1. Washi

    An Essay

    Handmade 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.

    1. ​To deprecate beauty itself​
  2. Handicrafts 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.

  3. Okinawa's Bashofu

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    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.

  4. 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.

    I first read the second paragraph as "an acceleration of the truth." Part of me likes that better.

  5. Woodblock Prints

    An Essay

    It 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.

    1. ​The fountainhead of beauty​
    2. ​The preliminary sketch​
  6. The Japanese Perspective

    An Essay

    Generally 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.

    1. ​The true meaning of tea​
    2. ​One receives with an empty hand​
    3. ​Only when it has ceased to be a pattern​
    1. ​The beauty of odd numbers​