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SHADE OF GREY...
by Paul Eslinger
I have been discussing the perfect bonsai with a lot of different people recently, some Occidental and some Oriental. It has become increasingly apparent that we in the west have become preoccupied with the perfection of precision. This contrasts dramatically with the Oriental concept of the presence of harmony. This argument will be familiar to Occidentals as black and white being the two extreme ends of a grey scale, reality is a shade of grey.
My journey started a number of years ago but turned profound during my first experience of Japan. Japan offers the greatest contrast between tradition and modern values I have experienced in any culture. Their mental concept of beauty is alien to us, we look for the faults in perfection, and they look for perfection in the imperfect. As an illustration of this we were travelling by train from Tokyo to Kyoto and I was looking at what was a superbly beautiful mountain scenery. This was frequently scarred with grotesque manmade features such as quarries, factories and huge power line systems. I was fortunate enough to be travelling with friends who were Japanese and I asked the impertinent question of why the country was so frequently defaced by these manmade features. My friend took a long time to respond, when he did he asked me, "What ugliness?". I enquired further and in our discussion I came to realise that my friend was not playing the fool. His culture and philosophy had simply erased from his conscious vision the objects, which were causing offence to me. More simply where I saw power grids he, didn't, he saw beautiful mountains.
Kokufu, recognised by the majority in the Bonsai world as being the grandest of all of the competitions in the Bonsai world has three classes of tree that compete, which loosely translate to large trees, middle size trees and small trees. Now if this were a European or American bonsai show these sizes would be defined in absolute measurable terms with rules coming out of our ears to ensure that no stone was left unturned and all possible and a few impossible cases were defined. I asked Akimoto San if he would be able to explain to me what the size rules for these classes were. After recovering from the shock that I needed to ask the question he responded with a measured "We know." Now, "We know" as a starting point for a rule is quite difficult for me to comprehend and this was exacerbated when you realised that the cost of entering a tree into the shows selection panel was not cheap. So in a moment of rashness I impertinently asked Akimoto San how he knew. Now this felt like going back to my first day at school and asking Teacher why 2 and 2 made 4. The answer was probably more profound though and Akimoto San patiently explained to me that a tree has presence, a large tree would be a tree with a large presence, a small tree would be a tree with a small presence. Presence was the sum of all of a trees attributes, it was taper, it was branch placement , it was harmony, it was.
Now I know a lot of things are written about the Japanese rules for style in bonsai and while I can not profess to have seen all of the trees or had the benefit of talking to all of the Masters, I did have the opportunity to see a lot of trees. None of them were perfect. None of them followed all of the rules. None of them was set on a pedestal with 62 or 63 points and a disappointed grower smiling benignly beside them.
Why?
Because, the tree had presence and people were looking beyond the faults and enjoying the beauty of the imperfection. This is a strange concept for us where we have been bought up with a very prescriptive standard of judgement in the competitive environment. We find this to be particularly true in horticulture where the dreaded NAS (Not According to Schedule) has sounded the death knell of many a show entry before any serious judging begins.
The problem is not a new one, how do you judge something that is subjectively based in a quantitative manner and at the same time maintain the quality of your judgement. Photographers have been doing this since Fox-Talbot with some success (and some failures).
I have come to the conclusion that in the Bonsai world we are not even attempting to do this with any evenness of hand. I say this knowing that even in my Societies shows we do not succeed. I think that we are fair with the prize winners, yes I know we have an ambiguous and flexible set of rules. Our strictest enforcement centres on the requirement of at least 6 months ownership. This flexibility has caused some disagreement and warm discussions on occasions, but these have been few.
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