What is Good Bonsai Design?

This web book* will be an effort to help bonsai enthusiasts understand how to use time-honored methods - artistic methods - for producing more successful and meaningful bonsai designs and displays. The text will examine in some detail the language of art as applied to bonsai. This examination of what some perhaps mistakenly call the rules of bonsai is meant to explain and expound upon the commonly cited fundamentals of bonsai styling that are referenced in other texts.

This book will provide some relevant, important insights into human psychology and human perception, but only to a point. This kind of understanding is necessary for effective artistry.

As all of the chapters in this web book work together toward conveying a well-rounded picture of artistic principles for bonsai design, I suggest that you read it from start to finish. However, you may find it useful to bounce around the different sections. Each chapter has information and explanations that may help you to improve your design efforts, but each is only one piece of the puzzle.

*I use the term web book because this site really is a book of sorts, but not really an eBook (in PDF format) and not what most of us generally think to be just a website. Oh well, so I made up a term. ;-)

I hope that you find this site useful and enjoy this little project of mine. Please feel free to contact me if you have a comment or question. Thanks for reading.

Andy Rutledge
November, 2003