For the television station in Maine, see WABI-TV. WABI-TV, channel 5 is the CBS -affiliated Television station for Bangor Maine.

A Japanese tea house which reflects the wabi-sabi aesthetic

Contemporary wabi-sabi tea bowl

wabi-sabi tea bowl Azuchi-Momoyama period, 16th century

Wabi-sabi (in Kanji: 侘寂) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience. The came at the end of the Warring States Period in Japan, when the political unification that preceded the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate took place are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Aesthetics or esthetics ( also spelled æsthetics) is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values sometimes called The phrase comes from the two words wabi and sabi. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" (according to Leonard Koren in his book Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers). It is a concept derived from the Buddhist assertion of the Three marks of existence — Anicca, or in Japanese, 三法印 (sanbōin)), Impermanence. Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices According to the Buddhist tradition all phenomena other than Nirvana, ( sankhara) are marked by three characteristics sometimes referred to as the Dharma seals Impermanence ( Sanskrit: अनित्य anitya; Pāli: अनिच्चा anicca; Tibetan: མི་​རྟག་​པ་ Note also that the Japanese word for rust, 錆 is also pronounced sabi (the borrowed Chinese character is different, but the word itself is of assumed common etymology), and there is an obvious semantic connection between these concepts. Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, asperity, simplicity, modesty, intimacy, and suggest a natural process.

Description

According to Koren, wabi-sabi is the most conspicuous and characteristic feature of what we think of as traditional Japanese beauty and it "occupies roughly the same position in the Japanese pantheon of aesthetic values as do the Greek ideals of beauty and perfection in the West. The term ancient Greece refers to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca NOTICE TO WOULD-BE-ROMEOS*************** " Andrew Juniper claims, "if an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi. " Richard R. Powell summarizes by saying "It (wabi-sabi) nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. "

The words wabi and sabi do not translate easily. Wabi originally referred to the loneliness of living in nature, remote from society; sabi meant "chill", "lean" or "withered". Around the 14th century these meanings began to change, taking on more positive connotations. ^[1] Wabi now connotes rustic simplicity, freshness or quietness, and can be applied to both natural and human-made objects, or understated elegance. It can also refer to quirks and anomalies arising from the process of construction, which add uniqueness and elegance to the object. Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age, when the life of the object and its impermanence are evidenced in its patina and wear, or in any visible repairs.

From an engineering or design point of view, "wabi" may be interpreted as the imperfect quality of any object, due to inevitable limitations in design and construction/manufacture especially with respect to unpredictable or changing usage conditions; then "sabi" could be interpreted as the aspect of imperfect reliability, or limited mortality of any object, hence the etymological connection with the Japanese word sabi, to rust. In the vernacular quality can mean a high degree of excellence (“a quality product” a degree of excellence or the lack of it (“work of average quality” or a property of

A good example of this embodiment may be seen in certain styles of Japanese pottery. In Japanese tea ceremony, cups used are often rustic and simple-looking, e. g. Hagi ware, with shapes that are not quite symmetrical, and colors or textures that appear to emphasize an unrefined or simple style. is a type of Japanese pottery most identifiable for its humble forms and use of translucent white glaze In reality, the cups can be quite expensive and in fact, it is up to the knowledge and observational ability of the participant to notice and discern the hidden signs of a truly excellent design or glaze (akin to the appearance of a diamond in the rough). This may be interpreted as a kind of wabi-sabi aesthetic, further confirmed by the way the glaze is known to change in color with time as tea is repeatedly poured into them (sabi) and the fact that the cups are deliberately chipped or nicked at the bottom (wabi), which serves as a kind of signature of the Hagi-yaki style.

Wabi and sabi both suggest sentiments of desolation and solitude. In the Mahayana Buddhist view of the universe, these may be viewed as positive characteristics, representing liberation from a material world and transcendence to a simpler life. Mahayana ( Sanskrit: mahāyāna, Devanagari: महायान 'Great Vehicle' is one of the two main existing schools of Buddhism and a term for In Philosophy, the adjective transcendental and the noun transcendence convey three different but related primary meanings all of them derived from the word's literal Mahayana philosophy itself, however, warns that genuine understanding cannot be achieved through words or language, so accepting wabi-sabi on nonverbal terms may be the most appropriate approach.

The wabi and sabi concepts are religious in origin, but actual usage of the words in Japanese is often quite casual. The syncretic nature of Japanese belief systems should be noted. Syncretism consists of the attempt to reconcile disparate or contradictory beliefs often while melding practices of various schools of thought

Wabi-sabi in Japanese arts

Many Japanese arts over the past thousand years have been influenced by Zen and Mahayana philosophy, particularly acceptance and contemplation of the imperfection, constant flux, and impermanence of all things. Japanese art covers a wide range of art styles and media including ancient pottery sculpture in wood and bronze ink painting on silk and paper and a myriad of other types of works of Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, referred to in Chinese as Chan. Mahayana ( Sanskrit: mahāyāna, Devanagari: महायान 'Great Vehicle' is one of the two main existing schools of Buddhism and a term for In the various subfields of Physics, there exist two common usages of the term flux, both with rigorous mathematical frameworks Impermanence ( Sanskrit: अनित्य anitya; Pāli: अनिच्चा anicca; Tibetan: མི་​རྟག་​པ་ Such arts can exemplify a wabi-sabi aesthetic. Here is an incomplete list:

• honkyoku (traditional shakuhachi music of wandering Zen monks)
• ikebana (flower arrangement)
• Japanese gardens, Zen gardens, and bonsai (tray gardens)
• Japanese poetry, particularly haiku
• Japanese pottery, notably Hagi ware
• Japanese tea ceremony

Western use

Former Stuckist artist and remodernist filmmaker Jesse Richards employs it in nearly all of his work, along with mono no aware. Honkyoku (本曲 "original pieces" are the pieces of Shakuhachi or Hocchiku music played by Mendicant Japanese Zen monks The is a Japanese end-blown Flute. Its name means "18 feet" referring to its size is the Japanese art of Flower arrangement, also known as. Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement that is Gardens in traditional Japanese style can be found at private homes in neighborhood or city parks and at historical Landmarks such as Buddhist A, sometimes called a Zen garden, is an enclosed shallow Sandpit containing Sand, Gravel, rocks and occasionally grass Bonsai (盆栽 literally "potted plant" is the art of Aesthetic miniaturization of Trees by growing them in containers When Japanese poets first encountered Chinese poetry, it was at its peak in the Tang Dynasty. is a form of Japanese poetry. Previously called Japanese pottery and porcelain (陶芸 Jp tōgei also 焼きもの Jp is a type of Japanese pottery most identifiable for its humble forms and use of translucent white glaze The Japanese tea ceremony is called chanoyu (茶の湯 lit "tea hot-water" or also chadō or sadō (ja Stuckism is an Art movement that was founded in 1999 in Britain by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting Remodernist film developed in the United States and the United Kingdom in the late 1990s and early 21st century and is related to the British art movement Stuckism Jesse Richards (born July 17 1975 is a painter, Filmmaker and photographer from New Haven Connecticut and was affiliated with the also translated as "an empathy toward things" or "a sensitivity of ephemera" is a Japanese term used to describe the Awareness of mujo or the

During the 1990s the concept was borrowed by computer software developers and employed in Agile programming and Wiki to describe acceptance of the state of ongoing imperfection that is the product of these methods. Agile software development refers to a group of Software development methodologies that are based on similar principles A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content using a simplified Markup language. ^[2]

See also

• Iki (a Japanese aesthetic ideal)
• Mono no aware
• Wabi-cha
• Clinamen

References

1. ^ Koren, Leonard (1994). Iki (いき often written 粋) is a traditional Aesthetic ideal in Japan. also translated as "an empathy toward things" or "a sensitivity of ephemera" is a Japanese term used to describe the Awareness of mujo or the Wabi-cha (わび茶、侘茶、侘び茶）is a style of Japanese tea ceremony particularly associated with Sen no Rikyu and Takeno Jōō that Clinamen is the name Lucretius gave to the spontaneous microscopic swerving of atoms from a vertical path as they fall (2 Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers. Stone Bridge Press. ISBN 1-880656-12-4.  
2. ^ Wabi Sabi. Retrieved on 2006-11-19. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1095 - The Council of Clermont, called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land

• Juniper, Andrew (2003). Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 0-8048-3482-2.  
• Powell, Richard R. (2004). Wabi Sabi Simple. Adams Media. ISBN 1-59337-178-0.  
• Crowley, James and Sandra (2001). Wabi Sabi Style. Gibbs Smith, Publisher. ISBN 1-58685-753-3.  
• "General Remarks on Japanese Art Culture" in Suzuki, Daisetz T. (1959). Zen and Japanese Culture. ISBN 1-56731-124-5.  

External links

• Japanese Aesthetics, Wabi-Sabi, and the Tea Ceremony
• Wabi-sabi influence on Wiki and extreme programming