A Tractate on Japanese AestheticsSure to be a classic, Donald Richie's concise, profound insights into the mysteries of Japanese This provocative book is a tractate—a treatise—on beauty in Japanese art, written in the manner of a zuihitsu, a free-ranging assortment of ideas that “follow the brush” wherever it leads. Donald Richie looks at how perceptual values in Japan were drawn from raw nature and then modified by elegant expressions of class and taste. He explains aesthetic concepts like wabi, sabi, aware, and yugen, and ponders their relevance in art and cinema today. Donald Richie is the foremost explorer of Japanese culture in English, and this work is the culmination of sixty years of observing and writing from his home in Tokyo. |
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aesthetician anese appreciation artistic Asian Bary Bashō Brower Buddhist bunjin calligraphy chanoyu Chinese common concept cursive defined definition Donald Keene DONALD RICHIE elegance ephemeral beauty flower arrangement formal fūryū Gion Nakai grace gyō haiku term Hawai'i Press Heian period Heian-period term Hideyoshi Honolulu ikebana indicates Itoh Teiji Japan Japanese aesthetic terms Japanese aesthetics Japanese Art Japanese Culture jimi Katō Kodansha Kuki Shūzō later logical loneliness Modern Japanese mono no aware morning glories Motoori Norinaga nature nese ness originally poet poetic poetry premodern Princeton refinement Rikyū Rikyu's Saigyō samurai Sen no Rikyū sensibility shibui shin shin-gyō-sō Shunzei simplicity social Stone Bridge Press style suggested Takeno Jōō tea ceremony tea-master Teika thetic things Thomas Rimer thought tion tokonoma Tokyo Traditional Japanese aesthetics translated tripartite pattern Ueda Makoto University of Hawai'i University Press Veblen wabi and sabi Wabi-Sabi wabishi warlord West Western word York yūgen Zeami zuihitsu