Bonsai Gallery of Walter Pall: European Larch nr. 10

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European larch (Larix decidua) #10

50 cm high
Around 70 years old
Pot: training pot
from a tree colleced in Austria in 1994

Now this looks innocent. But it caused an incredible lot of controversy, believe me ( on the IBC gallery and on the German bff forum). I find this hard to understand personally. Well, what was critiqued most was the "unnatural" feeling of the deadwood going upwards and the live branches going downward. It may be my personal problem, but I don't see anything that bothers me. I think the ctritiques are judging with their intellect and not with their soul. I look at this tree and see a very old larch up in the mountains. I see nothing wrong with the deadwood going upwards. "A bonsai has to tell a story". OK, not a bad idea. "The story must be credible". I don't agree. I would say "the story must be good and well delivered. Whether it is credible or not is not the point". Why are movies with the weirdest stories so successful? Does a story have to be credible? Not at all. So what's the message of this particlular tree? Why is the deadwood going the other direction? Well, the strory is that it is a mystery. We know that something happened to this tree and we can see it clearly. We don't know what eactly it was. But we can see that he took it well in the end. He grows again and he will be around despite what terrible things haped to him. He has strong charcter. He is impressive and rules the valley from his positon up on the pass. Is this a good story? Well, I personally believe so. But I have an agenda, of course.