Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers

Leonard Koren
Stone Bridge Press (2006)
ISBN 1880656124
Reviewed by Patty Inglish for Reader Views (4/07)

The Japanese tea ceremony is popular in global literature, movies, and theater to the point of what seems a small cult following. Westerners wonder at its significance and find it mystic. “Wabi-Sabi” by Leonard Koren provides us with a glimpse of its underlying importance that can be taken as a symbol for the whole of the wabi-sabi aesthetic. To clearly define wabi-sabi in words is to destroy it. However, this book succeeds in preserving wabi-sabi’s identity as a way of existence of all things in eternal transition.

Many people are intrigued by the Japanese way of “knowing without knowing.”  This book is a step toward some understanding of this concept that makes Japanese culture different from the West, although there are also similarities. Wabi-sabi is associated with the Japanese tea ceremony, but westerners do not understand that ceremony. Some think it to be simplicity. Others, tradition. Others, magic. They are all correct, but to express these all at once in words tears a corner out of the larger picture and sets the concept off kilter. Nothing is or can be perfect. Everything is in a stage of becoming. Even a stone is eroded by wind and water. When it is finished, it is destroyed, but it has also become another substance: dust. The dust will become something else – it will be gathered up in raindrops or hailstones or it will be washed out bit by bit to sea, any of these options deposited as sediment, once again to combine and become a stone. Anything perfect is dead or has taken on another form and will continue to do so in natural cycles. This is a small corner of wabi-sabi.

Koren’s book is about seeing beauty, but not a beauty that the average American might expect, appreciate, or even take for granted. To put the concept of wabi-sabi into words is to lessen it. It is a way of knowing, but it is more a way of being. This book is physically short, but it is long. One must read it ten times and with each reading comes further understanding, especially in light of the photographic subjects included in “Wabi-Sabi” -- cracked pots, ferns, pieces of natural objects, a small dried fish, a wall. Normally, a Westerner would not see the beauty of a cracked pot, but this book can make that beauty understood.

The wabi-sabi realm is described by Koren to include a state of mind, moral precepts, material concepts, spiritual values, all combined with metaphysical properties. This last element is the state of passing through nothingness, either coming from or going to, and always one or the other - or both at once. When Westerners say that the journey in life is more important than the goals achieved, then they are grasping a part of wabi-sabi. The cracked teacup lying in the middle of a dirt road is more beautiful that the new teacup on the ceremonial table.
“Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers” begins with a historical consideration of wabi-sabi and some definitions that might be used to understand it. However, no verbal definition is completely correct or inclusive. After this first section, there is “The Wabi-Sabi Universe” in which Koren discusses all of its elements in an intriguing style. I read the entire volume in one sitting and have read parts of it several times over. The discussion of moral precepts is most interesting. “Get rid of all that is unnecessary” is good advice. In this consumer culture, Americans simultaneously throw away too much and accumulate unnecessary amounts of things. The explanation of the humble spirit that comes next is very important. Wabi-sabi rejects hierarchy, but it does not advocate anarchy. To this end, in order to enter a traditional tearoom, all participants must bend low or crawl into a small opening where they will find a simple room made from mud, paper, and bamboo. Inside, they put aside social position, politics, and rank and all are respectful to one another, all appreciating the beauty of one another and the simple objects of the tea ceremony. This is one of the spiritual values of wabi-sabi itself: Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness. In addition, wabi-sabi is something that occurs naturally, not something that people purposely create, although some art pieces emulate the essence of wabi-sabi to their viewers.

“Wabi-Sabi” would be enjoyable and informative to readers interested in Asian aesthetics, nature, philosophy, art, and architecture,

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