The spirit and art of imperfection

[Serial_Apologist]

The following link offers a take on an important aspect of Japanese traditional arts - one which has often been considered peculiar to Japan (though it mostly originated in China) but which I have found it possible to make an indispensable part of myself, since it is an approach to life that can be applied to any activity, so-called everyday or so-called artistic, making use of each and every one of the senses, as called upon.

As a practicable as well as spiritual philosophy of life, it chimes in well with advocating and nourishing an ecological basis for proceeding politically in full consciousness of the sustaining principles of balance governing life in all its multifacetedness.

http://getpocket.com/explore/item/japan-s-unusual-way-to-view-the-world?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

[Bryn]

The following link offers a take on an important aspect of Japanese traditional arts - one which has often been considered peculiar to Japan (though it mostly originated in China) but which I have found it possible to make an indispensable part of myself, since it is an approach to life that can be applied to any activity, so-called everyday or so-called artistic, making use of each and every one of the senses, as called upon.

As a practicable as well as spiritual philosophy of life, it chimes in well with advocating and nourishing an ecological basis for proceeding politically in full consciousness of the sustaining principles of balance governing life in all its multifacetedness.

http://getpocket.com/explore/item/ja...b-global-en-GB

As you are no doubt aware, Cage was strongly influenced by Japanese art traditions. Several of his works derived from, for instance, imperfections detected in the paper he was working with.

[Richard Barrett]

As you are no doubt aware, Cage was strongly influenced by Japanese art traditions. Several of his works derived from, for instance, imperfections detected in the paper he was working with.

I have much sympathy with these ideas, which no doubt I first encountered through John Cage, and indeed with many aspects of Japanese culture, including its classical music. Unfortunately I've only visited Japan once, and for a tantalisingly short time, but what I saw and experienced was exactly what I had hoped it would be.

[Beresford]

I see wabi-sabi in the work of the English potter William Plumptre, especially his ropework glazes; he spent a long time in Japan as a student of Shamaoka.

[french frank]

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.

[Richard Barrett]

There's also Castiglione's "nobile sprezzatura", but I think the Japanese concept here isn't a studied slight dishevelment but more to do with what Cage, quoting Ananda Coomaraswamy (who was paraphrasing Aquinas!) puts as “the responsibility of the artist [being] to imitate nature in the manner of her operation.”

[eighthobstruction]

....just listening to John Zorn -Night thoughts : A Vision in Blakelight....which in itself might be a soundtrack for a tiny stream with autumn leaves, and a wabi-sabi tea bowl resting on a rock....
....as a potter who finds it difficult to throw wonky bowls these days....just every now and again one arrives....

[french frank]

There's also Castiglione's "nobile sprezzatura", but I think the Japanese concept here isn't a studied slight dishevelment but more to do with what Cage, quoting Ananda Coomaraswamy (who was paraphrasing Aquinas!) puts as “the responsibility of the artist [being] to imitate nature in the manner of her operation.”

Yes, of course. The Japanese concept doesn't, it seems to me, intend the artist's deliberate pursuit of imperfection in order to create a particular effect but a deliberate intention to capture a kind of reality in a way that perfection doesn't succeed in doing.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, of course. The Japanese concept doesn't, it seems to me, intend the artist's deliberate pursuit of imperfection in order to create a particular effect but a deliberate intention to capture a kind of reality in a way that perfection doesn't succeed in doing.

However the unintentional, or unintended, plays a pivotal role in Japanese arts of this kind, that are analogous with what in the west we think of as "first time luck": e.g. hitting the bullseye without really trying, then finding that trying for the same results in repeated failure. This ties in more widely with the faith the spiritual practices underlying these arts have in the basic trustworthiness of human nature, carefully nurtured, then left as much uninterfered with as possible. There are many Zen anecdotes and parables that back this up.