Misunderstood Beauty
Hideo Kobayashi, Jun Eto
Eto: When I met you once, you told me that when a housewife goes to the bargain section of a department store and searches for her sweater or skirt with sharp eyes, she is able to choose the best one with great precision. When we talk about beauty, it immediately becomes associated with the alcove, and becomes something strangely abstract. It feels like the certainty of shopping at a bargain sale is gone.
Kobayashi: Does this mean that women are more naturally aware of beauty in their daily lives than men? They not only look at it, they want to buy it and wear it. They experiment in their daily lives. We don't have that, so we start talking about beauty in abstract terms.
Eto: In this respect, what does it mean that men are behind? Or perhaps it is that knowledge makes it difficult to see things. Is it that it is difficult to see?
Kobayashi: I think it's because men are lagging behind women in terms of fashion nowadays. Fashion is the essence of beauty. But, well, there is something deeply unsympathetic about modern masculine culture. It is because they lack deep emotion that they are theoretical, but in fact it is a sentimental culture. Even when discussing beauty, they become fanciful.
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The Aesthetics of "I"
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Eto: Yes, that's right. I think it is a very different thing from a bargain sales area. I do not know much about antiques, but for example, when Kobayashi-san is playing with antiques, he thinks, "This is beautiful," and wants to buy it. When he says, "Let's just buy it," what is the process that makes him decide?
Kobayashi: Yes, well, yes. Recently, Mizuho Aoyagi published a book called 'Sosayaka na Nihonga Hakubutsu' (A Modest Discovery of Japan). It is quite an interesting book, and it is based on that modest experience. The world of beauty is very much a part of my life. The small things are my experiences, right now. Modest means "I" experience, and today's educated people don't have such modest experiences. They don't have the opportunity to have such experiences, or they insult such modest experiences.
Eto: I was also very impressed by that book. It was one of the most interesting things I have read recently. I learned French from Professor Aoyagi, and I had no idea that he was such a great man.
Kobayashi: It is interesting because of his experience, isn't it? Beauty is an experience of seeing and creating. Without objects, there is nothing in the world. Without personal experience of objects, there is nothing. The intellectuals probably despise calligraphy, painting, and antiques very much. But it is actually the term "painting, calligraphy, and antiques" that is being disparaged. They are merely saying that they somehow dislike such words. They are ignorant of the nature of experience in that world. They are completely ignorant. They do not know that even beauty has taken many years of hardship and suffering. They just decide that they cannot approach that world. For example, Mr Aoyagi, while teaching French, is approaching it. He is grasping what he can grasp.
Eto: At the beginning of the book, there is a short passage called "Fragments." I think it was Song celadon. When he entered a room in the museum, there were so many fragments of good things, all lined up in a row, and they were really beautiful. At the very end, there was a perfectly shaped jar. When he saw its perfection, he felt uncomfortable, he lost the freedom he had when he was looking at the fragments, and when he looked back, he realised that it was ugly after all. I think that's what he wrote about. This story left a strong impression on me. To be honest, before I read this book, I had a slight prejudice against calligraphy, paintings, and antiques, but this world is actually an ordinary one, that is, a world where people live their lives reliably. I think I can understand that Mr Aoyagi is living a modest but very certain life.
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The Exchange of Spirit and Material
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Kobayashi: There are many types of antiques, but like Aoyagi-san, there is the world of pottery. So there is the basic experience of that world of pottery, pottery as antiques. That means there is no individuality, not at all. Well, there is some, like Kenzan, who he writes about... However, this has a different meaning from individuality as modern people think of it. It is like a mark, a symbol. There are such marks in each and every flow. There is a flow of Japanese porcelain that lacks individuality. There is a long historical flow, and there is no conscious movement to create something original. Of course, people do it because they are human beings. We do it, but its power is not as strong as the power of the flow. We are secure in our inability to reach it. We can clearly see the flow of such traditions. So what on earth do you experience in the world of china, which is unaware of the noise of individuality? What is experienced is the clay. It is the clay as the material of the ceramic ware, or "detachment." It is the charm of materiality. These things are the foundation. As Mr Aoyagi said, a piece, even a fragment, is indescribably attractive. This is the source of the charm of such Japanese tools. From that experience, artificial things that have been devised in various ways are then added on top of it. Will this work? Whether it works or not depends to a large extent on the power of materiality. If we are talking about spirit, then spirit is something that sits on top of materiality, but the spirit is very humble. That's what they are experiencing. That is the basis of people who love tools and pottery. The antique world teaches them that. It's like being in a relationship with it. If you buy, sell, and cherish things, you will arrive at that point. You will understand it. In that respect, I think that the world of pottery is the oldest and even the most fundamental world in the world of calligraphy, paintings, and antiques.
Eto: Would you say that it is a direct negotiation between the spirit and the materialité?
Kobayashi: Yes, that is taught. That is the foundation. That kind of foundation is lacking in the attitude of the intelligentsia towards beauty. It is seriously lacking. So where do they enter from? From the head. They try to enter beauty from above, through their ideas, knowledge, individuality, and so on, so they are going the wrong way. The clay gradually grows, and then it is shaped, glazed, and painted on a potter's wheel, and then something artificial is created. The era and individuality may come out of it, but in any case, it is a way of looking at things from the perspective of the finished material. This way of looking at things is not fostered in the intelligentsia. That's why they wander around in an ideological way, in terms of art styles or whatever.
Eto: What do you mean by looking at things from that perspective of unravelling them from the source, from the soil?
Kobayashi: Generally, when you are familiar with something, it naturally happens that way. For example, with china, the painted decoration is the first thing you see, but if you are familiar with it, you can see past the painting and move on. But when you become familiar with it, you go beyond the painting and into the world of the sense of touch. The skin, the earth. You go into the taste of the soil. Superficial relationships become boring. You go from the painting to the body. It comes naturally when you tinker with it. The same thing can be said of human relationships. The experience of being with others makes it so. That is what it means to have pottery on hand. It's not really good to have it in your hands and go to an exhibition to look at it. It's like a way of giving it a certain age. There are fewer people than you might think who look at the body of a piece of porcelain. They are looking at the outside.
Eto: So, in society, everything is just a superficial relationship. I think that art is very present in our lives. It's not just about china, but also about paintings and other things. For example, you can only see paintings at an exhibition...
Kobayashi: If you look at it in that way, experiencing the surface would seem to be a very particular way of looking at it. But it is the most natural way of looking at it. A teacup lover always turns the teacup upside down and looks at it. They look at the bottom. The bottom is like the umbilical cord of a teacup. It is a way of looking at the finished product. Even with a painting, you look at it as the work of painting progresses. It's very natural to see things in this way. Look at it the other way around...
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Excess of Words
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Eto: In the end, I think that our contemporary intellectuals' attitude towards beauty has become shallow. I think one of the reasons that this attitude is so prevalent is the excess of politics. Our lives are always surrounded by an excess of politics, so even the most modest experiences become really difficult. In modern society, we are somehow bound up in ideologies, concepts, and so on, and it is difficult to come into contact with things. We live in a state where it is difficult for us to reach the soil, so to speak. We can't touch things because we've been locked into an ideology or a concept. This kind of upstanding lifestyle distances people from beauty. For example, isn't it possible to say that this is the reason why people are forced to see things in the opposite way, believing that pottery is beautiful only because of the painting?
Kobayashi: Yes, so when a woman looks at a kimono, she sees it as if it had been tailored and is ready to be worn. That is the natural way to look at it. I think this way of looking at it is natural and healthy. So there are no mistakes. For example, even if there is a mistake, it is due to the lack of skill of the person's eyes or the insensitivity of the person's sensibilities, and it can be quickly resolved. They do not love beauty in the slightest, yet they insist that culture needs beauty. And that's why they're against beauty. So everything becomes a mess.
Eto: By the way, what is the reason? I think that the attitude of looking at things from the opposite direction, which you mentioned earlier, has become very generalised, because people don't live properly.
Kobayashi: Is it an excess of knowledge? Is it an overabundance of language? Beauty is something that is very close at hand, and people have a very natural attitude towards it. It is our companion in life. But the idea of beauty's place in contemporary culture - we have no experience with the everyday nature of beauty. I have no choice but to start from such an idea. And then, all I have is words. I think that's where it comes from. Anyway, novels are very popular in journalism. Moreover, novels have become very critical. Besides that, there are papers and news reports, all of which are demonstrations of knowledge. On the other hand, there is a strong tendency towards political action, because political experience has nothing to do with aesthetic experience.
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Tradition and Everydayness
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Eto: The other day I was reading Okakura Tenshin's 'The Book of Tea,' and I was struck by the fact that tea was perfected in the Muromachi period, and although tea is now seen as a carefree anachronism, it was an excellent way of life in a very political era. It felt like a very natural world that emerged in a political era that was constantly changing. It didn't seem like a matter of prestige or anything, but rather that such manners were born out of a very humble, natural human desire to reexamine one's own life in a more practical way...
Kobayashi: Of course, I think that's true. For example, the tea ceremony cups of those days were shaped very much like those of the working people of those days. It has a very relaxed shape and is not suitable for today's tea ceremonies. It is the kind of shape that would be just right for a warlord to drink tea between battles. It is a very strong form. When you look at these things, you get the feeling that the great activists are looking at them and checking themselves, as you say. That's natural. It's not a mere way to pass time. They don't have that passive appearance. It's a thought.
Eto: What I think is absurd, for example, is that when tradition is mentioned, there is a strong feeling among the general public that if one does not follow the established old formality, it does not constitute respect for tradition, and that tradition is something that should be displayed on the tokonoma alcove in its completed form. If we are to reaffirm tradition, it is necessary to trace once more the tea ceremony traditions that were so active in the Muromachi period. The tea ceremony is a very important part of the Japanese culture. I think it is strange that people feel that if they don't follow the old customs, they are not connected to tradition. There is a lack of naturalness, a stiffness.
Kobayashi: There is nothing beautiful apart from using it. That is something that is very natural. The aesthetics of the tea ceremony is based on the pleasure of using it. It has been passed down as a tradition, but I think that tradition has been lost.
Eto: I have the feeling that nowadays we are not using things for their own sake, but for the sake of etiquette and formality.
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Modern Aesthetic Malady
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Kobayashi: The everydayness of beauty has been lost. The issue of tradition, from a logical point of view, must be a difficult one. But there is something very clear about the experience of being able to capture something like that. For example, there was the uproar over the Eijin Tsubo pots. The people making that kind of fuss don't seem to think at all that it has nothing to do with beauty. They are all about vanity, honour, or business. In short, the only words used in the commotion are "real" and "fake." I have often thought about how few people realise that after all that uproar, there was not a single experience of real pottery involved. Those who are aware are silent. And tradition flows among those who remain silent. Therefore, the difficulty in catching the tradition is not because the tradition has disappeared. Rather, it is because those who have experienced tradition no longer speak much. So it is important to be aware of where people who have experienced tradition are. You don't have to search for them. They are actually living in a very, how should I put it, anachronistic, very complicated way in the so-called world of paintings and calligraphy and antiques. I must say, however, that the anachronisms of the past are still alive. I must make it clear that calling something anachronistic is an intellectual assessment, not an aesthetic one. It is the intellectual eye of the observer that sees anachronism in the fact that tradition is still alive today. A lover does not have such an eye. They see tradition from the inside. With these eyes, the life of tradition can be seen. This is something that should be renewed every day. Once you have seen this, you will realise that it will not disappear even if you try. It is not something that can be done naturally.
When I first got involved with Go, I had this stupid idea. I thought, "What is there left to see in the world of Go?" What collectors are clamouring for is usually the newer stuff. I have had the feeling that if you go to older places, there is still a lot left to be discovered. But when you try it, you realise it's not such a fool's errand. This is exactly the same as in the world of ceramics. It's a mixed world of what we call real and fake items. Then there are countless stages between the real thing and the fake. As I said earlier, the world is made up of imitations. We all have a long history of imitation. There are infinite nuances in the quality of imitation, but those who work with it don't think about the motives behind the imitation. There's no need for that. They have their hands full with what is actually in front of them. They have their hands full, and they enjoy it. We have accumulated a wealth of experience over the course of hundreds of years. Therefore, we do not know how many hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of times the same thing has been seen. The way in which it has been evaluated has been very mixed, and has been evaluated in a very strange way. During that time, we do not know how many times something like the Eijin Incident has occurred. What percentage of cases are there where the culprit is found? It is more likely, of course, that the perpetrators are never found. It's all in the real thing. I don't mind that at all. It is the lowest class of cases when you can find them. It's an uninteresting issue not worth discussing. From the perspective of a so-called art enthusiast, that is, from a normal perspective. It is generally more difficult and interesting to distinguish between real and fake things than to distinguish them from each other. After hundreds of years of doing this, an immutable order emerges in this chaotic world. Appreciation is to allow that order to take hold and to lose oneself in it. It's not something I should say to you in a presumptuous way, the experience of the world is not like that.
However, people who don't belong to that world think that art can be anything depending on "my" appreciation. This is especially true of modern people. When we talk about artists, they act as if they can create anything, that's what artists are. Appreciation is similar to this, in that depending on one's own interpretation, something that costs 10,000 yen can be valued at 50 yen. That's how they feel. They like to assert themselves. They think that beauty lies in one's own assertion or interpretation. No, beauty is always something to which man submits. They surrender to the object. Through such experiences, the flow of tradition becomes clearly visible. This is an obvious statement, but it is not always recognised by the intelligentsia. For example, people come to me who are very interested in contemporary art and music. We have plenty of seeds for discussing beauty. When they see a bit of luck laying around, they don't pay any attention. They just think there are old tools lying around. It seems really strange to me. This is another kind of modern aesthetic disease.
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Literary Debility
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Eto: Then, this kind of thing really exists in the world of literature too, doesn't it?
Kobayashi: Yes, I suppose. But to say that modern literature has lost its beauty would soon be misunderstood, because the meaning of the word "beauty" has become distorted. It would be better to say that we have lost the ability to see things. Writers no longer see things. It seems that they are writing in vain. It doesn't matter whether it is something that can be seen from the outside or from the inside, but in any case, nothing can begin unless you can see things clearly. That ability has become truly weakened. I am not an aesthete. I just value the fact that the eye sees things. It is good that the realistic novel is changing. But it is no good if we cannot see things. It is fine to criticise Kafū Nagai's ideas this way or that. However, the attitude of looking carefully at Kagurazaka, if it is Kagurazaka, has ended with his death. That's the point, isn't it? He was a person who always looked at things carefully, no matter what. That's what's important.
I-novels are gradually becoming stranger. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is natural, but we cannot allow the loss of everyday experience to come about as a result. If I were to say that literature has lost me, you would say that beauty is irrelevant. In fact, beauty has been misunderstood. It remains misunderstood. They say, "I don't see beauty, I see reality." But they don't see the materiality of reality. They don't see the actual skin and clay. They are looking at the painting. They do not see what kind of men and women are produced from the clay of reality by the power of creation. The reality is seen as a composition. They deconstruct it and reconstruct it. They are proud of their handiwork. Writers of the past often spoke of whether they could portray women or not. Such words are profound in meaning. It is not enough to say that such realism is no longer necessary. There is a different content from the form of realism. It means seeing or experiencing a woman directly. It is about the clarity of one's eyes. It could be said that women, like pottery, have countless stages, from the real thing to the fake. It is only when one first puts aside all interpretation and engages in this process that one is able to see the material. Without grasping this, there is no such thing as literature.
Eto: When did you give up on literature in this way?
Kobayashi: I did not give up on literature. That would be a literary legend, so to speak. There are legends everywhere. I don't believe in such word games. How can I now substitute sound and colour for a life that has become accustomed to words? I have simply become clearly aware that the issue of beauty has become an issue of the experience of "myself." I am simply observing how the process by which beautiful things are created becomes the basic model for manipulating words and thinking about things. The word "fiction" is used a lot these days. I don't like to call it fantasy. I suppose it means that I don't want to bow down to reality, but to offer it freely, especially by consciously reworking it intellectually. I think fiction in novels is half-baked. Philosophy is more interesting. You can't do philosophy in business.
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Sense of Silence
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Eto: When I spoke to you the other day, you said that when you look at a painting, you are not so influenced by the text, but music resonates with the text. I thought this was very interesting.
Kobayashi: Yes, but it's something I don't really understand. My writing is criticism without description. Music is not descriptive. Perhaps it is the charm of a certain rhythm that has an effect. But pictures are somehow frustrating. You can't touch them. So, when I look at a picture, words constantly come to mind. But I wonder if this is just a habit on my part. But I like music, you know. I heard a cellist called Starker recently. I was deeply impressed. I wonder how many people are into such plain music as the cello. It is certainly something that people desire. Japanese sensibility certainly desires it, and certainly gets what it desires. That's what I felt. I felt that there were more people in that hall who wanted and got serious happiness than literary readers, after going to a concert for the first time in a long time. There is beauty and truth without error there. There is no cupidity, no righteous indignation, no fussiness. There is a modest, yet hard-earned experience of pleasure. It would be presumptuous and sentimental to despise such pleasure. I knew Starker, a performer, from his records, and was looking forward to hearing him. I respect record fans. They are not newfangled. They are people who struggle with traditional Japanese aesthetics. There are very similarities with people who like pottery.
Eto: Music is like something that touches your whole body. It is not something that you listen to only with your ears, although you do hear it directly. So what does this mean for the world of literature?
Kobayashi: Poetry, I think.
Eto: If people can't interact with each other, they can't experience anything.
Kobayashi: That's right.
Eto: Then, what are letters?
Kobayashi: You talk about touch, but in William James' words, the sense of touch is the most basic sense for living things. In evolutionary terms, it dates back to the amoeba. I think the modern era is one in which this sense has culturally weakened. Touch is the most silent sense. When I say I see things, I mean I see them as if I were touching them. Today is the century of chatter. So once you shut up, you just act like a madman. I was a maniac.
(Asahi Journal, January 1961)