Episode 44 - In beauty I walk: beauty, appreciation and wabi-sabi

This episode is in two parts. In Part One I explore some ideas about beauty, both those that define beauty as an ideal or transcendent quality, and those that consider beauty as an experience and mode of attention. I discuss concepts of beauty that focus on perfection and permanence and those that focus on imperfection and impermanence. In Part Two I offer a poetic alternative rendering of what I have said in Part One – hopefully evoking experiences of beauty in the images, rhythms and sound of music and words.

Transcript

PART ONE 

If we look at the definition of the word ‘beauty’ in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary we find the following entry: ‘that quality or combination of qualities which delights the senses or mental faculties…’. And the definition of ‘beautiful’ includes: ‘Full of beauty’ … ‘morally or intellectually impressive or satisfying’ … ‘that one likes very much… pleasant, delightful’. (SOED 2002: 204) In other words, beauty is a quality, or combination of qualities, that delights a person’s senses or mind. So, it is determined by an individual – it is something that ‘one likes very much.’ This individual determination is sometimes supplanted by a group or community who agree a collective notion of what is beautiful. In this sense, beauty is a function of taste – the taste of a particular individual, social class or cultural community. Sometimes, what is considered beautiful is tied to the power structures of a particular community. An elite group within a society can be seen as having a very significant influence on the taste of other members. An example would be the influence of early modernist artists and writers in the UK, who exercised a lot of influence on the so-called ‘cultured’ members of British society in the early part of the twentieth century. Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Clive Bell and Roger Fry, and others, were powerful determinants of what was considered beautiful and tasteful within the circles of ‘High Art’. Though, of course, their influence took quite a long time to impact on the rest of society – popular culture at the time resonated to a different set of aesthetic values. 

For many centuries Western conceptions of beauty have been heavily influenced by the Greek philosopher, Plato, who developed a theory known as ‘Platonic Idealism’. Plato’s theory centres on the idea of permanence and perfection as virtues and as something to which we should aspire. Later I will argue for a notion of beauty centred on impermanence and imperfection. But first, Plato’s idealism – what is his theory and how does it relate to considerations of beauty?

According to the philosopher, Antony Flew, for Plato, the term ‘Idea’ is equivalent to the Greek word ‘eidos,’ which means, ‘form.’ Both are connected with [another Greek word], ‘idein’ - which means, ‘to see’. So, an ‘idea’ is a form that is seen – ‘but seen by a kind of intellectual vision.’ (Flew 1984) But what is an ‘idea’ in this context? For Plato, Ideas (or Ideals) are ‘pure’ or ‘perfect’ forms that exist independent of human agency in a transcendent realm that we could call ‘ultimate reality’. Plato argues that Ideal Forms are unchanging over time and in relation to any individual’s viewpoint. A geometrical circle, defined by an equation, constitutes an unchanging and universal ‘idea’ – whereas the circle I draw in my notebook, or the circle formed by the rim of my cup are only relatively circular. The drawn circle and the rim of my cup have imperfections and appear to change in shape depending on our angle of viewing them. Plato takes this relativity to be subordinate to the eternal transcendent world of the Ideal circle. 

So, for Plato, everything in the material human world, the world of appearances, or everyday ‘reality,’ is a kind of pale imitation, shadow or echo of the world of Ideal Forms – which constitutes the primary reality. Our perspective on things is always incomplete and relative. Our everyday world is a kind of illusion compared to the ‘reality’ of the Ideal.  Hence, Plato’s preference for those aspects of human thinking that come closest to the Ideal realm: namely, rational thought, mathematics and geometry. For Plato, it is the realm of the ideal or perfect that is most real – because it is permanent and unchanging. The circle as an abstract geometric form or equation is somehow more real or substantial than any actual circle we might find in this world – whether it is a drawn circle or the circular form of a bubble or the sun. This may seem odd to us because we might argue, surely the circular sphere of the soap bubble I see before me is more real than an idea or equation of a perfect circle. But not for Plato. 

Plato has been enormously influential on Christianity, Medieval scholasticism, Renaissance thinking and on later philosophers like Kant, Berkeley and Hegel. This long tradition has tended to place value on geometry, mathematics, rationality, logic and universals – all of which can be seen as exemplifying Platonic Ideals, Ideas and Forms. This way of thinking, which dominated Western philosophy from the Ancient Greeks to the second half of the 19th Century, and still exerts a powerful influence today, tends to be highly dualistic. The mind is separated from, and valued above, the body. Rationality is valued above intuition; logic above the illogical; thinking above feeling; the abstract and general above the concrete and specific; the absolute above the actual; perfect over imperfect; mind over matter; essence over appearance; the infinite over the finite; certainty over uncertainty, transcendent and universal ‘truth’ over conditional truths; and so on. 

Note that there are big questions surrounding these ideas. For instance, if Plato’s Ideal Forms are absolute and transcendent how can we mere humans have any knowledge of them? How can we flawed, imperfect, embodied, mortal, and, at times, irrational beings, have access to the perfect and eternal realm of the Ideal? I will leave you to ponder on these matters and form your own opinion. 

As we think about ‘beauty’, the question arises, is beauty a quality that is inherent in an object or event, or is it a quality that arises in the interaction between a human being and an object or event? While some might argue that some objects, ideas or events are inherently beautiful, this argument quickly fades in persuasiveness in the face of the many different examples of beauty put forward by individuals and groups in different regions, cultures and historical periods. There is probably no single manifestation of beauty that is agreed across all societies throughout history – although a glorious sunset or the face of a firstborn child might be a contender for this accolade.

The academic discipline of ‘aesthetics’ includes, amongst other things, the study of what is beautiful and how we define or categorise it. And the history of aesthetics is littered with attempts to rationalise and systematise ‘beauty’. Most, if not all, have been either misguided or deeply flawed, usually because they ignore the ineffable and concrete nature of beauty as an experience. Likewise attempts to define beauty have ended in blind alleys, false certainty or futility. Most of these attempts have grown out of a reductive search for a universal constant or essence which inevitably tends to reify beauty - freezing a fluid, complex and often fleeting experience.  

The French intellectual, Luc Ferry, in his book, funkily titled, Homo Aestheticus: The Invention of Taste in the Democratic Age (1993, 40), emphasises the importance of the irrational and ineffable aspects of beauty. Ferry argues that it is integral to our notions of beauty that we can’t find words to define or capture it. This idea that beauty is an ineffable and fleeting experience without a fixed object seems to me to make sense and to avoid some of the problems associated with other analyses. For, though it may be difficult and probably impossible to define beauty, there is no doubt that we can, and do, experience it. And experiences of beauty can be described, evoked and investigated. We can also acknowledge that the experiences of what we call beauty are energising and revitalising, making us feel, however briefly, more alive. These are moments of intense pleasure and vivacity. They have autonomous value and they can be remembered and invoked in a way that is enriching and sometimes poignant.  

Often there is an unpredictability to experiences of beauty. They can rarely be predetermined let alone dictated. We can’t prescribe conditions for experiences of beauty, for ourselves or for others. This mix of complexity, unpredictability and life-enhancing power contribute to the significance of experiences of beauty, and it is not surprising that we celebrate, attempt to engender and reflect on them through the making of art, philosophy, literature and performance. I would now like to explore some of the experiential aspects of beauty. 

We have already established that whatever doubts surround particular categorisations or definitions of beauty, most of us recognise certain kinds of experience signified by the term. The presence of beauty as an experience, or mode of being, is distinctive and memorable even if it is hard, or even impossible, to pin down. Indeed, the experience of beauty could be considered as a non-linguistic or pre-linguistic mode of being in the phenomenological sense, a concrete resonant experience resistant to conceptualisation. As the American writer, Elaine Scarry, puts it: ‘Beauty causes us to gape and suspend all thought’. (in Nehamas 2000: 24) There is an immediacy and vibrancy to our encounters with beauty. This resistance to objectification and analysis can lead to a sense of otherness and may account for the ideas and metaphors of transcendence often introduced into discussions of beauty. 

Experientially beauty is often characterised by, or associated with, a sense of well-being, coherence and wholeness, and in many cases with a feeling of expanded consciousness and even liberation from ego or self - what Elaine Scarry calls a ‘radical decentring’. In other words, beauty, or the beautiful, can take us out of ourselves – opening us up to enrichment and feelings of freedom and a widening of our horizons.  

It may be wrong to consider experiences of beauty as primarily sensual or aesthetic. The experience may, or may not, have an important aesthetic dimension, but it may also have an ethical dimension – a link between the beautiful and the good. Experiences that are life-denying or detrimental to the quality of living are unlikely to be constituent strands of the experience of beauty - which is fundamentally life-enhancing. An aestheticism projected on to suffering or poverty, or that has no moral dimension, should be distinguished from the view of beauty I am now articulating and exploring. This is not to say that beauty can’t be experienced in conditions of poverty or deprivation. Indeed, glimpses of a beautiful view from a prison window or the beautiful sound of a bird singing, are experiences had by many individuals living in dire conditions. In some cases, these brief experiences can become a lifeline, or talisman of hope that one day the dire conditions might ease. On the other hand, to find beauty in scenes of poverty and deprivation, and in acts of violence or cruelty, would seem to be a disturbing misuse of the term. 

Some individuals and cultures place particular emphasis on the path of beauty, the cultivation of the experience of beauty as a way of healing, establishing wholeness and goodness, and dissolving the linguistic or conceptual boundaries between self and non-self, observer and observed, subject and object. Many people in their experiencing of beauty have a sense of engagement and participation which dissolves boundaries, a fleeting experience of undifferentiated unity. This quality may account for the close association between descriptions of ‘mystical’ experience and the descriptive vocabularies of beauty and love.  

The Navajo, or ‘Diné’, as they are known to themselves, are an indigenous people living in the southwest of the United States. Navajo communities place the way of beauty at the centre of their religious life. The Night Chant, one of the most important rituals of the year, includes the following passage: ‘In beauty I walk / With beauty before me I walk / With beauty behind me I walk / With beauty above me I walk / With beauty above & about me I walk / It is finished in beauty / It is finished in beauty’. (Rothenberg 1969, 81) This is both a poetic utterance ascribed to Bitahatini, The Visionary, (who was carried off by the gods and returned with the rituals and songs that form the Night Chant), and a statement of spiritual intent to walk the path of beauty and to cultivate the experience of beauty, whether as a maker (of songs, dances, food or artefacts), as a participant in ritual, or as an experiencing being in everyday life.  

We can trace a connection here, in intention if not method or cultural context, with the ideas of John Cage and Joseph Beuys to establish the sensibility of the artist as a mode of living for everyone in everyday life. Certainly, Cage and Beuys were great proselytisers for the path of beauty, and both urged us to recognise the importance of beauty (viewed in the way that I’ve tried to describe here) for an enriched and empowered life. Both artists pursued this egalitarian approach, and both were critical of the exclusivity often associated with beauty as a ‘special’ experience closely linked to the taste of a social/cultural elite. In Cage’s view beauty can be thought of in a more inclusive way as the experience of ‘suchness’ (tathata), things-in-themselves – the beauty of the ordinary, the specialness of the everyday. 

Yet always there is an underlying question here, namely: are we talking about the experience of beauty or the beauty of experience? Ultimately experiencing beauty may be synonymous with experiencing being itself, something Euripides affirms, when he writes (in a version of the play, Medea, by Robinson Jeffers): ‘For only to be alive and to see the light / Is beautiful. Only to see the light, / To see a blade of young grass, / Or the grey face of a stone’. (Jeffers 1970: 154) 

Looked at from a slightly different angle it could be argued that the ultimate model or template for the beautiful is nature and its constituent processes. John Cage, paraphrasing Coomaraswamy, suggests that it is ‘the responsibility of the artist is to approximate to Nature in her manner of operation’. (Kostelanetz 2000: 239) Beauty, as a particular mode of engagement with reality, is probably wired into us in a biological evolutionary sense. Our notions of what (or who!) is beautiful arise from the evolutionary reproductive drive to find the best mate with whom to perpetuate and strengthen our genetic line. It may be that this is a biological reason for the close association between beauty and goodness or truth. This model of beauty is rooted in the processes and imperatives of nature. Beauty in this sense is not a decorative flourish but a fundamental experience upon which particular cultural ideas and forms are built. The fact that experiences of beauty can arise in the most unlikely of circumstances (eg. in the accounts of prisoners and of victims of war, poverty and other catastrophes) suggests the centrality of these experiences to our lives. It might not be an exaggeration to suggest experiences of beauty are important drivers for living, beacons that light our lives and ensure our survival. 

Particular attempts to define the beautiful in terms of characteristics or qualities of objects are as doomed to failure as attempts to rationalise the experience of beauty. If beauty is a kind of experiencing – the function of a particular sort of relationship between subject and object, which, in its most intense form, burns away this duality – then it may not be dependent upon particular qualities of objects. It is the quality of the mode of attention that is crucial, not the quality of the thing or event in the world. This accounts for how we can develop our sensing of beauty, how we can cultivate, expand and open out our experience, or, conversely, how we can narrow it down. Without exercising and developing the mode of attention our capacity to experience beauty can shrink and atrophy. 

So, what is the relationship between beauty and the beautiful, between experiencing beauty and beauty objectified? Maybe the distinction should be between those objects that bring beauty to mind (directly experienced, remembered or re-presented) and those that remind us of moments of beauty lost or no longer experienced. There are also those kinds of objects/events that stimulate beauty in others, but not in us. Museums, theatres, galleries and concert halls are full of artefacts that embody or stimulate experiences of beauty for others and/or for ourselves. And it is no coincidence that it is in museums, art galleries, theatres and concert halls that we pay attention – we open our senses and minds to sounds, forms, colours and movements – trying to experience them for what they are. In this way we deepen and extend our tastes. By paying attention we walk the path of beauty – finding beauty all around us, even in the most unlikely places and most humdrum situations. 

I now want to talk about a view of beauty that acts as a counterpoint to the Platonic perspective. It is to be found in what might be called ‘Zen aesthetics’ – particularly in an approach rooted in the Japanese concepts of ‘wabi’ and ‘sabi’.  

This approach can be seen as developing over many centuries in the practices and beliefs of Zen monks in Japan. As Zen Buddhism developed from the Chan and Daoist philosophies of China, values emerged that had a major impact on the arts and on ideas about beauty and what is beautiful. Rooted in a deep awareness of impermanence as experienced by all beings, Zen monks placed value on humility, modesty, simplicity, naturalness and the poignancy surrounding the making of artefacts, utensils, gardens and buildings – all of which will one day break, decay or wear out. 

In Zen beauty is seen in the presence of things, or rather, being present to what occurs; and, in the impermanence of things – the wear and tear of living. Asymmetry tends to be appreciated and valued above symmetry, and imperfection is accepted and valued above apparent perfection. The patina of ageing, and the brokenness and repaired qualities of objects are greatly valued – for instance, in relation to pottery and the seemingly rough and ready bowls used in the tea ceremony. There is also a recognition that we can experience beauty in the work of a craftsperson, in the way a utensil is made and in the process of doing well a job of work. There is great beauty in things that are made well, work well, are repairable and lasting, and that utilise as few resources as possible. The making of something, if done mindfully with full concentration and care, can be beautiful both for the maker and for anyone observing the making process. This is why we enjoy watching someone make a pot, or a woodcut print, or knitting a garment. Buildings and gardens made in this way can activate experiences of beauty from the simplest of means – as can be found in traditional Japanese architecture and the moss or stone gardens of Zen temples.   

Andrew Juniper, in his book, Wabi Sabi, refers to the root of the word ‘wabi’ as being a verb, ‘wabu’, which means ‘to languish’, and an adjective ‘wabishi’, which means ‘loneliness’. Wabi can also refer to a person who finds ‘peace and harmony in the simplest of lives.’ (Juniper 2003: 48) The word, ‘sabi’, conveys a sense of poignancy and fragility in the face of transience. Juniper also quotes Alan Watts, who has this to say: ‘To Taoism that which is absolutely still or absolutely perfect is absolutely dead, for without the possibility of growth and change there can be no Tao. In reality there is nothing in the universe which is completely perfect or completely still; it is only in the minds of men that such concepts exist.’ (ibid: 7) While the abstract concepts of permanence and perfection seem to sit together, the reality of impermanence implies imperfection. 

Juniper argues that Zen aesthetics, and particularly the importance placed on wabi-sabi, develop from the ideas of the influential sixteenth-century Japanese master of the tea ceremony, Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591). Rikyu advocated that ‘rough and unrefined pots’ should be considered on a par with, or above, the prestigious pots owned and revered by the nobility. The simple pots and bowls used by Rikyu in the tea ceremony were often old, lopsided, sometimes with repaired cracks that were still visible. The asymmetry of the pots provided an opening for the person looking at them, or using them, to be more involved - while a symmetrical, perfect pot, in its completeness, offers ‘little opportunity for the beholder to add anything’. (Juniper 2003: 81) Zen practice cultivates a deep awareness of impermanence, and an appreciation of artistry and beauty in every aspect of life. (ibid: 91) This is in stark contrast to the Platonic idea of beauty as being something only found in the ideal, perfect and permanent forms that somehow transcend the realms of everyday life. 

In reading Juniper’s book, I came across a Japanese term I hadn’t previously encountered, namely ‘wabizumai’, which can be translated as ‘simple living’ or ‘living simply’. (Ibid: 156) This gets to the heart of the wabi-sabi sensibility – finding beauty and fulfilment in living simply with well-used utensils, garments and artefacts that grow in beauty and significance as they age and ‘mature’. Juniper also makes a point that seems to me to be important. He argues that the current dominance of a neo-liberal form of capitalism generates and normalises a form of hedonism as an ethos to which we should all subscribe. (ibid: 159) The word ‘hedonism’ here means a delusion that consuming more will lead to satisfaction, comfort and peace of mind. This is a very appealing, and often irresistible, delusion, but it only leads to more dissatisfaction, a wasteful plundering of the earth’s resources, and a hollowness that comes from being trapped on a treadmill of desire and wanting more. The path of wabizumai provides us with a choice to step off this treadmill – to recognise its delusory motivations and to learn to let go, to consume less, have fewer needs and cultivate simple living. 

Whatever we can do to live more simply and to find beauty in the objects and experiences of everyday life are steps towards great fulfilment, peace and wellbeing. By extending and deepening our awareness we extend and deepen our appreciation of what we consider to be beautiful – enriching our lives and providing us with nourishing and fulfilling experiences. In Buddhist terms the practice of mindful meditation or zazen can be a great help in this process of cultivating awareness and appreciation.  

PART TWO – IN OTHER WORDS 

In Part Two of this episode, which I have titled, In Other Words, I am going to try to condense what I have said in Part One into a more concise, evocative and poetic form. I hope it is of some interest. The sound accompaniment to the words includes extracts from a recording of, Eight Whiskus – for solo violin, played by Maurizio Barbetti on viola, recorded in 2008 for a CD titled: Cage Feldman - In a silent way, on the Stradivarius label.

·

empty & uncertain 

dust in the light 

·

we’re not certainties or absolutes

we’re conditional & improvised

speculative fields

fluid streams

a dance of 

perception, mind & 

imagination

appearances in space

inscribed with history

a continuum

of ‘maybe’s 

· 

in the world, grounded,

making sense,

making ourselves 

we are smudges 

in a shimmering field 

• 

the object is never, is always

certainty is never always

we are always, never 

· 

art escapes the self

weaving & unravelling identity

making, composing

scattering 

moments of beauty 

· 

ideas & regimes

    changes in perspective & rationality

        small histories of seeing

- all cast shadows

& obscure what light there is 

· 

beauty happens

in charged atoms of insight 

· 

look at experience

experience experience

feel gentle chaos

experience is pure, is dumb wisdom

world is Lila

& we are mirages

agents of self

trading words 

· 

one minute of stars

- a lifetime of wonder

small dazzle of butterflies

left Pablo Neruda dazed 

· 

naming, naming - is always

    too much

drift nets lost

    in a sea of verbs

forget names, find beauty

naming, maiming 

· 

Meng Chaio wrote:

beauty too close

will ruin your

life

yet to aspire

to beauty

is to meet the world

on easy terms

John Cage realised 

he couldn’t change

the world but he could 

change his outlook on 

the world

- practice this alchemy

& know delight 

· 

what can we say of being?

only that we are, and that it feels

like this 

· 

fleeting metaphors of unfolding 

· 

there is a necessity to beauty

commonplace moments

ebb & flow

passing ecstasy

of foggy morning 

& burning bush 

·  

yet in unknowing

    is revelation

no possession

    no dissection

David Hume tells us

of being ‘blind but sure’ 

· 

what is beautiful strikes me

I cannot grasp it

or predict it 

· 

we all aspire to the condition of light

beauty is empty-handed being

or being

empty-handed 

· 

old broken pot

speaks of frailty

& passing years 

· 

a haiku by Basho,

in mispronounced Japanese,

reminds us that

beauty can be funny

and fleeting

Furu ike ya

kawazu tobikomu

mizo no oto

or, as Dom Silvester

Houedard puts it:

FROG     

POND    

PLOP 

· 

Thank you for listening and bye for now.

Bibliography 

Ferry, L. 1993. Homo Aestheticus: The Invention of Taste in the Democratic Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Flew, Antony, ed. 1984. A Dictionary of Philosophy. London: Pan.

Haskell, B. 1992. Agnes Martin. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art/Abrams.

Houedard, Dom Silvester. 1967. Op and kinkon poems/and some non-kinkon. London: Writers Forum Poets, No.14.

Jeffers, Robinson. 1970. Cawdor and Medea. New York: New Directions.

Juniper, Andrew. 2003. Wabi Sabi: the Japanese art of impermanence. Vermont: Tuttle.

Kirwan, J. 1999. Beauty, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Kostelanetz, Richard, ed. 2000. John Cage Writer. New York: Cooper Square Press.

Nehamas, A. 2000. Not Rocket Science, London Review of Books, Vol. 22 No. 12, 22 June 2000

Rothenberg, J. 1969. Technicians of the Sacred. New York: Anchor Books. 

Scarry, E. 1999. On Beauty and Being Just, reviewed in Nehamas, A. 2000. Not Rocket Science, London Review of Books, Vol. 22 No. 12, 22 June 2000.

Audio Recording 

Cage, John. 2008. Eight Whiskus – for solo violin, played by Maurizio Barbetti on viola, on CD: Cage-Feldman – in a silent way. Stradivarius.