Rules: How and Whyby Vance WoodIllustration by Will Heath using open license images
Many are familiar with the so called rules of bonsai design. These concepts have been the subject of study, debate and argument for years. With the advent of the Internet, thoughts on the issue have arisen from all over the world reflecting different cultural influences and artistic points of view.
In 1957, Yuji Yoshimura, who more than any bonsaist, defined a set of rules for bonsai design. He identified the different forms and shapes traditional Japanese bonsai can take and the methods for achieving them. For a good portion of the bonsai community these same rules have guided a generation into the pursuit of the perfect tree. For many, this syllabus is still considered sacred and for others, only a path way to a gate which swings open to new possibilities.
Most of these recognized forms originated from interesting and compelling shapes that diverse environments imposed on natural trees. However; many of these shapes or forms have, over the years, become highly stylized within the Japanese culture to a point where they only suggest a natural model. So the question is--- what about the so called rules? Why do we have them and should we adhere to them, considering that some view them as irrelevant by today’s standards of bonsai excellence as it is practiced world wide?
In my opinion that within this closely defined point of view is a method that should be learned before it can be expanded. It is a point of view and a set of standards that are, for all intents and purposes, the A, B, C’s of bonsai. It is in essence a method of getting from point A to point B. based on the experience of Japanese bonsai growers that could go back Thirteen-hundred years. Ignorance could be defined as ignoring such an historical body of work, even if only to decide it is wrong. It is reasonable to conclude that if you are going to study fire you should know how to start one.
I realize that the art of bonsai, as we in the west understand it, originated in Japan. Most of the information, instruction, and publications of any worth were disseminated from Japan. Most of the traveling masters that visited Western countries were Japanese and still, the best stock, pots and tools come from Japan. We must also acknowledge the Chinese tradition which is the parent source of all bonsai. It was from China that Japan acquired bonsai along with a good deal of the rest of their culture. Some evidence suggests this happened as far back as the Seventh Century. It is sad that not much is left of that early effort due to war and the neglect of time. The Chinese sources and traditions were fortunate to have survived the Communist revolution, where all things cultural were deemed unnecessary and expendable.
It is also important to understand that the Chinese tradition has not had its Yuji Yoshimura to write down rules and define forms. The Chinese have had no mission to teach their form of bonsai to the West. What we in the West have of the Chinese tradition has come down second hand from other sources forty-years since the influx of Japanese bonsai. So it is not surprising that most people associate bonsai and Japan in the same thought.
Japanese bonsai and the Chinese counter part, though similar, are subtley different. The Japanese built upon the tradition they imported from China true enough, but made of it something distinctly Japanese. They infused there artistic ideas and spiritual values into what then was a distinctly Chinese art form. Today, those promoters of the Chinese style are at a loss to define any particular styles, forms or a semblance of what we have come to know as “The Rules” which are distinctly Chinese. Styles forms and rules that clearly define what the Chinese tradition of bonsai really is can not be found by the casual bonsai grower trying to discover the difference.
There are those today who feel that the traditional approach learned from the Japanese should be thrown on the scrap heap of history along with the buggy
Whip, moustache wax, and button up shoes. Some go so far as to suggest these ideas should not be taught or learned at all. It is my opinion that making anything more sophisticated than a mud pie without a plan is, for most, a plan for failure. The Japanese tradition has provided us with a plan, rather narrow in focus but a plan never-the-less, and something to build upon.
Historically in all fields of human accomplishment there are those who go out in the world and discover ideas not yet defined, things not yet known, and methods not yet thought of, starting with fire, the wedge and the wheel. In many cases generally accepted concepts will become victims of new ideas. The concept of the flat Earth didn’t fall until the Fifteenth-Century when Columbus did not sail off the edge of the Earth and managed to return to Europe.
New innovations were arrived at by an understanding that much which proceeded was lacking in depth, scope, purpose or substance. The rule that you can’t do that, brought about the question: “What if you could?” This was followed by the inventions or discoveries that made the impossible possible, and the students that studied the inventions and defined the principles that made them work so that the rest of us could understand them.
Some of these inquisitive individuals had to follow their own council because they had nothing to base their research on other than an idea or a dream. Many had only what they considered misconception and myth to be resolved, like Copernicus, who did not believe the geocentric myth of the Solar System. Galileo, who invented the telescope and proved Copernicus, was correct. Sir Isaac Newton who built upon Copernicus and Galileo found existing mathematics unable to deal with his new understanding of the Universe. He invented calculus, a mathematical system to prove, analyze, and research the laws of motion and the movement of the stars. The point is this: Assume Copernicus, Galileo and Newton did not learn what was being taught in their time? It then follows that in order for them to come up with what they did, they would first have had to come to the same point of research their peers were stuck on---before they could go beyond.
Leonardo DaVinci, who thought about every thing, and had something to say about it all, autopsied bodies to gain an understanding of how muscles, tendons and the like worked. His curiosity advanced an understanding of realism in art and the science of anatomy. His imagination predicted inventions that would follow Three-Hundred years in the future. He understood the principles of flight that would not be realized till the Wright Brothers built the first air plane. He imagined travel under the sea and designed a device to accomplish this that would not come about until the American Civil War experimented with the first submarines; primitive as they were proved it could be done. DaVinci was a visionary so far ahead of his time he dreamt of things no one had the tools necessary to make and Two-hundred years before industry would even start to catch up with him.
It could be said that in this world there are visionaries, inventors and students. Visionaries imagine what can be, what might be, what should be, and what could be. They put together their ideas, some are wrong and others--- prove to shape the future. Inventors look into these ideas and seek to make them happen. Students study and analyze invention. They document, and catalog what they have learned; trying to define the success of the inventors and visionaries.
One generation builds on the knowledge, learning and experience of those who preceded them. There will be those that will follow as law, all that has come before. They will base careers on the study of these old ideas and the teaching of the same. Occasionally some student will become a visionary. He will take a step outside that volume of experience, disprove a long held belief, or establish a new idea.
So it is with bonsai. There are many stories and claims about where bonsai originated but no one knows for sure the real truth. We can only partly know that which we glean from written history and perhaps, an oral tradition. We become comfortable knowing that there is a way things should be and we can confidently follow it. We as students of the art, seek continuity and cohesion. We look to the work of the old masters to understand how they took on a particular problem, forgetting that they too groped with the past and were often stifled by it.
Sometimes the assumption of scholars is made that things cannot get any better than this; then, the work of students becomes the word of law. The principles they define become the rules that bind us. If this assumption stays in place long enough the resistance to change becomes more adamant, and the labor to over-come it, more difficult. We are loath to understand that one generation’s master work may be incomplete and in need of revision from time to time. Even Einstein failed in his quest to acquire the Theory of Everything (The Grand Unified Theory).
Visionaries and Inventors will always make the differences. Generations of professional students will follow them. They will write the text books, give lectures, and gain tenure at major universities. This body of research tends to remain static until new visionaries and inventors challenge these assumptions. When this happens the currently held beliefs will be changed to reflect, new information, new ideas and better methods. However; in a field already populated by a good deal of information, long tradition and deep thought this change does not come easily and the scholar students are themselves loath to relinquish the power a status quo gives them.
Walter Pall, a notable European master, has made a point of stating that he does not design bonsai, he designs trees. This seems a significant departure from what has come before in light of what we now know and the concepts we may have been taught. But wait; I believe that the first individuals to do bonsai had the same idea. When you think about it they could have had no other, there was nothing to imitate or use as a model.
Rules reflect a path way through the past that tends to go in one direction until something of significance comes along. That something must be worth following, something which departs from the original path or even disproves it altogether. One of the rules we learned in High School Science was that an object in motion tends to stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force. Not only is this an accepted physical law, it also defines what is happening in bonsai. At this point it may be interesting to suggest that the rules are a myth, a popular and mutually agreed to list of generalities, specifics and principles that seem to make things work---for now. The gnawing question remains; for how long?
The short story: The rules are nothing more than a studied description of the successes of previous generations reinforced and often defended by an erroneous assumption that things cannot get any better than this. In other words: We know every thing knowable, we see everything seeable, and we can do every thing doable. When there is such a body of information available to the student of bonsai it is foolish to think that you can ignore all that has preceded you and hope for success. Those who depart from the path are of two sorts: Those with a real vision and those who despise conformity. Those with real vision will become the Walter Palls, and Masahiko Kimuras, those who despise conformity will not be remembered---but they might have more fun.
I would leave this subject with two questions: If you are against the rules but you refuse to know them---how can you be against that which you do not understand? If you understand that the rules are the cumulative knowledge of experience from past masters how can you resist those who desire to go beyond current accepted practice and advance the art? They will be judged by their own work and place in history--- if any.