A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics

This little book is a tractate - a treatise - on beauty in Japanese art, written in the manner of a zuihistsu, a free-ranging assortment of ideas that "follow the brush" wherever it leads. Donald Richie looks at how perceptual values in Japan were drawn from raw nature and then modified by elegant expressions of class and taste. He explains aesthetic concepts like wabi, sabi, aware, and yugen, and explores their relevance in art, culture, and society today.