What is the essence of Wabi-Sabi?

Attila Soos

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Maybe this is a different topic, but here is a related question:

Does all bonsai have to express a "wabi-sabi" feeling?
What if you want to express abundance, exhuberance, raw power, or dynamic energy? Or may be playful happiness?

How do you reconcile the above with tranquility, desolate simplicity, etc?

If bonsai is an art form, do we always need to express the same related feelings that fall under the wabi-sabi description?
What if, instead of loneliness and non-attachment, you want to express a feeling of belonging and togetherness in the form of a group planting?

Could it be that wabi-sabi is just one option amongst many others?
 
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Martin Sweeney

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Attila,

Good points and thank you for the post.

I sincerely hope that Bonsai can express more than Wabi-Sabi alone. The other feelings Bonsai might express, as you listed below, are worthy of expression through Bonsai. Perhaps Wabi-Sabi isn't exclusive of these other feelings, but can exist underneath these more "out front" feelings? I would like to think it could, but am lacking in examples.

Regards,
Martin
 
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What really made me begin to think about these things was Behr's rosemary planting and how it reminded me of almost-forgotten stone walls, foundations, and the like. Attila, I think you are exactly right in that it is one possible message to convey. Reading the hermitary article referenced above, I found that I am more strongly drawn to the Western ideals as mentioned. This may be as much my American upbringing as my own philosophical predilection, but the idea of strength and perfection is wonderful to me. However, that may be as difficult to attain with a living tree as wabi-sabi is.

The difference may be that you'd have to slip up on wabi-sabi as opposed to striving toward perfection.
 

Attila Soos

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The difference may be that you'd have to slip up on wabi-sabi as opposed to striving toward perfection.


I like the above observation,
Perfection can be tackled in a more direct and headstrong way, while wabi-sabi is as elusive as the snow leopard in the fog, you may have to look for it a long time before it appears right in front of you.
 

irene_b

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When I worked the first time with a bonsai master who had spent some time in Japan,he tried to explain to me the importance of wabi sabi.First I thought like Ric but found out quickley that it was not what my teacher meant.

Since that master saw big questionmarks in my eyes he simply stated to look out for wabi sabi whenever someone would mention or talk about it and I would eventually understand the c o n c e p t.

This is all I knew,that it was a concept.As I thought it might have to do with religion or so I did not question him any longer.

From what I picked up in the last years and from further research I came to this conclusion:

Wabi sabi to me seem's to be a rather unconventional way to perceive beauty
which is held together by ethic and values.It is not a complicated concept,rather simple and innocent.

The very old woman in the alps with weatherd skin and white hair,smiling and you know she must be very wise.It is raining,a bit windy,she is holding an umbrella in her hands and an old fashioned rather big key.She is moving towards a hut.

For some reason this is what I had in mind instantly when Chris posted his thread.

Or the yamadori in the mountains,like the one Chris photographed,and a squirrel next to it looking for food.A little flower growing in front of the yamadori.

Some words to me to describe'Wabi Sabi' I found on the internet were:

Humble and simple-new and unfinished-imperfect for'wabi'
and Rusty and weathered-aged and wise for'sabi'

I also liked:

Quote

'Wabi-Sabi Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. For the Japanese, it's the difference between kirei - merely "pretty" - and omoshiroi, the interestingness that kicks something into the realm of beautiful. Wabi stems from the root wa, which refers to harmony, peace, tranquillity, and balance. Generally speaking, wabi had the original meaning of sad, desolate, and lonely, but poetically it has come to mean simple, unmaterialistic, humble by choice, and in tune with nature. Someone who is perfectly herself and never craves to be anything else would be described as wabi. Sabi by itself means "the bloom of time." It connotes natural progression-tarnish, hoariness, rust-the extinguished gloss of that which once sparkled. It's the understanding that beauty is fleeting. The word's meaning has changed over time, from its ancient definition, "to be desolate," to the more neutral "to grow old." By the thirteenth century, sabi's meaning had evolved into taking pleasure in things that were old and faded. A proverb emerged: "Time is kind to things, but unkind to man." Sabi things carry the burden of their years with dignity and grace.'
...

End of quote

Interesting discussion.Perhaps wabi sabi has to be lived to be really understood.

-dorothy



Dang girl you stole my thoughts!
The old woman.
Mom
 

cascade

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Sorry Irene,

You are right.I am giving my thoughts back to you..:D

-dorothy
 
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John Hill

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Chris,
To me Wabi Sabi is just finding the beauty within? Take something that is ugly in so called standards and look and find the beauty that it possesses within.
Say take a simple flower in a garden by itself, not real pleasing but if you were to add the right flowers or plants around it, it becomes beautiful?
Is this wabi sabi? A painter may see an old wall that has cracks and holes all in it and about to crumble but the painter may see something beautiful in this wall. The wall is a wall but the cracks are a standout. Is this not wabi sabi?
Take a tree,,for instance,it may look like it is on its last leg but one branch, just one branch may bring this tree to life. Even if the whole tree is dead this one branch may make it beautiful, Is this wabi sabi?

Just my thought

A Friend in bonsai
John
 
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1959_heidim

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I can't define it, but I know it when I "feel" it :)

My concept of wabi-sabi is the combination of "wabi" which is a quiet, lonely, emptiness, and sabi which is a sense of natural timelessness. I "feel" wabi-sabi when I am way out in the wilderness, cannot discern ANY signs of humans, and feel like the environment I am in has been unchanged for 1000's of years. It leaves me with a sort of sad, awed, insignificant feeling, that allows me to return to the "modern" world and put all the insignificance of daily life in perspective.
Yooo!!
So very well said.
1959heidim
 

Vance Wood

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To me it is that point when a tree (if indeed we are talking still of bonsai) when a tree is judged by its beauty rather than its branch placement, root structure, and trunk movement. In other words the tree starts to express a personality and identity more or less independent of its obvious structure. It takes on a history or tells a story that is not so obviously a man made contrivance like wind blown or cascade. It is in essence the soul of the form. Walter hits on it well when he defines a tree as being what it is without obvious human artifice. The greatest expression of bonsai art is to leave no signs of our passing, and yet have a tree that looks old, unique and inviting of contemplation.
 
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A lot of good input, thanks folks. I would like to try to get more discussion on Attila's point. I will be starting a new thread along those lines.
 
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