Traditions and Transitions: Arts of the Earth

Held August 18 through September 27, 2006

Note from the Curator

When I first conceived the idea for Traditions and Transitions — Arts of the Earth, I had three objectives in mind:

• The first was to explore the traditional interrelationship between ceramics and bonsai — one kind of artwork being formed of the earth and the other springing from it.
• The second was to explore the ways in which old concepts and methods ebb and flow as arts evolve.
• The third was whether the traditional Japanese method of combining works to illustrate an idea or theme can work in a setting less structured and formal than a tokonoma (traditional art display alcove).

The Relationship

The evolutions of ceramics and artistic plants are interesting in both their similarities and their differences. The earliest surviving examples of pottery are Japanese, from approximately 4,500 years B.C. Whether China or other Asian countries were producing pottery at that time is unknown, but what is known is that important advances in materials and techniques were introduced into Japan from China and Korea by about the 1st century A.D. The Japanese took what they learned from their neighbors and used it to great advantage in creating their own unique aesthetic and works of unsurpassed skill and sophistication.

The earliest examples of bonsai are of course long gone, but the earliest literary and pictorial references to it are Chinese and date from the 2nd to 7th centuries A.D. In the case of bonsai, Japan imported the concept (we believe between the 9th and 13th centuries A.D.), created their own aesthetic, and made great advances in materials and techniques, then exported them to Korea, China, and the rest of the world within the last half century.

Evolution

Bonsai, being living things, are inherently dynamic; they will change for better or for worse, day by day and year by year. Nature always plays a role in determining the path of creation and maintenance for a bonsai; therefore, it is accepted that its evolution will always have an element of chaos or chance that can be reduced but not eliminated by the skill of the artist. Ceramic works, on the other hand, being inanimate and having a finite period of creation, are inherently more stable than bonsai, and modern tools and techniques have greatly reduced the element of chance, if the objective is to create a very refined work.

Ceramic art in Japan was enormously affected by the art of tea appreciation in the latter half of the 16th century, particularly the philosophy of tea defined by Sen-no-Rikyu. It promoted humility, simplicity, and respect for nature and raised the appreciation of things old and rustic to an aesthetic ideal. To this day, there is a sort of yin-yang duality of approaches that ceramists take in creating their works. One exercises strict control over materials and processes, in order to achieve a certain level of refinement and perfection. The other admits nature as a co-creator in utilizing materials and techniques such as ash glazes and wood firing to create works that are more chaotic in one respect, but with a rich mixture of simplicity and complexity, casualness and elegance.

Bonsai artists have a long tradition of working within certain standard "styles" or tree forms based on physical features of natural trees, such as trunk line, branch arrangement, root arrangement, or unusual features. Bonsai styles correspond roughly to European genre paintings such as landscapes, portraits, and domestic scenes that were popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Styles in Japan tend to be based on naturalistic if idealized visions of trees, whereas some old Chinese styles were based on abstractions such as "Dancing Dragon," "Square Turns," or even styles suggesting animal forms.

Traditional styles gave a sense of cultural identity to bonsai and helped guide aesthetic decisions regarding proportion, balance, repetition, density, and so on. Today, as bonsai becomes increasingly international, artists are blending traditional styles and sometimes simply abandoning stylistic conventions altogether. (Please see specially labeled trees in our display area for examples of traditional and nontraditional approaches.)

Display

The bonsai selected for combined display have been created by Japanese, Korean, and American artists in styles that range from classic traditional to contemporary nontraditional. Each bonsai was selected as a candidate because of its evocative power. The eight participating artists each selected a tree to work with, then created a ceramic work very much in his or her own style that, when displayed with the bonsai, is intended to suggest a particular theme or vision. Thus, the severely symmetrical Japanese beech by Ohashi, Kazuhiro is accompanied by a disc-like vessel by Stephen Sullivan titled "Sumi Moon," referring not only to Japanese traditional painting, but making a seasonal reference to the approaching harvest moon. A small, bony Ohia Lehua by Mr. Isami Ishihara gathered at high elevations in Hilo stimulated a strong sense of place in Hawaiian ex-patriot artist Reid Ozaki, who created vessels with a deep, dark surface texture reminiscent of Pele's lava fields. Exposed roots and a twisting trunk fragment from an old Korean mountain yew by Yoo, Su-Hyung inspired a rough, roiling, abstract sculpture by Ben Waterman.

These and the other exhibit artists are using old means to test a new concept. Combining arts is the norm in Western performance art. It's hard to imagine a movie without music, or a skater, gymnast, or dancer for that matter. Opera is perhaps the crowning achievement in collective performance, combining such elements as literature, music, acting, costume design, set design, and lighting design. In Japan, a tokonoma display will often combine two or three elements such as calligraphy, painting, figurine, bonsai, ikebana, viewing stone, or herbaceous plant arrangement in order to illustrate a theme. In Western culture, however, visual arts are normally displayed individually. Can a combined display be more than the sum of its parts within our Western vernacular? We hope our visitors will form an affirmative opinion after viewing "Traditions and Transitions — Arts of the Earth."

David De Groot, Curator

 

View the 2006 Traditions and Transitions: Arts of the Earth Exhibit