Though we often expect miracles when it comes to transforming mediocre or otherwise undeveloped bonsai into something as impressive as this one, in reality seven years strikes me as about right amount of time for such a radical transformation. The artist is Alfredo Salaccione and the tree is a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris).
Today’s before and after Scots pine is rather famous. So famous that is has a name of its own – Black Desire (Desiderio Nero).* Actually, I’ve seen not-so-famous trees that have been given names, but in this case I think famous works – at least in Europe – as witnessed by the two magazine covers below. The artist is Afredo Salaccione of Bonsai Lab who has a series of excellent before and afters, so you may be seeing more of his bonsai here on Bark
Before
After. Seven years later
I cropped this one for a closer look at the trunk and deadwood
*I’m not sure why Alfredo chose Black Desire. You might expect a name like that on a one of the Black pines (Pinus nigra or Pinus thunbergii)
