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- | At the core of wabi- sabi is the importance of transcending ways of looking and thinking about things/ | + | At the core of wabi-sabi is the importance of transcending ways of looking and thinking about things/ |
- | Material characteristics of wabi-sabi: | + | ==== Wabi-sabi ==== |
- | * suggestion of natural process | + | for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers |
- | * irregular | + | |
- | * intimate | + | |
- | * unpretentious | + | |
- | * earthy | + | |
- | * simple | + | |
+ | * by Leonard Koren | ||
- | from -> | + | Wabi-sabi can in its fullest expression be a way of life. At the very least, it is a particular type of beauty. (…) Originally, the japanese words " |
- | | + | - pp 21 & 22 |
+ | |||
+ | Variously called sado, chado and chanoyu, the tea ceremony as it evolved became an eclectic social art form combining, among other things, the skills of architecture, | ||
+ | - pp 31 & 32 | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | (…) institutionalized tea practice still has value as a meditation exercise. Nonthinking repetition of mechanical forms allows one to concentrate simply on being without the distraction of having to make decisions, artistic or otherwise. | ||
+ | - pp35 | ||
+ | |||
+ | === The Wabi-sabi universe === | ||
+ | |||
+ | (...) aesthetic system / world view | ||
+ | |||
+ | == Metaphysical basis (integrated approach to the ultimate nature of existence) == | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness | ||
+ | |||
+ | == Spiritual values (sacred knowledge) == | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Truth comes from the observation of nature | ||
+ | * " | ||
+ | * Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness | ||
+ | |||
+ | == State of Mind (emotional well-being) == | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Acceptance of the inevitable | ||
+ | * Appreciation of the cosmic order | ||
+ | |||
+ | == Moral Percepts (behavior) == | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Get rid of all that is unnecessary | ||
+ | * Focus on the intrinsic and ignore material hierarchy | ||
+ | |||
+ | == Material Qualities (look & feel of things, materiality) == | ||
+ | |||
+ | * The suggestion of natural process | ||
+ | * Irregular | ||
+ | * Intimate | ||
+ | * Unpretentious | ||
+ | * Earthy | ||
+ | * Murky | ||
+ | * Simple | ||
+ | |||
+ | (…) The more systematic and clearly defined the components of an aesthetic system are - the more conceptual handles, the more it refers back to the fundamentals - the more useful it is. | ||
+ | - pp 40 & 41 | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Wabi-sabi, in its purest, most idealized form, is precisely about these delicate traces, this faint evidence, at the borders of nothingness. | ||
+ | - pp 42 | ||
+ | |||
+ | (…) nothingness itself - instead of being empty space (…) - is alive with possibility. In metaphysical terms, wabi-sabi suggests that the universe is in constant motion toward and away from potential. | ||
+ | - pp45 | ||
+ | |||
+ | All things are impermanent. The inclination toward nothingness is unrelenting and universal. Even things that have all the earmarks of substance - things that are hard, inert, solid - present nothing more than the illusion of permanence. | ||
+ | - pp 47 & 49 | ||
+ | |||
+ | Wabi-sabi is not found in nature at moments of bloom and lushness, but at moments of inception or subsiding. (…) Wabi-sabi is about the minor and the hidden, he tentative and the ephemeral: things so subtle and evanescent they are invisible to vulgar eyes. | ||
+ | Like homeopathic medicine, the essence of wabi-sabi is apportioned in small doses. As the does decreases, the effect becomes more potent, more profound. The closer things get to nonexistence, | ||
+ | - pp50 | ||
+ | |||
+ | Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, | ||
+ | - pp 51 | ||
+ | |||
+ | Wabi-sabi images force us to contemplate our own mortality, and they evoke an existential loneliness and tender sadness. They also stir a mingled bittersweet comfort, since we know all existence shares the same fate. | ||
+ | - pp 54 | ||
+ | |||
+ | Wabi-sabi suggests the subtlest realms and all the mechanics and dynamics of existence, way beyond what our ordinary senses can perceive. (…) The way rice paper transmits light in a diffuse glow. The manner in which clay cracks as it dries. The colour and textural methamorphosis of metal when it tarnishes and rusts. All these represent the physical forces and deep structures that underlie our everyday world. | ||
+ | - pp 57 | ||
+ | |||
+ | Wabi-sabi means treading lightly on the planet and knowing how to appreciate whatever is encountered, | ||
+ | - pp 59 | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | (…) a symbolic act of humility, everyone either bends or crawls to enter the tea room through an entrance that is purposely designed low and small. Once insite, the atmosphere is egalitarian. Hierarchical thinking - "this is higher/ | ||
+ | - pp 61 | ||
+ | |||
+ | An object obtains the state of wabi-sabi only for the moment it is appreciated as such. In the tea-room, therefore, things come into existence only when they express their wabi-sabi qualities. Outside the tea room, they return to their ordinary reality, and their wabi-sabi existence fades away. | ||
+ | - pp 61 | ||
+ | |||
+ | Things wabi-sabi are expressions of time frozen. They are made of materials that are visibly vulnerable to the effects of weatherting and human treatment. They record the sun, wind, rain, heat and cold in a language of discoloration, | ||
+ | - pp62 | ||
+ | |||
+ | Wabi-sabi may exhibit the effects of accident, like a broken bowl glued back together. Or they may show the result of just letting things happen by chance, like the irregular fabrics that are created by intentionally sabotaging the computer program of a textile loom. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Intimate. Things wabi-sabi are usually small and compact, quiet and inward-oriented. They beckon: get close, touch, relate. They inspire a reduction of the psychic distance between one thing and another thing; between people and things. | ||
+ | Places wabi-sabi are small, secluded and private environments that enhance one's capacity for metaphysical musings. (…) They are tranquil and calming, enveloping and womb-like. They are a world apart: nowhere, anywhere, everywhere. | ||
+ | - pp 67 | ||
+ | |||
+ | Things wabi-sabi are appreciated only during direct contact and use; they are never locked away in a museum. | ||
+ | - pp 68 | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Things wabi-sabi have a vague, blurry, or attenuated quality - at things do as they approach nothingness (or come out of it). Once-hard edges take on a soft pale glow. Once-substantial materiality appears almost sponge-like. Once bright saturated colours fade into muddy earth tones, or the smoky hues of dawn and dusk. Wabi sabi comes in an infinite spectrum of grays (…) and browns (…) and blacks). Less often (…) in almost pastel colors associated with a recent emergence from nothingness. Like the off-whites of unbleached cotton, hemp and recycled paper. The silver-rusts of new saplings and sprouts. The green-browns of tumescent buds. | ||
+ | - pp 71 | ||
+ | |||
+ | The simplicity of wabi-sabi is probably best described as the state of grace arrived at by a sober, modest, heartfelt intelligence. The main strategy of this intelligence is the economy of means. Pare down to the essence, but don't remove the poetry. Keep things clean and unencumbered, | ||
+ | - pp 72 | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Ideally the tea ceremony was a complex information ritual in which everybody present was supposed to participate. Much like a John Cage music composition with only basic instructions specifying procedure and methods, each new ceremony created new artistic circumstances that resulted in a new " | ||
+ | - pp78 | ||
+ | |||
+ | Objects and people are treated similarly in wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi is not a humanitarian philosophy; nor is it about the sanctity of life, man's humanity to man, or good and evil. | ||
+ | - pp 82 | ||
+ | |||
+ | (…) visual metaphor for things coming into and out of existence, leaving the subtlest of evidence, is the cherry blossom, one of the most potent (and cliched) images in Japanese culture. Every spring the cherry trees bloom for about a week at most. But a sudden rain or wind can cause the delicate pale pink flowers to fall away at any moment. During this brief window of opportunity, | ||
+ | - pp 83 | ||
+ | |||
+ | (…) status, it seems, manages to assert itself whenever given the chance, and almost immediately there developed a high-priced market for these heretofore ugly and obscured things. Once something becomes too valuable, too costly, it ceases to be wabi-sabi. It becomes, instead, only an expensive reminder of what was once a dynamic moment. | ||
+ | - pp 85 | ||
+ | |||
+ | (about the Mono-ha, school of things - art movement in 1960/70s) Part of the integrity of their work was its non-collectibility (…) As one critic noted, " | ||
+ | - pp 86 | ||
+ | |||
+ | Things in process, like buildings under constructions, | ||
+ | - pp 87 | ||
+ | |||
+ | From a wabi-sabi perspective the density of information contained within an object, as does the human relatability, | ||
+ | - pp 87 & 88. | ||
+ | |||
+ | (1) "No one object or element in any room shall stand out above any other and (2) "Thou shalt not revere the old for old's sake. If it's new and it fits, use it." | ||
+ | - pp 88 | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | == From: Koren, L. (1994) Wabi-sabi. Imperfect Publishing, Point Reyes, California == | ||
+ | |||
+ | * ISBN 978-0-9814846-0-0 | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Further | ||
+ | * http:// | ||
+ | * http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | [[reading notes]] | ||
< | < | ||