Quote:
the origional question included the idea that working on one side was letting us do shoddy work on the back.
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we, probably all of us, have been taught to look for that best side and sacrifice all else to it. And yes, to make the rest as good as possible, given that making the rest as good as possible doesn't keep that one good side from being it's best. I am not saying that is a bad way. It is the way I do, for what that's worth.
But is it the only way? No. Is it by far the best way? I don't know. It at least it gives one good side. In the right hands, with the right material, it gives one great side...
Ah, this has now devolved into an argument of
reductio ad absurdum, as I see it.
To wit, it is a fictional premise that we could design a tree with
ALL best sides. Therefore, by deduction, we must accept that any tree that actually has
ALL best sides is either fictional, or a reduction of our standard of acceptance of "best". Either premise is equally valid, but for the logical conundrum arising from the latter premise.
That premise requires the re-definition of "best" to something more akin to "as good as it can be, in the circumstances". Perhaps this morphological shift in the definition of "best" has already taken hold in the wider community, in relation to bonsai? I see far too many people willing to throw a 10/10 vote at trees that are patently inadequate to attract that level of approbation. Is this the result of a universal dumbing-down of the standard of "best", or merely a localised acceptance that {mediocre = best }?
Since I don't believe it is acceptable to all components of the worldwide bonsai community therefore it must be, by extension, localised to some subset of the community.
This could be the most reasonable explanation. Equally, that same "acceptance of mediocrity" is the cornerstone of the original assertion of this argument.
It may be that it is merely symptomatic of the malaise that has infected certain cultures, accepting that all efforts, however poor when measured against an empirical standard, be deemed worthy without requiring justification for that position to other communities with more stringent standards.
Therefore, this argument is either one in favour of rampant mediocrity, in the name of some "ideal" that fundamentally devalues all art, or it is reduced to recognition of the principle that appreciation of art, despite any historical conventions of method, is subjective to the viewer and therefore immeasurable... that there is no empirical standard... therefore no need to adhere to principles.
Kipling, a Western observer of the East, insightfully observed "East is East and West is West, and ne'er the twain shall meet."
Perhaps bonsai is splitting into two main streams, where one adheres to traditional standards (Japan, China, traditionalists) and the other embraces the lowering of the bar, to include all of the wannabes and Philistinic know-it-alls who can't wait for nature and applied skill to develop good bonsai, so they proclaim theirs to be good, in the absence of condemnation to the contrary. If that's the case,
Sayonara... I'm staying here in the rarified air of the top camp... The view is better from up here.