Abstract
Mara Miller examines the ongoing need for beauty in twenty-first century Japan, which has impacted global arts and aesthetics through a variety of traditional, modern and post-modern types of beauty. She shows that in addressing the concerns of their hypermodern, secular context, contemporary Japanese artists commonly use pre-modern techniques, aesthetics, and practices, invoking traditional religious forces in the process. Miller terms this phenomenon “the radical traditional” and itemizes its various manifestations and the traditional aesthetic values it exemplifies. She suggests that the paradox of the radical traditional—return to the ancient to resolve post-modern issues—is partially resolved by consideration of the centrality of beautiful Japanese physical environments and by the aesthetic appreciation of the natural world on which Japanese art in general is premised. Creating art that enhances appreciation of the natural world, Japanese artists draw emotionally evocative attention to the contexts audiences today share with predecessors, at the same time addressing the contemporary concerns over the future direction of our world.
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Notes
- 1.
I use the plural to refer to the various Japanese “categorical aesthetics”; for an explanation, see Miller 2010. These categories also include other types of positive aesthetics with little or no relation to beauty, ignored in this chapter. The term “aesthetics” is generally translated bigaku; this is, however, a late nineteenth-century neologism to accommodate Western philosophy.
- 2.
I would like to thank my friend, philosopher Dr. Kristin Pforbath, for reminding me of Harries’s discussion of this issue and for a provocative conversation about it.
- 3.
Throughout this paper when I use the term “arts” or “art” (bijutsu or geijutsu) I am talking about all the arts—visual, performing, literary, and even martial arts, and specifically crafts, which in Japan have been of exceptionally high beauty.
- 4.
Official support includes various components of the Japanese government as well as private (and government-subsidized) industry. Government support has included the imperial court, which has continuously sponsored types of performance dating back a millennium or more; the agency supporting the photography of ancient Buddhist temples and shrines and its publication; the support of school children’s field trips to sites such as the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, etc.
- 5.
The reasons for this difficulty are complex: (1) the original religion, later called Shinto (the “Way of the Gods”), was originally fully integrated into daily life—and continues to be, for many, to this day; (2) what is meant by “religion” in Indo-European languages barely applies to some of the Japanese religions, in that (a) there is often no insistence on either creed or belief, making it hard for people to distinguish between religious and other kinds of thoughts, (b) there is little competition between the various religions, whose tenets often overlap and whose boundaries are often obscured, and (c) there may be no sense of deity; (3) historically, the government declared Shinto not a religion (for political purposes—so as to be able to require Shinto participation while still championing the Western ideal of “freedom of religion;” (4) Buddhism (imported from Korea and China) and Shinto underwent at least two periods of deliberate fusion, while Buddhism itself came to be deeply integrated with Confucianism and Daoism in China in the so-called “Song (Dynasty) synthesis, so that forms of Buddhism brought to Japan later often were integrated with these two religions/philosophies as well (which had also been imported in their earlier, pre-synthetic forms). In addition, many Japanese people simultaneously belong (in one way or another—that is, through practice, prayer, belief, or registry with a temple or shrine) to more than one religion—even while disavowing being religious (which they may do even while evidencing participation), which disavowal is facilitated by the government’s disavowal.
- 6.
Given the complex tasks performed by religion in its various guises, this paper ignores all except those that are related to beauty and to the intertwining of the traditional and the modern in art and society.
- 7.
This nurturance-seeking, known as amae and amaeru (noun and verb forms), is recognized by social scientists as one of the most deep-seated Japanese values; its relevance vis-à-vis ancestors in contemporary religious practice is attested by Reader and Tanabe (1998).
- 8.
For twentieth-century Japanese the family name (first in Japan), is given last, following Western usage.
- 9.
Senju does not hesitate to update his medium and manner, however, when the climate for an installation, cannot accommodate the Japanese materials. This information is based on conversations with the artist regarding his installation at Shofuso Japanese House and Garden, Philadelphia, and at Kyoto University of Art and Design, Kyoto, in 2007.
- 10.
This is based on a presentation on junihitoe, the twelve-layer kimono worn by court ladies, by a member of the Imperial Household Agency responsible for them, given at the Japan Society in New York City.
- 11.
For fuller examination of the Marukis’ work see Dower and Junkerman 1985.
- 12.
For a recognition of the general relevance of Genji and An Account of My Hut to modern literature, see Washburn (1995).
- 13.
An earlier version of the argument about Barefoot Gen was read to the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in September 2011; I would like to thank listeners for their insights and questions. Articles based on that talk, “Making Historic Terror Tolerable to Children: Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies” (Miller under review and “Reinventing Values: Aesthetics as Philosophical Exploration of Self, Subject, and Moral Agency in Kawabata’s The Sound of the Mountain” (Miller 2015) analyze the uses of traditional aesthetics for presenting nuclear horror and moral responses to it.
- 14.
University of Hawaii at Manoa, performance sponsored by the East Asian Languages and LIteratures Department, spring 2015. Translation by Robert Huey.
- 15.
Unless otherwise specified, definitions in this section come from Miner et al. 1985.
- 16.
Miner et al. (1985) is an excellent introduction to the terms especially in literary practice.
- 17.
- 18.
Regrettably I had not yet read James O. Young’s study, Art and Knowledge (Young 2001), when I wrote that article. Young argues that most of those who believe art has little or no cognitive value believe that to have such value, it must contribute to knowledge in similar ways to science, but that in fact, “although both art and science can contribute to our knowledge, they do so in radically different ways” (65).
- 19.
Kodo’s official website. The paragraphs have been rearranged to reflect chronological order.
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Miller, M. (2017). Beauty, Religion and Tradition in Post-Nuclear Japanese Arts and Aesthetics. In: Higgins, K., Maira, S., Sikka, S. (eds) Artistic Visions and the Promise of Beauty. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43893-1_5
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