## 1. Introduction



Two preliminary observations about the Japanese cultural tradition are
relevant to the arts. First, classical Japanese philosophy understands
reality as constant *change*, or (to use a Buddhist expression)
*impermanence*. The world of flux that presents itself to our
senses is the only reality: there is no conception of some stable
"Platonic" realm above or behind it. The arts in Japan
have traditionally reflected this fundamental
impermanence--sometimes lamenting but more often celebrating it.
The idea of *mujo* (impermanence) is perhaps most
forcefully expressed in the writings and sayings of the
thirteenth-century Zen master Dogen, who is arguably
Japan's profoundest philosopher, but there is a fine expression
of it by a later Buddhist priest, Yoshida Kenko, whose *Essays
in Idleness* (*Tsurezuregusa*, 1332) sparkles with
aesthetic insights:



> 
> It does not matter how young or strong you may be, the hour of death
> comes sooner than you expect. It is an extraordinary miracle that you
> should have escaped to this day; do you suppose you have even the
> briefest respite in which to relax? (Keene, 120)
> 



In the Japanese Buddhist tradition, awareness of the fundamental
condition of existence is no cause for nihilistic despair, but rather
a call to vital activity in the present moment and to gratitude for
another moment's being granted to us.



The second observation is that the arts in Japan have tended to be
closely connected with Confucian practices of self-cultivation, as
evidenced in the fact that they are often referred to as "ways
[of living]": *chado*, the way of tea (tea
ceremony), *shodo*, the way of writing (calligraphy), and
so forth. And since the scholar official in China was expected to be
skilled in the "Six Arts"--ceremonial ritual, music,
calligraphy, mathematics, archery, and charioteering--culture and
the arts tend to be more closely connected with intellect and the life
of the mind than in the western traditions.



To this day it is not unusual in Japan for the scholar to be a fine
calligrapher and an accomplished poet in addition to possessing the
pertinent intellectual abilities.


## 2. *Mono no aware*: the Pathos of Things



The meaning of the phrase *mono no aware* is complex and has
changed over time, but it basically refers to a "pathos"
(*aware*) of "things" (*mono*), deriving
from their transience. In the classic anthology of Japanese poetry
from the eighth century, *Manyoshu*, the feeling of
*aware* is typically triggered by the plaintive calls of birds
or other animals. It also plays a major role in the world's
first novel, Murasaki Shikibu's *Genji monogatari* (The
Tale of Genji), from the early eleventh century. The somewhat later
*Heike monogatari* (The Tale of the Heike Clan) begins with
these famous lines, which clearly show impermanence as the basis for
the feeling of *mono no aware*:



> 
> The sound of the Gion *shoja* bells echoes the
> impermanence of all things; the color of the *sola*
> flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud
> do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty
> fall at last, they are as dust before the wind. (McCullough 1988)
> 



And here is Kenko on the link between impermanence and beauty:
"If man were never to fade away like the dews of Adashino, never
to vanish like the smoke over Toribeyama, how things would lose their
power to move us! The most precious thing in life is its
uncertainty" (Keene, 7). The acceptance and celebration of
impermanence goes beyond all morbidity, and enables full enjoyment of
life:



> 
> How is it possible for men not to rejoice each day over the pleasure
> of being alive? Foolish men, forgetting this pleasure, laboriously
> seek others; forgetting the wealth they possess, they risk their lives
> in their greed for new wealth. But their desires are never satisfied.
> While they live they do not rejoice in life, but, when faced with
> death, they fear it--what could be more illogical? (Keene, 79)
> 



Insofar as we don't rejoice in life we fail to appreciate the
pathos of the things with which we share our lives. For most of us,
some of these things, impermanent as they are, will outlast
us--and especially if they have been loved they will become sad
things: "It is sad to think that a man's familiar
possessions, indifferent to his death, should remain long after he is
gone" (Keene, 30).



The well known literary theorist Motoori Norinaga brought the idea of
*mono no aware* to the forefront of literary theory with a
study of *The Tale of Genji* that showed this phenomenon to be
its central theme. He argues for a broader understanding of it as
concerning a profound sensitivity to the emotional and affective
dimensions of existence in general. The greatness of Lady
Murasaki's achievement consists in her ability to portray
characters with a profound sense of *mono no aware* in her
writing, such that the reader is able to empathize with them in this
feeling.



The films of Ozu Yasujiro, who is often thought to be the most
"Japanese" of Japanese film directors, are a series of
exercises in conveying *mono no aware*. Stanley Cavell's
observation that "film returns to us and extends our first
fascination with objects, with their inner and fixed lives"
applies consummately to Ozu, who often expresses feelings through
presenting the faces of things rather than of actors. A vase standing
in the corner of a tatami-matted room where a father and daughter are
asleep; two fathers contemplating the rocks in a "dry
landscape" garden, their postures echoing the shapes of the
stone; a mirror reflecting the absence of the daughter who has just
left home after getting married--all images that express the
pathos of things as powerfully as the expression on the greatest
actor's face.



The most frequently cited example of *mono no aware* in
contemporary Japan is the traditional love of cherry blossoms, as
manifested by the huge crowds of people that go out every year to view
(and picnic under) the cherry trees. The blossoms of the Japanese
cherry trees are intrinsically no more beautiful than those of, say,
the pear or the apple tree: they are more highly valued because of
their transience, since they usually begin to fall within a week of
their first appearing. It is precisely the evanescence of their beauty
that evokes the wistful feeling of *mono no aware* in the
viewer.


## 3. *Wabi*: Simple, Austere Beauty



In aforementioned *Essays in Idleness* Kenko asks,
"Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, at the
moon only when it is cloudless?" (Keene, 115). If for the
Buddhists the basic condition is impermanence, to privilege as
consummate only certain moments in the eternal flux may signify a
refusal to accept that basic condition. Kenko continues:
"To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the
blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring--these are
even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn
with faded flowers are worthier of our admiration." This is an
example of the idea of *wabi*, understated beauty, which was
first distinguished and praised when expressed in poetry. But it is in
the art of tea, and the context of Zen, that the notion of
*wabi* is most fully developed.



In the *Namporoku* (1690), a record of sayings by the tea
master Sen no Rikyu, we read: "In the small [tea] room, it
is desirable for every utensil to be less than adequate. There are
those who dislike a piece when it is even slightly damaged; such an
attitude shows a complete lack of comprehension" (Hirota, 226).
Implements with minor imperfections are often valued more highly, on
the *wabi* aesthetic, than ones that are ostensibly perfect;
and broken or cracked utensils, as long as they have been well
repaired, more highly than the intact. The *wabi* aesthetic
does not imply asceticism but rather moderation, as this passage from
the *Namporoku* demonstrates: "The meal for a
gathering in a small room should be but a single soup and two or three
dishes; sake should also be served in moderation. Elaborate
preparation of food for the *wabi* gathering is
inappropriate" (Hirota, 227).



The *Zencharoku* (Zen Tea Record, 1828) contains a well known
section on the topic of *wabi*, which begins by saying that it
is simply a matter of "upholding the [Buddhist] precepts"
(Hirota, 274). The author continues:



> 
> *Wabi* means that even in straitened circumstances no thought
> of hardship arises. Even amid insufficiency, one is moved by no
> feeling of want. Even when faced with failure, one does not brood over
> injustice. If you find being in straitened circumstances to be
> confining, if you lament insufficiency as privation, if you complain
> that things have been ill-disposed--this is not *wabi*.
> (Hirota, 275)
> 



The way of tea exemplifies this attitude toward life in the elegant
simplicity of the tea house and the utensils, which contradicts any
notion that beauty must entail magnificence and opulence.



*Wabi* reaches its peak of austerity in emptiness--which
is a central and pervasive idea in Buddhism. In an essay "In
Praise of Shadows" (1933) the great novelist Tanizaki
Jun'ichiro (1886-1965) has this to say about the
beauty of the alcove (*tokonoma*) in the traditional Japanese
teahouse:



> 
> An empty space is marked off with plain wood and plain walls, so that
> the light drawn into it forms dim shadows within emptiness. There is
> nothing more. And yet, when we gaze into the darkness that gathers
> behind the crossbeam, around the flower vase, beneath the shelves,
> though we know perfectly well it is mere shadow, we are overcome with
> the feeling that in this small corner of the atmosphere there reigns
> complete and utter silence; that here in the darkness immutable
> tranquility holds sway. (Tanizaki, 20)
> 



A simple structure, but a special and evocative one, a place of deeply
philosophical depths. A space cut out of the room, which cuts off
direct light and thereby opens up a new world: these techniques
developed distinctively in the Japanese tradition of architecture.
(See section 7, below, on cutting.)



> 
> This was the genius of our ancestors, that by cutting off the light
> from this empty space they imparted to the world of shadows that
> formed there a quality of mystery or depth superior to that of any
> wall painting or ornament. The technique seems simple, but was by no
> means so simply achieved.
> 



Instead of adding something artistic to the wall one subtracts the
wall itself and sets it back into an alcove. Then let the emptiness
that's opened up fill with a play of light and shades.



One place with a claim to be where the Japanese tea ceremony
originated is Ginkakuji, The Temple of the Silver Pavilion, in Kyoto.
Whereas the pavilion (late 15th century) is a modest monument to the
joys of *sabi*, the Moon-Viewing Platform and Sea of Silver
Sand beside it (from some 200 years later) are paradigms of
*Wabi*. These latter two constitute an unusual version of the
distinctively Japanese "dry landscape" style of garden
(see section 7, below). These strikingly abstract formations (for the
17th century!) are optimally viewed from the second floor of the
pavilion on a night of the full moon, when the sand glistens silver in
the moonlight and the stripes appear as waves on the surface of a
motionless ocean.



![thumbnail photo of Ginkakuji](ginkakuji1-thumb.jpg)
![thumbnail photo of Ginkakuji](ginkakuji2-thumb.jpg)
![thumbnail photo of Ginkakuji](ginkakuji3-thumb.jpg)

Larger Photographs of the Sea of Silver Sand and Moon-Viewing Platform at Ginkakuji




## 4. Rikyu's Tea and the Equalizing Aesthetic of *Wabi*



Few figures in Japanese history emerge as more formidable artists than
Sen no Rikyu (Qian Li Xiu , 1522-1591), and few
aesthetic movements are more transformative than his rendition of the
tea ceremony, *Wabicha* (Cha Cha ). While Rikyu is
recognized as the preeminent Japanese tea master, his role as an
aesthete extends much farther. A consummate painter and poet, a
practitioner of *ikebana*, an accomplished calligrapher and
landscape artist, Rikyu in time became an influential government
dignitary advising the Shogunate on cultural and artistic matters.
Through countless inventions and innovations, the impact of the
aesthetic world he created, and some say perfected, stretches far
beyond the boundaries of the tea ceremony itself, unearthing novel
prospects for Japanese identity and citizenship, pioneering new social
virtues, original visions of human existence and religious salvation,
and ultimately, opening new possibilities for equality (Suzuki
278-9), all rooted in the *wabi* aesthetic.



While Rikyu's reputation has come to eclipse that of his
predecessors, his aesthetic innovations were part of a lineage born in
the port city of Sakai, comprising the tea master Murata Shuko
(Cun Tian Zhu Guang , 1423-1502) and his student
Takeno Joo (Wu Ye  Shao Ou ,
1502-1555), both Zen adherents, the latter of whom would later
mentor Rikyu. Both of his forerunners began pioneering tea
aesthetics, which laid the groundwork for Rikyu's eventual
refinement, and both harnessed fresh aesthetic stratagems aimed at
incorporating the *wabi* aesthetic into the tea ceremony
(Ludwig, 387-390. Sen Soshitsu, 123-157).



What distinguished Rikyu's *Wabicha* from his
mentors' ceremonies was its resolution of the tensions between
competing aesthetic undercurrents coursing through the 16th-century
practice of tea and broader Japanese cultural worlds (Slusser
55-57). Before the advent of *Wabicha*, medieval tea was
becoming increasingly polarized in two directions. The *Shoin*
(Shu Yuan ) style orchestrated ostentatious displays of wealth
carried out in opulent domiciles of the powerful aristocracy. Within
this milieu, the most cherished tea utensils (*meibutsu*
Ming Wu ) were rare and precious wares imported from China,
their aesthetic value predominantly gauged by how well they displayed
the host's affluence and power, rendering *Shoin* tea an
intentionally non-egalitarian ceremony.



The ostentation of the *Shoin* style found further
reinforcement in what was called the "*basara*"
attitude (Po Suo Luo ), characterized by tasting contests
(*tocha* Dou Cha ) and lavish
tea parties (*chayoriai* Cha Ji He ) orchestrated
for grandiose demonstrations of wealth. As the *Shoin* style
was in ascendency, the tea world was simultaneously evolving in the
opposite direction, in a version of the ceremony known as the
*Soan* (Cao An ) style, an
aesthetic that extolled austerity and poverty rather than opulence and
affluence. In place of grand halls of the aristocracy and gatherings
with dozens or even hundreds of guests, the so called
"grass-hut" *Soan* style
aestheticized the world of the farmer and hermit, and sought the
intimacy of a gathering in a tiny unadorned hut, typically attended by
a mere handful of guests. Shuko and Joo were some of
the progenitors of this style and it was tea as the "grass
hut" ideal that Rikyu inherited and eventually honed to
perfection.



A second polarizing cultural tendency in 16th century
Japan, which cut across the *Shoin* and
*Soan* divide, was a tension between
warrior and religious aesthetic sensitivities. Rikyu's
*Wabicha* dissolved this tension by melding elements of Samurai
gatherings with those cultivated in Zen monasteries. His ceremony
avoided exclusive alignment with religiosity or militarism, and
employed the *wabi* aesthetic to infuse an egalitarianism
counterbalancing hierarchical divisions entrenched within both
spheres, re-casting *wabi* as a "non-hierarchical
awareness of the real" (Hirota 95).



Beyond the realm of the martial and the monastic, the populace of
16th-century Japan was deeply stratified, from Samurai at the top all
the way down to farmers, peasants, and merchants at the bottommost
social rung. These divisions were absolute, and upward mobility to
higher social strata was virtually inconceivable. Nevertheless,
Rikyu deployed the *wabi* aesthetic to challenge social
stratification ( Sen Soshitsu 182-183). In his
*Wabicha*, all patrons of tea were considered equal, and his
aesthetic innovations concretized this principle, ensuring this was
not simply a lofty ideal. In the text attributed to him, the
*Namporoku* (1690), he claims that "worldly rank is
ignored" in the tea room.



Rikyu's aesthetic decisions were guided by a veneration of
the meagre existence of the agrarian lifestyle, the strict economy of
the mountain hermit, and the austere lack of adornment of the poor
farmer. He thus had a predilection for rough un-hewn materials, which
meant walls and timber within the tea hut were left raw and
unfinished, with straw and cob visibly protruding. Costly Chinese
porcelain, ivory flower vases and tea scoops were replaced by locally
produced bamboo versions. Colorful flowers were almost entirely
excluded, while an "aniconic" ceremony emerged,
characterized by the absence of imagery within the hut and surrounding
garden.



Among the numerous architectural innovations Rikyu deployed, the
most egalitarian were several features of the tearoom, which rendered
it physically impossible for tea guests to express their social
position or power. The *nijiriguchi* (Lin Kou ),
roughly translated as "crawl in space" was the only entry
way for guests (previous instances of the *sukiya* had another
larger entryway for nobility and aristocracy). The tiny aperture
measuring only around 60cm x 60cm (2ft x 2ft) achieved two equalizing
aims of *Wabicha* (Soshitsu Sen 182-183). Firstly,
samurai were prevented from entering with their two *Katana*
swords, which normally were the most visible signs of their position
atop the social hierarchy. (Rikyu introduced a sword rack
(*katanakake* Dao Gua ke) next to the
*nijiriguchi* under the tea hut's eaves.) Further, the
size of the opening meant that wealthy aristocrats and courtiers could
not make it through the small opening with their oversized top hats.
Thus, once inside Rikyu's tiny *sukiya*, no
appearance endured of the markings normally employed to exhibit and
maintain the rigid social hierarchy. Even conversation or figures of
speech invoking social status, references to employment, objects
exhibiting one's wealth, or associations legitimating
one's power were all strictly prohibited.



An additional dimension of the *Wabicha* aesthetic, which
reinforces egalitarian ideals is Rikyu's embrace of the
local. He opposed the trend of importing expensive Chinese tea ware
and instead championed locally crafted articles reflecting the
agrarian lifestyle outside the bustling urban city centre. Amidst
Rikyu's manifold innovations, the most
famous--renowned for epitomizing the very quintessence of
*wabi*--was the inception of an entirely novel pottery
style known as *Raku* (Le Shao , *raku-yaki*).
Rikyu enlisted a local potter Sasaki "Raku"
Chojiro (Chang Ci Lang ) to give form to tea ware
embodying the *wabi* aesthetic. As opposed to highly
sophisticated Chinese porcelain, *Raku* was rustic earthenware,
utilitarian, un-adorned, often asymmetrical and imperfect in form and
finish; celebrating the grace of a humble existence, an ode to local
hermit and farmer. Firing and drying techniques were developed to
grant leeway to the atmosphere, nature, and gravity to express
themselves in the clay body as it heated then cooled. The aesthetic
evoked the monk or farmer in the vicinity working with what was at
hand rather than the worldly aristocrat importing treasures from
foreign shores. Aligned with the ethos of *wabi*, *Raku*
ware was valued for its exposition of the simple beauty of meagre
existence, accentuating the aesthetics of paucity over opulence. Thus,
*Raku* played a levelling role that made a previously exclusive
material culture surrounding the tea ceremony more egalitarian.



Another important innovation that curtailed signs of wealth involved
transformations in design and emphasis of the hanging scroll
(*Kakemono* Gua Wu ). Once a peripheral piece,
Rikyu elevates the scroll, recalibrates its aesthetics toward
egalitarian ideals, and installs it as the centrepiece of the tea hut
and the ceremony as a whole (Hirota, 217-218). Rikyu not
only elevated the scroll to the aesthetic forefront of the ceremony,
(a role previously occupied by the tea caddy in the *Shoin*
style) but also shifted scroll aesthetics away from costly and
exclusive Chinese versions. Under Rikyu's patronage,
scrolls were for the first time commissioned from local Zen Buddhist
calligraphers and painters.



While his interventions may have succeeded in challenging the rigid
societal stratification beyond the confines of the tea world, they
might have also set the stage for his own tragic downfall. The markers
of social hierarchy he sought to dismantle were crucial for justifying
and maintaining the Shogunate's power. As a governmental
official, Rikyu had little latitude to deny Hideyoshi's
wishes, which often diverged drastically from the austerities of
*Wabicha* (for instance, building the golden Tai-an
(Dai An ) tearoom). His egalitarianism was undermining a
vital symbol the Shogun relied on to showcase his supremacy, and
threatened to subvert power structures that maintained his position
atop the social-political hierarchy (Slusser, 56-57).
Rikyu's *Wabicha* and the hierarchy-nullifying
symbols and structures he shaped countered the power politics embraced
by the Shogunate and challenged the militaristic interests of the
elite he served. Rikyu would be ordered to commit ritual suicide
(*seppuku* Qie Fu ), and following his last tea
ceremony in 1591, he wrote his death poem before taking his own
life.



While Rikyu's impact on the subsequent history of Japanese
tea and culture at large is irrefutable, his legacy is complicated.
His ritual suicide was appropriated for a subsequent aestheticization
of hyper-nationalistic tendencies, thereby setting an early standard
for an "aesthetic" death as sacrifice to one's
nation at time of war (Cross, 163-166). Thus, his tragic moment
was promoted as a means to rationalize some of the empire's most
egregious brutalities. A memory that should have remained untarnished
became attached to Japan's calamitous aestheticization of
imperialism, warfare, and self-sacrifice--values fundamentally at
odds to those that Rikyu introduced to Japanese culture through
the *wabi* aesthetic in the tea ceremony.


## 5. *Sabi:* Rustic Patina



The term *sabi* occurs often in the
*Manyoshu*, where it has a connotation of
desolateness (*sabireru* means "to become
desolate"), and later on it seems to acquire the meaning of
something that has aged well, grown rusty (another word pronounced
*sabi* means "rust"), or has acquired a patina that
makes it beautiful.



The importance of *sabi* for the way of tea was affirmed by the
great fifteenth-century tea master Shuko, founder of one of the
first schools of tea ceremony. As a distinguished commentator puts it:
"The concept *sabi* carries not only the meaning
'aged'--in the sense of 'ripe with experience
and insight' as well as 'infused with the patina that
lends old things their beauty'--but also that of
tranquility, aloneness, deep solitude" (Hammitzsch, 46).



The feeling of *sabi* is also evoked in the haiku of the famous
seventeenth-century poet Matsuo Basho, where its connection with
the word *sabishii* (solitary, lonely) is emphasized. The
following haiku typifies *sabi(shii)* in conveying an
atmosphere of solitude or loneliness that undercuts, as Japanese
poetry usually does, the distinction between subjective and
objective:



> 
> Solitary now --
>   
> 
> Standing amidst the blossoms
>   
> 
> Is a cypress tree.
> 



Contrasting with the colorful beauty of the blossoms, the more subdued
gracefulness of the cypress--no doubt older than the person
seeing it but no less solitary--typifies the poetic mood of
*sabi*.



Tanizaki's "In Praise of Shadows" frequently
celebrates *sabi*. By contrast with Western taste, he writes of
the Japanese sensibility:



> 
> We do not dislike everything that shines, but we do prefer a pensive
> lustre to a shallow brilliance, a murky light that, whether in a stone
> or an artifact, bespeaks a sheen of antiquity. . . . We love things
> that bear the marks of grime, soot, and weather, and we love the
> colors and the sheen that call to mind the past that made them.
> (Tanizaki, 11-12)
> 



This is a significant existential consideration: the sheen of older
things connects us with the past in ways that shiny products of modern
technology simply cannot. And since older things tend to be made from
natural materials, to deal with them helps us to realize our closest
connections with the natural environment.



*Sabi* figures prominently, for Tanizaki, in the aesthetics of
the traditional Japanese toilet, which "stands apart from the
main building at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with
leaves and moss." He wrestles with the vexations that modern
technology imposes on the question of fixtures, as the traditional
ones are superseded by "white porcelain and handles of sparkling
metal" (Tanizaki, 3, 6).



> 
> Wood finished in glistening black lacquer is the very best, but even
> unfinished wood, as it darkens and the grain grows more subtle with
> the years, acquires an inexplicable power to calm and soothe. The
> ultimate, of course, is a wooden "morning glory" urinal
> filled with boughs of cedar: this is a delight to look at and allows
> not the slightest sound. (Tanizaki, 6)
> 

 But the primary delights of the traditional Japanese
toilet are its closeness to nature: in that special place,
"surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks
out upon blue skies and green leaves" (Tanizaki, 4). Among the
achievements of traditional Japanese architecture Tanizaki praises the
toilet as "the most aesthetic."


> 
> Our forbears, making poetry of everything in their lives, transformed
> what by rights should be the most unsanitary room in the house into a
> place of unsurpassed elegance, replete with fond association with the
> beauties of nature.
> 



It is surely fitting that one should perform those most natural
functions of urinating and defecating, returning to the earth the
remains of its bounties, in natural rather than high-tech
surroundings.



A more exalted exemplification of *sabi* is the exquisite
Silver Pavilion at Ginkakuji in Kyoto. Even though the tea ceremony is
said to have originated here, in a small *sabi*-saturated
teahouse, the exterior of the pavilion was originally going to be
covered in silver foil, in emulation of the Golden Pavilion (14th
century) at Kinkakuji. Without ever having enjoyed a coating of
silver, the Silver Pavilion is the epitome of *sabi* and one of
the most graceful structures ever built. The contrast with the larger,
and flashier Golden Pavilion, whose coating of gold leaf lends it a
quite different (and distinctly un-*sabi*) kind of beauty, is
instructive.



![thumbnail photo of Ginkakuji](ginkakuji4-thumb.jpg)
![thumbnail photo of Ginkakuji](ginkakuji5-thumb.jpg)
  

![thumbnail photo of Kinkakuji](kinkakuji1-thumb.jpg)
![thumbnail photo of Kinkakuji](kinkakuji2-thumb.jpg)

Larger Photographs of the Silver Pavilion at Ginkakuji and the Golden Pavilion at Kinkakuji





In 1950 a deranged Buddhist acolyte, deeply disturbed by the beauty of
the Golden Pavilion, set fire to it and burned it to the ground. An
exact replica was built on the original site in 1955. The aesthetic
qualities of the original structure are celebrated in Mishima
Yukio's fine novel *The Temple of the Golden Pavilion*
(1956), as well as in Ichikawa Kon's classic film *Enjo*
(Conflagration, 1958). In 1987, the burgeoning Japanese economy made
it possible for the first time in the building's history to
cover the structure with gold leaf, according to the creator's
original intention. The result is breathtakingly spectacular--but
totally un-Japanese. Old-time residents of Kyoto famously complained
that it would take a long time for the building to acquire sufficient
*sabi* to be worth looking at again. At the rate the patina
seems to be progressing, probably several centuries.



In 2011, after the tsunami in Tohoku and the explosions and
nuclear meltdown in Fukushima caused an acute energy shortage in
Japan, one of many responses was a dramatic reduction of lighting in
public places, and especially in subway stations with extensive
underground restaurant and shopping precincts. Tanizaki cites a
prescient remark from the late 1920s to the effect that "perhaps
no two countries waste more electricity than America and Japan"
(Tanizaki, 35). He would be delighted now to see Japanese cities
reducing the ubiquitous glare of neon lighting and all-night electric
illumination, in a dimming of unnecessary lights which thereby
reintroduces some of the shadows he so eloquently praises.


## 6. *Yugen*: Mysterious Grace



*Yugen* may be, among generally recondite Japanese
aesthetic ideas, the most ineffable. The term is first found in
Chinese philosophical texts, where it has the meaning of
"dark," or "mysterious."



Kamo no Chomei, the author of the well-known
*Hojoki* (An Account of my Hut, 1212), also wrote
about poetry and considered *yugen* to be a primary
concern of the poetry of his time. He offers the following as a
characerization of *yugen*: "It is like an autumn
evening under a colorless expanse of silent sky. Somehow, as if for
some reason that we should be able to recall, tears well
uncontrollably." Another characterization helpfully mentions the
importance of the imagination: "When looking at autumn mountains
through mist, the view may be indistinct yet have great depth.
Although few autumn leaves may be visible through the mist, the view
is alluring. The limitless vista created in imagination far surpasses
anything one can see more clearly" (Hume, 253-54).



This passage instantiates a general feature of East-Asian culture,
which favors allusiveness over explicitness and completeness.
*Yugen* does not, as has sometimes been supposed, have to
do with some other world beyond this one, but rather with the depth of
the world we live in, as experienced with the aid of a cultivated
imagination.



The art in which the notion of *yugen* has played the most
important role is the No drama, one of the world's great
theater traditions, which attained its highest flourishing through the
artistry of Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443). Zeami wrote a number of
treatises on No drama, in which *yugen*
("Grace") figures as "the highest principle"
(Rimer, 92). He associates it with the highly refined culture of the
Japanese nobility, and with their speech in particular, though there
is also in No a "Grace of music," a "Grace of
performance [of different roles]," and a "Grace of the
dance" (Rimer, 93). It is something rare, that is attained only
by the greatest actors in the tradition, and only after decades of
dedicated practice of the art. It is impossible to conceptualize, so
that Zeami often resorts to imagery in trying to explain it:
"Cannot the beauty of Grace be compared to the image of a swan
holding a flower in its bill, I wonder?" (Rimer, 73).



The most famous formulation comes at the beginning of Zeami's
"Notes on the Nine Levels [of artistic attainment in
No]," where the highest level is referred to as "the
art of the flower[ing] of peerless charm":



> 
> The meaning of the phrase Peerless Charm surpasses any explanation in
> words and lies beyond the workings of consciousness. It can surely be
> said that the phrase "in the dead of night, the sun shines
> brightly" exists in a realm beyond logical explanation. Indeed,
> concerning the Grace of the greatest performers in our art [it gives
> rise to] the moment of Feeling that Transcends Cognition, and to an
> art that lies beyond any level that the artist may consciously have
> attained. (Rimer, 120)
> 



This passage alludes to the results of a pattern of rigorous
discipline that informs many "performing arts" (which
would include the tea ceremony and calligraphy as well as theater) in
Japan, as well as East-Asian martial arts. No is exemplary in
this respect, since its forms of diction, gestures, gaits, and dance
movements are all highly stylized and extremely unnatural. The idea is
that one practices for years a "form" (*kata*) that
goes counter to the movements of the body and thus requires tremendous
discipline--to the point of a breakthrough to a "higher
naturalness" that is exhibited when the form has been
consummately incorporated. This kind of spontaneity gives the
impression, as in the case of Grace, of something
"supernatural."


## 7. *Yugen* and Landscape Painting



Intriguing features of Japanese aesthetics are revealed through the
artistic practices of Sesshu Toyo and his most
celebrated work, the so-called "Splashed ink landscape" of
1495 (*Haboku* *Sansui*, literally, "Broken Ink
Landscape"). Taking the first steps towards reading his art
calls on us to recognize a distinctive feature of Japanese landscape
paintings, that is, as art objects they have a considerably expanded
aesthetic status relative to similar works as interpreted within
Western philosophical and art historical traditions. Of course, the
painting object itself is important, but key aesthetic value also lies
in the bodily performance the work attests to. Properly estimating the
beauty of Sesshu's "Splashed ink
landscape"--similar to how one should appreciate Japanese
calligraphy--involves more than simply making judgments regarding
the marks on paper, but also calls for an appreciation of the bodily
movements that created the work. Because Sesshu's
spontaneous movements were cultivated according to highly disciplined
Zen Buddhist practices, interpreting his landscape art demands an
aesthetics expanded to embrace the philosophic and religious.



Sesshu Toyo (Xue Zhou Deng Yang ,
1420-1506) was a towering figure of the Japanese art world who
helped initiate an indigenous artistic tradition at a time when
philosophic-religious practices were going beyond their Chinese
influence, as Chan Buddhism gave rise to Zen Buddhism in Japan.
Sesshu was part of a trajectory of many centuries to establish
Japanese forms of Buddhism as an enduring feature of the
country's religious, philosophic, and aesthetic identity. During
his life, Zen was reaching prominence as a religious discipline, as
were the related arts under Ashikaga patronage. The Muromachi Period
was the time of Zen aesthetics: not only monochrome ink painting, but
all Japanese aesthetic practices (*geido*) including
calligraphy, tea ceremony, No drama, and dry landscape gardening
flourished as expressions of the Zen, especially Rinzai Zen, spirit of
the time. During this period, a shift was underway in the painting
world from *kara-e* (Tang Hui  "Chinese
painting") to *yamato-e*
(Da He Hui  "Japanese painting").
Representations of deities for devotional purposes, and paintings of
Daoist and Buddhist themes (*doshakuga*) were being
supplanted as the heart of art practice as Japan saw its first
movements towards initiating an art tradition seeking purely aesthetic
ideals. Landscape painting was central to that movement.



Sesshu was a celebrated painter, poet, calligrapher, and
gardener, who mastered all of the major Chinese styles and genres,
from bird and flower paintings, to portraiture, hanging scrolls,
screens, and fans. It was his landscapes, however, particularly his
famed "Splashed Ink Landscape" for which he has been
immortalized. This painting offers insight into a central concept of
Japanese aesthetics discussed above, that is, *yugen*.



![reproduction of Splashed Ink Landscape](splashed-ink-landscape-thumb.jpg)

Splashed Ink Landscape by Sesshu





The mysterious grace of his most celebrated landscape painting derives
as much from the space that is left un-touched, the invisible and
absent (often referred to as the "dragon's veins" of
a painting) as from what is painted and visible. The work appears
incomplete, still in the act of formation, and the dramatic negative
spaces created by the mists allow the various forms to dissolve and
blend into one another, but more decisively, according to the
yugen dynamic, this negativity invites the viewer into the
painting to actively complete it. As artists employing yugen
principles in other genres have shown, the incompleteness and
allusiveness of the artwork summons the viewer into the scene. In
Ghilardi's words, "the onlooker must merge in the image,
completing the empty spaces, making it a lively element of nature
itself, 'between' visible and invisible" (Ghilardi,
2015, 99).



Sesshu does not seek to render every detail of the landscape to
achieve representational verisimilitude, to depict an object that
would be discernible for a subject. The aim is to give only a
suggestion or a trace of trees, mountains, or waters, which appear to
negate themselves as objects. Accordingly, Sesshu does not
circumscribe forms but offers the impression of poetic immediacy by
breaking them down. Extreme abbreviation and abstraction are employed
such that any form, if even discernible, is pushed as far as possible
from objectivity without disappearing completely into formlessness. As
Jullien writes regarding Chinese painters who influenced Sesshu,
they paint the "landscape in the tonality of *as if*, in
the mode of appearing-disappearing, at once 'as if there
were' and 'as if there were not.'"(Jullien,
2009. 8) The central grouping of trees, the inn blending into their
trunks, and the tiny oarsman all appear but feel as though they are
about to be lost, maybe already transitioning into a vague memory,
only a brushstroke away from dissolving completely. A sensitive viewer
does not simply perceive a representation of this event, but can sense
the sweeping and spontaneous gestures that gave rise to the
ephemerality of the scene. To appreciate this aesthetic feature of the
painting invokes Buddhist principles Sesshu would have cultivated
as a Zen monk.



Sesshu's life and work are exemplary for Japanese
aesthetics given that his practice was not aesthetic in a restricted
sense, but also encompassed the religious and philosophical principles
of Daoist-inspired Zen Buddhism. "Splashed ink landscape"
was composed in Sesshu's 76th year, a time when
he claimed that his eyes "were growing misty" and Daoism
was increasingly influential for his painting. As a painter-priest,
both his meditative as well as his artistic practice would have aimed
at self-negation, at achieving "non-self" as per the goal
of Zen training. As Yukio Lippit writes, "Splashed Ink Landscape
thus showcases a mode of ink painting that projects both cultivated
artistic agency and a state of subjectlessness. This condition of the
permeable subject would prove pitch-perfect for the Japanese monk
painter of the late medieval period" (Lippit 2012, 71). To
disclose how this aesthetic-religious goal was approached in painting
practice reveals the Daoist roots of Zen Buddhism.



Painting was among the Japanese aesthetic practices referred to as
*geido* Yun Dao . One of the sinographs shared
among the compounds for archery (*kyudo*
Gong Dao ), martial arts (*judo*
Rou Dao ), calligraphy (*shodo* Shu Dao ),
flower arranging (*kado* Hua Dao ), tea ceremony
(*sado* Cha Dao ) is the sinograph *dao*
(Dao ), (*do* or *michi* in Japanese)
indicating the philosophic-religious orientation of the practices. To
move according to the *dao* is to move with a natural
spontaneity as an embodiment of the well-known concept
"non-action" (*wuwei* Wu Wei ). Acting
spontaneously involves moving beyond the binary of activity or
passivity; that is, the world moves the body as much as the body moves
in the world. Accordingly, as Nishida comments, we can say that
"Sesshu painted nature or that nature painted itself
through Sesshu" (Nishida 1990, 135). The graceful
naturalness of the swordsman, the calligrapher, or the No actor
is also characteristic of the painter's gestures. All are bodily
practices that seek to harmonize with the spontaneous motions of the
*dao* through non-action. Thus, to estimate the aesthetic value
of Sesshu's brushwork is to appreciate its religious source
in Daoist-informed Buddhist practice. Because observers can harmonize
their own bodies with the movements animating the painting, the work
elicits more than aesthetic judgments, it is itself a site for
cultivating religious-philosophic discipline.



The "splashed ink" technique Sesshu employed is
particularly exemplary of the expanded frame of Japanese aesthetics.
"Splashed Ink" (*hatsuboku*) was one of several
"broken ink" (*haboku*) spontaneous techniques
originating in China, which Sesshu learned while travelling to
study with painters and conduct religious practice at its monasteries.
The techniques ranged from spontaneous washes and splashes to actual
ink-flinging and dripping. While these methods sound reckless and were
associated with an "aesthetics of inebriation" and
"aesthetics of accident," the splashed ink idiom is in
fact the most demanding style, regarded as the highest form of
expression and the supreme test of the artist's skill. Likewise,
it was thought to test the observer's sensitivity like no other
genre. The style originated with the "literati" artists of
the Southern Song School of Chinese landscape painting who favored
*yugen*-style abbreviated poetic suggestion, rather than
the detailed and descriptive "academic" approach of the
Northern School. Thus, following this tradition, painters such as
Sesshu did not aim to develop virtuoso skill to create a fully
formed art image, but in negating the self and becoming continuous
with the motions of nature, they follow the Daoist precept that
"the great image has no form."


## 8. *Iki*: Refined Style



*The Structure of "Iki"* ("Iki" no
kozo) by Kuki Shuzo (1888-1941) is arguably
the most significant work in Japanese aesthetics from the twentieth
century--and certainly one of the shortest. Kuki wrote the first
draft in 1926 while living in Paris, toward the end of a seven-year
stay in Europe, and published the book shortly after returning to
Japan in 1929. It's a phenomenological and hermeneutic study of
a phenomenon, *iki*, that was central to Japanese aesthetic
life during the previous two or three hundred years and derived from
forms of erotic relations between men and geisha in the pleasure
quarters of the big cities. Kuki remarks that although the French
terms *chic*, *coquet*, and *raffine*
share connotations with the term *iki*, no European word is
capable of translating the richness of its
meanings--unsurprisingly, since it emerged from a particular
cultural context and Kuki is concerned to grasp the "living
form" of the phenomenon as experienced. Kuki mentions the French
*esprit* and the German *Sehnsucht* as terms that are
similarly untranslatable, for similar reasons of cultural embeddedness
(Nara, 15-16).



Kuki distinguishes two further "moments" of *iki*
in addition to its basis in seductiveness or coquetry
(*bitai*): "brave composure" (*ikiji*) and
"resignation" (*akirame*). Insofar as *iki*
as seductiveness is concerned "to maintain a dualistic
relationship, protecting the possibility as
possibility"--an allusion to Heidegger's existential
conception of death as ultimate possibility--it already embraces
impermanence and mortality. The first sense in which iki preserves the
possibility as possibility, and thus maintains a dualistic
relationship, is that the act of sexual union is not consummated (or
at least postponed). This preservation of possibility is further
enhanced by brave composure, which for Kuki is exemplified in the
attitude toward death (his own and others') on the part of the
samurai warrior and his way of living (*bushido*). It is
enhanced too by the moment of resignation, which Kuki understands as
the Buddhist attitude of non-attachment to a world of impermanence.
All together they enable a kind of aesthetic "play",
thanks to a (phenomenological) "bracketing" of the
concerns of everyday life (Nara, 18-23).



After positioning the phenomenon of *iki* among a variety of
other aesthetic feelings such as sweet (*amami*) versus
astringent (*shibumi*), flashy (*hade*) versus quiet
(*jimi*), and crude (*gehin*) versus refined
(*johin*), Kuki goes on to examine the objective
expressions of the phenomenon, which are either "natural"
or "artistic" (Nara, 24-34). In nature, willow trees
and slow, steady rain exemplify *iki*; in the human body a
slight relaxation, a voice of medium rather than high pitch, a face
that is long rather than round, a certain tension and relaxation
together of the eyes, mouth, and cheeks, the hand curved or slightly
bent back. Also *iki* is the wearing of thin fabric, makeup
thinly applied, hair styled not too formally, with the aid of water
rather than oil, and a *decolletage* designed to call
attention to the nape of the neck laid bare (Nara, 35-39).



In the "free art" of design, parallel lines, and
especially vertical stripes, are expressive of *iki*: almost
all the other beautiful patterns developed by Japanese fabric arts,
since they often involve curved lines, are un-*iki*. The only
colors that embody *iki* are certain grays, browns, and blues.
In architecture the small (four-and-a-half mat) Zen teahouse is a
paradigm of *iki*, especially insofar as it initiates an
interplay between wood and bamboo. Lighting must be subdued: indirect
daylight or else the kind of illumination provided by a paper lantern.
The scales, melodies, and rhythms of various kinds of music are
correspondingly *iki*, insofar as (alluding to Goethe,
Schelling, and Schopenhauer)"Architecture is frozen music, and
music is flowing architecture" (Nara, 41-51).



In his conclusion, Kuki asks whether various nineteenth-century and
contemporary European arts might exemplify *iki* and decides
probably not exactly, though he allows that various aspects of
Baudelaire's poetry and aesthetics come very close (with the
difference that dandyism is a male prerogative whereas *iki* is
associated with both sexes). During his seven years in Germany and
France he listened to lectures and seminars by, and conversed with,
such figures as Heinrich Rickert, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger,
Henri Bergson, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Kuki thereby developed a
sophisticated understanding of European philosophy and aesthetics, and
was concerned after his return to Japan to apply methods he had
learned to a Japanese aesthetic phenomenon. He didn't therefore
aspire to any kind of universal aesthetics--since *iki* is
rooted in the culture of a particular ethnic group. Yet because the
Japanese at that time, under geopolitical pressure to modernise more
efficiently, were losing touch with their own traditions, Kuki took it
as one of his tasks to celebrate the aesthetic values of the past
(Nara, 58-60).



He has unfortunately been excoriated on these grounds as an
ultranationalist and even a fascist, notably by Leslie Pincus in her
book *Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki
Shuzo and the Rise of National Aesthetics*, and this
deters some people from reading him. But while Pincus's book
provides a good deal of helpful historical background of the milieu in
which Kuki was working in Japan, her claims that he was a fascist are
groundless (see Parkes 1997, 2007). An unprejudiced reading of *The
Structure of Iki* reveals no fascist tendencies whatsoever, and
the nationalist themes are innocuous, simply calling for a remembering
of what is valuable in the Japanese tradition and likely to be lost
beneath the waves of modernization--in a world where connections
with the past were withering and Japan was warding off the
colonization of East and South Asia by the Western powers.



Kuki is a fascinating thinker, and *The Structure of Iki*,
while occasionally tortuous because of its commitment to a strictly
European methodology, illuminates some fascinating aspects of the
Japanese aesthetic tradition while at the same time engaging the
deepest levels of experience anywhere.


## 9. *Kire*: Cutting



A distinctive notion in Japanese aesthetic discourse is that of the
"cut" (*kire*) or, "cut-continuity"
(*kire-tsuzuki*). The "cut" is a basic trope in the
Rinzai School of Zen Buddhism, especially as exemplified in the
teachings of the Zen master Hakuin (1686-1769). For Hakuin the
aim of "seeing into one's own nature" can only be
realized if one has "cut off the root of life": "You
must be prepared to let go your hold when hanging from a sheer
precipice, to die and return again to life" (Hakuin,
133-35). The cut appears as a fundamental feature in the
distinctively Japanese art of flower arrangement called
*ikebana*. The term means literally "making flowers
live"--a strange name, on first impression at least, for an
art that begins by initiating their death. There is an exquisite essay
by Nishitani Keiji on this marvelous art, in which organic life is cut
off precisely in order to let the true nature of the flower to come to
the fore (Nishitani, 23-7). There is something curiously
deceptive, from the Buddhist viewpoint of the impermanence of all
things, about plants, which, lacking locomotion and by sinking roots
into the earth, assume an appearance of being especially "at
home" wherever they are. In severing the flowers from their
roots, Nishitani suggests, and placing them in an alcove (itself cut
off from direct light, as Tanizaki remarks), one is letting them show
themselves as they truly are: as absolutely rootless as every other
being in this world of radical impermanence.



The notion of cut-continuation is exemplified in the highly stylized
gait of the actors in the No drama. The actor slides the foot
along the floor with the toes raised, and then "cuts" off
the movement by quickly lowering the toes to the floor--and
beginning at that precise moment the sliding movement along the floor
with the other foot. This stylization of the natural human walk draws
attention to the episodic nature of life, which is also reflected in
the pause between every exhalation of air from the lungs and the next
inhalation. Through attending to the breath in zen meditation one
becomes aware that the pause between exhalation and inhalation is
different--more of a cut--from that between inhalation and
exhalation. This reflects the possibility of life's being cut
off at any moment: the one exhalation that isn't followed by an
inhalation, known as "breathing one's last."



Cutting also appears in the "cut-syllable"
(*kireji*) in the art of *haiku* poetry, which cuts off
one image from--at the same time as it links it to--the
next. There is a famous cut-syllable, *ya*, at the end of the
first line of the best known haiku by Basho, the most famous
haiku poet:



> 
> 
> 
> |  |  |
> | --- | --- |
> | *Furuike ya*
> 
> *Kawazu tobikomu*
> 
> *Mizu no oto*. | Ah, an ancient pond--
>  
>  Suddenly a frog jumps in!
>  
>  The sound of water. |
> 
> 
> 



The most distinctively Japanese style of garden, the "dry
landscape" (*karesansui*) garden, owes its existence to
the landscape's being "cut off" from the natural
world beyond its borders. The epitome of this style is the rock garden
at Ryoanji in Kyoto, where fifteen "mountain"-shaped
rocks are set in beds of moss in a rectangular "sea" of
white gravel.



![thumbnail photo of Ryoanji](ryoanji0-thumb.jpg)
![thumbnail photo of Ryoanji](ryoanji1-thumb.jpg)
  

![thumbnail photo of Ryoanji](ryoanji2-thumb.jpg)
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![thumbnail photo of Ryoanji](ryoanji4-thumb.jpg)
![thumbnail photo of Ryoanji](ryoanji5-thumb.jpg)
  

![thumbnail photo of Ryoanji](ryoanji6-thumb.jpg)
![thumbnail photo of Ryoanji](ryoanji7-thumb.jpg)
  

![thumbnail photo of Ryoanji](ryoanji8-thumb.jpg)
![thumbnail photo of Ryoanji](ryoanji9-thumb.jpg)

Larger Photographs of the Dry Landscape Garden at Ryoanji





(The Japanese word for landscape, *sansui*, means literally
"mountains waters": see Berthier 2000.) At Ryoanji
the rock garden is cut off from the outside by a splendid wall that is
nevertheless low enough to permit a view of the natural surroundings.
This cut, which is in a way doubled by the angled roof that runs along
the top of the wall and seems to cut it off, is most evident in the
contrast between movement and stillness. Above and beyond the wall
there is nature in movement: branches wave and sway, clouds float by,
and the occasional bird flies past. But unless rain or snow is
falling, or a stray leaf is blown across, the only movement visible
within the garden is shadowed or illusory, as the sun or moon casts
slow-moving shadows of tree branches on the motionless gravel.



The garden is cut off on the near side too, by a border of pebbles
(larger, darker, and more rounded than the pieces of gravel) that runs
along the east and north edges. There is a striking contrast between
the severe rectangularity of the garden's borders and the
irregular natural forms of the rocks within them. The expanse of
gravel is also cut through by the upthrust of the rocks from below:
earth energies mounting and peaking in irruptions of stone. Each group
of rocks is cut off from the others by the expanse of gravel, and the
separation is enhanced by the "ripple" patterns in the
raking that surrounds each group (and some individual rocks). And yet
the overall effect of these cuttings is actually to intensify the
invisible lines of connection among the rocks, whose interrelations
exemplify the fundamental Buddhist insight of "dependent
co-arising" (*engi*).



The rock garden also embodies the central Buddhist insight of
impermanence. Insofar as its being cut off from the surrounding nature
has the effect of drying up its organic life, which then no longer
decays in the usual manner. Being dried up (the *kare* of
*karesansui* means "withered"), the mountains and
waters of the garden at Ryoanji at first appear less temporary
than their counterparts outside, which manifest the cyclical changes
that organic life is heir to. But just as plants look deceptively
permanent thanks to their being rooted in the earth, so the rocks of
the dry landscape garden give a misleading impression of permanence,
especially when one revisits them over a period of years. As
participants in (what Thoreau called) "the great central
life" of the earth, rocks have a life that unfolds in time
sequences that are quite different from ours--and yet also
subject to the impermanence that conditions all things.


## 10. Ozu Yasujiro: Cinematic Cuts



The garden at Ryoanji makes a brief but significant appearance in
one of the classics of Japanese cinema, Ozu Yasujiro's
*Late Spring* (1949). It comes right after one of the
film's most famous images: a vase standing on a tatami mat in
front of a window on which silhouettes of bamboo are projected. The
scene in question consists of eight shots, seven of which show the
Ryoanji rocks (of which there are fifteen in total), and which
are separated and joined by seven cuts. (Ozu hardly ever uses any
other transition than the cut, such as the wipe.) After two shots of
rocks in the garden, the camera angle reverses and we see the main
protagonist with his friend--they are both fathers of
daughters--sitting on the wooden platform with the tops of two
rocks occupying the lower part of the frame. Two rocks and two
fathers. Cut to a close-up of the fathers from their left side, with
no rocks in view. In their dark suits, and seated in the classic Ozu
"overlapping triangles" configuration, leaning forward
toward the garden with their arms around knees drawn up toward their
chins, they resemble two rocks. They talk about how they raise
children who then go off to live their own lives. As they invoke such
manifestations of impermanence, they remain motionless except for the
occasional nod or turn of the head.



![](LSwindow-thumb.jpg)
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Enlarged Sequence of Stills from *Late Spring*





In their brief conversation by the edge of the garden, the two fathers
do little more than exchange platitudes about family life--and
yet the scene is a profoundly moving expression of the human
condition. It gains this effect from the assimilation of the figures
of the two men to rocks, which seems to affirm the persistence of
cycles of impermanence. These images of assimilation capture one of
the central ideas behind the dry landscape garden: that of the
continuum between human consciousness and stone, which is also
understandable as the kinship of awareness with its original
basis.



The opening shots of *Tokyo Story* (1953), which some consider
Ozu's greatest film, are also exemplary with respect to the
cutting. The first shot shows a shrine sculpture to the left of center
and behind it an estuary with a boat chugging along to the right, in
the direction of a gradual rise of hills on the horizon. After ten
seconds, just as the boat is about to disappear beyond the
frame--there is a cut to the pavement on the side of a street. A
cart now occupies the left foreground of the frame, and beside it
stand two large bottles (Ozu's signature shapes). Eight small
children in school uniform walk away from the camera to the right.
Continuity is provided by a parallel between the river and horizon of
the first scene and the horizontal lines of the pavement and houses in
the second, as well as by the movement toward the right. Also aurally
by the continuing sound of the boat's putt-putting. A ninth
child appears and as he passes the bottles and reaches the center of
the frame--there is a cut to a shot over the roofs of houses of a
train traveling to the right, with behind it the buildings of a shrine
or temple, and then hills behind those. The putting sound of the boat
continues before being drowned out by the sound of the train, and the
almost horizontal line of the train's passage continue to be
congruent with those of the street, descending gradually to the right.
Smoke issues from two chimneys at left and center, the scene lasting
fifteen seconds.



As the end of the train reaches the center of the frame--the
sound continues but there is a cut to a closer shot of the train from
the hill side, so that it is now moving up along a diagonal to the
left. Behind the houses on the other side of the train is the estuary
again. As the train's whistle blows--there is a cut to a
shrine surrounded by pine trees and statuary standing on an embankment
with the estuary in the background on the far left. Continuity is
provided by a chimney in the foreground that spouts smoke as the
train's steam whistle continues. The main line has reverted to a
horizontal line rising toward the right. After six seconds, the
shortest scene so far--there is a cut to a grandfather and
grandmother sitting on the tatami matting of their home in the
village, facing toward the right. The grandfather, consulting a
timetable, says, "We'll pass Osaka at around 6:00 this
evening," referring to a train trip they are just about to take
to Tokyo, which will initiate the film's main action.



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Enlarged Sequence of Stills from *Tokyo Story*





For each cut Ozu has arranged for at least one formal element to
provide continuity (*kire-tsuzuki*) between the adjacent
scenes. There are of course other directors capable of consummate
cuts, but a study of Ozu's show them to constitute what may be
"the kindest cut of all" in world cinema.