“Tatazumu”(to stand still) - i.e., to be fused with the environment
A perfected “object” is not overly assertive and is blended into the surrounding environment as part of the landscape.
What is “Art”?
For artists, it is the pursuit of new beauty.
For viewers, it can enrich their lives and bring serenity to their minds.
In our daily lives, “objects” are created through our practical experiences. Objects function as indispensable parts, or as inseparable elements, of architecture, and they silently speak out their “raison d’ être”. In the beginning, objects have “function.” When their function is fulfilled, we pursue their “beauty.”
To focus solely on the pursuit of “beauty” may itself be called an innovative form of “beauty.”
I think that the creation of new “beauty” through dialogues with one’s innermost self the “infinite quest for beauty, approached philosophically” - is “art.”
However, I believe that the quintessence of beauty is to be found in the “designs” of everyday tools and furniture.
In Japan, from antiquity to the Edo period, “beauty” was found in the tools and objects we use in our everyday lives. The “artistic value” of such beauty existed in perfected “objects” insofar as they reflected our unique culture and style; it did not lie in the artist’s “message” or in the workmanship. We may find such “beauty” in the mlange of function and beauty, the perfect “artlessness” (the quality of being completely natural, with no artistic skills having been applied intentionally), represented in the brilliant design of a lacquer ware.
Such “object” transcends the realm of human craftsmanship and proclaims its existence, as though it has been there since the time immemorial.
Such is a totally different kind of provocativeness from what can be found in powerfully subjective contemporary art.
I think that the “beauty” of an “object” is embodied in the inorganic, emotionless character of crafts.
The value of “objects” is created out of the experiences of daily life. After all, “objects” should be viewed as part of daily life. The traditional Japanese aestheticism of “okuyukashii” (modest elegance, reserved and refined), “wabi” (plain and serene) and “sabi” (worn by the passage of time) blossomed during the Edo period after having been nurtured through thousands years of Japanese history. I think we can find the answer for the artistic “beauty” of workmanship in these aesthetic senses.
My concept of beauty may appear to be a stubborn and exaggerated reminiscence of the “good old days.”
However, as we live in a time of a seamless and global world, I claim that, rather than seeking culture in old “objects,” we must find “tradition,” understood as the sublimation of culture, in newly created art.
October, 2008
Translated by Mayumi Yoshida
Photo by Syoh Yoshida
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