We love
imagining the wandering calligraphist who owned this delightful kit stopping to
write while on a walk in the mountains. Found at the morning market in the
fishing village of Wajima, it’s named after the great novelist Shusei Tokuda,
who grew up in Kanazawa and has a monument dedicated to him on the summit of
Mount Utatsu. We think this calligraphy kit has got a certain aesthetic
known in Japan as wabi-sabi.
Wabi-sabi is the marriage of two old aesthetic
ideals: wabi, which connotes a kind
of rustic, simplicity, and sabi,
which celebrates the “bloom of time.” Leonard Koren, who wrote a whole book
a...
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Wabi-sabi is the marriage of two old aesthetic
ideals: wabi, which connotes a kind
of rustic, simplicity, and sabi,
which celebrates the “bloom of time.” Leonard Koren, who wrote a whole book
about it, describes wabi-sabi as “a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and
incomplete.” The idea is deeply tied to Buddhist philosophy, and manifests
itself in design as asymmetry, simplicity and modesty. Wabi-sabi is the cracked
cup, the wilted flower, the frayed edge of a cloth and the weathered wood of an
old gate. Think twice before you throw away your chipped dishware
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