SubscribeThe Wabi-Sabi Aesthetic
Posted in Visual, Animation, Art, Design, Illustration, Photography, Typography, Video on October 13th, 2007. By Ona Vinyamata.
[Detail of “my toaster” by (ku)nihito]
Wabi-sabi (in Kanji: 侘寂) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic that is sometimes described as one of Beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent and incomplete”.
It is certainly hard to describe with a Western view an aesthetic system that is born from the cultural complex combination of tradition and external influences of a country like Japan. The key is understanding how Wabi-Sabi centers on the acceptance of transience: Beauty is in the ordinary and mundane, in the humble but elegant simplicity achieved by bringing out the organic colors, shapes and textures of natural materials. Beauty is in the age patina, in the rust and attached to “lived” objects.
Ikebana, the Japanese tea ceremony, the Zen gardens or haikus are all based on the Wabi-Sabi principles.
We can “feel” Wabi-Sabi in traditional Japanese houses, such as in a ryokan, and in general in every-day Japanese settings (traditional or not). For example, if you buy a Zakka magazine, you’ll soon find that the spots it shows do really have something very Japanese but in fact look much more like an ideal European style. The vintage chairs or decorative objects look like they could have been found in an antiques market in Paris, but the truth is that Europe is losing the life-style that Zakka describes as part of a modern Wabi-Sabi conception.
[A modern Japanese decoration magazine cover with Wabi-Sabi accents]
Photography is a great medium to picture Wabi-Sabi inspired every-day objects, normally turning them into treasures. (ku)nihito is a master capturing the textures, the beautiful dirt, the enchanting age-marks of the quotidian.
© (ku)nihito
Other manifestations of the Wabi-Sabi Aesthetic reach West and can be rather risky. As an example, the Danish film “Zakka West” by Mikael Colville-Andersen is described by the director as an attractive, sensitive and laden with subtexts film… just as a Wabi-Sabi object that is not only meant to be beautiful but to convey something.
© Mikael Colville-Andersen
Related Links
* The Wabi-Sabi Suki Flickr Group.
* “Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers” by L. Koren.
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[…] of nostalgia and carelessness. That’s a very interesting tendency that somehow relates to the Wabi Sabi aesthetic, but that also has a lot to do with the handmade culture: using antique or preloved materials, and […]
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