great with 'hands' too
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