Thoughts on Japanese Aesthetics: Control & Acquiescence

M. Bogen, Garden at Katsura Imperial Villa, Kyoto

There are many dichotomies to be negotiated in life, some mundane — shall I choose ice coffee or hot, position the toilet paper under or over? — while others are existential and get at questions of how to live life well and in as propitious a manner as possible. These include, for example, the balance between optimism and cynicism. If you don’t maintain any confidence in the future a good one will never manifest, but if you don’t expect to encounter any stupid and/or unjust obstacles, you will be too easily be knocked off balance. What are some others? The balance of fearlessness and caution. The equilibrium between concern for self and other. And so on. In engaging with Japanese aesthetics during our recent journey around this indelible island nation, it strikes me that there is a very critical dichotomy at the heart of their artistic ethos, namely the balance between control of one’s environment and acquiescence or surrender to the force or reality of it. In the West we encounter this dynamic at the heart of what we know as the Serenity Prayer. You don't have to have gone to a 12-step meeting to know it: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

In Japan, we witness it most viscerally in the visual products of artists and craftsmen, especially of both ceramics and landscape/garden designers. It is even possible that this last instance is most paradigmatic of all. Here, the materials are all those that were not made by man. Of special import and esteem is the rock or, better yet, the boulder, which is utilized both in rock gardens and landscapes. First of all, the boulder perfectly mimics the small mountains and islands that dot the Japanese countryside and offshore bodies of water, which rise straight up out of the ground or water, with no gradual slopes leading to the peak. Everywhere you go in Japan you see this, because so much of the landscape, at least in the central section, is completely flat, just like water is. Given this, we see that one thing the use of rocks and boulders does is demonstrate the way the macrocosm and microcosm echo and resonate with one another in our world, not just physically and cosmically but also emotionally and psychically, a key Buddhist notion.

The other thing is that it allows for that which is beyond man's control to enter into an environment that is controlled. The role of man here is to identify the appropriate stone and then position it just so; it is not to carve it. Rather, the designer facilitates a particular dialogue between the stone and the environment. What makes a particular stone attractive, and what makes the dialogue sing, is purely a matter of taste and intuition. When something works it works. But this is the essence of aesthetics is it not, everywhere and always? It arises from having considered art in its relevant forms for a considerable time, an endeavor which, we must emphasize, is itself a product of love. In my view it is the most exalted state of life: to care deeply about that which cannot be quantified — which may be why the garden is esteemed so highly in Japan. Indeed, the garden is valued enough for them to have gone through the intense effort of getting those rocks from their original position into their garden position — and then, crucially, letting them be for centuries, so that time and the elements might have their say. 

As for the environment, the curated trees and shrubs that constitute the "garden" are always arranged to appear as in an idealized natural landscape: like it could have grown that way — if you were in heaven that is. You don't see a lot of flower beds or rows of flowering plants. I'm not going to claim that this is unique to Japan. Indeed, the great British garden and especially landscape designs come to mind. And these, of course, influenced Olmsted, who created cousins of both the British and Japanese landscape gardens here in the States. But could there be a correlation between the Japanese and British situations? Certainly, British culture has been characterized by strict stratification and over-defined norms of identity, as has Japan's. It makes sense to create an idealized version of wildness and naturalness in one's visual environment. It was Thoreau who said "in wildness is the preservation of the world." In Japan and Britain they might posit instead: In curated wildness is the apex of civilization. 

I'm no horticulturist, but it does appear that they frequently choose trees and shrubs that have a strong horizontal element. Too much verticality would send the viewers' eyes up into the sky and away from the matter at hand. Plus the horizontal branches are especially well-suited to collecting snow, key to those unforgettable winter scenes captured in art and photography. A lot of attention is paid to the angles on the trunks of trees. As we know from observing art, there's not a lot of dynamism in parallel lines. Sure, good art can utilize a strict grid, and I do indeed love geometric art. But that which lasts often resides in that which is unresolved. I guess this the bonsai factor. It's not just those little trees that twist and configure in the desired manner; they do it with tree trees too. This results in many significant trees needing to be propped up so that the cherished friend doesn't topple over and the sacred angle be negated -- and the entire landscape being thrown off kilter in turn. To do this they use only wood tree trunks to brace them up and natural fabrics to secure them. A metal beam, even if painted green, would be such an offense that many a Japanese head might explode — to say nothing of mine!

Ceramic cup by Kazu Yamada

The other aesthetic I will consider here is that of ceramics. Here, we see the aesthetic principle of wabi sabi in its quintessential manifestation. Deferring to my new friend, AI (seriously), we learn this means "a philosophy that finds beauty in imperfection, impermanence, and simplicity." Perhaps it is the garden that best exemplifies impermanence, but the other two factors reside comfortably within the world of handcrafted pottery. In terms of simplicity, Japanese ceramic art revels in creating beautiful objects devoted to the simplest domestic acts: especially drinking a cup of tea or sake. In this manner, the mundane is elevated to the sublime. They do create laquered ceramics that are clean and smooth on the surface, but which express their complexity through the beauty and gradation of color, but I prefer the ones whose surfaces are rough, reveling in and dialing up the imperfection. We bought a piece in this manner created by Kazu Yamada, a prolific ceramist of roughly my own age hailing from a region known for excelling in this art form. The form is so tactile that it makes the imperfections of form and surface quite intimate. The piece we bought is a tea cup in the style known as kutsu-gata chawan, which means it has an asymmetrical, elongated shape, which is said to resemble a monk's slipper. The elongated form makes it perfect for cupping with two hands. 

The play of control and roughness, which is caused by a number of factors, is how these ceramics derive their energy. For example, the roughness can be in the form of thumb prints that are left as is and uncorrected. Imperfections that occur during firing such as the dripping or pooling of glazes can be seen as beautiful and accepted, or the dripping can be slightly controlled. And, or course, the materials themselves can have roughness that is emphasized rather then smoother over. All of this recalls the way artists can work with and incorporate the dripping of paint. Elsewhere on this blog I discussed a variation on this which I've not seen anyone else suggest: namely the acceptance and shaping of feedback in electric guitar music. A phenomenon that was arose as a problem with amplification soon was embraced. A Neil Young guitar solo will frequently show this aesthetic choice to great effect, to cite just one example. Keith Richards' "Satisfaction" guitar riff used a “Maestro Fuzz-Tone” pedal, made by the Gibson guitar company, which enabled him to get that nasty sound. Now that I think about it, let me go out on limb and say that is rock music, more than any other form, that has embodied wabi sabi in Western music, and perhaps all the arts. The dissonance in classical music doesn't quite get at what I'm talking about. In the visual arts, I would say that Basquiat, whose paintings were a mashup of Willem de Kooning and graffiti art, really had the wabi sabi thing happening.

But, back to the Japanese. After spending a while there, one finds their attention to detail and presentation, including those of the aesthetic kind, to be quite impressive and, in turn, one starts to, or develops the desire to practice it oneself — at least the degree to which a vulgar Westerner can! Maybe what the Japanese do is an indirect expression of Zen philosophy. Or is Zen an expression of something innate in the Japanese character? Setting that question aside, I'll conclude by saying that anyone who cares about aesthetics would love a trip to Japan. We certainly possess that orientation and did indeed cherish our time there.