Bonsai

Is nature stupid, or are we?

I hardly returned from Nepal when I was called upon for elder care. I won’t go into the details because it’s not that kind of blog, but suffice it to say that I am bedside in a hospice. Until further notice, everything is what it is.

An image came to me of a bonsai tree against a sky with clouds passing below the foliage. Bonsai trees are famously long-lived. Bonsai artisans attempt to draw something out of nature that honors nature, but which nature would never produce itself. This is us. Our shape and duration are contrivances. Art is the lie that reveals the truth, said Picasso. Our nature appears through the unnatural.

I’ve heard the word “transition” a lot in the past week. This is nature proper, ceaseless transformation on much greater than human scales. The mystery is that it is so indifferent, yet somehow we’re not. If plants were equipped with reflection, they would think that works of bonsai were terrible. Instead, we have reflection, and we think plants are fine but could use some improvement. Soon we’re busy with projects that nature would never burden us with. Finally, nature says enough, stop. And we do. But in the meantime, we set ourselves apart, perhaps to become beautiful, at least to each other.

Dissident Muse Journal is the blog of Dissident Muse, a publishing and exhibition project by Franklin Einspruch. Content at DMJ is free, but paid subscribers keep it coming. Please consider becoming one yourself, and thank you for reading.

Our current title in the Asynchronous Studio Book Club is Art in America 1945-1970: Writings from the Age of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism edited by Jed Perl. For more information, see the ASBC homepage.

The current exhibition in the Dissident Museum is David Curcio: The Point of the Needle.