In Japan, awareness of 'the aesthetics of everything' is very sensitively attuned. It owes its origins to the nature animism of Shinto, aspects of which became indistinguishably blended with nascent Zen Buddhism. These descriptions of aesthetic feeling are comprehensive and finely modulated. Here are just a few examples:~
Aware ~ a sensitivity for the beauty intrinsic to the ephemeral and impermanent nature of the world
Fuga ~ an elegant and sublime aesthetic
Hade ~ a loud and showy but not necessarily garish aesthetic
Hie ~ a chilling sense of beauty
Iki ~ an urbane, chic, bourgeois beauty, with sensual undertones
Karumi ~ the beauty of unadorned simplicity
Sabi ~ an aesthetically bleak quality suggestive of aging, deterioration and time passing
Wabi ~ an aesthetic that finds beauty in simple impoverished rusticity.
There are dozens of terms, but these few give you an idea of the subtleties these aesthetic terms are delineating. If you are familiar with the last two terms, Sabi and Wabi, this owes a great deal to the work of Soetsu Yanagri. In the 20th Century, he revived appreciation of their own art and craft traditions within Japan, and more broadly through his friendship with Bernard Leach. After his death, a compendium of his writings was published called
The Unknown Craftsman. This covers his views on art, craft, the process of creativity, and at the same time plunges bravely into the metaphysical impulses that lurk beneath these activities. Reading it certainly awoke something within me, in a jubilant mixture of recognition and inspiration.
In the middle centuries of the last millennium the Japanese had an encounter with Korean ceramics. It came via a set of roughly finished, imperfectly formed little cups, handmade in a village pottery in as un-self-conscious an act of craft making you could possibly imagine. Japanese culture, became obsessed with their unaffected spontaneity, devoid of artistic individualism. Once arrived in Japan, they became prototypes for the style and form of tea sets, and an elaborate tea ceremony complete with its spiritual gestures and aromas, emerged around their use. These original cups became the source for their broader love for flawed forms, the imperfect perfection, irregularities within regularity, and lines of asymmetry.
'They are regular yet not irregular, irregular yet not regular, in a subtle way that no deliberate effort could achieve - the kind of wondrous effect only attainable by someone in a state of "non-conceptualisation" *
In the west we tend not to appreciate roughly finished or flawed objects, for us they denote a lack of skill and finish, of being cobbled together by an inexpert hand. A roughly finished thing seen from this point of view cannot possess beauty. It does, however, leave us dissatisfied and frustrated with our inability to locate that perfect vision of eternal beauty. We might purchase a flawed item if it were going cheap, because being a bargain makes one forgiving of them. We tend to prefer neatly conceived work, honouring the fine craft in an artist's execution. The cleverer the artifice is, the better.
' a certain love of roughness is involved, behind which lurks a hidden beauty.' *
I remember an occasion when I was working in a gift shop, a woman came in bearing a mirror sold to her the day before. It had a hair line crack in the surface of one of its small mosaic pieces. We got out a fresh copy from the store, but its a truth of retail that once someone is aware there maybe flaws they become a 'fault finder general', they discover them everywhere. The mirrors were all handmade, we pointed out that a degree of irregularity reflected its unique character, and its retail cost. She appeared not to hear this. After looking through twenty three versions of the mirror, she grudgingly settled on one. In approaching 'the aesthetics of everything' we should remain aware of our culturally based 'aesthetic prejudices, particularly towards seeing and seeking beauty only in the perfect, the regular, the flawless.
Yanagiri believed how something is made conditioned its aesthetic qualities, whether it be handmade or machine made. An object imagined and made by an individual perhaps pounds to a gentle heartbeat, it feels loved even before we encounter it. By comparison, the machine made, has a diffused process of creation, and hence feels more emotionally neutral. Its far too intellectually neat, to say that machine made objects are heartless and hence unlovable. This would tend to prejudge what our response should be, rather than feeling what our response actually is. Machine made objects can possess
Hie, a colder more austere sense of aesthetics and beauty, which has its own attractive allure. The machine made can glory in its consistency and multiplicity of form. Its the beauty that relishes pattern, repeating itself over and over again. The relentless power of objects being pressed, stamped and cut out like rows of gingerbread soldiers, with infinite precision.
'Why should one reject the perfect in favour of the imperfect? The precise and perfect carries no overtones, admits no freedom; the perfect is static and regulated, cold and hard. We in our human imperfections are repelled by the perfect, since everything is apparent from the start and there is no suggestion of the infinite. beauty must have some room, must be associated with freedom. Freedom, indeed, is beauty. The love of the irregular is a sign of the basic quest for freedom.'*
The pure and perfect in form can provoke such a mixed response. We laud perfection, but at the same time feel dwarfed and intimidated by it. Its similar to when someone loves you, but too much, it feels far too possessive or imprisoning. Humanity can respond to cleanly executed efficient forms as an existential rejection, because they lack the space to allow us to be mortal when in proximity to them. We scrawl graffiti over them, we break and vandalise there smooth finishes. We don't appear to like the smooth clean cut heroes of old, preferring anti-heroes who don't play things by the book, don't fit into institutions, and generally have fucked up lives. We like our heroes to be less than perfect and messy around the edges, we believe its more real, more human.
There appears to be a thin line for between sleekly perfect beauty and bleakly perfect sterility. Each object possesses its own aesthetic, with its own intuited sense of imaginative restraint or freedom. Everything asks us to find our own way to interact and engage with it, whether its an object, environment or person. We tend to surround ourselves only with objects and people we resonate with, revere, or have fallen in love with. To an extent we choose them because they mirror or compliment aesthetic feelings about ourselves.
'A beautiful artifact may be defined as one that reposes peacefully where it aspires to be.'*
Yanagiri points out, that you cannot do consciously what you previously did unconsciously. Its impact would be different, because its meaning and value come via entirely different aesthetic impulses. The Japanese spent centuries perfecting and refining the design of tea sets, but none could replicate the qualities of the Korean originals, because the creative process was far too deliberate and imitative. A modern example might be 'vintage furniture' where they are consciously designed with imperfections and irregular aspects into them, using artificial cracks, fake woodworm trails, aging effects or inauthentic signs of wear and tear. All these exist in the comfort realm of aesthetic artifice, a place where contrived antiquity, the finely executed fake can be nonetheless loved because of its sentimental aura, its aesthetic nostalgia for a past era that has meaning to us.
The original Korean potters made pots without concern for whether they were perfect or not. They never signed their pottery, they appeared unconcerned, content to remain 'the unknown craftsman'. Yanagri believed modern craft makers were betraying something byn signing their pots. They were turning themselves into 'the known craftsman' placing their ego, praise and reputation as primary concerns. Distorting how we should view and value their a work. Free of aesthetic, conceptual or intellectual justifications, any object should be free to speak for, and to be, itself. Even the fake and imitative should be worthy of aesthetic appreciation on its own level, just where it aspires to be.
'There are many ways of seeing, but the truest and best is with the intuition, for it takes in the whole, whereas the intellect only takes in a part....... the sharp edge of intuition is blunted by failure to see with the naked mind. To be naked-minded means to be unrestricted by the eyes that see. When this is achieved, even the dust that spoils the vision will have vanished.'
Seeing with 'the naked mind' epitomises a Zen approach to 'the aesthetics of everything'. With a mind stripped naked of artifice, expectation or pre-judgement of experience. If we were capable of seeing the world in this way what sort of hidden beauties might be revealed? This is the role a true artist can play, they are the advance search party, returning with their sense impressions and aesthetic discoveries. This means they should challenge us to look again, to look here, here where hidden beauty can now be seen. Hidden beauty becomes hidden because it rarely conforms strictly to human conventions of classical beauty. So pioneering artists might find their work takes time to be properly appreciated. Broader society being slow to adopt the new, initially rejecting what artists unearth, because they see it as coming from the realm of ugliness, from a darkly perverted discomforting vision of the beautiful.
Dogen once met a cook from a near bye monastery, who told him that
'
Nothing in the whole world is hidden'**
This brief sentence had a huge insightful effect upon his future beliefs and philosophy. So, to borrow Dogen's style of discourse for a while ~ what is it that is hidden?, everything is hidden, hidden by what?, hidden by the word 'beauty', hidden by the word by, hidden by the word 'hidden', hidden within its hiddeness. Things are hidden not just by words, but the words behind words. So when we hear that:
'The world is full of hidden beauty'*
This is both true and not true, though ultimately beyond two ways. True, in that, for the present, we cannot experience aesthetically the beauty in everything. Not True, in that the aesthetic experience of the beauty of everything, is nonetheless present however unseen it maybe. It isn't locked away in a cupboard that we have to find the key to open, though it may sometimes feels like that. Dogen says in his Genjo Koan:~
'
When one side is realised the other side is dark'**
If we believe something to be hidden, it will remain hidden, because belief will conceal it from us, even though actually it isn't hidden at all. The light of belief shines so brightly that it casts dark impenetrable shadows.
Because of the human need to see, we tend to be drawn to, and value the light. It brings us comfort and a sense for being secure. We avoid the dark, because it makes us fearful and vulnerable. The beneficent Gods, and what is good, occupy the light of heavenly realms. The demonic Gods, and what is evil, occupy the darkness of hell realms. Our imaginations and perceptions tend to be clothed by the light, and made naked by the dark. Beauty, however, exists equally in both realms.
I once had an urge to go out one night, out into a dark autumnal evening. It was raining. All the visible signs said stay in, stay home, don't get cold and wet. I put on warm clothes, boots and waterproofs and went out regardless. The roads were glistening with shifting blue reflections of car headlamps and the sulfurous orbs of streetlamps. Across the road was an unlit woodland park, as I ventured in, my sense of knowing where I was changed. The light diminished, everything became shadowy and suggestible of form. My eyes adjusted. I became aware that my hearing was more acute; to the distant swish of cars on wet roads; to the rain falling erratically off branches and slapping on wet leaves decaying on the ground. From out of the blackness I heard a three dimensional sonic landscape. I smelt the pungency of mould and earthy decay. Pushing my hood back allowed small raindrops to splash upon my face, tiny beads of light falling from out of the darkness. It was an exhilarating and rejuvenating experience, that I didn't want to leave. There's much that is hidden from us because it resides in nightlight, a velvety dark beauty buried in the undergrowth and shadows.
A child's or artist's imagination would not be content to leave rocks lying upon the earth, without lifting them up to see what is beneath them. Our perceptions can be like this, a stone strewn surface, where even our eyes have developed hard unyielding cataracts. Beneath the fixed, solidity of our views, habits and misperceptions, lies a clearer more piercing way of seeing the world. The 'naked mind' is when our eye sight is stripped bare of obscurations. It is, nevertheless, an ongoing effort to stay open and receptive to whatever strikes our senses. Inevitably we will keep finding ourselves getting stuck in habitual ways of seeing things. This is why intuition maybe more helpful for sensing the aesthetic qualities of everything. Keeping ourselves awake, alert for when an unexpected surprise might lift our perceptions out of the ordinary.
Off the coast at Sheringham are three large wind farm shoals. They're actually way way beyond the horizon but nevertheless hover there magnified by air density. When they first were built I really resented them, this series of regimented white lollypop sticks parading across the far sea. They interrupted the wide uninterrupted horizon that I loved. I felt the loss of an open expanse untainted by human intervention. However, one evening we took a walk by torchlight along the promenade. The light had dimmed, the winter air cold, as a strong wind blew in the sounds and smells of the North Sea. On the horizon, each individual wind turbine had its red safety lights lit up. My views of the wind farm shoal were instantly transformed, the darkness had revealed it as a captivating thing. It was a magical lost city, a dream palace on the horizon, inhabited by strange sea angels, flickering their luminescent wings as they rotated on the horizon. By showing me another way to imaginatively look at them, not only was my perception altered but my feelings too, moving from loathe to love.
'Most beauty is related to laws that transcend the individual'*
Our usual manner of seeing, limits what we are able to perceive. We become used to reading certain things into situations, objects and people. We judge people on impressions of how we see them, how they seem to be. It can be really hard to remove these initial gut feelings, even if we later receive evidence to the contrary. Often we don't understand why we feel the way we do, its too hard wired into our psyche to consciously extract. In my own experience such responses are rarely to do with the person before you. Emotional echoes from the past have been re-awoken in you, triggered by meeting them. One day you may see them do a kind, caring,beautiful thing, you hear about the details of their life, or they confide in you and you find yourself being touched. Then its as though a dream bubble has been pricked and you no longer see them as you did previously. Those views obscuring your ability to truly see them, have been seen through, diminished or vanished.
How we relate to and interpret other people functions on the level of aesthetics. Occasionally this can provides a beautiful experience of aesthetic feeling for all humankind, if not all sentient life. In the light of which our petty individual carping will suddenly seem trite or trivial. 'The aesthetics of everything' includes everyone, every being. That feeling of transcending the limitations of individualised perception happens when we truly see people, just as they are and from a more interconnected perspective. We access this experience more easily via our relationship with nature, but with effort and awareness we can reveal that its everywhere. Endeavouring to proceed through life keeping our mind, eyes and heart as open and wide as we can, on the basis that you wouldn't want to miss anything, would you? Because:~
'The world is full of hidden beauty'*
Appendix
I don't believe I could compose a better list of practices to help expand awareness of 'the aesthetics of everything' than Yanagri's own.
' First, put aside the desire to judge immediately; acquire the habit of just looking.
Second, do not treat the object as an object for the intellect.
Third, just be ready to receive, passively, without interposing yourself. If you can void your mind of intellectualisation, like a clear mirror that simply reflects, all the better.' *
* These quotations come from chapters in
The Unknown Craftsman, by Soetsu Yanagri, published by Kodansha America, Inc.
** Quotations from Dogen, a 13th century Japanese monk, founder of Soto Zen Buddhism
