Talk:Japanese aesthetics

My edits, LezJ
I came to this page because the page on Enso had a request for edits - references etc. In doing that, I felt to understand Enso one had to have a glimmer of the ideals and notions in Japanese aesthetics and came here to find that this page was a bit thin too and it had requests for edits. I have tried to make this netshell do the work I thought necessary for understanding why the enso is such a powerful and ubiquitous symbol. To do this I have added references, re-ordered the text, and placed bridges between the sections. It seemed important to expand the explanations of Wabi-Sabi and Yugen and to make their role in the culture more clear. Thus, I hope the page is more informative, and has made it not only is easier to see the relevance Geido and Iki (both expanded) but also to see their distinctiveness from each other and the more general aesthetic ideals. There are many excellent pages on the Japanese arts and culture and I hope this page will now stand a little better on its own but also be a better portal to those deeper and longer pages. What I have been trying to do is make this interesting a bit deeper and a spring board to other entries. I have found it difficult not to go deeply into each part. That tempations has been resisted because we would lose the oversight that is needed by many readers. And, greater depth in almost any part would mean overlapping with other entries.

I am not sure this is what was intended when the request further work was made on the site. I hope it has done the trick. I love some of the pages in Japan in Wikipedia and thought it a pity that this page wasn't exapanded a bit and had some interesting stuff that wasn't really helpful to the average reader. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LezJ (talk • contribs) 16:04, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

NPOV + A poor article
This is not a neutral point of view. It simply talks down about Western culture without detailing what a Japanese aesthetic actually is. I don't see the purpose of this article given that is so poor. --LegalThreatsAndAttacks 00:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

LegalThreatsAndAttacks's claim does not make sense. There is no talking down about Western culture here. It simply explains how the Japanese aesthetic works. If you know what "a Japanese aesthetic actually is," you should help improve the article instead of blaming. This is a STUB at this stage. by anonymous

It is definitely a neutral article. There is no condescension. I think Legal may be mis-reading the article. -K — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.216.19.198 (talk) 20:33, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Lack of context?
Yes, this article is quite stubby and in need of expansion. But I don't think it lacks context. The title in itself should be enough context to allow the average reader access to the subject. "Hm, what's Japanese aesthetics?" "Oh, it's the aesthetics of Japan." What kind of contextual explanation are you looking for? LordAmeth 04:19, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

What has aesthetics got to do with words. Aesthetics is visual, yugens are mainly oral and read and there for thought. User:lady-shirakawa


 * Firstly, Yūgen (幽玄) is not mainly oral, and not there just for thought. Translated most commonly as "Grace", or something similar, Yūgen represents a perfectly ordered beauty and grace, and plays a role in Noh, in the lives of geisha, and in many other aspects of visual arts.

Secondly, aesthetics, just like any other subject, is described by words. Words like yugen and iki and others that describe a particular taste in style or design. If these things are not to be discussed here, then where? LordAmeth 10:19, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Expand
I fixed the context issue, added citations where needed and added on to the article(as well as took parts off). This article is still very a much a stub however; feel free to change my edits where needed. Thanks. --Michelleem 03:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

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Lead sentence
The article currently leads with

"The modern study of Japanese aesthetics only started a little over two hundred years ago in the West."

Which may be true (although uncited), but it seems to me that the Western study of Japanese aesthetics isn't the most important thing to talk about. I'd hoped to crib the .ja article for ideas, but it's only a stub translated from an old version of this article, which is a little ironic!

The rest of the article contains little to nothing about the study of Japanese aesthetics in the West, so I'm going to be WP:BOLD and strike that first sentence, but I wanted to leave an explanation longer than an edit summary.

Since much of the article "explains" traditional Japanese aesthetics using the Western neologism "Wabi Sabi" (Meaning, as I understand it, "Kitsch"), I would suggest striking the whole article, which is little more than a travesty of 60 years of ill-informed opinion originating in The West. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:6AE5:2510:0:0:0:24 (talk) 01:06, 6 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I add this reply in the hope that it will be informative and helpful. Wikipedia says "Kitsch (/kɪtʃ/ KITCH; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly eccentric, gratuitous or of banal taste." I would find it hard to believe that this a helpful characterisation on Wabi-Sabi. Wikipedia says, correctly in my opinion, "After centuries of incorporating artistic and Buddhist influences from China, wabi-sabi eventually evolved into a distinctly Japanese ideal." The beginnings of the concept are said by some to go back as far as the Buddha but the words that capture that concept are usually associated with the Zen monk Murata Jukō who, at the end of the 15th century, began to buck against the rules of the tea ceremony which used fine ceramics and other extravagances. Murata began to use simple ceramics and tone down the ceremony to cohere with Zen sensibility. LezJ (talk) 09:38, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
 * "Wabi Sabi" certainly does NOT mean "Kitsch", and never has. Johnbod (talk) 15:56, 2 June 2024 (UTC)