Which Of Your Tsubas Best Embodies The Wabi-Sabi Aesthetic?

[Guest]

my little contribution...

 

[Brian]

Tom, another one I would be very happy to own

[MauroP]

Two different ways to render wabi-sabi: a material way with beauty which comes from the imperfections and stains in an old and weared tsuba, and a conceptual way representing the impermanence showing the theme of torned fans (yabure ōgi - 破扇).

[Pete Klein]

This is not a tsuba but a kozuka which I feel pertains:

 

https://yuhindo.com/juyo-ko-mino-kozuka/

[Jean]

Could match this kogai

https://www.aoijapan.com/kogai-mumei-ko-mino34th-nbthk-juyo-paper/

[Curran]

For those of us much into the Ko-Mino stuff:

 

The kozuka is a fair to high end Juyo.

The kogai is lesser. You will see a number more examples like it.

The odds are long, but I bought my lottery ticket for the kozuka.

[rkg]

TIm's comments are interesting...

 

Here's an image of a kozuka I have papered to Goto Joshin that seems to go with this "made to look worn" aesthetic - the uttori has been carefully rolled back and/or removed to get that "shabby chic" look:

 

 

(sorry about the dodgy image - its the only one I can find at the moment)

 

and couple of images of another kozuka attributed to Joshin showing this deliberate aging (along with a good amount of honest wear :-) ) that I snarfed an image of (I do not own the copyright/these images are presented for educational purposes only):

 

 

Back to work,

Best,

rkg

(Richard George)

[Pete Klein]

Hmm - well, I am going to have to disagree with you here ol' chappie.  That's not surihegashi technique on the two kozuka - forced wear used in Edo jidai to simulate an 'older' appearance, but real uttori gold foil and that's just plain old genuine wear.  You can see the insert lines around the edges in some areas where there is a remnant of the foil intact.  It's these early pieces which were emulated by some of the later craftsmen.  I have a hunch it's the same for the menuki.  That set had a NBTHK paper to Goto Joshin if memory serves as I saw it years ago when the owner was at the San Fran show.  It's a great futatokoromono.

[Ed]

Some woman posted this on FB as her favorite tsuba.  Wabi-sabi ? 

 

The horror, the horror.

[Jean]

Kitsch....

[Guido]

Some woman posted this on FB as her favorite tsuba.

 

Thanks for that, Ed ... NOT!

[ROKUJURO]

Some woman posted this on FB as her favorite tsuba.  Wabi-sabi ?  ....

 

That is WASABI horror.

[FredKP]

Hi,

This one seems to match the wabi-sabi aesthetic seems to be signed but unreadable (for me) and not scraped by me...

 

[kissakai]

Nice, right up my street

I think a translation will be forthcoming

[Vermithrax16]

Fred P.,

 

That is so cool! Looks like it was made from a meteor or something. Love it.

[Brian Ayres]

This is one that I have that makes me want to brew some tea.

 

Autumn leaves falling

Fungi rise from beneath them

Decay brings forth life

[b.hennick]

Here is a link to an article on wabi-sabi

 

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20181021-japans-unusual-way-to-view-the-world?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

[kissakai]

Nice piece - thanks Barry

I think summed up in one paragraph

 

Wabi, which roughly means ‘the elegant beauty of humble simplicity’, and sabi, which means ‘the passing of time and subsequent deterioration’,

were combined to form a sense unique to Japan and pivotal to Japanese culture.

But just as Buddhist monks believed that words were the enemy of understanding, this description can only scratch the surface of the topic.

[lotus]

Lost out on an auction for this one, I felt it had that wabi-sabi feel to it.

[Henry Wilson]

I fully agree that to appreciate the Japanese aesthetic principles being discussed, that it is very important to understand the cultural context. This would be late Muromachi to Early Edo Period Japanese culture. The cult of Cha-no-yu or Tea, as it developed during this period is a key element. Buke culture, particularly in the area of esoteric or spiritual beliefs and practices, is also important.

 

This thread seems to contextualise wabi sabi in the Muromachi period. However, it is important to point out that research reveals that wabi sabi was not invented by the the tea masters but defined by them. I would say that late Muromachi to Early Edo Period is key only in that it made wabi sabi ‘main stream’ and accessible to most people outside an elite group. Koshiro Haga on p251 of the book recommended by Ford above puts it quite well in my opinion. To summarise, Koshiro says that the concept is traced back to Japanese literature notably renga and waka, and writings on noh play from the 12th century, which generally predates the tea masters. Digging deeper, it can be traced to the Tale of Genji, in particular chapter 10, the Scared Tree

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/weai/exeas/resources/tale-of-genji.html

 

Considering that wabi-sabi roots seem to be in impermanence as taught by Buddhism and, during most of the Heian period, Buddhism was the religion of choice of the rulers and the trend setters, I suppose this is not surprising.

 

I don’t think that the above has been noted. if it has forgive me and please ignore this post and see it as a summary.

[Steve Waszak]

Hi Henry,

 

Yes, I would agree with just about all you say here.  The only part I'm not so sure about is when you say that "...[the] late Muromachi to Early Edo Period is key only in that it made wabi sabi 'main stream' and accessible to most people outside an elite group."  I realize that you have "main stream" in quotes, but I would just want to emphasize that mainstream here may still have a fairly limited context.  I don't believe that the esoteric aesthetic principles (including wabi and sabi) informing the Tea Culture of the roughly 100 years you're referencing had much currency (never mind fluency) among the lower classes.  I rather doubt that farmers and low-level artisans and merchants would have had much exposure to and teaching in such principles, of which sabi and wabi are but two of many.  So the mainstream I would take your statement to be describing would be more likely to be mid-level bushi, maybe even some lower-level bushi, along with those merchants who had amassed enough wealth to get to "play" in the upper-echelon circles (e.g. Sen no Rikyu).  Since the understanding and mastery of these principles, especially as applied to Tea, would have been a mark of one's learning, taste, and of course, station in life, it would seem reasonable to see there being an effort to some degree to keep them as privileges of the upper classes. 

 

An area that would be useful to research in the context of this discussion is that of forms of (esoteric) Buddhism and whether and to what degree these found their way down into the lower classes (and if so, how they may have manifested).  In a culture as rank-happy as Japan's, it seems probable that esoterica -- including such aesthetic principles as sabi, Yuugen, Shibusa, mono-no-aware, wabi, etc... -- would have been at least somewhat guarded/protected by the upper classes at least partially to reaffirm and reinforce their (legitimate) privileged status.

 

Cheers,

 

Steve

 

P.S.  Does anyone know what the first recorded (and verified) use of the term "wabi-sabi" is?  Somehow, I find the cuteness of the rhyming aspect suspect, and I can't help wondering if it isn't in fact of relatively recent vintage (that is, not actually in use in the period we're discussing...). 

[Henry Wilson]

Hi Steve

 

Thank you for the thoughtful and interesting post.

 

Yes, by main stream I meant the social caste who would have been involved, that is to say ‘mid-level bushi, maybe even some lower-level bushi, along with those merchants who had amassed enough wealth to get to "play" in the upper-echelon circles’ which you eloquently stated. ????

 

Concerning Buddhism, the impression I get is that medieval Buddhism was very different to the Buddhism of the Heian period. In the Heian period it was controlled by the aristocracy and was very complicated and expensive. I think this style started to change when salvation-for-all type schools began to appear (such as Zen, Nichiren etc), the main impact being that this saw Buddhism spread to all classes of people. Point being is that I think for the common person any Buddhist principles would have become social norms as society was based on them, pretty much in the way that Shinto principles were. For example, appreciation of the natural world, taking only what you need are Buddhist principles that are prevalent in tea culture as well as medieval and early modern social culture. By the way, this book is a good read on the sustainable early modern Japan. The illustrations alone are excellent.

 

Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green from Traditional Japan by Azby Brown

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/6608253-just-enough

 

Also, open tea houses were popular from the medieval times shown in the illustration as being quite humble and practical. And tea was and still is available at rest stations on highways, around temples and shrines for pilgrims, and today is the basic default refreshment. I think that considering these points, it would be easy to assume that in the past, everyone had a chance to enjoy and appreciate the cult of tea, but to what extent (materialistically, aesthetically etc) depended on their rank in society.

 

 

The first reference to wabi sabi as double barrelled phrase? Good question. The obligatory web search yielded nothing. I get the impression it is a kind of meta-word/phrase, coined to conceptualise and legistmise wabi cha, first used as a sort of nomenclature in a treatise somewhere. I bet it entered the vernacular around the time of Sen no Rikyu (1520s). Wild speculation but possible.

 

I hope others take up this discussion.

[Tim Evans]

I think I first encountered "wabi-sabi" in a book by Leonard Koren, published in 1994. I do not recall seeing it in anything written in or translated to English prior to that, so I assume Koren probably picked it up from the Japanese he was consulting with when he was researching the book. So, probably a late 20th century origin? And yes I do find it rather kawaii.

 

Interesting that the thread still has legs

 

Tim Evans

[DirkO]

Regarding its first use - after some digging in my books, I found this interesting article:

"The words wabi and sabi have been closely linked to the aesthetics of the chanoyu tea ceremony since the time of Murata Shuko (1421?-1502). He described his preferences for using as tea wares inexpensive, locally made utilitarian vessels (instead of more finely wrought Chinese objects) as wabi-suki, an expression that, by the 17th century, had evolved into the phrase wabi-cha (poverty tea)...."  Rest in below screenshot.

 

From the excellent book 'Japanese Design - Patricia Graham' (I think it's Ford who put me on that title, so thx for that!)

 

[Ford Hallam]

Hi Tim

 

To be brutal I found Koren's book a bit too simplistic and 'designer' focussed. In fact there were many books and essays on the topic long before his. If he did consult with Japanese designer colleagues that would explain is limited conception I imagine.

 

This on-line encyclopedia created by Stanford University pretty much provides a very erudite and comprehensive introduction to the main elements of Japanese aesthetic including wabi and sabi. 

 

I think it worth considering that while wabi and sabi are unquestionably central in resect to informing Japanese aesthetics these concepts or aspects don't exist or are expressed in isolation from the other elements of the Japanese aesthetic canon.

[lonely panet]

 

[Tim Evans]

Hi Ford,

 

I agree with your comments on Koren's book, which is why I did not mention it by name in the post above nor in the recommended reading list in my post of 16 September 2018. These contemporary books and magazine articles on Japanese aesthetics demonstrate that the popular meaning of these words changes over time, so, some caution or skepticism is required.

 

If we are discussing the influence of cha-no-yu on sword fittings then delving into what the Muromachi-through-Edo Period Buke thought about it is the correct approach. The books by Michael Cooper, such as Rodrigues the Interpreter: An Early Jesuit in Japan and China would be an excellent start. I was mostly attempting to answer Steve's question about when "wabisabi" becomes a chic, trendy, hipster buzzword, both nationally and internationally. 

 

Tim Evans

[Steve Waszak]

Thanks, everyone.  But yes, to clarify, I was referring specifically to the "wabi-sabi" joined pairing.  I recognize that these terms go way back as references to certain aesthetic principles and sensibilities, individually.  It's the trite "cuteness" of "wabi-sabi"    that has me dubious about early (i.e. Edo Period or before) uses.  Thanks again, all.  

 

Cheers,

 

Steve

[Ford Hallam]

Hi Tim, Steve, oops, sorry, I didn't quite pick up on the question about the pairing. It does seem to be a relatively late amalgamation, earlier references are inevitably quite distinct. And I share your 'concern' about the 'triteness' of the terms. It's all far too nuanced to be reduced to a design/lifestyle buzz word.

 

My feeling is that wabi (astringency, austerity, melancholy) is far older, more philosophical and initially more concerned with literature. Whereas sabi (rust, literal....patina, literal and metaphorical) has a sense of a more material expression, a bit like the surface appearance of the abstract wabi austerity, sabi is the skin to wabi, to make it more apparent perhaps. Is the pairing, the addition of sabi, almost as an adjective to wabi, reflective of the popularisation of the wabi aesthetic beyond the more cultured and refined aesthetes of the tea ceremony and literary circles? Certainly, even later 19th century writers, when writing about literature and theatre seem to not need to use sabi.

 

What this makes me feel sometimes is that just because and object exhibits an overtly sabi exterior is doesn't automatically follow that the object or 'art' does in fact embody or express wabi also. 

[Bob M.]

So , to my cynical way of thinking , wabi sabi is a marketing description, possibly coined by dealers who wanted to shift some hard to move stock , that has now become a trendy and desirable way to sell.

 

Analagous maybe to the modern 'faux leather' etc , that is seen everywhere . Easier to sell faux than fake after all...