Page 35 - BSAM 2017 Q4

BCI Award of Excellence at the Crespi CupBy Massimo Bandera, Italy.A this prestigious event featuring the best bonsai in Europe at the twelfh Crespi Cup, the great Kobayashi sensei has opened up a space on the beauty of bonsai, the same window that for half a century Luigi Crespi has opened to the exciting world of bonsai art.Tis great event was well represented by bonsai to-day, the level achieved by European collectors and the level of contemporary bonsai artists, the sophisticated world of Keido, the art of display and the diferences between Italian and Japanese judging.Te high level of the plants on display—in some respects impressive—was also exciting because most of the masterpieces were indigenous bonsai of twenty or thirty years, a testimony to the history of European bonsai.Here, too, we have seen the main diferences be-tween Western and Japanese: in Italy, for the most part, bonsai is judges in all its aspects, privileging the quality of technical work and perfection, while the criteria of Japanese masters are mainly based on sen-sitivity to the prevailing aesthetics in bonsai, such as wabi, sabi, yuugen, etc. A bonsai with some technical gaps, but which is very old and refned, is worth much more than a technically perfect bonsai without that spirit that makes Japanese bonsai so fascinating.Attending three days at the Crespi Cup is always a great pleasure and a great educational experience: here art and spirit sprout, enter as a plant, go out as a bonsai! Top to bottom; Presentations by Massimo BanderaThe Juniperus communis of Mirco Tedeschi was awarded the BCI Excellence Award at the Crespi Bonsai Cup.The Suiseki Mizutamari-ishi of Paco Donato to which was awarded the BCI Excellence Award at the Crespi Suiseki Cup.The shohin of Acer palmatum of Sergio Gentile was awarded the BCI Excellence Award at the Crespi Shohin Cup.The pot of Heian Tofukuji I of the Associazione Culturale IKI, which was awarded the BCI Excellence Award at the Crespi Pot Cup.