Category Archive: Japanese esthetics
Christmas, the season of gift-giving, is less than a month away. Finding the perfect gifts for loved ones is one challenge . . . and then there’s wrapping them. Here’s a great chance to bring gift-wrapping techniques perfected by the creative Japanese.
This Christmas, spruce up your gift presentation by following the Japanese style of gift-wrapping using wrapping cloth called “furoshiki.” The word, which means “bath spread”, is a sheet of cloth that was initially used to carry clothes and bath items to public bath houses. Later on, furoshiki was used to carry groceries and wrap and carry bento boxes as well as market wares. Today, this versatile wrapping cloth is also used for gift-wrapping.
Furoshiki cloth comes in all kinds of sizes, fabrics, and designs. The cloth can be cotton, rayon, nylon, or silk, and the designs can be plain, printed on one side, or printed on both sides (reversible). Furoshiki is usually square in shape.
Furoshiki-wrapped Christmas gift | Wolfgang H. Wögerer, Wien, Austria
Recycling is big in Japan; plastic bags are being frowned upon. Paper products are also avoided to lessen the cutting down of trees. Furoshiki is quickly regaining its popularity in Japan and spreading to other parts of the world because it is the reusable, multi-purpose, and eco-friendly solution to paper gift wrappers and plastic bags. The practice of furoshiki wrapping helps promote environmental conservation.
Wrapping Techniques
The secrets to gorgeous furoshiki-wrapped gifts lie not just in the attractive fabric but also in the applied wrapping technique. These may look complicated but are actually quite easy once you get the hang of it. With furoshiki, you can wrap almost anything from simple square-shaped boxes to wine bottles, with their more complex cylindrical shape.
Here’s a great video tutorial of how to wrap three kinds of items, namely books, boxes, and bottles. The latter half of the video will also show you how to make a bag to carry your items.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn6zdyCAwJs
This Christmas, give your gifts a Japanese touch with the use of furoshiki. To get more information and learn more wrapping techniques, you can also visit http://www.furoshiki.com/.
Tags: furoshiki, furoshiki gift-wrapping, gift-wrapping techniques furoshiki, how to wrap with furoshiki, Japanese fabric gift-wrapping, Japanese furoshiki wrapping
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Bonsai 盆栽, means “plantings in tray,” from the Japanese terms bon, which refers to a tray or shallow pot, and sai, which refers to plantings. It is the art form of growing miniature trees in pots or trays. The origins of bonsai are in ancient China where it was originally known as “pun-sai” or “penjing.” It was often grown in the shapes of both real and mythical creatures such as birds and dragons.
The trident maple above, Acer buergerianum, is from the penjing collection at the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum in the U.S. Its foliage and stems are trimmed in the shape of a dragon.
Japan adopted the art form during the Kamakura period in 1185-1333 under the influence of Zen Buddhism. Bonsai-making was initially practiced by monks in their monasteries but was later introduced to the elite and upheld by them as a symbol of prestige. Over the centuries, its popularity has spread all over the world.
Ideology
Bonsai-making is not just simple horticulture, but mostly an expression of beliefs and aesthetic beauty. The Japanese ideology of bonsai is the marriage of ancient and Eastern philosophy, with its emphasis on the balanced relationship among nature, man, and the soul. Each part of the bonsai–shape, color, texture, container–is meticulously planned and maintained to create a symbolic, attractive result. The end goal of bonsai-making is to recreate nature in a realistic and miniaturized form.
An assortment of bonsai grown by Mr. John Thompson| San Jose Library
Growing a Bonsai
Bonsai cultivation involves growing the tree from cuttings or a seed. A bonsai plant is not a specific or special kind of tree. It can be any variety, but to make it look like a miniature replica of the standard tree size, it takes meticulous maintenance. There are many techniques you can use to mold the bonsai’s form, two of the popular ways are pruning and wiring. When pruning your tree, it is important that you already know the shape you want. This involves deciding which branches should be kept and removed to achieve the intended design.
Pasture Juniper bonsai | cliff1066™
Two advanced techniques are layering and grafting. With layering, the tree grows new roots at strategic areas by manipulating the flow of nutrients from the root system. Grafting is joining together the stump (which includes the root system and the lower part of the trunk) with the upper portion of another trunk.
Styles
Several styles of bonsai guide the formation of the tree. Common styles include the formal upright or chokkan style, which displays an upright and tapering trunk; the slant style or shakkan, where the trunk is growing diagonally from the soil; and the broom or hokidachi style, where the trunk is upright and the branches and leaves form a thick round shape.
Most bonsais can be anywhere from 5 cm to 1 meter in height, and they can live to be hundreds of years old as long as they are properly tended.
This Japanese White Pine (Pinus parviflora ‘Miyajima’) bonsai is also known as Hiroshima Survivor because it survived the atomic blast in Hiroshima in 1945. It is nearly 400 years old. | Ragesoss
Interested to know more about the Japanese art of bonsai? You can check out these links.
Tags: bonsai, bonsai-making, Japanese art, Japanese bonsai
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Here’s an extremely witty, lyrical accessible Japanese artist from Japan’s Edo period. Katsushika Hokusai / 葛飾北斎 (1760-1849) was an artist of the uyiko-e / 浮世絵 school of painters. Uyiko-e means, literally, “pictures of the floating world.” They are mostly woodblock prints and paintings.
The Great Wave off Kanagawa
Hokusai was enamored of the artists’ practice common at the time to take a series of names–in fact, he took many more names than was customary. He was best known for his views of Mt. Fuji. This shot, the first in the collection Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji, is perhaps his most famous.
The Dragon of Smoke Escaping from Mt Fuji
Hokusai cultivated a personal obsession with Mt. Fuji. Religious beliefs at the time considered Mt. Fuji the source of the secret of immortality.
Travellers Crossing the Oi River
Hokusai was born into an artisan family; his father was most probably a mirror-maker for shogun. At 12, he was sent to work in a bookshop and lending library. At 14, he apprenticed with a wood carver, and from there he was accepted into the studio of a Uyiko-e artist.
Sumida River Seen from Azuma Bridge
Hokusai began exploring other styles of art, including European styles he was exposed to through French and Dutch copper engravings he was able to acquire. He was expelled from his studio, an event he considered inspirational. He said, “”What really motivated the development of my artistic style was the embarrassment I suffered at [my master's] hands.”
Self-Portrait at the Age of Eighty-Three
Hokusai also changed the subjects of his works, moving away from the images of courtesans and actors that were the traditional subjects of ukiyo-e. Instead, his work became focused on landscapes and images of the daily life of Japanese people from a variety of social levels. This change of subject was a breakthrough in ukiyo-e and in Hokusai’s career.
People Crossing an Arched Bridge
Though his subjects are the everyday and the ordinary, they all project a lyrical evanescence that draws me right in.
Village by a Bridge
About his aging and gradual diminishment, Hokusai had this to say:
“From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life.”
Ancient View of Yatsuhashi in Mikawa Province
“I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention.”
Hanging-Cloud Bridge at Mount Gyodo near Ashikaga
“At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow.”
Head of an Old Man
“If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature.”
Stage Properties for a Farewell Performance
“At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive.”
Fishing by Torchlight in Kai Province
“May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie.”
Wow. Here are a few more prints; see many more at my sources, www.wikipedia.org and especially www.katsushikahokusai.org.
And if you’ve got a fire burning in you, don’t wait. Let it out now, so that you won’t need to hanker after immortality.
Three Ladies by a Well
Begging for Alms
The Strong Oi Pouring Sake
Get to Japan! For details, see www,kcpinternational.com. Cheers!
Tags: aesthetics, art, Japan lifestyle, Japanese traditions
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I’ve just been reading a great book on wabi-sabi (the beauty of impermanence; the impermanence of beauty). It’s called
Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
by Leonard Koren
Click here for Leonard Koren’s website.
The book is delightful. I especially like “the wabi-sabi universe.” It goes like this–
Metaphysically, things are either dissembling into, or evolving from, nothingness.
Spiritually, (1) truth comes from observing nature; (2) greatness exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked; and (3) out of ugliness can come beauty.
State of Mind is to accept the inevitable and appreciate cosmic order.
Moral precepts: (1) get rid of all that is unnecessary; (2) focus on the intrinsic; and (3) ignore material hierarchy.
Material qualities include: the suggestion of natural processes, irregularity, intimacy, lack of pretension, earthiness, murkiness, and simplicity.
This feels like the real deal to me–the kind of thing I always suspected but have never seen encouraged in our self-betraying society. This book is so worth it. Consider buying it if you strive for a life where the real things matter.
Tags: aesthetics, Japanese traditions, KCP, wabi-sabi
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Wabi sabi (侘寂) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience. It is sometimes described as authentic beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.”
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.”
Wabi connotes rustic simplicity, freshness, or quietness. 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—the life of impermanence of the object are evidenced in its patina and wear, or in any visible repairs.
Wabi sabi is a kind of training. The student of wabi sabi learns to find the most simple objects—say, fading autumn leaves—interesting, fascinating, and beautiful. Wabi sabi can change our perception of our world: a chip or crack in a vase makes it more interesting, giving the object greater meditative value. Similarly materials that age such as bare wood, paper, and fabric become more interesting as they change over time.
For more, see the Wikipedia entry on wabi sabi. Consider reading some of the books listed, especially Wabi Sabi for Artists, Poets, and Philosophers, by Loenard Koren. It’s a profound consolation in this world of instant fashion, meaningless communication, and planned obsolescence.
Tags: aesthetics, Japanese traditions, KCP, wabi-sabi
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