The Japanese aesthetic persists after 27 years
Though it’s many years since I lived in Kyoto, I doubt I’ll ever lose my quasi-Japanese aesthetic sense. Quickly, let me declare my boorish ignorance of this topic! Nevertheless, I continue to take photos that celebrate quiet, small, half-hidden, mysterious, rough, innocent, shocking, light-hearted, peculiar kinds of beauty. Even ugly-beauty. Japan expanded my ability to see, my sense of beauty. And considering how long Japan’s philosophy and culture have endured, no wonder the Japanese aesthetic persists in my own mind, 27 years later.
Before I lived in Japan, I think more conventional items stirred my sense of beauty. A mountain, a house, a face, a painting in a frame. Things or beings that were already defined, labelled, and outlined.
Living in Japan shocked me into admiring (almost adoring) the shape and energy of a tiny weed in a broken wall, a flash of colour lit by sunshine, an energetic shadow, a flower before or after its peak. My eyes fix less on a handsome building, more on a single element such as its angles or shade or empty spaces. I lived for a while with a tea master, his partner, and some of his students. They explained the concept of wabi-sabi to start me off, and for two more years I soaked up that world of Zen, Noh, Tea, gardens…
Here’s a funny contradiction. Japan has a national list of their most beautiful views, even prescribing the exact place to stand in order to take a photo of the exact same standard view. But Japan thrives on contradictions and anomalies: they’re part of Japanese aesthetics. My tea-people taught me to enjoy contradictions, not to struggle with them.
Anyway, here are a few photos from the last week to show you what I mean. I don’t know if you’ll agree with me — but I really love my daily aesthetic adventures as I tread pretty much the same routes every day.
The weed photo is nothing special, but I just cannot resist a tiny plant forcing itself through a wall and struggling to hang on.
What charms me about this photo? Not the chair in the background. The silky look of pine when the sun shines on it. The cat caught in an odd pose, looking a bit meercattish. Those OTT peonies sprouting petals from their stamens: how dare they be so big and beautiful? And the shadows. It’s far too cluttered to reflect the Japanese aesthetic: but my appreciation was born in Kyoto.
What I love about this photo? Let me count… Three great buildings in the background, two grey males so boldly angled and a softer female companion on the right: they’re like parents overseeing the bad dad who defiled the wall with graffiti. I adore the flowers, so tiny and as white as lightning. I like the way the shapes change so clearly in this photo from top to bottom: from sharp and pointy (roofs), soft and round (bushes that I think are Pittosporum Tenuifolium or Kohuhu) and even sharper (the leaves of the New Zealand native iris, Libertia Ixioides). But a true Japanese aesthete would probably have focused on a tiny corner of this photo.
Another post making use of my Kyoto eye for beauty
Most people know exactly why they take photos of people. But other than people, what do you like to photograph? What grabs your attention? And why?
I enjoy your photos very much and have often thought that they show an interesting awareness of the combinations of things. This post explains something of how and why this is so.
Thanks, Anne. I’m glad you noticed something different about them and glad it’s been explained.
Thanks for explaining the idea behind the photos. Lovely pics. Love the last one with graffiti the best.
Aha! I like it too.
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
I like photographing the creek, because it is different every day.
I am enamoured of the Japanese aesthetic, or at least what I know of it. Yesterday I learned about “komorebi” ~ sunlight that filters through the leaves. I often try to capture that light in my photos. I usually fail!
Perfect! What a fun challenge.
I really enjoyed your photos. I enjoyed Part of a Fence – the subdued colours. Some years ago I read about the concept of Wabi Sabi – its an approach that appeals to me. Lastly: good to see a pic of Ursula, after a cat-less free months of posts.
Shadows, reflections, and movement for me!
Interesting! I see them in a recent photo you posted with tower, boat and reflection in perfect alignment.
What an interesting post Rachel and so much to think about. I take photos of cats and dogs going about their daily business. The cat that lives in our house is photographed many times during the day. I love how he looks out of the living room window. There is much to see as he looks over the valley. And when I’m out, I see a cat contentedly sleeping in the Sun or a dog, running off with a stolen shoe in his mouth. I wonder what they are thinking. Now I I will be looking for plants popping out of unexpected places. Are they weeds or plants?
Cats arrange themselves into irresistible shapes, day in day out. Dogs do not pose for the photographer so you have to be ready and fast. And of course, all plants are plants 🙂
Great post.
I kept going back to relook at the pics to see what I had missed.
You know from my blog that I loved my beach.
It was never the same.
I miss taking photos.
Not much scope for it in the complex.
That’s sad. Beaches are beautiful every minute of every day. Is the complex too tidy? But keep your eyes skinned for tiny patterns and surprises 🙂
Thanks so much for this post. Your kawaii maneki nekos beckoned me. What loveliness. I don’t have kitties— real or figurines. What I have are frogs.
As you must know, frogs are kaero in Japanese.
I married into a family whose fascination was with the kaeru. And I love inheriting that.
My kaeru is in my genkan. It’s the last thing one sees before leaving the house and the first thing upon returning.
Also, as you must know, the welcome back greeting is O-Kaeri-nasai. It balances the itterasshai of leaving. I adore this.
I love my kaeru. But I’m hoping to get me some nekos next year.
Your photos are soothing to my soul. All of them. You have that Asian soul. How lovely. I was immediately drawn to the brick fence. Adore that.
As for me, I get such pleasure from nature and am particularly enamored with hairs on plants. Sunlight needs to filter in slanted for the lovely hairs to show. I love this.
Thanks for writing this and forgive the length of my response. I’ll curb my enthusiasm next time. I bless you, Rachel. Nice to meet you. Xoxo
So good to hear from you, Selma. I will immediately start paying attention to hairs on plants in slanting sunshine. I like thinking about your kaeru, and the way some things have a beauty that is both personal and cultural.