Bonsai trees
Can we really talk about art?
I do not need to explain what a bonsai tree is, they are all over the place.
This “art” was born in China and then expanded and was improved in other asian countries such as Japan, Korea, Singapore….etc
During my travels I have seen bonsais almost everywhere I went. They are always shown as works of art and even admired as a pure and serene art form.
However…
To “create” a new Bonsai, “the bonsai artist” attaches copper wires to the plant, for several months, so that the baby tree grows up in a twisted and deformed way. All new branches and leaves are also cut to prevent the plant from growing up.
The roots of the new Bonsai are also cut to atrophy the normal growing of the tree.
The most crucial thing that is done to these plants is that the pots used to contain the tree are ridiculously small and are just big enough to contain only the tree’s roots, so they never grow up.
If we did something similar to a human being, is like if we took a new born baby and just after he is born we deformed his arms and legs with prosthesis and other horrible stuff. After that we would practise surgery on his spine to alter his growing and finally some years after we would practise some plastic surgery to give him the appearance of an old person…..
Then we would have a miniature old person.
Every time I discuss this with an bonsai lover, the answer is always the same, trees do not suffer. The other argument is that the “bonsai artist” takes every day great care of his or her, bonsais as much as if they were mascots. But at the same time I wonder…how fragile a tree has to be, in order to need to have constant caring. Some of these bonsai trees are so fragile that they do not even stand being in another place than usual. Some of them die because they were put in another place or just because they received too much sun for an hour.
Nevertheless we keep on being amazed in front of these poor trees and I keep on thinking about how much suffering these plants have to endure so that we can fulfil our desire of a “miniature tree”…
