|
Extract
from WABI SABI SUKI :The Essence of Japanese Beauty – by Itoh
Teiji
Wabi:
Tranquil
Simplicity The refined and elegant simplicity achieved by bringing
out the natural colors, forms, and textures inherent in materials
such as wood straw, bamboo, clay, and stone, as well as in
artifacts crafted from them like earthenware, tile, handmade paper,
and lacquerware, and in textile fibers like hemp, cotton, or silk –
this is the core of wabi. Wabi may describe beauty in nature
untouched by human hands, or it may emerge from human attempts to
draw out the distinctive beauty of materials. While eschewing
decoration, contrivance, or showiness, wabi treads the fine and
precarious line between beauty and shabbiness. To discover wabi,
one must have an eye for the beautiful, yet it is not an aesthetic
understood by the Japanese of old, but a quality that can be
recognized by anyone, anywhere who is discriminating and sensitive
to beauty.
Sabi:
Patina
of Age Beauty that treasures the passage of time is sabi, echoing
the original meaning of the word: rust or patina. Objects or
constructions created from organic materials and used in daily life
are of course beautiful when they are brand new. But sabi describes
the new and different phases of beauty that evolve in the course of
their use and enjoyment, and the conviction that the aesthetic
values of things is not diminished by time, but enhanced. The wear
and tear of daily use, lovingly repaired and attended to, does not
detract, but adds new beauty and aesthetic depth. Indeed, sabi is
at its ultimate when age and wear bring a new thing to the very
threshold of its demise. Appreciation of sabi confirms the natural
cycle of organic life – that what is created from the earth finally
returns to the earth and that nothing is ever complete. Sabi is
true to the natural cycle of birth and rebirth.
Suki:
Subtle
Elegance Originally expressing attraction, fascination and
curiosity, suki is aesthetic adventure beyond conventional
standards, delight in the unusual, curious or idiosyncratic.
Initially, suki seems to have expressed an idea of beauty that was
heretical and unorthodox. The shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori (1399-1441)
was a patron of the arts known for his revolt against old and
established aesthetic rules. His salon was receptive to bold and
new ideas that were to become firmly established in the sixteenth
century as what we might describe as “subtle elegance”. Many today
are devotees of suki, the pursuit of beauty in unconventional forms
and guises, but their search continues to be faithful to the
quality of subtle elegance, which circumscribes the ageless essence
of suki.
|
