The tree sculptor Bernhard Molocher

Created: 12/15/2021, 12:00 PM

From: Friedbert Holz

Bernhard Molocher needs skillful hands and a feeling for the shape of the tree for his work on the tree.

© Roland Albrecht

Bernhard Molocher artistically works trees in the Bockhorn area according to Japanese tradition.

Niwaki is the name of his craft.

Grünbach

- cutting trees in the Japanese style is an art.

Bernhard Molocher is fascinated by Niwaki, the ability to convert large, adult trees into Japanese-looking artificial trees.

The Sculptor Arborum, as it calls itself, in Latin "tree sculptor", works on its objects artfully and lavishly.

This is intended to limit their growth or to adapt the appearance to aesthetic considerations.

We meet him at one of his factories, near the hamlet Deimling between Grünbach and Riedersheim. He is currently putting a small brass plaque with his logo and the year 2021 on the fence in front of the slightly crooked Pinus Sylvestris, a common forest pine. “On some map systems on the Internet, this tree appears as a Big Bonsai. That makes some people curious and they look for it, but don't find it immediately - that's why the label, ”explains Molocher.

Not very far away, in the center of Riedersheim, the tree artist is showing another example of his work, also a pine.

“The owner asked me for a special cut here,” says Molocher.

"Even his neighbor is happy about the new shape of the tree, because he can now look back at the little church in Haselbach".

Actually, however, the 60-year-old admits in the unfamiliar garb of a Japanese gardener, his special work is all about uniqueness.

“I want to create beauty, I want to set landscape symbols”.

For Bernhard Molocher, tree works of art are the elaborately worked trees like this pine.

© Roland Albrecht

Aesthetic models from nature have occupied him for a long time: old trees, for example, marked by the struggle with the elements.

Molocher is concerned with the effect of a garden, with living works of art, “by no means about wooden sculptures”.

He works, often for many hours, according to the techniques of bonsai and niwaki, as they are applicable to an adult tree.

“First, the branches are thinned out to reveal the structure of the tree,” he explains.

Even the sculptor of a stone first stands in front of his object and thinks about what should remain or what should be removed.

"For me it is always a big, but also an exciting challenge," says Molocher. “Sometimes it seems to me that I am talking to the tree about its change. But none of this has anything to do with esotericism or mysticism, it is a careful approach to a living object with the aim of working on its exterior and thus also its character. ”Only later in the process are individual branches pulled or in more suitable directions individually still specially processed.

At the age of 15, says Molocher, who grew up on a farm in Aurlfing, he was interested in pruning trees. His father had taught him the first tricks and gave him a book entitled “The Fruit Tree” from 1929. “I literally devoured this work and attended courses from experienced experts. Because the knowledge about the compatibility of cuts is also fundamental for my work today ”.

He also tried to raise grapevines and ornamental trees.

But Molocher came to the supreme discipline of Niwaki much later, actually by accident.

“During my time at the grammar school in Erding, I spent a year as an exchange student in the USA, in Illinois, with a very nice family.

We kept in touch even after I graduated from high school.

In 2007 I visited this host family again, took them for a walk through the Botanical Gardens in Chicago.

I was most fascinated by the Japanese garden with its incredibly beautiful trees, ”says Molocher.

This visit to the USA was supposed to be something of an initial spark.

“I immediately bought a book about Niwaki techniques in the museum shop - it was supposed to become my Bible,” remembers the tree sculptor.

He had nothing to do with trees professionally.

Rather, Molocher studied electrical engineering at the Technical University of Munich, has now worked as a doctor of engineering in the special field of multidimensional systems theory, was a project manager in the aerospace sector and managing director of a Munich company.

But in his free time he was always drawn to trees.

Finally, after successful attempts in his own garden, he soon asked very cheeky customers whether he might not also prune their trees in the Niwaki style.

In fact, word of his art soon got around in the local area, and so at the end of 2020 Bernhard Molocher decided to finally turn his passion into a profession, a vocation in the truest sense of the word.

He already has a certain following in social networks who share his fascination with him.

Even professional gardeners from Japan can count Molocher as Sculptor Arborum among his followers.

And in February 2022 he will be offering a course on tree pruning and aesthetics at the Erding Adult Education Center, open to everyone.

Now he would like to delight people who own trees with beauty by artistically changing these plants in a Japanese way.

"It is true that there are customers who primarily think of the benefits," he says.

For example, in the need to reduce the size or in more light in your garden.

"But I am quite sure that I will also find a clientele who simply enjoy something special".

As his intention for future work, he would like to sharpen people's eyes for beautiful things.

"How great would it be if, instead of a large SUV, there were fascinating tree works of art in front of a house in the future?"

More information about Bernhard Molocher's work is available on the Internet at www.sculptorarborum.de