Naturalism

This week’s entry once again features a video derived from the online educational programs offered during the shutdown of 2020. This program focuses on the concept of naturalism as it applies to the shaping of little trees, a subject of great importance to bonsai at The North Carolina Arboretum. The naturalistic philosophy will be treated more fully in this Journal in the near future. In the meantime, this program provides a good introductory overview of the concept and the way it has played out with some of the trees in our collection.

By the way, in the video a photo is shown of a willow-leaf fig bonsai in the Arboretum’s collection. The styling of this tree is discussed and I suggest in the video that the tree will undergo a transformation whereby it will become more naturalistic in its character. The following images show the fig tree as it currently looks, five years later, a good deal of the way toward its intended destination:

Attentive viewers will note there is a point within the video where a small section is missing. This may be perceived as a hiccup in the continuity of the video, when a jump is made over the missing part. I suspect this blemish resulted from a problem in the quality of the original recording. Nothing critical is omitted and viewers will have no difficulty following along.