The Art of Bonsai Project

OK Richard: Give us your definition of a Literati. You seem to be very good at telling us how our descriptions are invalid you therefore must be very good at providing us with the proper language and definitions that are lacking the esoteric quality of where this discussion is residing at the moment.

Personally I still find the term Metaphor valid, in the respect that a Simile seems to hold with it the idea of imitation and the concept of Metaphor holds with it the idea of transformation. In the spirit of other conversations we have had in the past almost anywhere bonsai is discussed by people with a bit more grit than those who resort to telling me my mother wears army boots, it could be surmised that a Simile is a cookie cutter bonsai and a Metaphor is a work of art. One is an imitation the other an original statement. However; I don't think you and I and Colin are going to come to an agreement over this. So let me be the first to tell you that from my point of view you are wrong.

.

Well?? How about you? Preferably without the innuendos and accusations of others ulterior motives. Obviously this thread interests you or you would not be hanging on to it. It seems like kind of a meaningless thing to use this as a bone to pick with someone else.

As to the metaphysics; much that is art is metaphysical in one sense or another. Art in its self was birthed by early man trying to put substance to metaphysical concepts they were trying to come to grips with. You cannot separate metaphysics from art, in fact, and OMG I am going to say it again, Art is a metaphor for unseen ideas, concepts, and imaginations of fact or fancy.

You may not care for the adventerous use of the word metaphor, but you should find a better one if this one offends you so much. The more important point is the fact that you seem to understand what Colin and myself are talking about, you just don't like how we are saying it.

By the way, personally I am still waiting for your definition, description and any other insight you might have about the Literati style.

.

.

Maybe the thing with bonsai is that you sometimes have to feel it and can´t describe it precisely with words, no matter how hard one try. Sometimes we try to hard with words and forget to sense and feel.

Best regards
Morten Albek

I agree, it is like describing what an Avocado tastes like.

Richard, Chris,
There are many fields of endeavour that, for one reason or another, have no words of their own. The banking industry, the internet, baseball, rocket science - and bonsai, for obvious reasons. They all take pre-existing words and give them new or, more properly, additional definitions.

Sometimes art also lacks its own words to describe something: in bonsai art we speak of direction, energy, mood, visual speed, feminine, masculine, negative space, tension and so on, all new applications for the words.

Art is mostly a mental process, and there is much that is thought that cannot be communicated without at least bending the standard usage of some words and phrases. This is not "mystical", just another new use of existing words to describe or define something that has not hitherto required definition.

You both seem sticklers for precise definition yet ignore that the additional usages of existing words that we see in today's dictionaries were not there twenty years ago, and that they were included only after a significant time in common usage. The art of bonsai will never be common usage. Therefore to discuss bonsai as an art you musty accept a certain degree of word-bending or even definition endowment that you will read in no dictionary or thesaurus.

As with banking, rocket science and baseball, to understand bonsai, especially all the arty stuff, you have to learn the language.

Hell's teeth Will, those aren't guidelines, their rules!

Literati are all feminine
Most, probably, some more than others.

Literati all take minimalism to the extreme
No, that would be a dead tree. And you certainly couldn't say that about Mike's black pine.

Literati all place the emphasis on the trunk.
Yes they do, in common with the titles or guidelines most other bonsai styles.

Other than that, you're off to a good start.