Non western aesthetics: Japan (Part one)

Muqi Fachang: Six Persimmons

One of the main reasons I have been drawn towards a study of non-western aesthetics is because of the dangers now threatening us as a species, in particular climate change and global warming. I believe that because of these threats we need to change entire sets of behavior patterns. In the West we have tended to separate art out from the rest of what we do and in doing so apply certain aesthetic ideas into very elite areas of human experience, which leads to a situation whereby most people dismiss art as totally irrelevant to their lives. For instance the long Greenberg influenced debate surrounding the specificity of painting as an art form, or Danto’s writings on the specific nature of art as something defined and bounded by the art world itself. When faced with the reality of existence and how precious life is these sorts of art bound definitions seem irrelevant. This is why I have in a recent post celebrated the writings of John Dewey, a philosopher who did value the way art could reflect real life experience and why in earlier posts I have looked at object orientated ontology as a way of using philosophy to help see how everything is both connected and relatable.

I have touched upon the issue of non-western aesthetics a couple of times recently, looking at both Indian and Chinese approaches to aesthetic form, but this time I would like to dig a little deeper and open out ideas that might help us to think of how to apply aesthetics to much wider areas of our experience. This is because I believe that aesthetics is fundamentally about what we care about and if we don't care about the wider world, we won't have it to care about for much longer. Aesthetics has a much greater relevance within Japanese culture than is accorded to aesthetics in the West, therefore it is perhaps useful to explore how this situation arose.

In her fascinating book, ‘Bonds of Civility’ Eiko Ikegami describes how the people of Japan incorporated aesthetic awareness into the very social fabric of their daily lives. Japanese people becoming both producers and makers of aesthetically significant productions. Ikegami points out that identity, culture and meaning are emergent properties and that by focusing on aesthetic issues people within a very structured and hierarchical society could develop meaningful relationships with the world and their place in it without coming into direct conflict with those that sought to hold on to power. In our own society we also have many disenfranchised people who feel that they have no meaningful relationship with the world. Our current art practices are not designed to help with this and in many ways totally ignore or turn away from the problem. If you walk through the local streets where I live in Leeds you immediately sense that something is wrong, litter and rubbish is tossed everywhere and very little effort is put into the aesthetics of day to day communication between people. If people's lives don’t matter why should they bother? But their lives do matter, and so does the life of the planet. If people don’t value their local environment, they definitely won’t value the rest of the Earth outside of that locality.

 In Japan the aesthetic sensibility must have taken a thousand years to fully develop. Capitalism as an idea has also taken a long time to become part and parcel of people’s everyday lives in the west. But the urgency of the environmental situation might speed the different processes that stimulate change and we might still be able to reframe the way that our society sees itself.

The Japanese aesthetic tradition stems from two religious beliefs. The oldest being Shinto, whereby there is a deep awareness of nature as an energy generating phenomenon, this is reflected in a celebration of the divine nature of trees, rocks, objects, places, animals and people, all of which are seen as being interconnected and sharing the world's resources between themselves.  Buddhism in its Japanese form arrived later but there was a similar aspect to Shinto in that there was no human/God divide as there is in Christianity, both Buddhism and Shintoism seek to open people out to what is already there and to help them to achieve some sort of oneness or peace with the world. In the Buddhist tradition, all things are considered as illusions, they are simply points in time on a journey whereby they are evolving from or dissolving into nothingness. Everything has potential to be something else. Nature is seen therefore as a dynamic force and one that humans need to attune to, rather than try to shape. Both these traditions seek to maintain some sort of balance with nature,  making humans aware that they are not separate from nature. The Anthropocene understood in this context is a product of natural forces; because we cannot step outside of nature if we are ourselves part of nature. Any effect on the planet we might have as a species, is something that is caused by nature and nature it could be argued, will therefore have a solution. Imagine a particularly strange bird that needed to build ever more larger and complex nests, as it did so it began to decorate them with glittery things that seemed to add some sort of extra value to these ever growing larger nests, until one day everyone began to realise all of the Earth’s resources were being used up in their nest making. We are like these birds, unaware of anything else but the need to build our nests but at some point these birds will either die out or change their habits. 

Muqi Fachang's 'Six Persimmons' is a meditation on a movement between nothingness and being, it captures the moment of seeing the differences and yet similarities between a family of objects. A moment caught by a few spins of the hand/wrist and a flick of the fingers, enough to embed the human into the persimmons' action. It is in this holding on to a few moments of looking that we can see the bigger picture. Life is indeed wonderful, the simple yet complex pattern of relationships we find in a simple group of objects, echoing the patterns we find all around us. We are just too busy to notice them. This is why aesthetics are so important. They ask us to look and to see the beauty in the looking.

Gibbons Reaching for the Moon, Ito Jakuchu

At other times a visual image can become an entry into a meditative experience. 'Gibbons reaching for the moon' being both an image that highlights human hubris and folly as well as offering a space for further meditation on the nature of life itself. (I have looked at a similar Zen drawing in the past and have opened out its meaning in more detail here) 

It has been argued by Donald Richie that, 'if aesthetics in the West is mainly concerned with theories of art, that of Japan has always been concerned with theories of taste. What is beautiful depends not upon imagination (as Addison thought) nor qualities proper in the object (as Hume said) nor in its paradoxes (as Kant maintained) but rather on a social consensus'. (Richie in 'A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics') In relation to this argument, I believe that we as a society need to recognise the fact that our aesthetic social consensus is basically broken and unfit for purpose and I further believe that it is going to be part of the job of artists to help build a new one. 

If we can spend more time appreciating the world around us, we might not be so quick to destroy it. This awareness is something that should unite the arts and sciences. When you look at a field of growing wild flowers, it is not only beautiful to look at and challenging to draw, but the hidden dynamics of soil structure, the below ground fungal biochemical systems, the plant/insect communication networks, the various interconnected life cycles, can all be understood and more importantly seen as an extension of our own eco-system. Scientific research and sensitive observation leads to an interconnected awareness, which can be something that we tune ourselves into and in this tuning we will find ourselves and the field and all the things of that field to be beautiful. 

The posts put up in this blog are part of my own self education, they are also a response to what I strongly believe is the moral duty of an artist/educator. The making of art cannot take place in a vacuum and if you look at any society that has used art forms, be these multi-media ones or very specific ones such as dance or decorative pottery, you will find that the indigenous art form was something that helped that society develop bonds with both its members and with the world outside of the social group. Whether this is the Australian Aboriginal 'Dreamtime' or a Finnish shaman's singing in of animal spirits, a Japanese tea ceremony or Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. So as you communicate what it is you are trying to do, try to ensure that what you are doing is of benefit, ask others whether it helps them in some way, check on whether or not what you are doing hinders or helps our relationship with the planet. I'm not suggesting all artists should become eco-warriors but I am suggesting that artists need to think about their role in society and what they are communicating. If Shakespeare hadn't bothered to think about how well his work communicated to others he would never have had any of his plays staged. It is not easy and it is also a road lined with traps. The role of the artist is often confused and mythologised by the media, sensationalism often offered up instead of communication. Sometimes artists can get carried away with their own importance. Consider the case of Christoph Büchel and his moving of what is in effect a mass grave from its resting place at the bottom of the sea to the Venice Arsenale.

A visitor to the Venice Biennale takes a selfie of himself with the sunken migrant ship in the background

The cost of raising the ship and transporting it was over £30,000,000. Two fully equipped field hospitals with staffing could have been put into operation to serve one of the world's huge refugee camps for that type of money. Büchel states that he is raising awareness of the plight of migrants, but in effect what he has done is to set up a publicity stunt that ensures that the one name we remember is that of Christoph Büchel. It is work like this that makes me believe that our aesthetic social consensus is basically broken and that what we call the art world is by that very definition also not fit for purpose. Art doesn't need its own world, it should be part of all our worlds. 

If you go to Venice as well as attending to the Biennale you could visit the church of San Zaccaria. Inside the church is Bellini's 'Virgin and Child'. In response to the painting's position Bellini has painted two marble pillars that operate as a frame in order to echo the painting's positioning alongside real marble pillars, these pictorial devices of framing ensuring that we understand that this image is separate from life and is designed to meditate upon both life and its connection to the world of the spirit. If you visit the church at the right time of the day a sunbeam will brightly illuminate the face of the angel, and then slowly but surely this light beam will move across the painting giving 'divine' illumination as it does so. Both the architect and Bellini must have been aware that this would happen. If you go to Newgrange in Ireland, you will find that its alignment captures a sunbeam from the rising sun during the time of the winter solstice, this is something that is of cosmic significance. 

Bellini: Virgin and Child

As I walk to work in the morning I often draw, it helps me look at things and slows me down. When I draw trees I often notice that they collect moss on one side, and that there are more spiders on the other side. The sun is a powerful shaper of life and where we are in relation to it is fundamental to our awareness of what we are and where we fit in; as important for the moss and the spiders as it is for ourselves. The artist Roger Ackling devoted his entire working life to this idea and his austere approach owed much to his awareness of Japanese aesthetics. His small meditations, whereby he focused the rays of the sun so that he could burn simple lines on a washed up piece of wood, were small acts of thoughtfulness that anyone could aspire to. As simple as choosing to not eat red meat, or to re-use a plastic container, not all gestures have to be grand ones, but if we are to live a more aesthetic life, it will be these small gestures that signify that life and art are becoming unified. 

References

Ikegami, E (2005) Bonds of Civility Cambridge University Press: Cambridge

Richie, D. (2007) A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics Stone Bridge Press: Berkeley

Carlson, A. and S. Lintott (eds) (2008), Nature, Aesthetics and Environmentalism: From Beauty to Duty. New York: Columbia University Press.

See also:

More reflections on tone and emotional value and why the tilt of the Earth is vital to our understanding of these things.  I.e. the influence of the sun on drawing

More on Japanese aesthetics 

Drawing in Japan (part two)

Indian Aesthetics

More on Roger Ackling