The Art of Bonsai Project

Gosh . . . I grow, display, and work on my bonsai in my front yard. Maybe I'm not allowed to respond to this thread.
Anyway, Andy said something about a bonsai not being an art untill it is displayed, and the pot, the stand, the companion plant, the background, etc. are all considered together (or words to that effect).
Using Walter's Mona Lisa analogy from another thread, if I took her out of her (rather ugly in my humble opinion) frame and propped her up on my dining room table, would she be any less "art?"
And, Lisa said: "Too often, the bonsai pot and the stand become a crutch for those who exhibit mediocre trees....." and I agree. Many of my trees fit here, I'm sure.
Andy and I have "discussed" bonsai-as-art elswhere and at other times, and I respect his opinion, but I still have to ask whether it matters to anyone but a few, somewhat insecure, talented bonsaiests. Twenty years ago, serious photographers were tearing their shirts over whether what they did was art. I don't really keep up on photographic stuff any more, but I seem to recall that after all the blood had been shed, the answer was "maybe," or "sometimes," or "it can be."
That, I think, is where we should leave the question "is bonsai art." No one cares but us -- and, occasionally, the casual viewer of an especially beautiful tree about which there is no question.

Andrew L and I seem to be talking of apples and oranges.
His examples of Schumann, Tschaikovsky, and Monet are all within already established arts -- examples of people (traditionalists) declaiming against innovators in those arts that everyone agrees are arts. It would be like Andrew (or whoever) looking at someone else's bonsai with a ceramic monkey climbing in its branches and saying "That's not bonsai" Some day tastes might change (shudder!) and that might become bonsai -- just like we today like Tchaikovsky's "unplayable" violin concerto, and Monet's lilies, and Schumann's piano works.
His examples are not someone from an artistic endeavor that the established arts don't really recognize seeking a cachet of approval from those other arts -- someone knocking on the door of the art establishment and wanting in. That's what is going on here in this discussion.
But one thing holds true for most regoginzed arts (Christo's ephemeral "art" -- some of which I like and some of which I don't -- and performance "art" notwithstanding) is its permanence. Rodin's "Thinker" will be around and looking exactly the same much longer than any bonsai -- even the oldest. And, barring a fire, even paintings will remain unchanged for many, many years. Trees change -- always.
It takes great skill to produce a bonsai that might be classified as a work of art. But let that bonsai change hands and those new hands may not be able to maintain it as one.

Note to Jim Lewis
Jim, I'm sorry to do this here in public but you've given us a non-functional email address when you registered and you have not been checking your private messages. Please correct your email address and read your private messages (click on .Messages above) before you post again.
Carl Bergstrom
Moderator, Art of Bonsai

Art has at least 2 different meanings for me: art is everything that we can?t evaluate with a systematic score book, and art is telling something about the artist ?nd what (s)he try to communicate.
In the first meaning I can say that art is everything that is beyond good quality, one may call it superb, as if God (as a super human) has created it, not ordinary human. Something we simply don?t understand how it is possible to be made or performed.
The second definition requires the artist and the communication.
In conclussion: in the West some bonsai could be called art in the first meaning, questionable in the second meaning. At least if I look at the first part of it, because the bonsaiist face or character remains unreachable to me.
In the ancient Tribal communities, bonsai was/is not an artform. They didn?t/don?t even have the concept of art as a mean of self expression like we have in the West. The ?self? is never important. Through bonsai they try to be more open to the beauty of Nature, to closer to God. Art is a Western modern concept which has it?s foundation in Individualism.