1. What is the difference between an aesthetic and an anti-aesthetic?
2. Zen (and probably Wabi Sabi) stresses "direct, intuitive insight into transcendental truth beyond all intellectual conception." what does that mean and do you buy that?
3. Do we have anything like the iemoto system?
4. What is aesthetic obscurantism and can you think of other examples of it in our own culture?
“In opposition to the accelerating trend toward the uniform
digitalization of all sensory experience…” (page 8).
Resolves a “personal artistic dilemma about how to create
beautiful things without getting caught up in the dispiriting
materialism that usually surrounds such creative acts” (9).
- An anti-aesthetic?
Anti-rationalism
Reduce the misinterpretation of easily misunderstood
concepts
Pyramid
Entrepreneurism
Teleological Benchmark
Reason is subordinate to perception
Wabi - the misery of living alone in nature, away from society
Sabi - chill, lean, withered
Philosophy vs. Aesthetic Ideal
Inward vs. Outward
Spatial vs. Temporal
Ideas vs. Objects
- no decoration that isn’t integral to structure
- both abstract, nonrepresentational ideals of beauty
- both have readily identifiable characteristics
- control
- natural vs. technological
- intuitive vs. logical
- relative vs. absolute
- simplicity, naturalness, acceptance of reality found in
Taoism
Murata Shuko - In opposition to elegant, expensive tea utensils
- Brilliant but eccentric
- ends social mobility, samurai caste
- permanent and heritable
- Artistic experimentation
- Appraised worth of utensils
- Emperor’s new clothes?
- Tea utensil profiteering
- Ritual Suicide!
- Closes Japan off to outside influence
- institutionalization: The Way of Tea
- Zen: The body, not language, is the repository of
knowledge and technique.
- not about human connection: people and objects treated the same way
"It is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional."
-Leonard Koren
Truth comes from the observation of nature
- All things are impermanent
- All things are imperfect
- All things are incomplete
Greatness exists in the inconspicuous
- slowing down
- the physical vs. the rational
Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness
- Beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else (anti-aesthetic)
- An altered state of consciousness
1. Acceptance of the inevitable
- sadness leading to comfort
2. Appreciation of the cosmic order
- structures and physical forces of the world
Application Diagram for Wabi-Sabi Solutions
The materials used are organic, not polished or cleaned or adulterated to appear new or contrived. Wood, metal, paper, textiles, stone, and clay comprise acceptable materials which will express the passage of time and whose devolution is expressive and attractive.
The object is shaped naturally or organically. Form is not imposed by human contrivance but subtly intervenes to make the object follow the capabilities and relevant physical characteristics, properties, and propensities of its own nature. Above all, the work is itself, not a symbol of anything.
In keeping with the material used, the texture remains rough, uneven, variegated, and random, with every appearance of pursuing an unimpeded natural process.
The Western standard of beauty does not find a place in wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi presses the absolute nature of permeability in the visual and sensual, so that the fragility and poignancy of conventional beauty lost in the passage of time is made real in the present space. The object reveals this different sense of beauty in subtle and even barely perceptible detail.
The wabi-sabi artist does not intend the viewer to "abstract" anything. Wabi-sabi is a holistic experience, and objects derive their beauty from the emotion conveyed, not from any particular detail of the work. In this latter sense, beauty is more easily conveyed in the experience of literature, theater, or ceremony than are some of the other principles.
Colors are muted. Light is diffused or subdued. Colors are derived from natural sources, lacking uniformity or harshness.
Simplicity conveys the spontaneity of natural materials that are not or cannot be embellished. Lack of adulteration and ostentation confirms the authenticity of the work and its conformity to the wabi-sabi spirit.
The work reflects the physical balances found in the natural world. This balance as circumstance is a design principle for the artist to infuse into a work. The work, like the tree, is unique. The regularity, uniformity, and prescriptions contrived by the artist are secondary to the requirement to reflect a natural and unforced appearance to the object and its context.
Sobriety is the simple principle that art is sometimes better defined by what is left out than by what is put in. Sobriety adds a sense of perspective to the experience of impermanence. The artist approaches creative work with humility, sincerity, and a clarification of motives.
Outside Links:
-A Zen koan about Sen no Rikyu
- A short page of information about Sen no rikyu and tea ceremony
- Samurai Archives page on Oda
- Samurai Archives Page on Hideyoshi