WABI SABI
Further thoughts.
A present day conceptual heir to wabi tea
Applying wabi-sabiness to materiality and environment,
emotional states, moral-ethical decisions and spiritual orientation.
Dogen (1200-1253)” In order to study the way, the
enlightened state of being, you must be poor”. P24
‘the capacity to experience beauty seemed like one of the
best reasons for living’. P40.
Poetic connotations:
Wabi =withered Sabi = Sensibility. Rust. Beauty residing in
things warn, incomplete imperfect, obscured, muted and mismatched. Modesty,
humility.
Unconventionality,
unobtrusive elegance, enforced simplicity, refusal of easily obtainable luxury,
undecorated as apposed to splenors of a palace,. Imitation is considered by
form. A striving for variety and unpredictability. It has been reimagined and extended through
diverse artistic understanding. The reuse of old objects in ways that express
new functions or symbolic association.
Cultivating genteel poverty. Tendencies towards radical simplification (
amongst the refined and graceful, in the same environment, side by side and
given the same critical consideration).
Voluntary poverty. Eschrewing slick aesthetic discourse. Intuitive, non
verbal understanding. Appreciation of contrast/differentiation from dominant aesthetic
convention. It is against sameness.
The opposite to smooth
symmetrical perfection = irregular,
rough-textured objects.
‘De Facto’ (p28) recalibration of material value occurs. Between the social upper classes/the military
elite took part in this revolution.
Changes in the hierarchy of material appreciation manopolised the
cultural capital. Reducing the value of
artifacts and collectionsthat were once symbols of prestige and power are now
reduced to relative worth.
Negative connotations: Wretched,
miserable, impoverished, desolate, comfortless, lonesome, folorn.
Beauty: is an
involuntary response to a high order pattern recognition (mandrabot, hicks
bosom?) a glimpse into perceptual
architecture, a kind of enlightenment that reveals something fundamental about the
way in which the world appears to us.
Experiencing beauty and love is a glimpse of enlightenment
that reveals something fundamental about life.
Stages of
decomposition: aestheticized entropy.
The Metaphysical
Basis: Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness.
Spiritual Values:
Truth comes from the observation of nature. Greatness exists in the
inconspicuous and overlooked details.
Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness.
State of Mind: emotional
tone, Acceptance of the inevitable.
Appreciation of the cosmic order.
Moral Precepts:
Get rid of all that is unnecessary.
Focus on the intrinsic and ignore material hierarchy.
Material Process:
The suggestion of the natural process, irregular, intimate, earthly, murky,
simple.
Taking pleasure in that which is old, faded, and lonely and
the beauty of things withered.
Tea Ceremony: 15C
Hot water for Tea. A spiritual ritual practice. Tea was originally bought by
Zen monks, who used tea to keep awake during meditation. Tea drinking then
became part of amuzing activities for the upper classes as a focus of serious
artistic activity.
During Political upheaval and warfare, Wabi-Tea began an
aesthetic accommodation to the catastrophic realities where fortunes were lost
and possessions were destroyed. Substitute utensils were needed. (surrogate
utensils, surrogate spoon). This ritual became a supreme national cultural
expression and was performed for political leaders and supreme military
leaders.
Tea Rooms: Intimate and rustic huts, insulated from the
hardships and concerns from the outside world.
Performance: ‘Noh’ and ‘Yugen’ ( evocations of other
worldliness in the liminal space between existence and non existance) movements
Regarding salons:
Incorporate this ritual into the Salons. During the tea ritual era 15c participants
in its practice would write down thoughts about optimal materiality,
environment, and frame of mind in letters, diaries, poems, and commentaries.
