Aesthetics
Aesthetic palate cleansing
A kind of moiré pattern
The monotonous perfection
A particular deficiency of which they all partake
Such an unholy alliance
The aesthetic potential of flaws
Their opposites close at hand
We should note that all of these places of thermal extremes (Finnish saunas, Japanese hot baths, American beaches and mountains) have their opposites close at hand. There are possibly two reasons for having the extremes right next to each other.
The first is physiological: the availability of extremes ensures that we can move from one to the other to maintain a thermal balance.
The second might be termed aesthetic: the experience of each extreme is made more acute by contrast to the other.
The informing idea of functionalism
The informing idea of functionalism is what is called elegance by engineers and scientists—the notion that the best solution to a problem (whether applied to a mathematical proof, a machine, or an organizational diagram) is the most succinct. This conceit collapses the technical, the ethical, and the aesthetic, which powers the idea exponentially.
Things that shine and glitter
We find it hard to be really at home with things that shine and glitter. The Westerner uses silver and steel and nickel tableware, and polishes it to a fine brilliance, but we object to the practice. On the contrary we begin to enjoy it only when the luster has worn off, when it has begun to take on a dark, smoky, patina.
An equivalence
In both early Christianity and Islam, theologians made a claim about architecture likely to sound so peculiar to modern ears as to be worth of sustained examination: they proposed that beautiful buildings had the power to improve us morally and spiritually. They believed that, rather than corrupting us, rather than being an idle indulgence for the decadent, exquisite surroundings could edge us towards perfection. A beautiful building could reinforce our resolve to be good.
Behind this distinctive claim lay another astonishing belief: that of an equivalence between the visual and ethical realms.
Shoes
It was perhaps a pedantic matter over which to come to such a decision, but shoes are supreme symbols of aesthetic, and hence by extension psychological, compatibility. Certain areas and coverings of the body say more about a person than others: shoes suggest more than pullovers, thumbs more than elbows, underwear more than overcoats, ankles more than shoulders.
Apportioning value
Contrary to the Romantic belief that we each settle naturally on a fitting idea of beauty, it seems that our visual and emotional faculties in fact need constant external guidance to help them decide what they should take note of and appreciate. ‘Culture’ is the word we have assigned to the force that assists us in identifying which of our many sensations we should focus on and apportion value to.
A sterile sameness
Another kind of random variation involves the interaction of the craftsman’s skill and the texture of materials. The letterforms of Griffo and Colines were cut with immense care. But the letters they cut were struck by hand in copper or brass, then cast and dressed and set by hand, inked by hand with handmade ink and printed by hand in a handmade wooden press on handmade paper. Every step along with way introduced small variations planned by no one. In the world of the finely honed machine, those human-scale textures are erased. A sterile sameness supervenes.
The computer is, on the face of it, an ideal device for reviving the old luxury of random variations at the threshold of perception (quite a different thing from chaos). But conventional typesetting software and hardware focuses instead on the unsustainable ideal of absolute control – and has been hamstrung in the past by the idea of a single glyph per character. There have been several recent attempts to introduce a layer of random variation, but all have had to work against the grain of technological development.
A certain kind of world
Perhaps more directly than with the Braun products, my furniture arose from a belief in how the world should be ‘furnished’ and how man should live in this artificial environment. In this respect, each piece of furniture is also a design for a certain kind of world and way of living, they reflect a specific vision of mankind.
Big things and little things
It is hardly possible that human beings could have decided logically that they needed to develop language in order to communicate with each other before they had experienced pleasurable interactive communal activities like singing and dancing. Aesthetic curiosity has been central to both genetic and cultural evolution.
All big things grow from little things, but new little things will be destroyed by their environment unless they are cherished for reasons more like love than purpose.
Nature undisturbed
My chief aim is simply to describe and explain the technological fabric of society, not to judge whether it is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. And yet I would not argue that technology is neutral or value-free. Quite the contrary: I suggest that the signs of human presence are the only elements of the landscape that have and moral or aesthetic significance at all. In nature undisturbed, a desert is not better or worse than a forest or a swamp; there is simply no scale on which to rank such things unless it is a human scale of utility or beauty. Only when people intervene in nature is there any question of right or wrong, better or worse.
The Nature and Aesthetics of Design
A Book by David PyeTendrils of Mess in our Brains
An Essay by Sarah PerryA ruin and a mess.
Watts observes that elements of the natural world – clouds, foam on water, the stars, human beings – are not messes, though the nature of their order remains inscrutable, and Watts doesn’t try to pin down its precise nature. Mess seems to be somehow a property perceptible only in the presence of human artifacts. Is this the result of some kind of aesthetic original sin on the part of humans, uncanny beings severed from the holiness of Nature? I hope not. “Humans are bad” is a boring answer.
The Beauty of Everyday Things
The Beauty of Kasuri
An EssayWashi
An EssayHandmade washi (traditional Japanese paper) is replete with appeal. Looking at it, touching it, fills me with an indescribable sense of satisfaction. The more beautiful it is, however, the more difficult it is to put to use. Only a master of calligraphy could possibly add to its beauty; it is exquisite just as it is. This is wonderfully strange, for it is merely a simple material. Yet plain and undecorated as it is, it is alive with nuanced beauty. Good washi makes possible our most ambitious creative dreams.
The Characteristics of Kogin
An EssayHandicrafts and Sesshu
I have almost never judged a work of art by first looking at its signature. This way of assessment holds no interest for me. If what I see is good, it is good with or without a seal.
Whether it is a painting or a pot, you must first look at the thing itself.
What is Folk Craft?
An EssayThe Beauty of Miscellaneous Things
An EssayA Painted Karatsu as Food for Thought
Recently there is a tendency to pursue distortion in art, but in the case of this jar, natural deformation has raised distortion to the level of spontaneous beauty.
Okinawa's Bashofu
The users of bashofu cloth are ordinary people, not the wealthy. It is used for the kimonos they wear every day. It is not something they buy with a highly appreciative aesthetic eye, comparing one piece with another as objects of art. It is bought as a mundane item and worn as a part of mundane life. Still, bashofu is beautiful just as it is. Here the idea that you get what you pay for does not apply. The cheap is the good and beautiful.
Seeing and Knowing
An EssayThe results of intuition can be studied by the intellect, but the intellect cannot give birth to intuition.
What is Pattern?
Since a pattern is the depiction of the fundamental nature of an object, it is what remains of an object’s form after all that is unnecessary has been removed.
Since a pattern is a crystallization, it is also an exaggeration. But it is not merely that; it is an accentuation of the truth.
Woodblock Prints
An EssayIt seems to me that many printmakers are suffering under a delusion. Looking at current trends, it appears that recent prints are simply copying fine art and painting. Some printmakers are working in the nanga style of painting. Others are attempting to reproduce the effects of oil. Some cleverly contrived prints are often difficult to distinguish from paintings done with a brush. The question arises: Why are these printmakers working in the medium of woodblock printing at all?
For prints to follow in the footsteps of painting has very little meaning. The art of the brush and palette should be left to the brush and palette.
The Japanese Perspective
An EssayGenerally speaking, the Western perception of art has its roots in Greece. For a long time its goal was perfection, which is particularly noticeable in Greek sculpture. This was in keeping with Western scientific thinking; there are no painters like Andrea Mantegna in the East. I am tempted to call such art ‘the art of even numbers’.
In contrast to this, what the Japanese eye sought was the beauty of imperfection, which I would call ‘the art of odd numbers’. No other country has pursued the art of imperfection as eagerly as Japan.