When Valentin Brose’s mother took him to a local yuletide fair near Stuttgart in 1992, it wasn’t the football shirts, toy cars or video games that caught the 11-year-old’s eye. It was a plant stall’s selection of bonsai trees.
“They fascinated me. There was a miniaturised tree taken from nature; a tree so small you could hold it in your hand. It seemed like a perfectly formed microcosm,” says Brose. “Seeing my interest, my mum bought me one for Christmas.”
Through school and his subsequent horticultural apprenticeship, that fascination grew. So much so that, some 15 years after receiving that first tree, Brose moved to Japan from Germany to study under award-winning bonsai master Kunio Kobayashi at the Shunkaen Bonsai Museum in Tokyo. It was there that he discovered the true roots and traditions of Japanese bonsai.
“When I came to Shunkaen, all I was allowed to do for the first year was watch and learn, then wire trees to change or maintain their shape. I had potted 30 or 40 bonsai trees back in Germany as a hobby, but here I suddenly found myself working on trees more than 500 years old, and priced at millions of yen.
“It is a real honour to be allowed to work on such trees, such masterpieces of the bonsai world,” says Brose, “but it is also quite stressful.”
Another challenge was Shunkaen’s traditional work ethic. Despite almost a decade’s experience of European horticulture back home, Brose was, and still is, considered a deshi apprentice. He works 30 days a month, 15 hours a day – all for a monthly stipend of ¥80,000.
Brose lives a stone’s throw away from his workplace in Edogawa ward. “During busy times the days are even longer, lasting from 4am until midnight,” he says, “but I would never think of finishing before the senior students.”
The hierarchical structure at Shunkaen is as rigid as at a sumo stable. “If we make a mistake, my master takes the blame, which he doesn’t like. Of course, we don’t want that,” says Brose. “But on the other hand, we are taught that it is by making mistakes that we can learn.”
Brose acknowledges he has much yet to learn, but believes he has already achieved personal growth and development through bonsai.
“Bonsai is different from European gardening in that the beauty is less obvious and more intrinsic. You need to show the character of the tree, its age and the severity of the environment it grew up in,” he says.
“You cannot create such a beautiful tree immediately. You have to hold back and wait – to concentrate and keep an image of what you would like it to become.”