no Tao. In reality there is nothing in the universe which is completely perfect or completely still; it is only in the minds of men that such concepts exist.”
—Alan Watts
THIS QUOTE FROM ALAN WATTS regarding Zen’s predecessor, Taoism, captures beautifully the link between religious ideals and wabi sabi’s aesthetics. The Taoists in China were, in a very practical and Chinese way, trying to make the most of their lives by living in harmony with nature. It was only through the study of the natural flows of life that they could become one with the Tao, the mystical force that guides all men’s lives.
Like a river, the Tao never remains still. This concept became a fundamental principle in the Taoists cosmic view and was to become a hallmark not only of Taoism but of the Zen that was to follow it. This deference for the random and sporadic was to find its voice in many forms of artistic endeavors as the art of the day was driven, as it is today, by the underlying religious beliefs of the artists. Wabi sabi, as a product of the Zen mind, can find its earliest roots in Zen’s forerunner, Taoism, and we will explore in these pages its development from its first inklings in China to the cultural icon that it became in Japan.
Although the development of wabi sabi–style art is patchy and hard to pinpoint, one could cite the Song dynasty (960–1279) as the period when art was beginning to show some leanings toward the ideals of wabi sabi, even though they may not have been expressed in such terms. It was at this time that the first wen-jen hua, or literati painting, appeared. The literati were amateurs who often disagreed with the styles fashionable at the royal academy and who produced their own distinctive landscapes. The Northern Song practitioners of wen-jen hua preferred less grandiose subjects than did the official painters, often selecting a single tree or a rock with bamboo. This preference for simple subjects remained a characteristic of literati painting. The brevity and simplicity of the work provided ample space for the mental collaboration of the audience, and this was to become a defining feature of later wabi sabi designs.
During the period of the dynasty known as the Southern Song (1127–1279), the emperors’ painting academy produced a style of landscape known as the Ma-Hsia school, derived from the two greatest artists of the time, Ma Yüan and Hsia Kuei. Drawing on the expansiveness found in the Northern Song tradition, they created views with much less brushwork. For example, they used mist as a device to suggest landmass and to give the painting a light, ethereal quality. Ma Yüan was often called “one-corner Ma” because he would restrict much of his painting to a single corner of the canvas, leaving the rest blank. This technique enhanced the sensation of open space and suggested infinity, a quality much prized in the Ma-Hsia tradition. The Japanese were to become masters of space, and have throughout their long artistic history stressed the importance of space or nothingness as a juxtaposition to things that presently exist.
As the silence between notes in music is vital, so the space provided in art is just as expressive, and wabi sabi has used brevity to magnify the intensity of the expression.
In sharp contrast to the serenity of the work of Ma Yüan and Hsia Kuei stands the brush painting of the Ch’an monks (Ch’an is the Chinese equivalent of Zen and, like Zen, takes its name from the Sanskrit term for meditation, dhyana). Followers of this branch of the Buddhist faith believed in the spontaneity of artistic creation, often producing paintings in a few frenzied minutes. The style, characterized by free and often loosely defined brushwork, was dismissed by official academy painters as the work of “crazy drunkards.” The independence of the Zen painting school became an important model in later centuries when more artists became disillusioned with the purely academic styles. Zen monks, because of their profoundly different worldviews, often differed radically from the establishment. This move away from common norms manifested itself in a key aspect of wabi sabi design: that of a love for the unconventional—not simply for the sake of being unconventional but rather because unconventional art stimulates different ways of perceiving art.
The Zen temples in Japan led the way for Japan’s arts. It was suggested by a current resident abbot of the Daitokuji temple in Kyoto that one of the first real movements toward an appreciation of physical objects that have a humble and rustic appeal came at a time when Buddhist monks, whose temples were often under funded, had to entertain guests. As they did not own any high-quality art, they had to use what was available to them to produce an aesthetically pleasing effect, and to this end objects of nature such as bamboo and wildflowers were used in place of more ornate artifacts such as Chinese porcelain.
In so doing, they were focusing on the natural, the impermanent, and the humble, and in these simple and often rustic objects they discovered the innate beauty to be found in the exquisite random patterns left by the flow of nature. The small nuances of color, the curve of an opening petal, the crack in a bamboo vase, or the decay of a knot in old timber all came to symbolize mujo, which is the Buddhist tenet of impermanence and continuous flux. As the physical manifestations of mujo , these simple objects then became vehicles for aesthetic contemplation. Wabi sabi became the term associated with this quality, and as such mujo forms a defining aspect of wabi sabi objects. If an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi sabi. Realizing this, the Zen monks then strove to produce objects and environments that used these characteristics to elevate one’s state of mind.
From the Zen monasteries came architecture and aesthetic ideals that were then absorbed into the Japanese way of life, and from this era the profusion of arts was more often than not inspired by the work of a Zen master. One such art is the tea ceremony, which, due to its links with the Zen monk Ikkyu and his school of thought, became a cornerstone of high culture and the expression of beauty in sobriety. With the tea ceremony movement came the art of ikebana, flower arranging, and raku ceramics. There were several schools of flower arranging, but the one that best represents the wabi sabi sentiments of the tea ceremony is called nagaire (literally to throw into). In this school , the arranger ignores principles laid down in other, more regimented schools and instead lets the simplicity of the flowers, in harmony with the visual characteristics of the vase, reflect life’s beauty and evanescence. Raku-style pottery was incorporated into the tea ceremony as a reaction to the ornate Chinese utensils adopted by the nobility and emphasized the beauty of rustic imperfection over attempts at perfection. It was during this period that, under the guidance of the tea masters, Japan’s artistry moved into a new era with the appreciation of things wabi sabi reaching its zenith.
In this period there was also a more cynical force behind the promotion of wabi sabi art. The wealth that Kyoto had enjoyed as the capital of Japan was greatly diminished by the movement of the capital to Kamakura, which is just outside the modern Tokyo. Iemoto was the term used for the founders or inheritors of teachings, secrets, and prized scrolls relating to the arts such as music, dance, No theater, and the tea ceremony, and it was through this medium that teachings were passed down through the generations. This status then gives the iemoto the right to final arbitration on any points of practice or technique, and as such it was also a valuable source of revenue—not entirely dissimilar from modern-day patents. The sometimes jealous harboring of these treasures and the status they brought has had a great deal of influence on the way arts have developed in Japan. On the one hand, it has maintained a degree of continuity from the original teachings and in some cases preserved the original orthodox practices; on the other hand, it has sometimes become tainted by political and financial considerations, and then strays far from the original spirit intended by the founder. The strict adherence to the ideas given by Sen no Rikyu (see later discussion of the tea ceremony) has led to some aspects of the tea ceremony becoming devoid of any real spiritual union—the fundamental reason for its creation.
It has also been suggested that some of the mystery and intrigue surrounding the ethereal properties of wabi sabi art was intentionally promoted by the iemoto families, whose incomes had been severely diminished by the emergence of Kamakura. Without the funds for the more ornate and gorgeous artifacts, the iemoto families turned their attention to the readily available wabi sabi–style art, and then enhanced its value by shrouding it in mystery. So, the activities of the iemoto families played a considerable role in the promotion