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The Vocabulary of Japanese Aesthetics

The Vocabulary of Japanese Aesthetics. PART 1: aware [ mono no aware ] okashi ~ miyabi What are the example given for each? What do these examples tell us about the word’s meaning?. Japanese Aesthetics: I. aware: 1st an exclamation of surprise & delight The “ah-ness” of things

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The Vocabulary of Japanese Aesthetics

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  1. The Vocabulary of Japanese Aesthetics PART 1: aware [mono no aware] okashi ~ miyabi • What are the example given for each? • What do these examples tell us about the word’s meaning?

  2. Japanese Aesthetics: I aware: 1st an exclamation of surprise & delight • The “ah-ness” of things • The meaning developed over time. • Gradually tinged with sadness • Becomes a term of merit, associated with deep emotions. • Modern meaning: “wretched” mono no aware: “the sadness of things” • More like sensitivity to things okashi:delight; brings a smile to the face. • Both aware and okashi reflect a refined, aristocratic society.

  3. Japanese Aesthetics: I miyabi: courtliness/refinement • Quiet pleasures enjoyed by the aristocrat • Needed special education to be appreciated. • Aristocratic hierarchy of values is reflected discussion of love and lovemaking. • Limited the expressive range of Japanese Poetry[cf. Plato – a kind of censorship?] • Avoids the crude or unseemly, but dilutes real feeling • Negation of simpler virtues, such as makoto/ sincerity. • Justified the court’s way of living & their contempt for the peasants. • Yet transmitted to all of Japanese society & still survives today” Japan is an “aesthetic” society.

  4. Japanese Aesthetics: II PART II:focus on impermanence – intensifies & darkens previous aesthetics. Consequence of war. “Use old means for new ends.” Yugen:profound, remote, mysterious • Those things that cannot be expressed easily in words • A kind of symbolism: more suggestive than direct, therefore more spiritual.

  5. Japanese Aesthetics IIYugencontinued… • Like aware, but in aware the realization was the end of the emotion – not extending to the dark regions • Art is a gateway to something else – an eternal region/eternal silence – found in the gesture of a Noh actor. • Yugen can be comprehended by the mind, but not expressed in words. Intuitively sensed. • To suggest the stillness there must be form or pattern • What are the examples? pp. 51-52

  6. Japanese Aesthetics IIYugencontinued… • Yugen is the quality of the highest realm of art, an absolute domain to which all forms point. • How does yugen work? p. 52 • Noh drama: theater of suggestion; importance of ghosts • In times of “no action” – “unconsciously revealed spiritual strength of the actor. See pp. 52-53 • Beauty in Noh is guided by miyabi. • Search for incorruptible [not absolute] values in a time of change & destruction.

  7. Japanese Aesthetics II Sabi: to grown old/rusty • Taking pleasure in what was old, faded, lonely • Love of imperfection is found in the tea ceremony • The hut is bare and devoid of color • Tea utensils are made of coarse pottery • Not symbols of remote things [not likeyugen] • No lamenting as in aware – love the fallen flower [haiku eg.] • Art is a refuge, a haven of tranquility • Easier to understand than yugen • The love of the old and unobtrusive is a defense against mechanization. “wabi-sabi” [see link on our homepage]

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