AusBonsai

I have found that generally anyone with any bonsai skill gets much the same number when checking the height ratio. Antonio excluded.

Interesting topic.

Teaching principles are what gave us the numbers, to make it easier to explain. In Europe these days the push is more for 3 or 4:1, because they like a powerful trunk. Nature rarely provides 6:1 or less, but artistically and proprtionately it is beautiful. If you want to create the image of a giant tree, then where do you go? 8 or 10:1 would be better then.

A trunk should have strength, stability and direction. Of course only the first 2 for Formal Upright because the foliage sets the direction.

As for where to measure. Where the roots join the trunk is my view, and is what I was taught, and I think makes sense. It is a trunk ratio, not a root ratio, but make your call.

Are most trees actually too tall, or do the trunks just need thickening Mostly I think we pot too early, and don't leave enough, if any, sacrificial branches.

Tony

As promised, here is a few photos of My formal upright Acer buergeranium.

The trunk girt at the roots is 30mm and its overall height is just over 500mm.
this make it about 14:1 ratio

The tree was grown from Cutting about 2005, and has been wired to be dead straight with good radial root spread ( naturally occuring) and formal branch placement.
The canopy is trimmed quite hard to control it and force growth into the lower branches so i can build the size and ramification to where i would like to see it in 2 years or so. they will be about 1/2 as large as they are now.

Will the tree ever look nice? I have no idea whether it will to you, but as i said before I am quite fond of taller slender trees and this has been so far an interesting exercise. Anyone who sees the tree in real life likes it so that is good enough for me

Ken

Ken, that's a lovely tree!!

As promised, here is a few photos of My formal upright Acer buergeranium.

The trunk girth at the roots is 30mm and its overall height is just over 500mm.
this make it about 14:1 ratio

One can love a thing for itself or, in this case, a tree for itself, without necessarily pigeonholing it into one category or another.
To me, it's an OK tree, but it doesn't give me the feeling of bonsai, and that is a strictly personal reaction. For its width, I'd prefer that tree to be half its present height, or thereabouts.

Walter Pall, talking about forms and styles, said that the ratio of 6 : 1 was one of the precepts worked out by John Naka and Yuji Yoshimura, together with the triangular apex, the left-right-back branch distribution, the tiered canopy with well-groomed foliage pads and other familiar rules. This was done in the 60s for the benefit of bonsai apprentices, so that they would produce good-looking bonsai that could be sold, without making too many mistakes. The result was a mass production of similarly shaped trees, that gradually came to be seen as the classical Japanese bonsai style. It still is today, while a look at the Kokufu-ten show trees and Kimura's creations demonstrate in fact that the Japanese themselves are not restricted by the rules outlined above.

Walter also talked about fashions, saying that changes in bonsai shapes come about through exaggeration. A typical example is that of the "sumo trunk", where the ratio of height to width is 3 or 4 to 1 or even less. Over the past years it's got to less and less, until a movement decided that it looked ridiculous and now it's losing popularity fast. Incidentally, the widespread use of deadwood with intricate carving, started in Italy some 10 years ago, is another example, with people now getting fed up with "that orgie of deadwood" in bonsai.

Lisa

The ideal, the guideline, the artistic ratio for good proportion and balance is a tree’s height is 6 times the thickness of the trunk. Like all guidelines this will vary with the type of tree and the tree’s own natural inclinations in its growth but overall this ratio has been established for sound artistic reasons.

guide·line/ˈgīdˌlīn/
Noun:
A general rule, principle, or piece of advice.

IMO that about sums it up..

If we all agree that Bonsai is a form of art then I think we can also agree that there are no rules just guidelines.
Tread as near or far to these "guidelines" for your benefit, self satisfaction, or demise.

In the end we will never agree on a topic such as this as our professionalism, views, beliefs and objectives all differ.

This is my opinion, this is my gun~

Literature and art also have "rules", which are employed to help classify and critique.
I imagine this is necessary to teach, guide and justify praise.
Not to say that by ignoring the rules (JRRTolkien), a masterpiece cannot be made.

Art is in the eye of the beholder, and for me bonsai is all about exaggerated tapering trunks; exuding age and character. Possibly the 6:1 ratio helps fulfil this aesthetic preference.

I believe the height of a bonsai has nothing to do with ratio's of trunk to height. It has to do with balance of the overall image and every tree is different. I have seen tall eligant trees, short strong trees and the inbetween (6-1). Why you notice trees at show which look a bit tall, is not because of the ratio between trunk and height, it is because of the overall balance of the tree is out.

chris

Bretts wrote:Whaaaat Jarrod? How is that more important.

Just is mate... Haha! Don't you love opinions!

perhaps a tree can only be 'wrong' if it as in a show or competition --at all other times it could be seen as being 'in development'

We are all at different levels and experience so our view is what it is and being humans as we get interested and involved, we explore above and beyond.. tastes n appetites change.

I do like and quote " If bonsai is an art, shouldn't creativity and originality carry more weight than convention? But I digress... I'll leave you to ponder that."

just been reading/listening to the links below...

"Did Bonsai originate in Japan?

China.

So the Japanese took it from the Chinese? How old is it the art, any idea?

Master Hu Yun Hua from China he was with the Shanghai Administration Bureau. While he was there he searched the archives to find… For three years he told me, personally told me took him three years to find evidence. That there was a mural which has now become quite well known around the world. A mural of the Tang Dynasty I think they call it now. The Tong Dynasty where the emperor’s maid servant is carrying a bowl with a rock, a flowering plant and water. That’s on a mural in a tomb in China. So it started then."

from

http://www.baulkhamhills.nsw.gov.au/ext ... hoff01.htm

and

http://www.baulkhamhills.nsw.gov.au/ext ... hoff02.htm

the history of the art indeed seems to weaken our banter here. As Lisa mentioned, we may just be at the whims of fads and fashion.
I often stop and think why the heck am I obsessing over some pot plants? It doesn't make any sense! But that doesn't matter, it doesn't need to, I love it!!

Interesting Find Qitianlong and what a nice read

Sorry to be a little off topic, but in the first link about 1/2 way down i find this quote

He noticed that they had a different sort of “sand” but it was diatomaceous earth or something. Exploded granite sort of thing. He started to use that and they started to grow

and we though Diatomite is a new find in the bonsai scene! Vito Koreshoff was using it in 1930!
Funny as eh

Ken

I look for trunk shape an if there is taper all the way never followed the 6-1 rule even with branch placement i think if the overall appearance is good an every thing about the tree works well with the design chosen you have a keeper. Learnt many years ago that rules a just a quide as all my trees are mostly collected they dont always give you what you want .

Would anyone who thinks the visual arts and literature have rules be game to suggest what they might be?