Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living 9463723366, 9789463723367

Citation preview

Comparative Everyday Aesthetics

Comparative Everyday Aesthetics East-West Studies in Contemporary Living

Edited by Eva Kit Wah Man and Jeffrey Petts

Amsterdam University Press

The publication of this book is made possible by a grant from the Faculty Research Grant of the School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University.

Cover illustration: One Thousand Springs, installation by Chiharu Shiota at Kew Gardens, London, 2021. Photograph by Jeffrey Petts. Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 336 7 e-isbn 978 90 4855 450 8 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789463723367 nur 730 © All authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2023 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

Living with Everyday Objects

Aesthetic and Ethical Practice Yuriko Saito

Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: An Introduction Jeffrey Petts and Eva Kit Wah Man

9

21

Part 1  Living Aesthetically 1 Dao Aesthetics

43

2 Everyday Aesthetics of Taking a Walk: With Zhuangzi

59

3 Investigation of Things

73

Ways of Opening to Sublime Experiences and Transforming Beautifully Robin R Wang

Thomas Leddy

Reflecting on Chinese-Western Comparative Everyday Aesthetics Ouyang Xiao

Part 2  Nature and Environment 4 The Aesthetics of Nature and the Environment

From the Perspective of Comparison between China and the West Gao Jianping

5 Cryosphere Aesthetics Emily Brady

91

107

Part 3  Eating and Drinking 6 Memory’s Kitchen

125

7 Chopsticks and the Haptic Aesthetics of Eating

139

8 Taking Tea, but Differently

153

In Search of a Taste Carolyn Korsmeyer

Richard Shusterman

The Chinese Tea Tradition and its European Transformations Yanping Gao

Part 4  Creative Life 9 Dô (Dao) in the Practice of Art

169

10 Skill Stories from the Zhuangzi and Arts and Crafts

183

Everyday Aesthetic Life in Japan Through the Japanese Tea Ceremony Tanehisa Otabe

Aesthetic Fit, Harmony, and Transformation: Toward a Developmental, Comparative Everyday Aesthetics Jeffrey Petts

Part 5  Technology and Images 11 Why We Love Our Phones

201

12 Filming the Everyday

221

13 Images and Reality

235

A Case Study in the Aesthetics of Gadgets Janet McCracken

Between Aesthetics and Politics Peng Feng

John Carvalho

Part 6  Relationships and Communities 14 Aesthetics in Friendship and Intimacy

253

15 Morality and Aesthetical Lives

269

Kathleen Higgins

Real Stories of Two Hong Kong Women Eva Kit Wah Man

Index 285



Living with Everyday Objects Aesthetic and Ethical Practice Yuriko Saito

Everyday aesthetics, one of the most recent subdisciplines of philosophical aesthetics, is often credited with opening the door to the aesthetic potential of a wide-range of different aspects of our lives. Its main contribution is generally regarded as challenging and expanding the scope of the dominant art-focused Anglo-American aesthetics of the twentieth century. It is more accurate, however, to characterize its contribution as restoring the original meaning of ‘aesthetic,’ focused on the sensory, and hence ubiquitous in our lives. The presumed newness of everyday aesthetics should thus be understood in its proper historical and cultural context. Aesthetic concerns with various aspects of our lives often appear in Western philosophy before everyday aesthetics; furthermore, they are prevalent in other cultural traditions. There is no denying that everyday aesthetics helps to diversify and enrich our aesthetic life. However, I believe that an equally, or arguably more, important contribution it makes is restoring aesthetics’ connection to other life concerns: practical, moral, social, political, and existential. This shift helps reclaim aesthetics’ rightful place in our lives as intricately entangled with the management of everyday life. The eighteenth-century philosophers’ move to carve out the distinct realm of the aesthetic by appealing to the notion of disinterestedness may have given a degree of respectability for aesthetics as an independent area of inquiry. But, at the same time, I believe that its subsequent development sometimes tended to mischaracterize the realm of aesthetics as a kind of bubble disconnected from the rest of human life concerns. One way in which everyday aesthetics calls attention to this interconnectedness of aesthetics and other life concerns is to expose the serious social, political, and environmental ramifications of seemingly innocuous and trivial aesthetic choices and judgments we make in our daily life.

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_fore

10 

Yuriko Saito

Our judgments on the aesthetic appearance of various objects, ranging from consumer goods and farm produce to wind turbines and different landscaping practices determine what kind of goods are produced, sold, and thrown away, as well as what kind of environment is constructed and how it is maintained. Similarly, the consequences of ‘lookism’ are profound, leading to unjust judgments and treatments of those whose bodies do not conform to the societal aesthetic norm of normality and beauty, exacerbating racism, ablism, and ageism. In addition, those whose appearance and demeaner do not conform to societal and cultural norms of respectability are subject to moral censure, intensifying homophobia, classism, and cultural discrimination. Furthermore, aesthetic strategies abound in the political arena. With visual images, music, typography, and clothing accessories, as well as candidates’ appearance, political campaigns have become a spectacle, exemplified by the United States’ presidential election. In addition, the formation of national identity and pride is inseparable from the aesthetics of what is considered a nation’s cultural and natural endowments. We need only think about the wilderness aesthetics specific to the United States, Nazi Germany’s promotion of its ideology through arts and nature aesthetics, and Japan’s celebration of the kamikaze pilots’ demise during World War II by appropriating the long-held legacy of the aesthetics of falling cherry blossoms. These historical examples show how effective aesthetic strategies are in mobilizing people’s support, sometimes with dire consequences.1 These examples expose what I call the power of the aesthetic beyond the realm of the arts. This power wields a double-edged sword, at times providing support for human well-being and societal ideals, while at other times endangering them. Not all of us are artists or professional worldmakers, such as politicians and manufacturers, but we are all implicated in collectively determining the quality of life and the state of the world through our aesthetic choices, decisions, and actions. Everyday aesthetics reminds us that we are empowered to, but also have a responsibility to, engage in this world-making project. It calls for vigilance over how and to what end we are affected by aesthetic power and finding ways to harness this power for better world-making. The aesthetic judgements we make often involve acting on them too, such as purchasing or discarding an object, creating a garden, choosing a candidate for a job, and supporting a political cause. However, these acts 1 I discuss these examples in more details in Chapter 6 of Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and World-Making (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

Living with Everyday Objec ts

11

are guided by the aesthetic judgements we make in the first place and the process fits rather comfortably the traditionally-favored spectator-oriented judgemental model of aesthetics. Exposing the consequences of these aesthetic judgments does not necessarily break new ground insofar as it does not illuminate the aesthetic considerations involved in the actions themselves. However, when we turn our attention to the experience of engaging in an action itself, everyday aesthetics helps us realize another important way in which our aesthetic life is intimately intertwined with the rest of our life concerns. In particular, it highlights the fundamental relationality of our existence and the ethically grounded nature of aesthetic experience. My management of everyday life is made possible by the intricate web of interdependent relationships I form with various others, and aesthetic experience makes this relationality sensible and suggests an ethical mode of living in the world with others. Living in this world means that I am constantly interacting with others, whether humans, non-human beings, nature, environments, or artifacts. Ethics concerns the way in which I act toward others, most notably humans. A part of my ethical relationship with other humans is refraining from violating their rights by not harming them or their properties. However, in my everyday experience I often actively do things to express my concern and care for others, for example by helping a friend in need. In carrying out such an act, the ethical relationship with the other person is not satisfied merely by what the action accomplishes. That is, if my action is not motivated by care and concern for her but simply follows a deontological commitment or a utilitarian calculation, it does not lead to a fulfilling human relationship, although it may be better than not carrying out the action. Specifically, in my caring relationship with a friend, I respect her singularity and the situation she is in, activate my imagination to experience the world and the specific situation from her perspective, improvise and create a course of action, and perform it in an aesthetically sensitive manner. I invest my whole being in interacting with her in this specific situation. The process leading to the specific act of care here parallels an aesthetic experience of an object: focusing on the specific object with an open mind, letting it invite me to its world, and experiencing it with an activated imag­ ination. Because of this parallel between the ethical relationship with the other person and aesthetic experience, aesthetic experience could be characterized as providing a model for developing an ethical relationship with the other. At the same time, acting ethically toward others with care and respect requires an aesthetic sensibility. The ethical value of my act toward the other very much depends upon the way in which I carry out

12 

Yuriko Saito

my act – grudgingly, spitefully, indifferently, kindly, gently, or caringly – in addition to what the action accomplishes. This is an aesthetic matter because the character of my act is determined by the way in which I carry myself through body movement and speech delivery. So, this is one way in which aesthetics is inseparable from cultivating an ethical mode of living in this world with others.2 We can learn how aesthetics can be a means of moral education from those cultural traditions in which the aesthetic and the ethical concerns are integrated. Let me consider examples from the Japanese tradition. The long legacy of Japanese aesthetics primarily consists of master artists describing their art-making practice as a means of self-discipline and moral development. In their teachings, there is no distinction between the aesthetic dimension of their lives and the ethical mode of living in the world. Robert E. Carter characterizes this interdependence as a cultivation of the ethical mode of being in the world by working respectfully, tenderly, gently, humbly, and care-fully, with the materials, whether they be rocks, flowers, or clay.3 The artistic creativity consists of how well the artist listens to and collaborates with the material, instead of exercising an independent agency for an exnihilo creation. It calls for attentiveness, respect, humility, responsiveness, and a spirit of collaboration, all ethical attributes. Through artistic practice, one is expected to cultivate an appreciation of the interconnected nature of one’s existence and an ethical mode of relating to others. While the reference to the Japanese art-making practice I am making here regards the artists’ interactions with their materials, mostly from nature, I believe it suggests a wider application extending beyond artmaking and this particular cultural border. In our everyday life, we are constantly interacting with objects, such as implements of daily use, clothing, furniture, built environment, to name only a few. Some of them garner special attention and treatment because they are family heirlooms, mementos of a memorable occasion, or built structures of historical significance. However, most other objects remain invisible and taken for granted, unless, as Heidegger points out, their “ready-to-hand” (zuhanden) nature gets disrupted from malfunctioning or breakage and they assert their existence as “present-at-hand” (vorhanden). 4 Because of this invisibility, coupled with the low ontological status accorded to them within the Western philosophical framework, these 2 I discuss the parallel and connectedness between care ethics and aesthetic experience in Aesthetics of Care: Practice in Everyday Life (London: Bloomsbury, 2022). 3 Robert E. Carter, The Japanese Arts and Self-Discipline (Albany: SUNY Press, 2008). 4 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, tr. Joan Stambaugh (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996), 96.

Living with Everyday Objec ts

13

objects are quintessential “It” in Martin Buber’s formulation.5 According to this way of thinking, we don’t have any ethical obligations to them, although we may have obligations regarding them in order to avoid harm to other humans and nature. There is nothing wrong with treating them merely as means to our ends, unlike in the case of humans, according to the second formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative, or non-human creatures, according to animal rights advocates, or nature in general, according to some environmental ethicists. However, particularly in light of today’s consumerism and its accompanying throw-away culture, this relationship with objects needs to be questioned. I suggest that we need to acknowledge our interdependent relationship with the artifactual world and reconceptualize our interactions as ethically grounded and aesthetically guided. Here, again, we can find inspirations from Japanese culture.6 Japan has a long tradition of honoring artifacts such as knives, needles, and dolls and expressing respect and gratitude toward them when retiring them, by giving them to temples or shrines for their proper service and disposal (kuyō 供養) instead of throwing them in the trash. Today, seal stamps (hanko or inkan 印鑑) used for certifying official documents in Japan have joined this set of honored artifacts, as Japan moves toward digitization. Such practices are supported by the long legacy of its indigenous religion of Shintoism, which accords a spirit to various things, and Buddhism imported from the Asian Continent, which regards everything to be imbued with its own Buddha nature. Having been heavily influenced by Zen Buddhism, Sōetsu Yanagi (柳宗 悦 1889-1961), a Japanese art historian and the founder of the Mingei (民芸 folk art) movement, characterizes innocuous and humble everyday objects made by unknown craftsmen as having a heart: But to think of them as nothing but physical objects would be an error. They may simply be things, but who can say that they don’t have a heart? Forbearance, wholesomeness, and sincerity – aren’t these virtues witnesses to the fact that everyday objects have a heart?7 5 Martin Buber, I and Thou, tr. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970). 6 By repeatedly referencing the Japanese tradition, I by no means idealize it or imply that everyone in Japan today adheres to these ideals and practices. I am offering different points of view and practices not only to non-Japanese readers who may not be familiar with them but also to Japanese readers as well to encourage reflections on the cultural legacy that they not be aware of or practice. 7 Soetsu Yanagi, The Beauty of Everyday Things, tr. Michael Brase (New York: Penguin Classics, 2018), 35.

14 

Yuriko Saito

He describes their way of being in the world with us as “loyal companions” and “faithful friends” who “work thoughtlessly and unselfishly, carrying out effortlessly and inconspicuously whatever duty comes their way.”8 Their presence and the usefulness offer “an expression of humility.” So as not to exoticize or orientalize such a view, consider Heidegger’s discussion of ‘things.’ While the existence of a jug is made possible by human making, he claims that “the jug’s thingness resides in its being qua vessel” and “the vessel’s thingness does not lie at all in the material of which it consists, but in the void that holds.”9 Because of its void, the jug can take in and retain what is poured into it. When pouring out, the jug gives a gift of whatever is poured out. The holding of the vessel occurs in the giving of the outpouring. Holding needs the void as that which holds. The nature of the holding void is gathered in the giving. But giving is richer than a mere pouring out. … The jug’s jug-character consists in the poured gift of the pouring out. Even the empty jug retains its nature by virtue of the poured gift …10

Strictly speaking, the jug itself is an inert object, and it is we humans who do the pouring in and pouring out. However, he attributes the identity of this object to these acts; furthermore, he characterizes this feature of the jug as giving gift rather than a mechanical action of pouring out. Somewhat echoing Yanagi, he characterizes the jug’s mode of being as “modestly” and “inconspicuously compliant.”11 For my purpose here, it is more helpful to interpret this attitude toward artifacts as our ethical relationship with them, rather than be concerned 8 Yanagi, The Beauty, 36. The next passage is from 37. 9 Martin Heidegger, “The Thing,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, tr. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 169. 10 Heidegger, “The Thing,” 172. 11 Heidegger, “The Thing,” 182. We should note Heidegger’s acknowledgement of affinity with East Asian philosophy. Reinhard May compiles many records of conversations Heidegger held with visitors that indicate he found in Daoism and Zen Buddhism a kindred spirit. For example, regarding the Buddhist notion of nothingness, Heidegger stated that “that is what I have been saying my whole life long.” After reading a book on Zen Buddhism by D. T. Suzuki, Heidegger is said to have stated: “If I understand this man correctly, this is what I have been trying to say in all my writings.” Both passages are from p. 3 of Reinhard May, Heidegger’s Hidden Sources: East Asian Influence on His Work, tr. Graham Parkes (New York: Routledge, 1996). Yanagi also includes a similar saying by Heidegger: “If I had come into contact with the works of Daisetsu Suzuki on Zen at an earlier date, I could have reached my present conclusions much sooner” (The Beauty, 144).

Living with Everyday Objec ts

15

with their ontological and moral status. Irrespective of whether these objects possess something like a spirit or moral agency worthy of our ethical handling, interacting with them with respect defines the way in which we conduct ourselves in this world. When experiencing the artifacts of daily use as loyal companions or faithful friends giving us gifts, however inconspicuously, humbly, and modestly, we appreciate their existence beyond the service offered by them, and we use them and interact with them with respect and care. Part of such a respectful relationship is to experience them for what they are, even if they display what is normally considered to be aesthetic defects: signs of wear and tear, their own ageing, and damage, the inevitable fate of all material things. If we encourage re-examining ageism as one kind of problematic lookism, we try to cultivate an aesthetic appreciation of the deep wrinkles and weather-beaten skin of an old farmer, different from the appreciation directed toward the smooth skin of a youth. Similarly, respecting the aged appearance of an object also calls for an aesthetic sensibility that differs from a more common sensibility of favoring the perfect, mint condition of a new object, the sensibility encouraged by what Steven Jackson calls a “productionist bias” or “production-centered ethos.”12 It is a powerful aesthetic scheme created by today’s industrial system that puts premium on the ‘original’ state of a manufactured object at the end of the production process when the product is in ‘mint’ condition. This ethos sheds a negative light on the subsequent transformation an object goes through, with its own aging process, repeated use, and outdated appearance. However, such a well-worn appearance of the objects of daily use represents our history together. They have served us well, have been faithful companions who shared their lives with us, and we have grown (old) together. Rather than dismissing this kind of sentiment as a quaint form of anthropomorphism or a romantic fetish, I believe we should take it seriously as a way of acknowledging the relationality between us and the objects from our daily life. They help us function and manage being-in-the-world. Just as we love a person as a whole being, warts and all, we embrace the objects in their particular state, including what is usually considered as imperfection and defects. We continue the object’s history through its own aging process and our interaction with it, each stage exhibiting a unique characteristic rather than compromising or damaging the original integrity of the object.

12 Steven Jackson, “Rethinking Repair,” in Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society, eds. Tarleton Gillespie, et al (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2014).

16 

Yuriko Saito

It is no longer an anonymous other simply serving my needs but something that grows together with me and shares a life and history with me. In this context, it is noteworthy that Naoto Fukasawa, one of the leading designers in contemporary Japan, characterizes his design philosophy called “Super Normal” as facilitating the longevity of the object as the user lives with it through repeated use: “Super Normal’s about how things work in relation to our living with them. Not just in one-off use but interactively over the long term, in relation to everything else we own and use and the atmospheric influence all these things have on our lives.”13 Through repeated use, the object in one sense becomes imperfect by showing wear and tear, shutaku (手沢), but looked at from another point of view, it shows “the deepening of a relationship” with the user, which he identifies as wabi-sabi.14 He summarizes this relationship as follows: “We come to appreciate an object through using it, and the more we use a good object, the more we are able to appreciate its qualities, and we may discover its beauty not just in how it ages but in how we age with it.”15 This ongoing entanglement with the material world as a basis for an ethical relationship with it suggests that its temporal dimension is both backward-looking and forward-looking. That is, my relationship with an object is situated both in its past and ongoing story. I may not have shared its history because I did not take part in its making or I have not lived with it in the past, although I can take part in its past through imaginative engagement. Now that it is in my possession, I expect to share my life with it by going through various stages of vicissitude together through use, breakage, and repair, and at some point I may delegate its future life to my family, friend, or stranger, unless I put it to rest. Thus, my relationship with this particular object is both past- and future-oriented, as well as present-engaged. Although my interaction with objects of daily use is dominated by using them, the ethically grounded treatment of them goes beyond taking care so as not to cause wanton damage. Just as ethical dealing with other people is not limited to observing negative duties by not violating their rights, my ethical relationship with the material world extends to doing things proactively, namely performing care, maintenance, and repair. In fact, many household chores are directed toward such activities: cleaning, washing, polishing, repainting, mending, and so on. These activities garner 13 Naoto Fukasawa and Jasper Morrison, Super Normal: Sensations of the Ordinary (Baden: Lars Müller Publishers, 2008), 104. 14 Fukasawa, Super Normal, 110 for shutaku and 106 for wabi-sabi. 15 Fukasawa, Super Normal, 111, emphasis added.

Living with Everyday Objec ts

17

attention neither in aesthetics nor in popular imagination. These tasks are made invisible because their significance and value are considered to pale in comparison to more ‘productive’ or ‘creative’ work of making things, running a business, educating students, governing the nation, and the like, reminding us of Jacques Rancière’s view on how the distribution of the sensible is socially and politically constructed.16 As a result, various care work for objects and environments are performed by the marginalized population, such as immigrants, the poor, the uneducated, not to mention predominantly women. However, without their work, the society cannot function, and the presumably more important work cannot be performed. As an American artist, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, rhetorically asked in her Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969! Proposal for an Exhibition “Care”: “after the revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?”17 These activities also deserve aesthetic attention. First, besides reasons of hygiene and health, we clean things to achieve a desired appearance: dust-free, dirt-free, stain-free, and wrinkle-free. Tarnished silverware does not compromise its functionality; neither does the peeling paint of a wall or a car (at least initially). Rips and tears in clothing items rarely interfere with their wearability, as indicated by today’s grunge-inspired fashion. When mending them, we can choose the traditionally favored invisible repair by making the signs of repair as inconspicuous, or ideally invisible, as possible. Or, we can choose visible repair method by highlighting, instead of concealing, the object’s history, deriving inspirations from the Japanese art of kintsugi (金継 gold joinery) or kintsukuroi (金繕い gold repair). In all these cases, aesthetic judgments dictate the course of action. Second, first-person accounts of performing these tasks reveal that there are many aesthetic considerations involved in these activities. There is a seamless back and forth between body engagement, observation, judgment, and the desired outcome. We constantly adjust the work according to how the object is responding to our activity and what method best achieves the desired outcome. We have to carefully listen to the object’s dictates and negotiate with it. Despite general guidelines, there is no one-size-fits-all way of dealing with each situation and we have to improvise. It is instructive to hear the first-person accounts of those who engage in these acts, as most often they refer to the need to “listen to,” “respond to,” “work with,” and “cooperate with” 16 See Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, tr. Gabriel Rockhill (London: Continuum, 2004). 17 Cited by Lucy Lippard, “Never Done,” in Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art, ed. Patricia C. Phillips (New York: Queens Museum, 2016), 17.

18 

Yuriko Saito

the object. This mode of doing things requires both an ethical relationship based upon respect and collaboration and an aesthetic engagement. While we are constantly ‘doing’ things and interacting with the world around us in our everyday life, this action-packed dimension of our life has not garnered enough attention in aesthetics discourse. The reason for this neglect is that ‘doing things’ does not fit comfortably into the long-held model of aesthetic experience, which is directed toward a clearly defined or framed object experienced by a spectator, often resulting in a judgment that is accompanied by some sense of objectivity. Because activities experienced from within, rather than being observed from outside, do not fulfill these conditions, they are often considered to be outside of the aesthetic arena for lacking ‘aesthetic credentials.’18 Harnessing insights gained from participatory art, somaesthetics, aesthetics of engagement, feminist aesthetics, and other cultural traditions, everyday aesthetics instead encourages moving the focus of inquiry from objects to experiences and paying attention to the first-person accounts. Although the first-person account refers to a subjectively felt experience, we can share the other person’s experience either by marshalling our past experiences of a similar kind or by participating imaginatively. It is not a private world closed to others; rather, the door is open to others to join a community marked by a sense of camaraderie, hence, enabling intersubjectivity while not guaranteeing objectivity. Sometimes such an imaginatively shared experience can be very intense. When I encountered a clumsily mended buttonhole on an Auschwitz victim’s uniform at the Jewish Heritage Museum in New York City a few years ago, the experience was visceral, and it took me a while to sort through the gush of emotions I experienced. It is true that I was a spectator of this object without directly interacting with it. However, although it was beyond my imagination to fathom the circumstances under which this mender repaired the frayed buttonhole, the common humanity I can share from this mending activity connected me to this anonymous mender. Not only did I feel a sense of camaraderie, but I was moved by the mender’s desperate effort to retain the last shred of dignity and normalcy. Intersubjectivity of doing things is thus possible through activating imagination, although it is neither a means to nor results from any judgement-making. It is hard to compartmentalize this kind of experience as belonging to the ethical realm, existential realm, or aesthetic realm. I believe it is all of these. The aesthetic impact is made 18 Christopher Dowling, “The Aesthetics of Daily Life,” British Journal of Aesthetics 50.3 (2010): 225-242.

Living with Everyday Objec ts

19

even more powerful by the clumsy appearance of the mend. If it is neatly and perfectly mended as if it was done by a sewing machine, I believe that the impact would have been very different. Its imperfect stiches express poignantly the extreme situation under which this anonymous mender had to work, and the effect is powerfully aesthetic. Thus, our relationship and interaction with the material world should be both ethically-grounded and aesthetically-guided. Engagement with the artifactual world is particularly pressing today with rampant consumerism and our throw-away culture. Re-examining our relationship to objects is important not only for the practical purpose of mitigating these worrisome trends but more importantly and fundamentally for cultivating an ethical mode of living in the world with them. Everyday aesthetics, across different cultural traditions, shows how aesthetic experience can be a powerful instrument in helping us with this urgently important task.

Bibliography Buber, Martin. I and Thou. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970. Carter, Robert E. The Japanese Arts and Self-Discipline. Albany: SUNY Press, 2008. Dowling, Christopher. “The Aesthetics of Daily Life.” The British Journal of Aesthetics 50, no. 3 (2010): 225–42. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayq021. Fukasawa, Naoto, and Jasper Morrison. Super Normal: Sensations of the Ordinary. Baden: Lars Müller Publishers, 2008. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by Joan Stambaugh. Albany: SUNY Press, 1996. Heidegger, Martin. “The Thing.” In Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Jackson, Steven. “Rethinking Repair.” In Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society, edited by Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014. Lippard, Lucy. “Never Done.” In Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art, edited by Patricia C. Phillips. New York: Queens Museum, 2016. Rancière, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics. Translated by Gabriel Rockhill. London: Continuum, 2004. Reinhard, May. Heidegger’s Hidden Sources: East Asian Influence on His Work. Translated by Graham Parkes. New York: Routledge, 1996. Saito, Yuriko. Aesthetics of Care: Practice in Everyday Life. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022.

20 

Yuriko Saito

Saito, Yuriko. Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and Worldmaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Yanagi, Soetsu. The Beauty of Everyday Things. Translated by Michael Brase. New York: Penguin Classics, 2018.

About the Author Born and raised in Japan, Professor Yuriko Saito taught philosophy at Rhode Island School of Design, US from 1981–2018. Her works in aesthetics appear in numerous academic journals and awarded anthologies. She has lectured widely in the US, as well as internationally. Her book, Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and World-Making was awarded the outstanding monograph prize by the American Society for Aesthetics. She serves as editor of Contemporary Aesthetics, the first online, open-access and peer-reviewed journal in aesthetics.



Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: An Introduction Jeffrey Petts and Eva Kit Wah Man

1

The Everyday in Philosophical Aesthetics

In 2003, Crispin Sartwell’s introduction to the aesthetics of the everyday noted “everyday aesthetics” as twofold in character: a philosophical interest in the “aesthetic experience of non-art objects and events”; and a corresponding “movement” in philosophical aesthetics concerned with distinctions between “fine and popular art” and “art and craft”.1 Also, Sartwell suggested both concerns began with one book, John Dewey’s 1934 Art as Experience.2 But the history of everyday aesthetics, while immediately and intellectually indebted to Dewey, precedes him. Indeed, there’s a strong case that it has always been and will remain a fundamental concern, a philosophical inquiry into how we should live, with related moral, political, and ecological connotations. So, Sartwell’s double characterization needs rethinking and amending. Moreover, we contend that a comparative approach is necessary as part of that project if it is not to be restricted to western experiences and notions of living aesthetically. Only then can it be truly said to be an everyday aesthetics about everyone too. Other perspectives from outside western everyday aesthetics include, for example, Daoist ideas on the nature of aesthetic experience. Its notions of the possibilities for total experiential engagement with our everyday environment have affinities with Deweyan ideas about heightened, valuable and adaptive aesthetic experience.3 Where and how these everyday aesthetic experiences occur – our encounters with quotidian things, occasions, and activities – anticipates discussions 1 Crispin Sartwell, “Aesthetics of the Everyday,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, ed. Jerrold Levinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 763. 2 Sartwell, 763. 3 For examples, see Jeffrey Petts, “Aesthetic Experience and the Revelation of Value,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58, no. 1 (2000): 61–71, https://doi.org/10.2307/432350.

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_intro

22 

Jeffrey Pe t ts and Eva Kit Wah Man

that comprise the book. It consists of cultural perspectives from British, American, Chinese, and Japanese authors, who remind us of and examine, the pleasures and meanings found in everyday aesthetic lives. But, before summarizing those contributions, it is useful to further introduce the landscape of everyday aesthetics in terms of its scope and aims as a movement; and to note the philosophical problems they have engendered. 1.1 Everyday Aesthetics’ Scope: Beyond Fine Art Sartwell states that “the realm of the aesthetic” is established by acknowledging that “there is an aesthetic dimension to a variety of experiences that are common to nearly all people but would not normally be seen as experiences of fine art”. 4 He gives the supposed cross-cultural examples of “body adornment” and the “arrangement and ornamentation of [our] immediate environment to create a pleasing effect.”5 Other examples are provided: the decoration of homes, gardening, and cooking; and popular music, web design, and f ilm. Sartwell further concludes that the facts of everyday aesthetics demonstrate “the continuity of the f ine and popular arts, of art and craft, and of art and spirituality.”6 Everyday aesthetics, then, is not concerned with the making of artworks but with the “art of living”.7 Yuriko Saito also noted that the range of objects of aesthetic experience is beyond art. Sartwell’s “art of living” might suggest that everyday aesthetics is an extension of art experiences to other objects. But, Saito also challenges the nature of that experience itself and the consequent “special experienced-based aesthetics.”8 She argues that everyday aesthetics, in addition to broadening the scope of things of aesthetic experience, represents a range of moments that do not especially stand out. So, many everyday moments thought outside the scope of aesthetics should be understood as aesthetic. Saito gives the example of something that is experienced as unpleasant, perhaps untidy, that generates an automatic aesthetic response that then prompts an action to tidy up. The fundamental idea of “special” 4 Sartwell, “Aesthetics of the Everyday,” 763. 5 Sartwell, 763. 6 Sartwell, 764. 7 Sartwell, 764. 8 Satio takes Edward Bullough’s “disinterest” and John Dewey’s ’engagement’ accounts of aesthetic experience as representative of versions of it being necessarily “special.”Yuriko Saito, Everyday Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 43.

Compar ative Everyday Aesthe tics: An Introduc tion

23

associated with aesthetic experience falsely neglects, for Saito, the everyday mundane experience of the kind that, for example, prompts tidying. Similarly, Sherri Irvin challenged not only the focus on artworks of traditional western aesthetics but ideas about aesthetic experience itself when she proposed that “experiences of everyday life are replete with aesthetic character”.9 Like Saito, Irvin rejected the idea that everyday aesthetic experience was “special” in the way characterized by Deweyan accounts. Instead, “everyday experiences are simple, lacking in unity or closure, and characterized by limited or fragmented awareness,” yet this “does not disqualify them from aesthetic consideration.”10 They are the experiences one has in the room one is in, right now, from the window perhaps, able to ”watch the ducks that are swimming around”; or go outside, walk down the dirt road ”and study the various colors of the dirt and the tire tracks.”11 Roger Scruton should also be mentioned to highlight the significance of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics. Scruton observes that it contains valuable hints towards an aesthetics of everyday life, something that he noted too as neglected by western philosophical aesthetics: Wittgenstein records all those everyday actions motivated by a “desire for things to look right,” which indicates an aesthetic interest in things.12 Robert Stecker was also notable for defending, alongside Sartwell, Saito, and Irvin, a broad view of the scope of aesthetic objects. He asks: “What possesses aesthetic value?” According to a general view, it can be found almost anywhere. According to a narrower view, it is found primarily in art. It is applied to other items by sharing some of the properties that make artworks aesthetically valuable.”13 Their accounts all raise initial issues about whether any object or situation is capable of aesthetic experience. About whether aesthetic experience is in fact a divided notion between art and the everyday. And about the relation of everyday aesthetic experience to aesthetic value. 9 Sherri Irvin, “The Pervasiveness of the Aesthetic in Ordinary Experience,” British Journal of Aesthetics 48, no. 1 (2008): 29, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/aym039. 10 Irvin, 29. 11 Irvin, 30. 12 Roger Scruton, “In Search of the Aesthetic,” British Journal of Aesthetics 47, no. 3 (2007): 240, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/aym004. 13 Robert Stecker, “Aesthetic Experience and Aesthetic Value,” Philosophy Compass 1 (2006): 1–10; Stecker has expanded the idea in Intersections of Value: Art, Nature and the Everyday (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

24 

Jeffrey Pe t ts and Eva Kit Wah Man

1.2 Everyday Aesthetics: Key Debates and Controversies The most fundamental doubt about everyday aesthetics is its reality. So, while experiencing artworks is rare, it might also be the case that aesthetic experience is not a quotidian feature of many lives, lives that are evidently and essentially non-aesthetic. Lives of poverty and squalor, for example, seem fundamentally so, without any possibility of some aesthetic compensation. And similarly, lives dominated by over-consumption of poor quality and unnecessary things. This overarching doubt breaks down into issues about the possible triviality of everyday aesthetic experience, the coherence of the idea of the aesthetic, and about aesthetic value. What is an aesthetic experience of the everyday? Does an explanation cohere with the aesthetic experiences of artworks? What value is attached to aesthetic experiences of the everyday? Two recent debates are illustrative of how aestheticians have engaged these fundamental questions. The debate between Sherri Irvin and David Davies is illustrative of how broad agreement about the existence of aesthetic lives beyond appreciating artworks still leaves significant room for disagreement. In this case, the dispute centers on what makes an individual experience aesthetic and justifies the claims for the value of everyday aesthetic experience generally. A second debate, between Christopher Dowling and Kevin Melchionne, is similar in agreeing on the existence of everyday aesthetics but disputing what makes an experience aesthetically valuable and whether art-like experience is still the paradigm case of aesthetic experience. Davies disputes Irvin’s rejection of everyday aesthetics’ Deweyan heri­ tage.14 Irvin rejects the Deweyan heritage that requires aesthetic experience to have “unity” and “closure.” And that this involves some active and critical encounter with the things being aesthetically appreciated. This puzzles Davies because he wonders how there can be any value in such personal verdicts in the sensory pleasures described by Irvin. In turn, how then, without the cognitive and the evaluative elements of aesthetic experience, can Irvin’s claims of the moral and environmental significance of everyday aesthetic experiences be justified? Davies looks to the philosophical aesthetics of Frank Sibley for support, but the argument is essentially that there is a necessary cognitive element in aesthetic experience or, in other words, a requirement that “critical” reasons for liking are part of the experience. An object of everyday interest must be sufficiently rich to warrant a description 14 David Davies, “Sibley and the Limits of Everyday Aesthetics,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 49, no. 3 (2015): 50–65.

Compar ative Everyday Aesthe tics: An Introduc tion

25

that enters a critical debate about aesthetic value. The cognitive character of aesthetic experience (everyday or art) is twofold: I describe; you can then debate my evaluation. Irvin indeed removes this element of a Deweyan explanation of aesthetic experience. Davies concludes that Irvin’s account leaves no way to distinguish aesthetic from non-aesthetic experience. But he still supports the idea of everyday aesthetics because, with any evaluative model, we can return to the everyday and still find everyday aesthetic experiences worth the name. Dowling, like Davies, is skeptical about the aesthetic credentials of uncritical, sensory, everyday experience.15 Still, again, like Davies, he supports the general thesis of everyday aesthetics that aesthetic experience goes beyond that of artworks. Responding, Melchionne offers a defense of Irvin’s examples of her supposed everyday aesthetic experiences by suggesting that, even if personal, they represent a pattern of aesthetic living. Dowling then agrees that aesthetic experience extends beyond artworks, but its core is “the normative aspect that renders certain judgments of particular interest to others.”16 Aesthetic experience has an essential axiological dimension, in other words. So, “there are good reasons not to overlook the distinction between merely idiosyncratic and a-critical responses and those that are putatively the subject of agreement, amendment, and critical discussion.”17 Trivial experience is non-social, non-critical: “the kind of judgments that most of us are not required to engage with, falling to elicit the possibility of corrigibility, consensus, or criticism.”18 Melchionne’s response to Dowling argues for a view of everyday aesthetic experience where critical discourse is limited. While conceding that individual experiences may not have aesthetic value in themselves, they represent aesthetic patterns of the everyday. So, referencing Irvin’s account of her own aesthetic experience in her study, the comfort of a breeze, and so on, while these might seem trivial, they are “part of an extended ritual of study and reflection that the writer has honed” and show how “ordinary experiences typically derive significance from their role in a pattern of daily life.”19 It is perhaps moot whether this satisfies Davies’s point that such experience can hardly support the greater claims of the everyday aesthetics movement. Certainly, if everyday aesthetic 15 Christopher Dowling, “The Aesthetics of Daily Life,” The British Journal of Aesthetics 50, no. 3 (2010): 225–42, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayq021. 16 Dowling, 240. 17 Dowling, 240. 18 Dowling, 240. 19 Kevin Melchionne, “Aesthetic Experience in Everyday Life: A Reply to Dowling,” British Journal of Aesthetics 51, no. 4 (2011): 439, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayr034.

26 

Jeffrey Pe t ts and Eva Kit Wah Man

experience is not for its own sake but is also world-making, its critical and normative character would seem necessary.

2

Comparative Contributions to Everyday Aesthetics

Comparative Everyday Aesthetics is structured into six parts. The categorization is not prescriptive but indicative of critical areas of human life that are of interest to everyday aesthetics.20 In Part 1, Living Aesthetically, Robin Wang, Thomas Leddy, and Ouyang Xiao each argue their ideas of what it is to live aesthetically, especially from Daoist and Neo-Confucian perspectives. Robin Wang’s “Dao Aesthetics: Ways of Opening to Sublime Experiences and Transforming Beautifully” presents three specific Daoist approaches to aesthetic experience. These are tidao 體 道 (embodiment of Dao), hedao 合道 (alignment with Dao), and dedao 得道 (obtaining Dao). Wang illustrates tidao by introducing the Daoist Academy in Nanyue 南岳 (Southern Mountain) in China’s Hunan Province. Living in the mountain, Dao followers appreciate the realm of the Dao via the beauty of nature and through artistic practices. To align with Dao, hedao is achieved through day-to-day habitual living and regimented physical exercise and breathing to attain a calm inner life f illed with aesthetic appreciation and delights. The habitual way of daily routine is essential to health, and Wang lists the movement of qi flow in one’s body in a day. She introduces qi’s circulation, preservation, and nurturing, which should echo the Dao’s transformation into an earthly bodily regiment. Through these physical nurturing and correspondence acts, life becomes meaningful and beautiful. The breathing exercise should go along with body movements, during which one should let go of thoughts, emotions, and desires. Wang mentions Damei 大美, which refers to the beauty of the Dao and the beauty of living in the world. In “Everyday Aesthetics of Taking a Walk – with Zhuangzi,” Thomas Leddy similarly reminds us of the beauty of strolling in everyday life, a time we feel free of mental intensity but still are immediately sharpened in our observations and sensitive to daily happenings. Things are perceived in tranquility and silence, akin to that experienced in meditation. This experience reveals a truth about reality that is usually “distorted” when one articulates or describes its perception in words and language. Leddy 20 Other divisions are possible, of course, around particular issues and approaches, for example. This is more akin to how the philosophy of art can be divided between different art forms.

Compar ative Everyday Aesthe tics: An Introduc tion

27

relates walking with environmental aesthetics and emphasizes the totality and the continuity of the experience that one “grasps” during a daily stroll. He adopts the term “micro-aesthetics” for this and describes the perception of all the familiars in a walk as a form of consolation and reminds us of the possible meeting of the “extraordinary” of things during the stroll which is waiting for our discovery. Leddy reviews Gumbrecht’s appropriation of Heidegger’s idea of “presence,” which leads to meeting the unconcealment of the truths of things. He also relates unconcealment to Daoist Zhuangzi’s moment of “grasping” by the subject, a natural tendency, and an interaction between the subject and nature. This happens in the best state when the subject enjoys walking in everyday life, which refers to one’s experience in the realm of the “Dao.” The reading of both Wang and Leddy echoes the Daoist idea that human experiences transcend a subject and object dichotomy when the mind enters the realm of the Dao and is engaged with Nature. Here nature fills the human mind and enables things to present themselves under the “light” of the mind, which is “coping” with things in the Daoist sense. It is said that once the human mind is clear from desires, it will act as a mirror to the objects that present the in-itself to it. All the judgments that come after, including moral and aesthetic, are conducted in terms of the subject’s temperaments, which may have developed from one’s personal history, experience, and preferences, leading to one’s values and tastes. From a comparative point of view, one can detect in Daoist thinking the idea of the harmonious state of aesthetic experience. Ouyang Xiao’s “Investigation of Things: Reflecting on Chinese-Western Comparative Everyday Aesthetics” notes that trans-cultural comparative studies entail harvesting new and enlightening perspectives of our aesthetic life and reflecting on our cultural traditions. He suggests that in the Neo-Confucian practice of gewu or investigating things, there is a Chinese inspiration for dealing with the familiar, ordinary, and routine aesthetically. It can lead to an immersive aesthetical experience characterized by a sensuous and intuitive recognition of the appropriateness of everyday things dwelling in their contexts and a cosmic understanding of the generative power of the universe that is both profound and poetic. By contemplating aesthetic experience facilitated by gewu, Ouyang argues that aesthetic experience is typically not individual per se but collective because many prima facie private and personal aesthetic experiences are possible only because of the collective underneath. So, for Ouyang, an irreplaceable value of everyday aesthetics lies in revealing what is often hidden by the dominant theories of aesthetic experience. Therefore, aesthetic experience is typically not individual but collective because

28 

Jeffrey Pe t ts and Eva Kit Wah Man

many prima facie private and personal aesthetic experiences are possible only because of the collective underlying them. Ouyang states, “a person of taste is never alone.” Everyday aesthetics thus urges us to recognize the fact of associated living. In Part 2, Nature and Environment, Gao Jianping and Emily Brady consider everyday aesthetics about nature and environmental concerns. Gao Jianping, “The Aesthetics of Nature and the Environment: From the Perspective of Comparison between China and the West,” notes that the study of environmental and ecological aesthetics in China only began in the twenty-first century. This may depend on the meaning of ecological perspectives. Still, environmental aesthetics should have been discussed in commenting on the design of Chinese gardens and the practice of ancient Chinese landscape paintings. The aestheticians of the peasant country naturally have had various appreciative discussions on the beauty of Nature throughout the history of China. When comparing Nature’s aesthetics discourses in China and Europe, Gao lists Western discourses on the beauty of creation, the sublime, and the picturesque. Chinese discourses on the beauty of nature have undergone very discursive developments, leading to a transformation of the discipline of aesthetics in Marxist China. From the appreciation of the beauty of Nature in ancient times to contemporary ecological and environmental aesthetics, Gao suggests that discourses in both cultures demonstrate similarities and differences, including the appreciation of our natural environments in everyday life. In “Cryosphere Aesthetics,” Emily Brady argues that as we witness change and loss to the cryosphere, environmental aesthetics has an essential place in illuminating and disclosing the qualities, meanings, and values of ice and snow and the relationships between people and ecologies in the cryosphere. She formulates an environmental aesthetics of the cryosphere through the “integrated aesthetic” theory, which draws upon theoretical and other methods of aesthetics and seeks to incorporate a plurality of knowledge, narratives, and global perspectives. Brady adds to this the relevance of cultivating appreciative virtues such as wonder, receptivity, sensitivity, and humility. Her argument for descriptive aesthetics proposes the inclusion of various sources and collaboration between disciplines, researchers, community-based researchers, and narrative-based policy development. Brady notes that such collaborations are underway, for example, through the endeavors of art-sci projects and the emerging cross-disciplinary areas of the arctic and polar humanities. With this toolkit of integrated resources, Brady hopes that a better understanding of the role of aesthetics in the lived experience of the cryosphere will be possible.

Compar ative Everyday Aesthe tics: An Introduc tion

29

In Part 3, Eating and Drinking, Carolyn Korsmeyer, Richard Shusterman, and Gao Yanping examine perhaps the most fundamental aspect of everyday aesthetics, eating and drinking, both as a personal and social experience. Carolyn Korsmeyer’s “Memory’s Kitchen: In Search of a Taste” brings us back to our childhood with its physical and sensational memories. She tells the story of her baking of kuchen, a kind of German sweet cake that her grandmother used to make, and the countless times she has failed in producing the right yeasty delight. She starts from a note suggested by Yuriko Saito that everyday aesthetics is action-oriented, and the act of family baking is about memories: the right color, the right feeling of the dough and the right scent, etc.; getting these right leads one back to one’s personal experiential history. Together with these sense memories are those of the kitchen and the home setting and the dear ones who had brought her sensational pleasure and anticipation. She further elaborates that the food experience is of a particular culture at a specific time, and the search for a taste is also an activity for identity searching. Korsmeyer produces a touching piece that is both personal and reflective, thinking of the interesting dialectic between memories of a taste to human imagination. All touch on the aesthetics of everyday baking, which combines one’s sense of memories, emotional adventure, and how one is afraid of losing them. In “Chopsticks and the Haptic Aesthetics of Eating,” Richard Shusterman firstly points out the superior mind and the ignorable body division in Western philosophy since ancient Greece and contained in the Kantian notion of “disinterestedness.” Shusterman has written and published widely promoting somaesthetics, and this philosophy is demonstrated in his observation of the aesthetics of using chopsticks. His discussion covers “the art of cuisine” and highlights food’s social meanings and the manners of food ingestion as a form of social performance in everyday life. One can see how enjoyable it is to feel the palpable pleasure of using chopsticks as an eating utensil, especially when eating noodles under certain cultural habits. He elaborates on his research of chopsticks’ histories and cultures in Japan and China and points out its efficiency in consumption and the social readings of chopsticks using postures. He concludes that the developing contexts of everyday life shape the frameworks of our daily eating habits. Gao Yanping, “Taking Tea but Differently: The Chinese Tea Tradition and its European Transformations,” investigates tea drinking as part of the everyday culinary aesthetics of China and Europe, which adopted Chinese tea drinking and tea equipage in the seventeenth century. She explains how Europe adopted and adapted Chinese tea equipment and the reasons behind those transformations, focusing on English tea drinking and

30 

Jeffrey Pe t ts and Eva Kit Wah Man

equipment in the eighteenth century. European knowledge of tea came only at the end of the Ming dynasty, and what they adopted was essentially the tea style (cha dao or “way of tea”) of the Ming. Gao Yanping argues that whether a culture can successfully absorb alien elements from another culture into its own depends on how its spirit and contextual conditions can cultivate and transform the cultural imports. Initially, the most obvious (material or formal) elements are taken or imitated. Later, however, the imports are somehow changed by the absorbing culture and adapted to their tradition and way of life, thus creating new forms with their style and aesthetics. With imports relating to daily life, this transcultural adaption happens more quickly. Daily life involves practical adaptation pressures and the repetition of daily habits and functional activities. Drinking, along with eating, is an important daily activity with crucial practical importance, even for our somatic survival, and has rich aesthetic potential. In the traditional Chinese aesthetic way, taking tea was never merely a way of quenching thirst or a medium for socializing; it was also a performative reenactment of the intimate and essential transaction between human cultural and natural powers. In this drama performed on the Chinese tea table as a stage, the tea was the hero – a material yet transcendent, transformative element (like an alchemic elixir). At the same time, porcelain, stoneware, and other tea equipment were the supporting cast in unfolding the powers of the tea. By participating in this drama, serious Chinese tea drinkers still find themselves transformed physically and metaphysically from the taking of tea. Tea equipage is an interesting site for everyday aesthetics because it combines the need for practical everyday functionality with aesthetic appreciation. In Part 4, Creative Life, Tanehisa Otabe and Jeffrey Petts consider everyday aesthetics in our creative work. Tanehisa Otabe notes that art practice in Japan is closely intertwined with everyday life. The “tea ceremony” (in modern Japanese: cha-dô, literally the “way of tea”) might serve as a typical example. His article focuses on the theory of the Japanese tea ceremony by Kakuzô Okakura (1862–1913) and Yoshinori Ônishi (1888–1959). It explores how and why everyday life became the main topic of modern Japanese aesthetics based on three main characteristics. First, the tea ceremony is an aestheticization of the ordinary action of drinking tea, which testifies that beauty consists of treating the smallest incidents of life aesthetically. Second, the tea ceremony is held among a certain number of persons (namely a host and guests) in a teahouse specially designed for the ceremony and is thus interactive among participants and focuses on creating a space of conviviality. Third, the focus of the tea ceremony is not the work of art as a result but rather the process of performance and steady training in both

Compar ative Everyday Aesthe tics: An Introduc tion

31

mental and physical sense. He argues that these characteristics of art practice in Japan are based on the Japanese understanding of the “dô” (in Chinese: dào) and that creativity is not attributed to “original” individuals, as in the West, but rather to the dô. The idea of “the aesthetic life [biteki seikatsu]” – a term coined by Chogû Takayama (1871–1902) in 1901 – may be considered the leitmotiv of modern aesthetics in Japan and marked the Japanization of modern Western aesthetics. In Otabe’s view, a traditional Japanese view of art in the sense of gei-dô (literally “the way of art”) underlies this idea of aesthetic life. The question then arises of how cha-dô, which is thus rooted in life, could be regarded as a form of art in modern Japan. A clue to answering this question can be found in Okakura’s The Book of Tea. Okakura defines Teaism as a “religion of the art of life.” In Teaism, people consciously practice the art of life, thus aiming for higher ideals. This does not imply that the content or target of the training of each art is helpful for our life. Instead, the individual’s mental and physical disposition for a particular training forms a nucleus of their life because life consists of steady mental and physical training. This is precisely captured by the Japanese proverb, “Being a master in one art makes you versatile.” In short, it is by theoretically reflecting the long-time traditional gei-dô that modern Japanese aesthetics has focused on everyday life. Jeffrey Petts’s “Skill stories from the Zhuangzi and Arts and Crafts: Aesthetic Fit, Harmony, and Transformation: Toward a Developmental, Comparative Everyday Aesthetics” examines skillful work related to aesthetic interest. The stories of the cook, the woodcarver, and the wheelwright, among others in Zhuangzi’s work, have been explained as stories of craftsmanship, describing displays of skill and awe-inspiring outcomes. Petts examines descriptions of skill stories from the Zhuangzi – about craftsmanship, spontaneity, and successful outcomes – in a Western and Chinese philosophical, aesthetic light. That is, in terms of aesthetic concepts like “fit” and “harmony” that occur in the skill stories, with the transformational value of aesthetic experience in mind. This free, skillful work – which Petts thinks is usefully seen as the workmanship of risk rather than a mere knack – hardly amounts to “mindless activity”: there is a process of becoming skilled and skilled work is open to appraisal. He lays down some markers and suggested possible grounds for understanding skill stories in terms that foster global, developmental aesthetic understanding and education. Petts notes that there is often skepticism about genuine East-West dialogue, that it must necessarily flounder with the problems of translation. But he suggests that if translation poses predicaments, it also offers opportunities for the creative, collaborative reconstruction of ideas: for transformations

32 

Jeffrey Pe t ts and Eva Kit Wah Man

that are also transfiguring. He argues that skill stories from the Zhuangzi and arts and crafts tend to a global concept of developmental aesthetics: an everyday philosophical aesthetics that embraces individual cultivation and social progress while maintaining different cultural traditions of beauty and creative making. In Part 5, Technology and Images, Janet McCracken, Peng Feng, and John Carvalho consider the ubiquity of images in the modern everyday world. Janet McCracken’s “Why We Love Our Phones: A Case Study in the Aesthetics of Gadgets” reflects on the experience of using a cell phone to make broader claims about our relationship to gadgets in general, arguing that in addition to people’s ubiquitous claims about their psychological dependence on their cellphones for practical life, we love our phones for the same reason we love most things: for their beauty and our possession of them. She takes the example of the Samsung “Z fold 3” and “Z flip 3” phones, affordable, widely advertised smartphones with folding touchscreens, noting they do not add any functionality to the phone. McCracken concludes that Samsung produces the new phone, and people buy it for purely aesthetic reasons: they’re cool, pleasant to the touch, and nostalgic because it flips. Phones are cute. We draw this enormity of experience out of a tiny package which makes that experience more fun. She relates this to our human propensity to fidget with things. McCracken also discusses how one’s cell phone enables one’s social existence, legal recognition as a person, a little like a birth certificate but much more like a wallet. As a wallet, one’s phone is a pocket-sized device into which one places essential personal documents and puts one’s trust in it. But the phone betters the wallet in the sheer number of such personal validations that we entrust to it. Feeling alienated? Refer to a thousand photographs of your ancestors. Insecure? Deposit a check in your bank account or check your credit score. Unappreciated? Buy yourself something nice online. Avoid the gaze of your interlocutor by fiddling with it; escape the boredom of the waiting room; ask it to wake you up if you nod off. One makes one’s cellphone into one’s constant representative, one’s constant companion. Like any other gadget, but more so, it has one’s back – and can betray one’s trust. In that, it’s quite a bit like a friend. In “Filming the Everyday: Between Aesthetics and Politics,” Peng Feng notes that photography and aesthetics of the everyday are closely related because both seem to go beyond the scope of the arts, fitting Sartwell’s characterization of everyday aesthetics noted at the outset in this introduction. Photography is an art particularly suited to this everyday aesthetics, not only because photography takes everyday life as its subject but also because it challenges the distinction between the arts and popular culture.

Compar ative Everyday Aesthe tics: An Introduc tion

33

Peng Feng has selected three Chinese artists from different periods to illustrate the changes in our conception of photography as art. And he argues that the aesthetics of everyday life is only possible when surveillance camera technology is widely used. Of course, the questions raised by the surveillance footage are not only aesthetic but also political. Xu Bing’s 徐冰 (1955–) photography is different from the works of both Lang Jingshan and Wang Qingsong. Aestheticization is not so much beautification and representation of the present. Since surveillance cameras do not “pollute” both the medium and the object, we see the present in the film: the real everyday life. As Xu Bing said, “In fact, I found out later that the images grabbed by the surveillance are vivid and peculiar; they transcended our traditional understandings over photography aesthetics.” The images are vivid and peculiar because we see the presence of real-life that is particular and beyond any general aesthetic rules through them. However, ontologically speaking, the images are not real life. The images made by surveillance cameras reach the “ideal” form of photography. According to Scruton, ideal photography is not an intentional but a causal process. In other words, a surveillance camera makes pure images of its subject. The pure image transforms its subject from practical to aesthetic object. We contemplate things through pure images, but we cannot live with things through images. In this sense, Peng Feng argues, surveillance cameras transform the everyday from a practical to an aesthetic realm and realize a kind of aestheticization of the everyday. In “Images and Reality,” John Carvalho notes that images cover our world and are viewed by some as a threat to the everyday reality of that world. On closer inspection, images thicken everyday reality or, on one interpretation, they animate events that pair bodies with the media where images are found. Signs and images and the evident growth patterns can be more generally described as “affordances,” what an environment furnishes or provides an organism, for good or ill, to pursue its aims. As affordances, Carvalho argues, images prove to be resources that, for good or ill, advance the forms of life embodied in minds. He argues, as well, that it is up to those embodiments to form lives that pick up what is good in those affordances and cast aside what is not, including the distractions images can so often present. Education can help us form lives that more regularly turn up the good that images afford us. Still, education must be enacted in our lives and disposed of periodically to enhance the reality where we find images. Education attempts to do that by teaching how to critically engage the affordances that turn up in our world and draw from the resources for embodying lives that turn up affordances for enhancing those lives. Given the widespread, unselfconscious absorption in images that characterizes

34 

Jeffrey Pe t ts and Eva Kit Wah Man

our contemporary cultural environments, education in schools and the media has a long way to go. Our world is awash with images, but those images are not signs of the “death of reality.” They are our reality, and they afford us ways of engaging the reality of flesh and blood human lives with practical, political consequences. Carvalho believes that we can choose how to engage them not as an accomplishment of our impossibly disembodied subjectivity but as our own embodied way of engaging or “gearing into” the world by making ourselves a form of life. We are afforded the possibility of enhancing that life with the images we find in our world. In Part 6, Relationships and Communities, Kathleen Higgins and Eva Kit Man reflect on everyday aesthetics from that important part of our daily life. In “Aesthetics in Friendship and Intimacy,” Kathleen Higgins proposes an aesthetic account of our intimate relationships, the nature of which many of us are not aware of nor mention. She refers to physical scientists’ experiments on how scent or smell provokes or diminishes admiration among people at the beginning of relationships. She further suggests that each individual has a unique aesthetic biography that is always influenced by social and cultural factors. So, aesthetic tensions can ruin a relationship, such that only love and affection can make optimal and creative adjustments. Multicultural differences also shape our everyday lives and reveal varied aesthetics of dwelling, dressing, eating, and ideas of tidiness/untidiness. She suggests that clashes of taste can be managed via spatial solutions and communication, but more importantly, they can also help expand our aesthetic horizons. In “Morality and Aesthetic Lives: Real Stories of Two Hong Kong Women,” Eva Kit Wah Man links aesthetics and ethics with the stories of two Chinese women who came from Guangdong, China, to reside in colonial Hong Kong during the wars in China in the 1950s. The first story is an autobiography told by a woman who was ninety years old; the second story was told by people who adored a younger woman who died at the age of thirty-four. The story of Eight, the older lady, echoes David Carr’s insights on how people narrate their own life stories as an author. This related story demonstrates the Confucian aesthetics of a woman of chastity, whose merit has made her beautiful, in that Confucian tradition, her inner moral dimensions determining her aesthetic qualities as a woman. It also demonstrates a contemporary emphasis on independence as the key to successful aging, as the life of the elderly lady is independent and self-sufficient, serene, peaceful, and graceful, all qualities related to Confucian beliefs and values. The story of the younger woman, Ling, tells the struggles of a long-term triangular relationship and how she finally lost her life to cancer. In the

Compar ative Everyday Aesthe tics: An Introduc tion

35

narratives by other people, Ling’s beauty is that she lived like a female buddha, was always kind and caring, loyal to her family, and put others’ benefits and well-being first. In these stories, Man relates feminine aesthetics to cultural traditions and shows how the narrators of these stories imagined the beauty of the characters based on everyday ethical and aesthetic notions and lives.

3

Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: Features, Antecedents, and Aims

Some general observations about everyday aesthetics can be made in the light of the comparative essays outlined here, which engage the need to rethink Sartwell’s characterization of the subject. They fall under three main headings. One: the status and characteristic features of everyday aesthetics. Two: the antecedents of everyday aesthetics. Three: the proper aims of everyday aesthetics. The first of these is perhaps most easily noted. That is that everyday aesthetics has a confirmed set of topics from everyday life, from our natural and built environments to our relationships and communities, that warrant philosophical investigation from aesthetic perspectives. And that at the center of such work is an inquiry into the nature of these aesthetic interests and experiences worldwide. In sum, they amount to a core concern with living aesthetically, albeit with cultural variations. If everyday aesthetics coheres around the art of living for individuals, it also extends to social, political, and environmental concerns associated with enhanced and associated living. A second general observation follows: identifying aesthetic lives at the center of everyday aesthetics opens research to a rich and varied history of philosophical interest in aesthetic lives, from Epicureanism to Aestheticism, from dandies to designers. So, for example, from ancient western philosophy, Epicureanism’s concerns with “the happy life” seem worthy of investigating in terms of living aesthetically, witnessed by Epicurus’ letter to Menoeceus: “we must meditate on what brings happiness, since if we have that we have everything … what follows are the first principles of the good life.”21 Late nineteenth century western Aestheticism’s “cult of beauty” was partly at least an aspiration for beautiful surroundings in one’s everyday life: in one’s 21 Epicurus, “The Happy Life. Letter to Menoeceus,” in The Epicurean Philosophers, ed. Gaskin John (London: Everyman, 1995), 42.

36 

Jeffrey Pe t ts and Eva Kit Wah Man

home particularly.22 Aestheticism extended too to general ideas about the best way to live. Walter Pater’s unpublished, incomplete essay “The Aesthetic Life” suggests constructing “an aesthetic formula of conduct,” ethics from aesthetic sensibilities, “from an educated sense of fitness.”23 But Pater doubts that this aesthete will find “in the world now actually around us sufficient congruity, sufficient sustenance or opportunity to make the aesthetic life practicable or worthwhile”24 . Self-conscious aesthetic life is perhaps most famously evident in J-K Huysmans’s Against Nature, its central character Des Esseintes living only to invent aesthetic experiences.25 We can note, too, in a related vein, Honoré de Balzac’s Treatise on Elegant Living and the notion of the dandy as an aesthetic type.26 We see it expressed too, more prosaically, in Georges Simenon’s novel Pedigree in a character who “had arranged his days so that they were a harmonious succession of little joys … a cup of coffee and a slice of bread and butter, a dish of bright green peas, reading the paper beside the fire … a thousand quiet pleasures which were waiting for him at every turning of life … [and] were as necessary to him as the air he breathed.”27 Aestheticism was not simply an artistic movement but a reaction to the ugliness of mass-produced products of the industrial age and helped spawn an interest in good everyday design that continues to this day, with designers routinely stating that their product designs have in mind not merely improved functionality but improved aesthetic lives. Influential twentieth century western designers such as Charlotte Perriand and Dieter Rams thought this, establishing aesthetically minded design principles for everyday living, utilizing the process design traditions and practices they’d seen in Japan. Relatedly, figures in arts and crafts traditions, like William Morris in England and Soetsu Yanagi in Japan, are f igures who should be of interest to everyday aestheticians.28 Similarly concerned with the 22 Stephen Calloway and Lynn Federie Orr, eds., The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860–1900 (London: V&A Publishing, 2014). 23 Denis Donoghue, Walter Pater: Lover of Strange Souls (New York: Knopf, 1995), 291. 24 Donoghue, 290. 25 One example is Des Esseintes’ trip to London, which he recreates without leaving his home city of Paris, imagining the experience through a Baedeker guidebook and eating typical English food. Joris-Karl Huysmans, Against Nature, trans. Robert Baldick (London: Penguin Classics, 2003). 26 Honore de Balzac, Treatise on Elegant Living, trans. Napoleon Jeffries (Cambridge, MA: Wakefield Press, 2010). 27 See introduction of volume 1 in Michel de Certeau, Luce Giard, and Pierre Mayal, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Timothy J. Tomasik (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998). 28 William Morris, Hopes and Fears for Art; Lectures on Art and Industry, vol. 22, Collected Work of William Morris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Soetsu Yanagi, The Beauty of Everyday Things, trans. Michael Brase (New York: Penguin Classics, 2018).

Compar ative Everyday Aesthe tics: An Introduc tion

37

opportunities for aesthetic living in the built environment, in the twentieth century, the architectural critic Ian Nairn exposed Subtopia, a universal foreground of street furniture imposed by modern man essentially destructive of opportunities for everyday aesthetic experience.29 This leads to the third general observation that everyday aesthetics has broadly related socio-political and environmental aims. Sartwell’s characterization, as noted above, does describe everyday aesthetics as a “movement.” But that movement’s aims seem more likely to be expressed, today and from a comparative approach, in moral and political tones than in terms of breaking down art versus non-art divisions. For example, Irvin has suggested that “aesthetic attention to the domain of everyday experience may provide for lives of greater satisfaction and contribute to our ability to pursue moral aims.”30 Saito argues that everyday aesthetics engages in “creating positive aesthetic effects … [including] designing objects and environments” and “respectful and caring interactions.”31 If everyday aesthetic interests and experiences are more than merely personal verdicts and reflect patterns of living, and if these patterns are more than fashion and commercially driven lifestyle choices, but are of real value, then the everyday aesthetics movement of world-making that Saito suggests is appropriately grounded in individual aesthetic lives. And it is properly established and understood alongside art in the building of cultures. As Herbert Read noted, “cultures start with small things;” with “pots and pans.”32 And with ordinary lives. This core theme of everyday aesthetics, focused on people, not artworks, and on the general value of aesthetic lives, represents a significant and lasting turn for philosophical aesthetics that necessarily has implications for the aims of everyday aesthetics. Saito’s recent reflections in Aesthetics of the Familiar and her Foreword to this volume confirm everyday aesthetics as a movement with a new and refreshed purpose.33 She notes that everyday aesthetics is now galvanized as a discipline, having done the job of “restoring aesthetics to its original task: investigating the nature of experiences gained through sensory perception and sensibility.”34 But she suggests that with that done, broader goals of 29 Ian Nairn, Outrage (London: Architectural Press, 1955). 30 Irvin, “The Pervasiveness of the Aesthetic in Ordinary Experience,” 29. 31 Yuriko Saito, Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and Worldmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). See also Saito’s Foreword in this volume. 32 Herbert Read, To Hell With Culture (London: Kegan Paul, 1941), 47. 33 Yuriko Saito, Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and Worldmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 34 Saito, 1.

38 

Jeffrey Pe t ts and Eva Kit Wah Man

aesthetic education and world-making beckon. Saito concludes that everyday aesthetics has a vital role in “cultivating a capacity” for the aesthetic experience of the “all-too-familiar,” and that amounts to education in the ”art of living.”35 Herbert Read had expressed similar sentiments, suggesting that a culture focused only on artworks should “go to hell!” After Read, everyday aesthetics have the task “to introduce values and motives into the daily life and activities of ordinary people, values and motives that will serve as a necessary stimulus to their spiritual development.”36 Introducing his memoirs, the aesthete Harold Acton observed: “Over two thousand years ago Confucius talked of T’ien hsia wei kung, ‘the Universe for everybody’; such aspiration will only be realized by North, South, East, and West speaking mind to mind and body to body, a mutual exchange of ideas between the nations – ideas without national boundaries. Peace on earth and goodwill toward men … Yet as I look around me, I can see … Politicians everywhere, booming and thumping! All the more reason for me to raise my gentle voice.”37 And for the gentle and purposeful voices of everyday aesthetics – practical, theoretic, and educative – around the world to raise theirs. We hope this collection contributes to that noble aim, the importance of living.38

Bibliography Acton, Harold. Memoirs of an Aesthete. London: Faber & Faber, 2008.

Balzac, Honore de. Treatise on Elegant Living. Translated by Napoleon Jeffries. Cambridge, MA: Wakefield Press, 2010. Calloway, Stephen, and Lynn Federie Orr, eds. The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860–1900. London: V&A Publishing, 2014. Certeau, Michel de, Luce Giard, and Pierre Mayal. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Timothy J. Tomasik. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Davies, David. “Sibley and the Limits of Everyday Aesthetics.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 49, no. 3 (2015): 50–65. Donoghue, Denis. Walter Pater: Lover of Strange Souls. New York: Knopf, 1995. 35 Saito, 225. 36 Herbert Read, The Redemption of the Robot (New York: Trident Press, 1966), 170. 37 Harold Acton, Memoirs of an Aesthete (London: Faber & Faber, 2008), 2. 38 We allude to Yutang Lin, The Importance of Living (New York: The John Day Company, 1937); and Herbert Read, Poetry and Anarchism (London: Faber & Faber, 1938).

Compar ative Everyday Aesthe tics: An Introduc tion

39

Dowling, Christopher. “The Aesthetics of Daily Life.” The British Journal of Aesthetics 50, no. 3 (2010): 225–42. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayq021. Epicurus. “The Happy Life. Letter to Menoeceus.” In The Epicurean Philosophers, edited by Gaskin John, 42–46. London: Everyman, 1995. Huysmans, Joris-Karl. Against Nature. Translated by Robert Baldick. London: Penguin Classics, 2003. Irvin, Sherri. “The Pervasiveness of the Aesthetic in Ordinary Experience.” British Journal of Aesthetics 48, no. 1 (2008): 29–44. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/aym039. Lin, Yutang. The Importance of Living. New York: The John Day Company, 1937. Melchionne, Kevin. “Aesthetic Experience in Everyday Life: A Reply to Dowling.” British Journal of Aesthetics 51, no. 4 (2011): 437–42. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ ayr034. Morris, William. Hopes and Fears for Art; Lectures on Art and Industry. Vol. 22. Collected Work of William Morris. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Nairn, Ian. Outrage. London: Architectural Press, 1955. Petts, Jeffrey. “Aesthetic Experience and the Revelation of Value.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58, no. 1 (2000): 61–71. https://doi.org/10.2307/432350. Read, Herbert. Poetry and Anarchism. London: Faber & Faber, 1938. Read, Herbert. The Redemption of the Robot. New York: Trident Press, 1966. Read, Herbert. To Hell With Culture. London: Kegan Paul, 1941. Saito, Yuriko. Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and Worldmaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Saito, Yuriko. Everyday Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Sartwell, Crispin. “Aesthetics of the Everyday.” In The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, edited by Jerrold Levinson, 761–70. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Scruton, Roger. “In Search of the Aesthetic.” British Journal of Aesthetics 47, no. 3 (2007): 232–50. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/aym004. Stecker, Robert. “Aesthetic Experience and Aesthetic Value.” Philosophy Compass 1 (2006): 1–10. Stecker, Robert. Intersections of Value: Art, Nature and the Everyday. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Yanagi, Soetsu. The Beauty of Everyday Things. Translated by Michael Brase. New York: Penguin Classics, 2018.

About the Authors Jeffrey Petts is an independent scholar. He has a PhD from the University of York and has published work in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, the Journal of Aesthetic Education, Historical Materialism, and the British

40 

Jeffrey Pe t ts and Eva Kit Wah Man

Journal of Aesthetics. He also has papers translated and published in Chinese journals, China Book Review, and Tianjin Social Science. His book Aesthetics and Design: Experience and Value in Everyday Life is forthcoming. Eva Kit Wah Man is Kiriyama Professor of The Center for Asia and Pacific Studies at University of San Francisco. She is also an Emeritus Professor of Hong Kong Baptist University. She publishes widely in comparative aesthetics, comparative philosophy, woman studies, feminist philosophy, cultural studies, art and cultural criticism. She was named AMUW Endowed Woman Chair Professor of the 100th Anniversary of Marquette University in the US. She was awarded Outstanding Award in Public Services by Home Affairs Bureau of HKSAR.

Part 1 Living Aesthetically

1

Dao Aesthetics Ways of Opening to Sublime Experiences and Transforming Beautifully Robin R Wang Abstract This chapter presents three specif ic Daoist approaches to aesthetics tidao 體道 (embodiment of Dao), hedao 合道 (alignment with Dao), and dedao 得道 (obtaining Dao) to illustrate that beauty is not a judgment on life but actually life itself, where living is aesthetification for its own sake. The central concerns and practices for Dao aesthetics are about generating and designing conditions for making life and livelihood delightful, meaningful, and significant. Taken as a whole, they manifest the quality of human existence and the meaning of aesthetic life, and also offer a conceptual framework through which Dao aesthetics can be apprehended and appreciated. When human life flows with Dao as the paramount way to become beautiful and sublime at all levels, a 造化 zaohua (creative transformation) of an aesthetic existence will take place. Keywords: tidao, hedao, dedao, Dao aesthetics, zaohua

Chapter 22 of the classical Daoist text, the Zhuangzi (third century B.C), claims that “great beauty does not refer/speak.” (大美不言damei buyan). This statement captures the basic approach to and inspiration for Dao aesthetics.1 The “great beauty” here refers to Dao, the source of all beings

1 Xianyi Pan 潘顯一, 大美不言 [Great Beauty Not Referring]. (Sichuan: 四川人民出版社 [Sichuan Renmin Chubanshe], 1997), 20.

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch01

44 

Robin R Wang

and the core of heaven, earth, and the myriad things.2 Because of Dao, the modes of all existences consist of dynamic situations, tendencies, and patterns rather than static essentials. Daodejing 42 explains, “The myriad things carry Yin and embrace Yang, blending Qi to create harmony.”3 The origin of the myriad things, the universe’s structure, the source of change, the beginning of life, and all fundamental questions about existence, can be explained through this framework of yinyang-based interaction. 4 The great beauty is beautiful as a result of yinyang transformations. Nevertheless, cognitive perceptions and concepts can often re-shape the multiple dimensions of natural life into a limited vision and force the diversity of living phenomena into a set of propositions or narrow mental and linguistic structures based on affirmation and negation (shi-fei 是 非). But beauty cannot be truly experienced through only the inspective outlook of shi-fei. Dao aesthetics goes far beyond this since it situates art in the very core of life. Living itself is a part of this condition, which steers toward an orientation in which beauty is not a judgment on life but rather life itself, where living is aestheticization for its own sake! To know what is beautiful or to create something beautiful is not a matter of assenting to any number of philosophical propositions, of signing up to a set of doctrines. Noticeably and significantly, it is to labor and thrive with the kind of sensibility epitomized in everyday existence and survival. The central concerns and practices for Dao aesthetics are generating and designing the same conditions for making life and livelihood delightful, meaningful, significant, and beautiful! This patterned tapestry of Dao aesthetics bonds human beings to heaven, earth, and the myriad things, and it exemplifies a deeply rooted tendency toward practice. Dao aesthetics is predicated on a vibrant apprehension of abounding, diverse and constant reality. In the daily routines and bodily movements, an intimate and immediate relationship of dwelling with Dao. This essay will present three specific Daoist approaches to aesthetics: tidao 體道 (embodiment of Dao); hedao 合道 (alignment with Dao), and dedao 得道 (obtaining Dao). Each involves various bodily movements that illustrate a Dao lifestyle as one of great beauty that belongs to the endeavor to transform life aesthetically by living life beautifully. 2 Laozi, Daodejing: A Complete Translation and Commentary, trans. Hans-Georg Moeller (Chicago: Open Court, 2007), 67. 3 › Laozi, 67. 4 Robin R. Wang, Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 10.

Dao Aesthe tics

45

Tidao (Embodiment of Dao): Aesthetic Training as a Way to Become Daoist Nanyue 南岳 (Southern Mountain), located near Hengyang City, Hunan Province, is one of the five central Daoist mountains.5 It has a long history of residing Daoist masters. According to legend, the mythical Yellow Emperor lived there, and Zhang Daoling, the founder of the Celestial Masters, also lived there. The female matriarch Wei Huacun 魏華存 (252–334), one of the key deities of Highest Clarity Daoism, had a sanctuary there, and the Huangting jing 黃庭經 (Yellow Court Scripture), a major meditative manual, is associated with the site. According to The Record of Nanyue Immortals, at least 64 popular and legendary immortals lived or practiced on this mountain.6 Today the mountain is home to 13 temples with over 40 female and 30 male Daoists. Today Nanyue is the home of 坤道學院 Kundao Academy, the only academy in the entire world that is exclusively dedicated to the training of female Daoists. This training institution is a part of the Chinese Daoist College (Zhongguo Daojiao Xueyuan 中國道教學院), which was initially founded by the Chinese Daoist Association in 1990. It was first established under the leadership of a well-known female master, Huang Zhian 黃至安, the headmaster of Nanyue Mountain, the president of the Hunan Daoist Association, and one of five Daoist abbots in China. Kundao Academy’s mission is summarized in the following slogan: Honoring Dao, Respecting De: Learning and Cultivation Progressing Together (尊道 贵德, 学修并进). The goal of the program goes beyond personal development. It aims to train Daoist leaders who can manage and run temples all over the country and participate in the official administrative responsibilities of the religion. Upon graduation, the women return to their home temples and take on managing them in a modern way. This newly trained elite is set to become a vital force affecting the development of Daoism in the coming decades. This physical space of the Academy is designed with Daoist architecture. Master Huang selected the location for the academy with a full appreciation for the beauty of the surrounding nature; it is near a scenic water zone (水帘洞 景区). The academy’s architecture attempts to model the impeccable nature all around it. There are nine traditional religious worshipping halls, including the Sanqing Hall 三清殿, Lingguan Hall 灵官殿, Guanyin Pavilion 观音阁, 5 The other four sacred mountains of the Daoists are Mt. Tai 泰山 in Shandong, Mt. Hua 華 山｜华山 in Shaanxi, Mt. Heng 恆山｜恒山 in Shanxi, and Mt. Song 嵩山 in Henan. 6 Zhian Huang, The Record of Nanyue Immortals (Changcha: Hainan Press, 1995).

46 

Robin R Wang

Zixu Pavilion 紫虚阁, Jingyue Hall 经乐堂, Yuan Hall 圜堂, Qing Song Guan 青松观, and Deity Temple Daozu 道祖堂. Their design is a combination of Chinese traditional gardens and temples. The large classroom, computer lab, multimedia and entertainment studio, calligraphy studio, piano chamber, and library are all situated in a natural landscape. One can experience the art of Dao in many ways, but of note is a large stone tablet with an engraved version of the complete Daodejing in Headmaster Huang’s calligraphy situated next to a thriving vegetable garden that gathers living energy to the environment. The ideal of Dao aesthetics has not only been manifested in the physical structure of the academy but also in the soft awareness of Dao training itself. A broad and comprehensive curriculum has been designed for these students. The three years of six semesters with 30 courses total are divided into three general categories: Basic Cultural Education (wenhua ke 文化课), Religious Studies (zongjiao ke 宗教课), and Daoist Practices (daojiao xiuchi  道教修持). The students must learn Classical Architecture, Chinese Calligraphy, and Taiji practice every semester. In addition, all students will need to have two semesters of Daoist Music with one performance on a musical instrument. Everyone must play at least one instrument, but each student can choose which one to learn. There are three hours (13:00–16:00) of free time dedicated to calligraphy, music, and taiji every day. Students practice calligraphy every day for the entire two years. These classes are small, allowing for close interactions between teachers and students. At the end of the program, they publish a hand-copied version of the Daodejing in Chinese brushwork, each student contributing at least one chapter. It is usually a fine and artistic production. The Kundao Academy curriculum at Nanyue closely matches the traditional Chinese education system and is significantly different from contemporary Chinese education systems. It is broadly oriented toward cultivating the whole person with a true sense of liberal education, artistic abilities, and broad awareness. It does not aim merely at equipping students to pass exams but involves mental, spiritual, physical, sensory, and artistic transformation. In this respect, it stands in stark contrast to the narrow focus of contemporary Chinese education, which measures success in achieving good test results, and closely resembles Western liberal arts education. However, it is broader than a simple liberal arts education since it extends even to ritual, corporeal and inventive practices, all of which are seen as a part of the abundant flow of qi in the world. Training at the Kundao Academy is deeply aesthetic and performative. Students are taught many subjects and become proficient in history, theory, music, architecture, and art. At the same time, the training is still modern

Dao Aesthe tics

47

A female Daoist practicing calligraphy at Kundao Academy, Nanyue, Hunan, China, 2018.

and teaches computer skills, business management, English, and there are even faith-based religious studies. This comprehensive training embodies a valuable way to be with Dao at all sensory levels and all levels of conceptual understanding. Kundao training also focuses on aesthetic, sense-based, and sublime cultivation as a necessary part of spiritual practice. Many devoted Daoists in Chinese history were also accomplished artists. Huang Zhian, the current headmaster of Nanyue, is a well-recognized calligrapher who has created a unique brush style. This has a lot to do with the connection between artistic refinement and inner spirituality, using arts as a way to bearing Dao (以藝載道). Dao can be seen and reached through creative activity. There is no apparent split between art and spirit or artists and Daoists. The critical element here is recognizing that sensory refinement is a part of spiritual enlightenment. In other words, to fully grasp Dao, one should start with developing one’s ability for calligraphy, painting, music, and martial arts. The distinguished aesthetic sensibility, which is essentially qi training, is indispensable for being a Daoist. It can interpret the five elements in a series of specific sensations: standing on earth, feeling cold, touching the wind, immersion in water, and bearing the heat of the fire. These sensations index a relationship with the world.

48 

Robin R Wang

Through fundamentally aesthetic practices and crafts, Daoists embody the Dao and serve as vital messengers to candidly explain the Dao. Human actions, emotions, and spirituality are regulated and enhanced through Daoists’ artistic and literary creations. One’s heart, mind, spirit, emotions, and moods are all connected with the patterns of heaven and earth exhibited in cultural patterns (wen 文). Eventually, Daoists experience “heavenly joy” (tianyue 天樂). Therefore, we should not forget the role of Dao aesthetics as a platform for educating and mastering various Daoist virtues and experiencing spiritual enrichment.

Hedao 合道 (Alignment with Dao): Aesthetic Living to Make Daily Life Significant Being with Dao or becoming a Daoist does not necessarily mean that one must live in the temples or mountains. Anyone can be with Dao in a mundane and ordinary living. Aesthetic experiences of reality are prone to a more aesthetic process than a simple judgment or isolated conscious act; they are the sensory-subtle and fine-tuning underpinnings of one’s daily routines and regiments. Lü Xishen 呂錫堔, Professor of Philosophy at The Central South University (中南大學) in Changsha, China, specializes in Daoist thought and religion with a publication profile of five books, over 200 academic essays, and countless conferences presentations. Nevertheless, scholarship is merely a fraction of her qi-based aesthetic lifestyle. For her, “great beauty” 大美 enacts a day-to-day habitual living, a necessary part of hedao (alignment with Dao). She said, “hedao is an inner life filled with aesthetic appreciation and delights, a simple and calm life.”7 This “simple and calm” living consists of a colorful mixture of routines and a plant-based diet. Prof. Lü starts each day with a Daoist exercise of eight section movements 八段錦 (ba duanjin8) and six sounds 六字訣 (liu zijue9). After a simple 7 Xishen Lü, Wechat interview with author, June 13, 2021. 8 Ba Duanjing (eight sections movements) dates back to the Song Dynasty (960–1279). It features eight simple forms in line with Daoist theories of kinetics and physiology for improving the respiratory system, limb strength, and flexibility of the joints and nerves. These movements are similar to The Illustration of Qi Conduction, a Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) brocade painting unearthed in the 1970s from a senior official’s tomb in Changsha. Today Ba Duanjing is the most popular teaching material in Daoist Wudang Mountains. 9 Liu Zijue is six sounds approach to breathing exercises. Through six different mouth forms and sounds, such as xu, he, hu, si, chui, and xi, one can regulate the rise and fall of qi inside the

Dao Aesthe tics

49

Artwork by Prof. Lü. Gifted to Robin Wang, July 2021

breakfast, she engages in reading and writing until lunchtime. She devotes her energy and time to singing, calligraphy, and painting in the afternoon. In the late afternoon, she often goes for a nature walk. Her day ends with a Daoist meditation. These segments of time sequence contain a sensitive timetable, such as what time to do what. This pattern lets one determine what follows smoothly and goes against the grain. These regiments exhibit a human commitment to aesthetic activities. This activation of living involves focusing on what is most important and what is within our control, such as our abilities, desires, plans, and daily activities. Hedao is to cooperate with the forces that are not directly under our control or within our reach, but that can be gotten ahold of by an effort of integration. Prof. Lü follows this rhythmic and predicable daily sequence even though she is not living in a Daoist community, but even more interestingly, her practice is not an isolated case. This therapeutics has been a popular traditional custom practiced in China today. The daily lives of most people and the classes in universities and academic conferences often operate in a strict timeline of breakfast at 7:00 a.m., lunch at noon, and dinner at 6:00 body in relation to inhalation and exhalation. Each sound corresponds to inner organs, liver, heart, spleen, lung, kidney, and sanjiao (triple portions of the body). Liu Zijue first appears in the Caring For the Health of the Mind and Prolong the Life Span by Tao Hongjing Daoist physician in Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589).

50 

Robin R Wang

p.m., and few events can break or interrupt this standard ritual. The main reason for this regulative timeline is to attune human activities and habits to the rhythms of the alternation of day and night, thereby promoting integration into the cosmos itself since living is simply an instance of natural circulation in the cosmos. Human health, happiness, and survival were primarily dependent upon this alignment with the natural flow of time. More specifically, two aesthetic visions underly this type of living. First: the vision of guarding the oneness. 守一 (shouyi).

Each human being as a microcosmic individual body is a part of the macrocosmic unitary body. The microcosm of human life should be placed in relation to the macrocosm of the heavens or the universe. Our daily life rhythms and activities are shared with the movements of the sun, moon, water, wind, and atmosphere. The most basic pattern noticeable to any attentive observer is that each day is followed by night; each night is followed again by day. In an agrarian society, the succession of the seasons has an impressive and extremely significant regularity. However, there is a more sophisticated understanding of this simple empirical observation: the cycle of each day of twenty-four hours is divided into twelve sections according to the movement of qi flow. In the morning, sun energy or yangqi gradually goes up then slowly comes down while the moon energy or yinqi steadily and progressively takes its place at night. More strikingly, according to the 黃帝內經 Huangdi Neijing, the human body, like the twelve sections of a day, contains twelve pathways, called jingluo 經絡, each linked with a certain organ and comprising an integrated network of pathways.10 These twelve pathways, each with their own organ, correspond directly to those twelve time zones. At each time zone, a specific bodily organ will act differently. For example, medical science has shown that excessive alcohol will impact the liver’s detoxification function and cause liver failure. The jingluo theory further argues that staying up at 2:00 a.m. every night (au ye 熬夜) can bring the same destructive consequences as alcohol toxicity because 1:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. is the time for the liver to expel those toxins. The liver craves rest, and the body should be in the sleeping stage to allow this process to occur. The functions of the bodily organs are understood in the natural time structures as manifesting both within and out. Just as the steady sequence of the seasons determines the habits of farmers’ sowing, 10 Bingzhan Niu 牛兵占, ed., 黃帝內經 [Huangdi Neijing] (Shijiazhuang: 河北科技大学出版 社 [Hebei Science and Technology Press], 1993), 34.

Dao Aesthe tics

51

cultivating, and harvesting field crops, trivial daily events about clothing 衣 yi, food 食 shi, shelter 住 zhu, activity 行 xing, and time management require people to follow this waxing and waning of oneness and flux to chime with the various rhythms that mark the processes and continuity of twenty-four-hour cycle, including bodily functions and human activities. Good living is the one regularity consonant with natural and bodily qi flow. The qi energy flows in our body, mind, and spirit are allocated in the same field as the currents of heaven, earth, and all myriad things. This alignment of daily occurrences with the cosmic pattern also builds a propensity for mental, physical, and spiritual transformations. After all, human life is a life of qi transformation where one can gather qi 採氣 (caiqi) from the earth, the seasons, air, trees, and all beings and experience constant change. The processes of being born, living, aging, and sickness and death are the purification of qi, which can be scooped, channeled, measured, and qualified. This way of life needs to be carefully crafted with the cosmic forces and harnessed and nourished by qi forces. This harnessing of qi brings interaction and exchange of vital energy among things and events. Aesthetic living is to vitalize this qi energy by actively moving the qi at different time periods to cultivate the totality of living. This style of living centers on an inner naturalness, silence, and contemplation – seemingly dull – yet it is perceived as enjoyment of human aesthetic experience that is acutely aware of the interconnectedness of things within the universe. This sensitivity to the daily time cycle demonstrates a sense of human assimilation into the cosmic rhythm. Second: the vision of circulation 環流 (huanliu) and pervasion 通 (tong). The regularity and consistency of a daily routine will result in the best condition for health, which is the totality of being of jing 精, qi  氣, and shen 神.11 This resonance between human life and the cosmos can be assessed through two interrelated measurements: circulation 環流 (huanliu) and pervasion 通 (tong). Living itself is a form of circulation that manifests in nourishing, growth, transformation, and reproduction. We often think of systems of circulation (digestive, respiratory, limbic, and so forth) as internal, but some circulation systems are also external, such as seasonal or ecological cycles. Each living thing or event maintains its existence because of the circulation of energy flow. Being alive means precisely that a living thing has its own active and

11 Guangzhong Chen, Full Text, Full Note, Full Interpretation, Huainanzi (Beijing: 中华书局有 限公司 [Zhonghua Bookstore], 2011), 2.

52 

Robin R Wang

functioning circulation systems. An internal circulatory force “nurtures” (養 yang) all things, like a rechargeable battery 12. Things, events, and people all have their own active and functioning circulation systems. Exerting too much control only blocks this rhythmic circulation and causes more problems. Pain – whether physical, mental, or spiritual – is caused by blocked or jammed circulation. Daoist physicians claim that sickness is a result of 不通 butong (not flowing), while 通 tong (flowing) is to be free of pain. Lushi Chunqiu (247–239 B.C) describes “proper fitting (shi) in eating and drinking, housing and residence, which results in the nine orifices, hundred joints, and thousand blood vessels all functioning correctly.” (飲食居處適則九竅百節千脈皆通利矣). These items align humans into a higher scheme of events, and they bring the promise of survival without illness through adaptation to this scheme of events. By framing living as a kind of circulation and expansiveness, one’s daily life can become a structure to enhance this movement, “to comply with the chang of Heaven and Earth” 順天地之常, where Heaven and Earth provide spatial boundaries by which the constancies of material extension can be regulated. These threads of time segments weave themselves into a beautiful living tapestry. The continuance of these daily rhythms in one’s ordinary life will allow one to attain three desirable conditions, as stated in the Huandi Neijing: “The jing is full 精满, the qi is sufficient 氣足, and the shen (spirit) is vigorous 神旺.”

Dedao 得道 (Obtaining Dao): Bodily Movements Beautify the Way to Getting Dao The above discussions establish that the human body is not a mere receptacle for the soul but an agent that should interact with its surroundings. This body-based agency is constructed to transform the heavenly pattern into an earthly regiment through which life becomes meaningful, significant, and beautiful. Living per se becomes the embodiment of order, the epitome of regularity. Conversely, bodily movements are a concrete and effective way to execute these visions. Nisha Devi, a law school-bound honors undergraduate, changed her life’s mission after a brain tumor at age 23. Now, she is a medicinal healer and life 12 Thomas Michael, In the Shadows of the Dao: Laozi, the Sage, and the Daodejing (New York: SUNY Press, 2015), 89.

Dao Aesthe tics

53

guide helping war refugees in Jordan, successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, political leaders in California, and celebrities in Hollywood. Her goal is to help others create a healthy and beautiful life. If Dao is the flow of myriad things, the best way to get it is through movement, particularly body movements. Nisha teaches Taiji, Qi Gong, and Yoga, which are intensely and directly connected with Dao aesthetics. According to her, much can be learned in three essential movements. The beautification of life involves fashioning, cultivating, and creating a qi flow and transformation.13 First: Rooting like a tree: the movement of stillness Human thoughts often create stagnation. The standing-like-a-horse and holding-a-ball stance allow us to practice stillness, the source of everything. One should root their legs like the trunk of a tree but slightly bend the knees to promote circulation and blood flow. The spine is straight and strong yet supple, like the bark on a tree trunk. The arms gently hold an imaginary ball to simulate the circular nature of our bodies and other bodily functions. As the lower body roots deep into the earth, the upper body becomes light from deep and natural breathing. The body continues to lengthen and straighten by developing fluidity and strength. Much like an oak tree, the legs root while the upper body, including the head and neck, become the branches and the tips of their leaves, rooted yet supple. One keeps the body, breathing, mood, and thoughts calm and composed. It is essential for the body to be relaxed and spontaneous – to remain alert, flexible, and responsive to changing circumstances. Breathing naturally, the concentration of qi and the energy flow should be dispatched to the dantian 丹田 point. Second: The body as a brush of yin/yang: the movement of consolidation and expansion After the first movement of rooting the legs, with a slight bend in the knee to ground the body, one will be ready for the movement of consolidation, which gives a visual understanding of the circular nature of the yin/yang symbol; the movement of expansion stretching in a slow, gentle and graceful way. Both consolidation and expansion generate each other, and one cannot 13 Below is the description of the three aspects of bodily movement from Nisha Devi’s email on July 29, 2021.

54 

Robin R Wang

happen without the other. One’s arms, legs, and whole body move as the brush sketch a yinyang figure. The movement should be continuous, like flowing water or floating clouds – one side moves to yin as an end, and the other moves to yang as a beginning. The arms gently brush the air tracing a circle. The left-hand starts approximately six inches away, on top of the right hand, palms facing each other. As one straightens the legs, one traces the circle of the yinyang symbol bringing the right hand, approximately six inches away, on top of the left hand, bending the knees back down. The body expands as one traces the yinyang symbol and consolidates as it gathers our energy to trace once again. This expansion/consolidation promotes consistent flow. One becomes smaller to grow bigger. Each time the body consolidates further, it expands and releases more, like the calm clouds after a thunderstorm. Compression allows for a greater release and stronger consolidation. The energy thickens with time. The circular motion keeps the energy in the body field and brings a restraint-free state for the muscles, joints, and the central nervous system. Third: Releasing the ocean wave: the movement of yield and push This movement teaches the human body to let go. Let go of thoughts, tension, intense emotions, and expectation. The more one holds, the less one flows or takes in. This stagnation prevents any form of growth, much like a flower that has been over-watered. Waves in an ocean wash onto the shore and then pull back into the same ocean. There is a consistent flow that erodes and builds. For this last movement, one places their left leg in front of their back leg in a front stance. There is a slight bend in the back right knee. The arms are bent at a right angle, equidistant from each other, and positioned to push down a wall. Much like an ocean wave receding into the ocean, one yields onto their back leg allowing the hands to pull back. Once they have pulled back enough to maintain a firm stance, the hands push forward again, transferring weight to the front leg only to yield and repeat the movement. This motion happens repetitively like waves washing onto the shore. The breath falls into the same natural rhythm as the ocean, inhaling and exhaling. Yielding allows for the muscles to become soft and supple. The push infuses the breath into the body and promotes flow. The two movements combined to demonstrate the power of yielding, for it is in this movement that one learns the power of pushing: the more one yields, the more energy to push. The balance of these two is essential. Too much yielding in life allows one to be manipulated; too

Dao Aesthe tics

55

much pushing prevents one from listening. The right balance allows for the power of one’s essence to come through, much like the ocean. The ocean and the forest are a part of our macrocosm. These movements mirror the microcosm of our body. Rooting, as we learn to empty our body and mind much like a newborn, fills the human body with qi flow and strength. The cycle represented in the yinyang symbol provides the balance to cultivate Dao and live a life of beauty, actualizing our potential. These movements require a full range of stretching, bending, flexing, and twisting in multi-directional and wide-ranging motions of the bones, tendons, muscles, and ligaments for the unity of physical form, energy flow, and lifted spirit. Resettling the inner energy circulation tunes the body, relaxes the muscles, refreshes the mind, and enhances the emotions. This total vibration improves blood circulation, the flexibility and pliability of soft tissues, and the mobility of the bones, joints, and muscles. This is the most subtle and imperative method of “obtaining” Dao. These movements begin inside on a level of simplicity that then vibrates to the outside, letting go of things and being free from sensory overload, illuminating to reach the stage where the physical form, qi, spirit, and will are all in a proper place, that is, the physical form is untacked 形全, the spirit is purified 神清, the qi is circulated 氣顺 and the will is grounded 志定.

Concluding Remarks The hub of Dao aesthetics is anchored in tidao, hedao, and dedao, that is, in creating a beautiful human life by embodying, aligning with, and obtaining the Dao! Damei is the beauty of Dao and the sheer beauty of living in the world. Taking these three features as a whole and they manifest the quality of human existence and the meaning of aesthetic life. They also offer a conceptual framework for appreciating and apprehending Dao aesthetics. When human life flows with nature or Dao as the best way to become beautiful and sublime at all levels, a 造化 zaohua (creative transformation) of an aesthetic existence takes place. The daily normality is constructed as a transformation of the heavenly pattern into an earthly regiment through which life becomes meaningful, significant, and beautiful. The unity of the natural macrocosm with the personal microcosm can bring out the most beautiful life and utmost health. To be conscious of anything is to appreciate that it owes its identity to its place within an intricate web or net of relationships.

56 

Robin R Wang

The Dao aesthetics directs us to embrace, absorb, and embody the particular patterns in all things: Embodied Dao, Alignment with Dao, and Attaining Dao. This follows the vision of the Yijing: “Penetrate the power of spirit and classify the real nature (qing) of the ten thousand things” (以通神明之德, 以類萬物之情). This Dao-based aesthetic life transforms an otherwise seemingly random and chaotic life into something joyful and beautiful. Dao aesthetic arranges the living into an integrated yet straightforward style, which is exhibited in learning, doing, and becoming Dao. The human experience is infused with multifarious connections to our surroundings. This practice is not simply mindfulness that pays great attention to observing one’s body, senses, and thoughts. This Daoist aesthetic practice consists of multi-dimensional interactions with all of one’s surroundings. One needs to have de (德), an internal power, to do so. After all, the greatness of Dao is its ability to transform and change. Zhuangzi explains that Dao is “responding by pairing or matching” and de is “responding by attuning.” Both require a creative synergy. As Zhuangzi says, “Do not hurry [your mission] to completion … Let yourself be carried along by things so that the mind wanders freely.”14 In surrendering to the cosmic time and allowing yourself to transform freely, responding to circumstances by adapting to them, it is possible to attune yourself to the natural movement of things, to experience de. The Dao aesthetics, a deep-seated structure in Dao aesthetics and daily life practices that recognizes the existence of various perspectives, is called the “Illumination of the Obvious” or the attainment of 明 ming (acuity, discernment). Interestingly, ming indicates both the light of the sun and the moon’s light, where the moon shines at night, and the sun radiates during the day. With both the light of the moon and the sun – both “sides” illuminated – we can see the world from all directions and at all times. Thus, the “Illumination of the Obvious” illustrates the existence of other sides, of different perspectives from which we often are disconnected. Life is fluid, creative, and delightful. Aesthetic living is grounded in our various sensory experiences, bringing vitality to awareness, refining a qi flow, opening to a performative living, and ultimately leading to the beautification of living. Such beauty is a fundamental rhythm and pattern of all things. Living per se has become the embodiment of order, the epitome of regularity. Chapter 22 in Zhuangzi conveys the point: “The sage traces 14 Zhuangzi, The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional Commentaries, trans. Brook Ziporyn (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2009), 29.

Dao Aesthe tics

57

back to the beauty of heaven and earth, and thereby reaches the knowledge of the ten thousand things.” 聖人者, 原天地之美而達萬物之理.15

Bibliography Chen, Guangzhong. Full Text, Full Note, Full Interpretation, Huainanzi. Beijing: Zhonghua Bookstore), 2011. Huang, Zhian. The Record of Nanyue Immortals. Changcha: Hainan Press, 1995. Laozi. Daodejing: A Complete Translation and Commentary. Translated by HansGeorg Moeller. Chicago: Open Court, 2007. Michael, Thomas. In the Shadows of the Dao: Laozi, the Sage, and the Daodejing. New York: SUNY Press, 2015. Niu, Bingzhan 牛兵占, ed. 黃帝內經 [Huangdi Neijing]. Shijiazhuang: 河北科技 大学出版社 [Hebei Science and Technology Press], 1993. Pan, Xianyi 潘顯一. 大美不言 [Great Beauty Not Referring]. Sichuan: 四川人民出 版社 [Sichuan Renmin Chubanshe], 1997. Wang, Robin R. Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Zhuangzi. The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Translated by Brook Ziporyn. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2009.

About the Author Robin R. Wang is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles and The Berggruen fellow (2016-17) at The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS), Stanford University. Her teaching and research center on Chinese and Comparative Philosophy, particularly on Daoist Philosophy, Women and Gender in Chinese thought and culture.

15 Zhuangzi, 86.

2

Everyday Aesthetics of Taking a Walk: With Zhuangzi Thomas Leddy

Abstract Everyday aesthetics includes not only environments but also the objects and events within such environments. This chapter is on the aesthetics of a walk in one’s neighborhood, such a walk including both natural and non-natural environments with no clear boundaries between the two. Distinctive of the everyday walk are micro-aesthetic properties such as the (mildly) interesting, and the (mildly) funny. Also distinctive is the relatively non-verbal nature of much aesthetic appreciation. Contrary to some critics of everyday aesthetics (for example Downing), everyday aesthetics does not require discourse or argument to be legitimate as a domain of aesthetics. I draw first from Gumbrecht’s Heideggerian concept of “presence” and then, at greater length, from Zhuangzi’s idea of spontaneity to develop this idea of non-verbal or minimally verbal aesthetic experience of the everyday. I conclude that the Taoist concept of oneness can be experienced in a non-religious way by contemporary atheists. Keywords: everyday aesthetics, walking, environment, Zhuangzi, Heidegger

1

A Walk in the Neighborhood

When I walk in my neighborhood, I experience a constant flow of aesthetic delight, consisting of distinct aesthetic experiences of things, places, happenings, and juxtapositions. Most of these are visual; some are aural. Many involve smell, and some taste and touch. I will argue that taking a daily walk and appreciating what one experiences is part of the aesthetics of everyday life. The aesthetics of everyday life is a relatively new sub-discipline arising

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch02

60 

Thomas Leddy

out of discussions of environmental aesthetics in the 1990s.1 This chapter is part of a larger project of thinking about the foundations of the aesthetics of everyday life. The specific sub-project here is what I call micro-aesthetics. Micro-aesthetics deals with experiences that are generally low-level in intensity but valued nonetheless. Of course, the aesthetics of walking entails more than micro-aesthetics; but the micro-aesthetic experience forms an integral part of it. We should also note that there is no clear distinction between the aesthetics of art, design, nature, and everyday life in taking a walk. Many of the things encountered on a walk are officially (outside of the context of the walk) categorized as aesthetics of art (both fine and popular): many of design, many of nature, and many of the everyday. Even so, whatever among these things is experienced from the perspective of the daily walk is a matter of everyday aesthetics. As I walk, I may note the design of a building, which might come under the fine art of architecture. And yet, when walking, I am not generally focused on the building as architecture. Instead, I notice certain things in their particular nature, independent of architecture criticism: for example, an odd style of a column or an interesting, and possibly unintentional, juxtaposition of shapes and colors. All of this is “in passing,” something noticed while walking by. Similarly, looking out over Coyote Creek as I cross a bridge, I am not aware of nature as nature but instead of this tree and this creek as it looks. So, I am noticing nature qua object of everyday aesthetics. I used to think that I could account for these experiences by discussing the terms I would use to describe them or sentences I would use to judge them and their objects. An example of the latter might be “that house is pretty,” the aesthetic term being “pretty.” But recently, I have become more aware that I do not verbalize very much during these walks when walking alone, either out loud or in my mind. This has led me to think that there are some interesting connections between this project and the Zhuangzi. In the spirit of comparative aesthetics, I will address this in the second half of this chapter. I note things because my attention is directed to them as I walk. I know that I could put those note takings into words, but I might not do that. If I were putting my experiences into words, I might just categorize, for example, “candy wrapper” or, more descriptively, “candy wrapper on the sidewalk.” Or I might aesthetically evaluate, for example, “That candy wrapper has 1 Yuriko Saito, Everyday Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Thomas Leddy, The Extraordinary in the Ordinary (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2012).

Everyday Aesthe tics of Taking a Walk: With Zhuangzi

61

an interesting shape.” Or I might think or say, “Ugh, a candy wrapper.” Or I might internally think or say something like, “Someone needs to pick up that candy wrapper,” or “Some people have disgusting habits.” I am aware that many of my silent, non-verbal note-takings could be verbalized in one of these ways, i.e., in terms of aesthetic or ethical categorizations or judgments. However, when they are verbalized, they are also changed. Moreover, the value of the experience is not found in a category or a sentence that can be applied but in the experience itself. One can take a walk with multiple low-level aesthetic experiences, which could be described along the lines of the non-ethical aspects of the candy wrapper example. Yet, the experiences have no verbal description attached. That is, one can note various phenomena without a categorization, description, or even evaluation in mind. When I note certain things on my walk, most of my note-takings are pleasurable, while some are negative. An example of a negative experience is that I might react to the smell of the blood behind the butcher with disgust. Another example: I might find how the smog affects distant views unpleasantly. This is like thinking, “candy wrapper, ugh,” or “that wrapper should be picked up.” The dividing line between the aesthetic and the ethical when talking about negative aesthetic experiences is hard to make out. It is not clear when the negatively aesthetic morphs into a negative ethical. But these walks are mostly pleasurable, and, for me at least, the ethical plays a relatively minor role. The reader may notice that I tend to focus more on the visual than on the other senses. Another person might focus more on sound. This is just a matter of personal taste. Smell also plays a vital role, usually evocative and less open to my direction. Sometimes the senses combine, as when I see the wind scattering leaves, hear the rustle of those same leaves, and feel the same wind on my face. So, how am I looking at these things: the trees, the front yard ornaments, the people, the beat-up old cars, the cats, the abandoned toys? I have suggested that to look at something in one’s everyday environment aesthetically is to look at it as an artist would. I haven’t changed my view on this, but “looking at it as an artist would” is open to different interpretations. Looking at something in this way could entail acting like an artist, for example, looking for things to photograph and paint later. Or it might mean looking in the way an amateur photographer does. It could also mean looking with eyes influenced by the way artists look. It is well known that looking at some artworks predisposes one to notice colors, lines, and interesting juxtapositions. But this interpretation, too, could point us in the wrong

62 

Thomas Leddy

direction if it means that I appreciate the scenes I see formally. That is, it could be misleading if we understand “seeing something as an artist would” as essentially seeing something in formal terms, i.e., in the way that Clive Bell thought artists saw things. It would mean seeing things just as relations of lines and colors. This could happen, but it does not capture nearly enough of what is meant by seeing as an artist. Not all artists see just colored shapes: many see or at least believe they see the things themselves. And many artistic subjects are representations themselves, for example, sculpture or architecture within a painting, or billboards in photographs by Walker Evans. Similarly, many of the things I see as I take my walks are representations, for example, religious statues and pink flamingos. It might be that the pink flamingo makes an interesting juxtaposition against a faded door and a coiled green hose. Sure, this way of seeing is formalist since shapes are juxtaposed. And yet, in a way, it isn’t, since we are not just talking about shaped colors and lines. I might appreciatively observe a child playing. Is that formalist seeing? It isn’t if one is aware of the child as a child, which is part of the aesthetic experience. We do not just see colors and lines: we see things shaped in colors and lines. Alternatively, seeing something formally might be understood as seeing it as if it were a picture, for example, a photograph. Yet there is a difference between taking note of something or a scene during a walk and framing it in my camera for a photograph. There was no frame in my initiating experience. Nor is the initiating experience always an experience of something in a two-dimensional plane. However, sometimes it is, as when the object itself is two-dimensional, for example, some graffiti on a wall. There is a difference between the initiating three-D experience and the two-D framing experience; between what I see directly and in my viewfinder or camera screen. However, there is also a continuity of experience between the two, a smooth flow between looking at a scene and framing it in a camera. When I frame it in my camera, I extend the aesthetic experience into an adjacent realm, that of amateur photography. Let’s take this idea of extension a bit further. After I took the picture, I looked at it, and, of course, now it is bounded by a two-dimensional plane with four sides. Now I am interested in another aesthetic experience of my framed product that I can show others. Showing it to others is another continuation of the originating experience, although this would usually happen after the walk is over. Consider a walk where I take photographs. The total aesthetic experience of my walk is not artificially divided between noting things, taking pictures, evaluating them, and showing them to others. These experiences are all

Everyday Aesthe tics of Taking a Walk: With Zhuangzi

63

continuous and, taken together, can form an overall experience. There are, of course, discontinuities between the first contact with a scene and taking a photograph, evaluating it, showing it to another, and even between that and submitting it to an art show. There are breaks between these even though each is part of a process that itself can form a whole. There is continuity only because one modality fades into another in a sequence. There is a difference between my silent walk and a walk, often on the same streets, with my wife or a friend. The second sort of walk involves not only the above-described silent observations but also voiced observations. My wife, or I, might say, “look at that,” or “there’s a cute kitty,” or “there’s a lot to look at today.” All of these are invitations to share a pleasurable experience. Of course, some might not see “cute” and “look-worthy” (my coinage) as aesthetic properties, but if you grant low-level aesthetic properties like “pretty” and “neat,” then you may agree that these are too. Note also that these locutions are not necessarily conclusions of an argument or even matters of debate. It is worthwhile to talk about specific categories of “noticings,” including the interesting and the funny. Since we are talking about micro-aesthetics, we are not talking about the very interesting, the fascinating, or the laughout-loud funny. As I walk, most of the things I note are low-level interesting or low-level funny. These are neglected, but essential, qualities of everyday life. By “funny,” I mean something look-worthy which is also amusing. Often something is funny or interesting because of a strange, unusual, or odd juxtaposition. The amusement could be intentional, as when a homeowner puts masks on a bush to make it look Covid-19 safe. Or it can be unintentional, as when a pile of garden waste looks like a miniature garden. Some philosophers emphasize the familiar in everyday aesthetics, associating it with the humdrum of the ordinary, even the boring.2 Sometimes, this idea is associated with comfort or with comforting scenes. These, however, are usually not things that interest me as I walk through my neighborhood. What interests, to be sure, might be a matter of differing personalities, personal history, or cultural background. For example, perhaps people who have experienced a recent trauma look for comfort in what they see on a daily walk. But, usually, I look for interesting or funny things in a micro-aesthetic way. 2 Arto Haapala, “On the Aesthetics of the Everyday: Familiarity, Strangeness, and the Meaning of Place,” in The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, ed. Andrew Light and Jonathan M. Smith (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 38–55; Ossi Naukkarinen, “What Is ‘Everyday’ in Everyday Aesthetics?,” Contemporary Aesthetics 11 (2013), https://contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/ pages/article.php?articleID=675; Saito, Everyday Aesthetics.

64 

Thomas Leddy

Granted, I can experience the comfort of “the familiar” when I come home after a long trip. Then, there is something reassuring in noticing the old sights. Also, things and scenes I have previously found funny or interesting can be experienced as familiar in being funny or interesting on a second occasion. For example, one might say: “There’s that odd sign on the side of a house again.” (Again, the thought need not be so explicit. One could just see the sign, noting the familiarity of the oddity.) Familiarity can add another layer to my experience that is interesting. The dictionary defines “interesting” as “arousing curiosity or interest; holding or catching the attention.”3 A synonym is “absorbing.” Another meaning of “interesting” refers to cognition. A birder might find a bird sighting interesting in that such a bird has never appeared here before. This interest may not be mainly aesthetic. My emphasis is on the idea of that which holds or catches attention and is absorbing. Also, what is absorbing can be only momentarily so, which is particularly true in micro-aesthetic experience. If you balk at the idea that something can be absorbing that only holds our attention for a second or two, think of this as micro-absorption. I do not want to exclude the possibility of experiences of heart-rending beauty while taking a walk. (These are not micro-aesthetic experiences.) I was recently stunned by the beauty of leaves caught up in the wind racing across the green grass field in a park accompanied by a rolling branch. It was something extraordinary that happened during an otherwise ordinary walk. There are moments of the extraordinary in everyday aesthetic experience, even though they may not happen every day. I want to return to the silence of the experience because of the nonpresence of words popping up in my mind. As I walk, I can block the eruption of words, emptying my mind in the way someone who meditates does. I can just look, listen and note without labeling, questioning, or positing. What happens when I view an object aesthetically and silently as I walk? Gumbrecht’s book Production of Presence is helpful here. 4 His main point is that the humanities have overemphasized interpretation and underemphasized that which is beneath the interpretation, i.e., the material or substance interpreted. He understands aesthetics in terms of intensity of presence. Gumbrecht would probably not approve of the term “everyday aesthetics” since he strongly distinguishes between the aesthetic and the everyday. 3 “Interesting,” in Lexico (Oxford English Dictionary, 2022), https://www.lexico.com/en/ definition/interesting. 4 Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).

Everyday Aesthe tics of Taking a Walk: With Zhuangzi

65

However, the disagreement is only semantic. He simply limits the term “aesthetic” to intense aesthetic experience, thus leaving out micro-aesthetics. Gumbrecht sees presence as something pre-linguistic, just as I see much of micro-aesthetics. I agree on one level with his distinction between the everyday and the aesthetic. When something achieves presence for me on my daily walk, it rises a bit above the everyday and certainly above the everydayness of the everyday. Gumbrecht relates this to Heidegger’s idea of Being coming into unconcealment. I am sympathetic with this as well, although I would not want to imply that the object seen becomes or is seen as more real or truer than its surroundings. I will also say, as an atheist, that this emerging and presencing of things (not only in the everyday but also in art, nature, and serious reading) are my secular equivalent (as close as I can get) to religious experience. Gumbrecht, who is mainly interested in the aesthetics of literature and sports and who, as I have suggested, does not have a place for microaesthetics (where low-level intensity, if we can speak of such, is the rule), speaks of “the question of the specific appeal that such moments hold for us.”5 He suggests that what “fascinates us in moments of aesthetic experience … what attracts us without being accompanied by the awareness of the reasons for this attraction, is always something that our everyday worlds are not capable of offering us.”6 I would only add that it is our everyday world qua everyday that is not capable of offering us such experience. For me, everyday aesthetics is, or rather, should be, the constant effort to escape, in the context of everyday life, the everyday qua everyday. But I will now turn to another tradition that will take our exploration of the everyday to a new level.

2

Zhuangzi and the Aesthetics of the Everyday

The two great classics of Taoism are the Laozi and the Zhuangzi. This chapter will be limited to the latter.7 There are many points of contact between Zhuangzi and the aesthetics of the everyday, not the least of which is that so 5 Gumbrecht, 100. 6 Gumbrecht, 100. 7 A. C. Graham, Chuang-Tzu: The Inner Chapters (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2001), https://www.uboeschenstein.ch/texte/Dao/zhuangzi2-graham-notes.htm. For the purposes of this chapter, I will not distinguish between the philosopher and the book. Also, although many authors may have contributed to the Zhuangzi, most of my comments will draw from Graham’s core chapters, which are considered to be most likely by Zhuangzi himself.

66 

Thomas Leddy

many of his examples come from everyday life. Yet Zhuangzi does not explicitly discuss everyday aesthetics. Nor are there distinct sections or arguments of the Zhuangzi devoted to nature’s aesthetics or art. Nonetheless, there are a few places where Zhuangzi talks about beauty and some places he talks about the arts, and not only arts like music and painting, but also arts in the sense of skilled everyday practices. It will be helpful to collect these as background for our discussion of everyday aesthetics. (1) Old Tan, representing Daoism, says to Confucius: “To grasp it [when the heart of the Daoist lets itself roam at the beginning of things] is utmost beauty, utmost joy. One who grasps utmost beauty and roams in utmost joy is called the ‘Utmost Man.’”8 Grasping of beauty is a definer of the Daoist sage. (2) After noting that everything constantly changes, Zhuangzi asks about the value of the Way. The answer: “Heaven and earth have supreme beauty but do not speak, the four seasons have clear standards but do not judge, the myriad things have perfect patterns but do not explain. The sage in fathoming the beauty of heaven and earth penetrates the patterns of the myriad things.”9 The Daoist sage fathoms the beauty of heaven and earth, penetrating the patterns in things. (3) Similarly, “The pipes of earth, these are the various hollows; the pipes of men, these are rows of tubes. Let me ask about the pipes of Heaven.”10 The universe as a whole has its own music, as does a forest in a storm (the reference to “hollows”). Thus, aesthetic experience is not limited to the arts. (4) There is, admittedly, skepticism about the value of the senses, and hence of everyday aesthetics: “Firstly, the Five Colors derange the eye and impair its sight …”11 (5) And yet beauty is a natural goal for men: “Now let me tell you what man essentially is. The eyes desire to look on beauty, the ears to listen to music, the mouth to discern flavors, intent and energy to find fulfillment.”12 (6) And further, “[W]hen it comes to music, beauty, and tastes, to sway and position, man’s heart does not have to learn before delighting in them, man’s body does not await a model before being satisfied by them. It is inherent in our desires and dislikes, inclinations and aversions, that they do not require a teacher; these are from the nature of man.”13 Delighting in beauty requires no teacher or model: it is inherent. (7) There is an element of relativism to beauty: “A man of Sung who traded in ceremonial caps traveled to the Yueh tribes, but the men of Yueh who cut their hair short and tattoo their bodies had no use 8 9 10 11 12 13

Graham, 130. Graham, 148. Graham, 49. Graham, 201–202. Graham, 236. Graham, 242.

Everyday Aesthe tics of Taking a Walk: With Zhuangzi

67

for them.”14 (8) Similarly, beauty is relative in the man/animal dimension, “Mao-ch’iang and Lady Li were beautiful in the eyes of men, but when the fish saw them they plunged deep, when the birds saw them they flew high, when the deer saw them they broke into a run. Which of these four knows what is truly beautiful in the world?”15 Still, it is not so relative that there is no distinction between the refined and the vulgar: “Great music does not get an entrance into villagers’ ears, but if it’s ‘Snap the willow’ or ‘The pretty flowers’ they burst into gleeful laughter. Just so, lofty words do not lodge in the hearts of the crowd; the most sublime does not stand out because the words of the vulgar are in the majority.”16 (10) Perhaps the most important aesthetic passage is in chapter 5, “Irrationalizing the Way: Knowledge roams north,” in which a sequence of musical education is described concluding with being confused, which is being on the Way.17 (11) Finally, everyday life activities can be beautiful in the way the arts are: on Cook Ting, “the brandished blade as it sliced never missed the rhythm, now in time with the Mulberry Forest dance, now with an orchestra playing the Ching-shou.”18 Mattice observes that Chinese culture’s aesthetic terms are different from the West.19 For her, Chinese aesthetic terms also include harmony (he) and vital energy (qi), among others. I think this is a good approach but do not have the space to pursue it here. For the rest of this chapter, I will only list some broad points of contact between Zhuangzi and everyday aesthetics, hopefully opening areas for further exploration. (1) There is a long tradition of the influence of Zhuangzi on Chinese poetry and painting. So, to the extent that Chinese poetry and painting refer to aesthetic experiences of everyday life, there is a connection to everyday aesthetics. (2) The Zhuangzi also had a profound influence on the poetic tradition of Haiku in Japan, which pays close attention to the aesthetic qualities of everyday life. Basho, in particular, identified with the Zhuangzi idea of 14 Graham, 46 15 Graham, 58. 16 Graham, 216. 17 Graham, 164–166. Ch’eng of Northgate says that when hearing the music of the Yellow Emperor, first he felt fear, then he idled through it, then he was confused and overwhelmed. The emperor replies that first he played it as a work of man attuned to heaven, then as idling and escape from the world, and then as not idling but tuned to spontaneous destiny and confusing, and so on the Way. This comment on art aesthetics might also apply to everyday aesthetics. 18 Graham, 62–63. 19 Sarah Mattice, “Daoist Aesthetics of the Everyday and the Fantastical,” in Artistic Visions and the Promise of Beauty. Sophia Studies in Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, ed. Kathleen Higgens, Maria Shakti, and Sonia Sikka, vol. 16 (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017), 251.

68 

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

Thomas Leddy

carefree wandering. His focus on walking connects his poetic practice directly with this essay’s reflections.20 Similarly, Hansen observes that “elements of Zhuangzi’s naturalism, along with themes found in the text attributed to Laozi, helped shape Chan Buddhism (Japanese Zen) – a distinctively Chinese, naturalist blend of Daoism and Buddhism with its emphasis on focused engagement in our everyday ways of life.”21 Yuriko Saito has combined her interest in everyday aesthetics and Japanese aesthetics in her important books on everyday aesthetics. Of particular interest here is her discussion of the Sakuteiki, the eleventh century book on garden making, which recommends obeying the request or requesting the mood of the main garden stone.22 Perhaps the most critical connection is Zhuangzi’s emphasis on silent perception. He sees that man is in accord with the Way by ceasing to draw distinctions.23 This silent perception allows the mind to act like a mirror to its perception.24 If you do not use the language, you can just focus on the particularities of what you see, hear, etc. As Hansen observes, “The wheelwright could not teach his son the art; the musician cannot play all the notes and only reaches true perfection when he dwells in silence. And above all, the valorization of this kind of specialization in an art pulls in the opposite direction of Zhuangzi’s encouragement to broaden and enlarge our perspectives and scope of appreciation.”25 Related to this, Zhuangzi questions argumentation and the application of terms, or as we would put it, categorization.26 Everyday aesthetics has been criticized, e.g., by Dowling, for not sufficiently stressing argumentation. Yet I would argue that argumentation is not appropriate here. For Zhuangzi, “to ‘argue out alternatives’ is to have something you fail to see.”27 Dowling does not mention arguing out alternatives but uses the

20 Peipei Qiu, Basho and the Dao: The Zhuangzi and the Transformation of Haikai (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005); Thomas Heyd, Encountering Nature: Toward an Environmental Culture (Abingdon: Taylor & Francis Group, 2007). 21 Chad Hansen, “Zhuangzi,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2107, https://plato. stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/zhuangzi. 22 Saito, Everyday Aesthetics, 112; Saito, Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and Worldmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 23 Graham, Chuang-Tzu: The Inner Chapters, 188. 24 Graham, 193. 25 Hansen, “Zhuangzi.” 26 Graham, Chuang-Tzu: The Inner Chapters, 178. 27 Graham, Disputers of the Tao (La Salle: Open Court, 1989), 54; Graham, A. C., Chuang-Tzu: The Inner Chapters, 180.

Everyday Aesthe tics of Taking a Walk: With Zhuangzi

69

similar idea of a normative discussion of aesthetic judgment in which dissenters demand agreement. He writes, in opposition to the everyday aesthetics of Sherri Irvin:28 “On a Kantian taxonomy, Irvin’s examples could all be regarded as ‘aesthetic’ in the loose sense in which Kant groups together any and all judgments grounded in subjective pleasure. The suggestion I will develop, however, is that, whether or not one subscribes to Kant’s aesthetic theory, one should (firstly) acknowledge the distinction between purely subjective and idiosyncratic avowals on the one hand, and, on the other, judgments with the kind of ‘normative aspect’ Kant associates with beauty. I suggest (secondly) that one should also recognize that the ‘aesthetic’ judgments that are typical of interest in discussions of art are those possessing such a normative aspect such that judgers will (say) demand agreement from apparent dissenters.”29 In short, whereas Dowling believes that for everyday aesthetics to exist, it must require judgments, norms, judgers, and demands for agreement from dissenters, Zhuangzi would disagree. (7) The idea of “spontaneity” (tzu jan) is expressed, for example, in the famous story of Cook Ting. The focus here is on a wordless but skilled approach to everyday life in which perception plays a central role. The story of Cook Ting is, briefly, that his knife never dulls since he always searches for the empty places between the bones and sinews of the cow. He may not aesthetically appreciate the cow he carves, but there is something close to the aesthetic here insofar as Cook Ting may be seen as an expert practitioner of an art form somewhat like music. Of course, it is not immediately evident that aesthetically appreciative walking is or can be an art. However, both Cook Ting’s practice and what I have described as micro-aesthetics involve close observation. Nor does the above-mentioned silence exclude such rational processes as sorting or grading.30 (8) Heaven and Man. Graham observes that Zhuangzi is opposed to dichotomies and that the most obstinate one is that between Heaven and man. The oneness achieved by the Taoist sage is with Heaven. But what if one does not believe in God? It might still be true that the silent 28 Sherri Irvin, “Scratching an Itch,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66, no. 1 (2008): 25–35, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-594X.2008.00285.x; Sherri Irvin, “The Pervasiveness of the Aesthetic in Ordinary Experience,” British Journal of Aesthetics 48, no. 1 (2008): 29–44, https:// doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/aym039. 29 Christopher Dowling, “The Aesthetics of Daily Life,” The British Journal of Aesthetics 50, no. 3 (2010): 225–42, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayq021, 228. 30 Graham, Disputers of the Tao, 189.

70 

Thomas Leddy

experience of the particular of the world one walks through gives it a kind of aura as if it were permeated by something divine.31 (9) Losing oneself in contemplation of what one sees on the walk. “Tsüch’i of Nan-kuo reclined elbow on armrest, looked up at the sky and exhaled, in a trance as though he had lost the counterpart of himself. Yen-ch’eng Tsü-yu stood in waiting before him. “What is this?” he said. “Can the frame really be made be like weathered wood, the heart like a dead Ashes? The reclining man here now is not the reclining man of yesterday.” “You do well to ask that, Tsü-yu! This time I had lost my own self, did you know it? ”32

Conclusion This chapter has worked in two stages. The first was to describe the everyday aesthetics of taking a walk in one’s neighborhood, relating this to Gum­ brecht’s Heideggerian idea of presence. I stressed the importance of attending to the particular. I suggested a certain ideal mode of perception in which particulars are attended to without using words. However, I did not take words to be irrelevant. I argued that words come in before and after this process but that in the moment of aesthetic presence, words would simply interfere. For example, everyday aesthetics has been criticized by Dowling for not sufficiently stressing arguments (normative discussion). Yet there is no argumentation, or even categorization, in this kind of seeing, although there is sorting. In the second part, I turned to Zhuangzi for help. Zhuangzi’s irrationalism still allows for sorting. What about pleasure? Although aesthetic pleasure plays a minor role in his thought, later artists in China, Japan, and then in the West were much influenced by Zhuangzi in aesthetic appreciation. Zen, for example, pays attention to the aesthetic qualities of the ordinary. 31 Leddy, The Extraordinary in the Ordinary. 32 A.C. Graham, “The Sorting Which Evens Things Out,” Urs Boeschenstein, accessed February 17, 2022, https://www.uboeschenstein.ch/texte/Dao/zhuangzi2-graham-notes.htm#_ftn2. See also the Burton Watson translation “Tzu-ch’i of South Wall sat leaning on his armrest, staring up at the sky and breathing – vacant and far away, as though he’d lost his companion.1 Yen Cheng Tzu-yu, who was standing by his side in attendance, said, “What is this? Can you really make the body like a withered tree and the mind like dead ashes? The man leaning on the armrest now is not the one who leaned on it before!” Tzu-ch’i said, “You do well to ask the question, Yen. Now I have lost myself. Do you understand that? You hear the piping of men, but you haven’t heard the piping of earth. Or if you’ve heard the piping of earth, you haven’t heard the piping of Heaven!” in Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 31.

Everyday Aesthe tics of Taking a Walk: With Zhuangzi

71

Although Cook Ting is a craftsman of superb virtue, his story has many elements of the story of the everyday aesthetician.

Bibliography Dowling, Christopher. “The Aesthetics of Daily Life.” The British Journal of Aesthetics 50, no. 3 (2010): 225–42. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayq021. Graham, A. C. Chuang-Tzu: The Inner Chapters. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2001. https://www.uboeschenstein.ch/texte/Dao/zhuangzi2-graham-notes.htm. Graham, A.C. Disputers of the Tao. La Salle: Open Court, 1989. Graham, A.C. “The Sorting Which Evens Things Out.” Urs Boeschenstein. Accessed February 17, 2022. https://www.uboeschenstein.ch/texte/Dao/zhuangzi2graham-notes.htm#_ftn2. Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich. Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. Haapala, Arto. “On the Aesthetics of the Everyday: Familiarity, Strangeness, and the Meaning of Place.” In The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by Andrew Light and Jonathan M. Smith, 38–55. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Hansen, Chad. “Zhuangzi.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2107. https:// plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/zhuangzi. Heyd, Thomas. Encountering Nature: Toward an Environmental Culture. Abingdon: Taylor & Francis Group, 2007. “Interesting.” In Lexico. Oxford English Dictionary, 2022. https://www.lexico.com/ en/definition/interesting. Irvin, Sherri. “Scratching an Itch.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66, no. 1 (2008): 25–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-594X.2008.00285.x. Irvin, Sherri. “The Pervasiveness of the Aesthetic in Ordinary Experience.” British Journal of Aesthetics 48, no. 1 (2008): 29–44. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/aym039. Lamb, Sarah. “Daoist Aesthetics of the Everyday and the Fantastical.” In Artistic Visions and the Promise of Beauty. Sophia Studies in Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, edited by Kathleen Higgens, Maria Shakti, and Sonia Sikka, Vol. 16. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017. Leddy, Thomas. The Extraordinary in the Ordinary. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2012. Naukkarinen, Ossi. “What Is ‘Everyday’ in Everyday Aesthetics?” Contemporary Aesthetics 11 (2013). https://contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article. php?articleID=675. Qiu, Peipei. Basho and the Dao: The Zhuangzi and the Transformation of Haikai. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.

72 

Thomas Leddy

Saito, Yuriko. Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and Worldmaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Saito, Yuriko. Everyday Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Watson, Burton. Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

About the Author Thomas Leddy is Professor of Philosophy at San Jose State University. His book The Extraordinary in the Ordinary: The Aesthetics of Everyday Life was published by Broadview Press. He has published articles in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, in Contemporary Aesthetics, and elsewhere

3

Investigation of Things Reflecting on Chinese-Western Comparative Everyday Aesthetics Ouyang Xiao Abstract There is a bifurcation between shenghuo meixue and everyday aesthetics. The disparity is observed on critical reflection on everydayness, the recognition of negative aesthetic qualities and experience, and the expectation of defamiliarization. In the Neo-Confucian practice of gewu or investigating things, one may find another Chinese inspiration for dealing with the familiar, ordinary, and routine aesthetically. Gewu offers another possibility of “experiencing the ordinary as ordinary”. It can lead to an aesthetical immersive experience, characterized by a sensuous and intuitive recognition of the appropriateness of everyday things dwelling in their contexts, as well as a cosmic understanding of generative power of the universe that is both profound and poetic. By contemplating aesthetic experience facilitated by gewu, aesthetic experience is typically not individual per se, but collective in the sense that many prima facie private and personal aesthetic experiences are possible only because of the collective underneath. Keywords: shenghuo meixue, gewu, aesthetic experience, everyday aesthetics

The First Comparison: Everyday Aesthetics vs. Living Aesthetics The so-called “everyday aesthetics” or “the aesthetics of everyday life,” often seen as a new trend in the twenty-first century academic aesthetic discourse “[that] appeared concurrently in both the West and the East,”1 has bifurcated 1 Liu Yuedi and Curtis L. Carter suggest, “their common interest in this topic offers the basis for scholars in the West and East to proceed as equal partners in forging new territory for

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch03

74 

Ouyang Xiao

from the very beginning. Liu Yuedi 刘悦笛, one of the leading Chinese scholars gaining influence in this movement, points out, shenghuo meixue 生活美学 (literally, life aesthetics) – the dominant Chinese translation of “everyday aesthetics” – is different from its Western counterpart, for it offers “a new aesthetic articulation that is between the ‘everydayness’ and the ‘non-everydayness.’”2 In the Aesthetics of Everyday Life: East and West (2014), edited by Liu and Curtis L. Carter, they suggest using “aesthetics of living” instead of “aesthetics of everyday life” in the chapters contributed by the Chinese scholars. The latter extends the discourse of shenghuo meixue in English.3 Indeed, the English term Liu coined for the purported Chinese tributary of everyday aesthetics is “performing living aesthetics or living aesthetics.”4 It is now hard to verify whether or not an initial momentum was gained from an innocent hermeneutic fallacy caused by any cross-cultural misinterpretation within this new trend of aesthetics.5 Apparently, a non-negligible conceptual asymmetry occurred between the connotations of the two received terms, namely, everyday aesthetics (or the aesthetics of everyday life) in the West and shenghuo meixue as “living aesthetics” (or “performing investigating the theoretical and practical dimensions of the aesthetics of everyday life.” See Yuedi Liu and Curtis L. Carter, eds., Aesthetics of Everyday Life: East and West (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014). 2 I translated and summarized Liu’s quote, “因而，这样的‘生活美学’是一种介于‘日常性’ 与‘非日常性’之间的美学新构。它也不同于欧美学界‘日常生活美学’。” See Yuedi 刘悦笛 Liu, “‘sheng Huo Mei Xue’ Jian Gou de Zhong Xi Yuan Quan ‘生活美学’建构的中西源泉 [The Chinese and Western Sources of the Construction of ’Aesthetics of Life’],” Xue Shu Yue Kan 学术月刊 41, no. 5 (2009): 119. 3 For discussion on Liu’s idea “在《生活美学: 东方与西方》这本英文著作当中，中国学者在 言说生活美学时统一使用的术语就是 Aesthetics of living.” See Yuedi 刘悦笛 Liu, “Cong ‘Mei Shi Sheng Huo’ Dao ‘Sheng Huo Mei Xue’: Dang Dai Zhong Guo Mei Xue Fa Zhan de Yi Tiao Zhu Liu Xian Suo 从‘美是生活’到‘生活美学’: 当代中国美学发展的一条主流线索 [From ‘Beauty Is Life’ to ‘Life Aesthetics’: A Mainstream Clue for the Development of Contemporary Chinese Aesthetics],” Guang Zhou Da Xue Xue Bao (She Hui Ke Xue Ban) 广州大学学报(社会科学版) 18, no. 5 (2019): 65; See Liu and Carter, Aesthetics of Everyday Life: East and West for their statement “Eastern philosophers may prefer to use the term ‘living Aesthetics’ or ‘Aesthetics of Living’,” in the section of the book “Eastern Wisdom and Everyday Life Aesthetics” (viii); Liu and Carter also state that Yurio Saito still uses “everyday aesthetics” instead of “living aesthetics” preferred by the Chinese scholars when she reflects on the Japanese aesthetic tradition. (145–164). 4 Liu, “‘sheng Huo Mei Xue’ Jian Gou de Zhong Xi Yuan Quan ‘生活美学’建构的中西源泉 [The Chinese and Western Sources of the Construction of ’Aesthetics of Life’], 119.” 5 Conceptual asymmetry caused by imprudent cross-cultural communication happens all the time, especially in philosophical engagement. See Xiao Ouyang, “What Is Confucian Meritocracy – A Clarif ication in Cross-Cultural Translation,” Monumenta Serica: Journal of Oriental Studies MS 69, no. 1 (2021): 1–12.

Investigation of Things

75

living aesthetics”) in China. The disparity does not lie in life vs. living, but a crucial distinction regarding the research scope introduced by the notion of “everyday.” To illustrate – non-everyday experiences such as anniversaries or pandemics (e.g., college graduation, granny’s eightieth birthday, the unprecedented lock-down of Wuhan city amidst the Covid-19 outbreak) may require justification for their place within the scope of everyday aesthetics. At the same time, they are nevertheless naturally most appropriate topics within the aesthetics of living. After all, anniversaries or pandemics are usually the moments marked by significant aesthetic interest and meaning in our human life.6 In addition, shenghuo meixue has been given a more ambitious theoretical expectation. For instance, in Liu Yuedi’s proposal, shenghuo meixue sees a fusion of philosophy of art, environmental aesthetics, and aesthetics of the everyday.7Nevertheless, everyday aesthetics would hardly count the topics of philosophy of art as its constituent research interests. As we go through the thoughts of some representatives of this alleged concurrent aesthetic trend, more notable parallels will be revealed. In his seminal writings, Liu has remarkably grounded shenghuo meixue on phenomenological methodology, especially on Husserl’s notions of Lebenswelt (“生活世界”) and Wesenschau (“本质直观”).8 Liu argues that “the activities of the beautiful or the world of art”9 present the intuition of essences of the everyday life and thus can directly grasp the phenomena of life itself, viz., the vital qualia of the everyday life.10 Over the last decade, 6 In “A Letter from Wuhan” published on the RTE on Feb 14, 2020, I recorded my particular experience with three “rescued” hyacinths plants during the Wuhan lock-down See Xiao Ouyang, “A Letter from Wuhan,” RTE, February 14, 2020, https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2020/0213/1115104wuhan-letter-coronavirus/. 7 This thesis of shenghuo meixue as a fusion has several variations – for instance, “contemporary philosophy of art and environment aesthetics have been fusing into living aesthetics” and “contemporary philosophy of art and environmental aesthetics have presented a tendency to fuse into the aesthetics of everyday life,” See Yuedi Liu 刘悦笛, “‘Living Aesthetics’ from the Perspective of the Intercultural Turn,” in Aesthetics of Everyday Life: East and West, ed. Yuedi Liu and Curtis L. Carter (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), 14, 17, 25. 8 Yuedi Liu 刘悦笛, “Ri Chang Sheng Huo Shen Mei Hua Yu Shen Mei Ri Chang Sheng Guo Hua —— Shi Lun Sheng Huo Mei Xue He Yi Ke Neng 日常生活审美化与审美日常生活化——试论‘ 生活美学’何以可能 [Aestheticization of Daily Life and Aestheticization of Daily Life——On How ‘Life Aesthetics’ Is Possible],” Zhe Xue Yan Jiu 哲学研究 1 (2005): 110–11; Liu, “‘sheng Huo Mei Xue’ Jian Gou de Zhong Xi Yuan Quan ‘生活美学’建构的中西源泉 [The Chinese and Western Sources of the Construction of ’Aesthetics of Life,’] 120.” 9 Liu, “‘sheng Huo Mei Xue’ Jian Gou de Zhong Xi Yuan Quan ‘生活美学’建构的中西源泉 [The Chinese and Western Sources of the Construction of ’Aesthetics of Life,’] 120.” 10 Liu, 120. Liu states, 由胡塞尔的理论推及美学问题，可以说，美的活动或艺术世界所呈 现的正是对日常生活的一种“本质直观”，这是一种对“本真生活” 的把握，但日常生活的那些

76 

Ouyang Xiao

Liu also reconnects the Chinese discourse of shenghuo meixue with its philosophical traditions such as Daoism and Confucianism, for he believes that “Traditional Chinese aesthetics is in nature an aesthetics of living”11 and “Eastern aesthetics is traditionally concerned with the art of living” and “‘the Art of Living’ acknowledges the presence of the aesthetic throughout human experiences.”12 Liu suggests that “living aesthetics, or the idea of artful life, constitutes the fundamental paradigm of Chinese classical aesthetics … Chinese aesthetics is, at the outset, oriented towards everyday life, a most profound difference from European classical aesthetics … the idea of ‘artful life’ also exists in Western aesthetics, to a lesser degree.”13 Liu is concerned that the term “everyday life” feathering the Western tributary of everyday aesthetics “tends to designate only an aspect of human existence …”14 Overall, Liu is conciliatory – “Regardless, in turning to everyday life, both the Chinese and Western aesthetics underline the necessity of appreciating art by way of living aesthetics, and looking at everyday life by way of art.”15 From the above, it is fair to say that Liu’s theorizing of “aesthetics of living” or “living aesthetics” still mandates central roles for the concepts of beauty (美 mei) and art. Coherently, the pursuit of “artful life” and the grasp of the phenomenological essence of everyday life itself via “activities of beauty” lead to specific certification of life – be it a series of artful events or a whole life story as an artwork, and to the elevation of it from “the everyday tedious and chaotic dimensions” to the realm of essence.16 In this line of 乏味的、混乱的方面则并不能进人这种直观的视角。在这个意义上，美的活动可以直接把 握到生活现象自身，也就是把握到日常生活的那种活生生的质感。… 美的活动正因为此而 被“本真地” 加以呈现。也就是说，在美的活动之中，事物的直观被自身所给予，也就是生动 地、原本地被给予出来。My translation of Liu’s Chinese text: “By extending Husserl’s theory into aesthetics, it can be argued that the activities of the beautiful or the world of art present ‘Wesenschau’ (the intuition of essences) of the everyday life, which is a grasp of ‘the original and authentic life’. However, the boring, disordered aspects of the everyday life cannot enter into the vision of this intuition. In this sense, the activities of the beautiful can directly grasp the phenomena of life itself, viz., the vital qualia of the everyday life … therefore, the activities of the beautiful are presented so ‘originally and authentically.’ That is to say, in the activities of the beautiful, the intuition of things is given by itself, namely, vitally and originally given.” 11 Liu, “‘Living Aesthetics’ from the Perspective of the Intercultural Turn,”19. 12 Liu and Carter, Aesthetics of Everyday Life: East and West, viii. 13 Liu and Carter, ix. 14 Liu and Carter, viii. 15 Liu, “‘Living Aesthetics’ from the Perspective of the Intercultural Turn,” 23. 16 Liu states: “美的活动所呈现的，正是对日常生活的一种‘本质直观’……可以说，美的活 动在直观中才能到达本质，或者说，让本质呈现于审美直观之中，美的活动就是‘本质直 观。” in “Ri Chang Sheng Huo Shen Mei Hua Yu Shen Mei Ri Chang Sheng Guo Hua —— Shi Lun Sheng Huo Mei Xue He Yi Ke Neng 日常生活审美化与审美日常生活化——试论‘生活美

Investigation of Things

77

thinking, the everydayness as such – at least certain defining qualities of the everydayness itself – is not the end of aesthetic appreciation. In its preoccupation with phenomenological essence-revealing and “looking at everyday life by way of art,” I think that shenghuo meixue has not departed from what I would call the big-moment aesthetics. For shenghuo meixue, everydayness with its everyday tediousness and disorder sheds no light on the Wesenschau of everyday life, namely, the “original and authentic life.” The negative dimension of everyday life has aesthetic importance only when it serves as a portal to its negation. This reminds us of a notion from the Zhuangzi, namely, “de yu er wang quan (得鱼而忘荃, forgetting the stakes when the fish are got).”17 Turning to the literature produced by scholars in the West, a first impression is that everyday aesthetics claims legitimacy by challenging or complementing the big-moment aesthetics and covering the domains often neglected by previous studies. It is indeed its focus on aesthetically relevant everyday phenomena instead of the high points in aesthetic life such as fine arts and natural beauty that establishes it as a worthy new trend.18 Thomas Leddy and Yuriko Saito – two prominent scholars in the West’s discourse of everyday aesthetics – both register the importance of the negative aesthetic qualities. Leddy suggests, “as we develop lists of properties relevant to everyday aesthetics, we should not neglect the negative properties: for example, ‘harsh’ 学’何以可能 [Aestheticization of Daily Life and Aestheticization of Daily Life——On How ‘Life Aesthetics’ Is Possible,] ” 110; Liu states: “the activities of the beautiful or the world of art present ‘Wesenschau’ (the intuition of essences) of the everyday life, which is a grasp of ‘the original and authentic life’. However, the boring, disordered aspects of the everyday life cannot enter into the vision of this intuition,” in “‘sheng Huo Mei Xue’ Jian Gou de Zhong Xi Yuan Quan ‘生活美学’建构 的中西源泉 [The Chinese and Western Sources of the Construction of ’Aesthetics of Life’], 120.” 17 Qinfan Guo 郭慶藩, Zhuang Zi Ji Shi 莊子集釋 [Zhuangzi Collection] (Beijing: zhong hua shu ju 中華書局, 1961), 944. 18 For example, Thomas Leddy believes “the field of everyday aesthetics covers the domains of everyday life not covered by such previously existing f ields as the aesthetics of art, the aesthetics of nature, and the aesthetics of mathematics.” “The Nature of Everyday Aesthetics,” in The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, ed. Andrew P Light and Jonathan M. Smith (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 19; Leddy points out that despite “everyday aesthetics is not defined by what is experienced literally every day but by what is not art or nature … there is a commonly accepted domain of everyday objects and experiences. People generally recognize what is meant by ‘everyday life.” The Extraordinary in the Ordinary (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2012), 20; According to Yuriko Saito, everyday aesthetics is worth being pursued for three reasons: it “remedies a deficiency in the mainstream art-based philosophical aesthetics,” and “enrich the content of aesthetic discourse” and has surprising practical power. Saito appreciates that our aesthetic life should “not confined to the artworld and other art-like objects and activities.” Everyday Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 243.

78 

Ouyang Xiao

concerning sound, or ‘dull’ concerning color.”19 He proposes a non-symmetrical acceptance of negative aesthetic qualities: “priority goes to positive aesthetic qualities: aesthetics has to do primarily with pleasure and only secondarily with pain.”20 Saito thinks that, unlike traditional aesthetics that “has tended to confine its scope to positive qualities and experiences, everyday aesthetics challenges us to pay serious attention to the aesthetically negative aspects of our lives.” She points out that “negative aesthetic qualities experienced as negative” are quite pervasive in everyday life and have an essential practical necessity.21 Arguably, this meaningful engagement with the negative aesthetic dimension of everyday life reveals another observable difference between everyday aesthetics and shenghuo meixue. In fact, shenghuo meixue in Liu’s proposal is built on his core notion of identifying art and life that is not a presupposition for either Leddy’s or Satio’s proposals.22 Finally, in the divergence between Leddy and Saito concerning the crucial method of defamiliarization, we may find another viewpoint for comparing the discourses of everyday aesthetics and shenghuo meixue. In addition to his acknowledged Hegelian inspiration,23 Thomas Leddy shares Liu Yuedi’s phenomenological approach to everyday aesthetics, which leads to his reinvention of the notion of “aura” to explain the possible aesthetic experiences invoked by everyday objects or events.24 For Leddy, the aura 19 Thomas Leddy, “The Nature of Everyday Aesthetics,” in The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, ed. Andrew P Light and Jonathan M. Smith (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 8. 20 Leddy, 8. 21 Yuriko Saito, “Aesthetics of the Everyday,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2015, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-of-everyday/. 22 Liu famously argues: “[for] the ‘identification of art and life.’ That is, art finally returns to life.” For him, this returning is a two-way movement that consists of “a movement of ‘life as art’… a continuation and expansion of the ‘aestheticization of everyday life’” and “a movement of ‘art as life’ … in which art loses its ‘aura’ and is identified with everyday life.” “‘Living Aesthetics’ from the Perspective of the Intercultural Turn,” 19, 23; In order to justify the purported symmertrical two-way movement, Liu has to endorse an aesthetic definition of art like Monroe C. Beardsley who suggests that “an artwork is something produced with the intention of giving it the capacity to satisfy the aesthetic interest.” “An Aesthetic Definition of Art,” in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology, ed. Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2019), 25. However, an aesthetic definition of art can invite more challenges, in addition to defending the actuality of this identification thesis. 23 Leddy elaborates in The Extraordinary in the Ordinary (35): “Hegel’s emphasis on luminosity and the shining qualities of objects inspires my own emphasis on the qualities of sparkle and shine as particularly important aspects of everyday aesthetic experience and the theory of aesthetic experience as experience of objects with ‘aura.’” 24 Leddy (12) elaborates, “I have my own theory of aesthetic experience which I will develop in this book. This is a phenomenological approach to aesthetics. It emphasizes the way in which an object can take on a quality when it is perceived aesthetically, a quality I call ‘aura.’”

Investigation of Things

79

is “a phenomenological characteristic of the object-as-experienced,” referring to “a heightened significance in which the item experienced seems to extend beyond itself, gesturing to another world.”25 He has to concede “that it may not be possible to approach ‘the ordinariness of the ordinary without making it extraordinary, without approaching it, therefore, in an art-like way.’”26 In fact, Leddy, in acknowledging this paradox – or a Hegelian “dialectical relation”27 – as “a tension within the very concept of the aesthetics of everyday life,” concludes that “any attempt to increase the aesthetic intensity of our ordinary everyday life-experiences will tend to push those experiences in the direction of the extraordinary.”28 This reliance on an aesthetic elevation of the everydayness from the ordinary to the extraordinary seems to resonate with Liu Yuedi’s shenghuo meixue. However, Saito’s recent proposal distinguishes two kinds of aesthetic appreciation of the everyday. She suggests that “experiencing the ordinary as ordinary is possible, and it offers the core of the everyday aesthetic experience.”29 I agree with Saito, and my approach elucidated in the next section hopes to introduce a new incentive into this possibility. After the above clarification of the bifurcation between shenghuo meixue and everyday aesthetics, I now venture to propose that in the notion of gewu (usually translated as “investigating things” or “the investigation of things”), one may find a Chinese inspiration or source for dealing with the familiar, ordinary, routine aesthetically. Although art historians have insisted that gewu with its methodological implications has indeed shaped the artistic 25 Christopher Dowling, “The Aesthetics of Daily Life,” The British Journal of Aesthetics 50, no. 3 (2010): 225–42, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayq021. 26 Dowling. 27 Leddy argues in The Extraordinary in the Ordinary (35), “I see the relationship Hegel finds between art and life as dialectical. That is, the art responds to everyday life which in turn is seen in terms of the art. This notion of the importance of the dialectical relation between art and everyday aesthetics will be a central theme of this book.” 28 Leddy, “The Nature of Everyday Aesthetics,”18. 29 In Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and Worldmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), Yuriko Saito argues, “paying attention and bringing background to the foreground is simply making something invisible visible and is necessary for any kind of aesthetic experience, whether of the extraordinary or of the ordinary. Bringing background to the foreground through paying attention contrasts with conducting everyday life on autopilot, which puts the ingredients of everyday life beyond capture by our conscious radar. But putting something on our conscious radar and making something visible does not necessarily render our experience extraordinary. There are two sets of contrast we need to consider here. One set is being aware and attentive, contrasted with going through motions on autopilot, although it is not an unconscious state … The other contrast is between experiencing the familiar quality of the everyday and experiencing its defamiliarized strangeness” (24).

80 

Ouyang Xiao

style and practice of the Song dynasties,30 my approach to this notion aims to reveal its philosophical aesthetical significance.

Gewu (Investigating Things): A New Start for Chinese-Western Comparative Everyday Aesthetics Gewu originates from the pre-Qin Confucian classic The Great Learning. Thanks to the Neo-Confucian philosophers’ creative exegeses, it became a central doctrine in the Confucian teachings from the thirteenth century. Traditionally, “wu” has been interpreted as shi (events).31 For the Neo-Confucians, “between Heaven and Earth, all that one confronts are wu.”32 That is to say, wu is more than just things; it refers to all objects and events encountered in our everyday life. In the ordinariness of wu, there is a coherent li 理 (principle, pattern, purposiveness), namely, “the rule(s) for how [things] ought to be (dangran zhi ze 当然之则),” and “what is meant by ‘ought to be so (dangran)’ is what is right to be done in things, namely, being appropriate (qiahao 恰好), without any excessiveness or deficiency.”33 “Gewu means questing for li – for how things ought to be.”34 It is fair to say that gewu is not any scientific empirical analysis or exploration, but a somewhat intuitive grasp of the presence of coherent li, attentively and mindfully “conducted alongside everyday activities”35 – “to practice it at ease, not as an urgent need.”36 Moreover, gewu is not merely a way of understanding reality but also ultimately a practical method of self-cultivation within daily life. 30 Mu Lin 林木 suggested in, “Qiong Li Jin Xing, Guan Wu Cha Ji—— Songdai Lixue Yu Song Hua Zhi Li 穷理尽性，观物察己——宋代理学与宋画之理 [Exhausting the Rationale to Exhaust the Nature, Observe the Object and Observe Onself——Song Dynasty’s Theory of Represntation and Song Painting],” Yi Shu Tan Suo 艺术探索 1 (2018): 10–11, https://doi.org/10.13574/j.cnki.artsexp.2018.01.001. “理学的格物致知倾向掀起了前所未有的宋人研究客观世界之物理事理的热情。这对于以描 绘客观现实为对象的美术来说当然有重大的实践意义……宋代宫廷艺术中大量描绘大千世 界中盎然生意的花鸟草虫与格物致知的探索之严谨关系，也是一目了然。” 31 Xuan Zheng 鄭玄 states, “格，来也。物，犹事也。” Li Ji Zheng Yi 禮記正義 [Book of Rites Justice] (Beijing: Peking University Press 北京大學出版社, 2000), 1859. 32 Xi Zhu 朱熹 states, “天地之间，眼前所接之事，皆是物。” Zhu Zi Quan Shu · Zhu Zi Yu Lei 朱子全書·朱子語類 [A Collection of Conversations of Master Zhu] (Shanghai: Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House 上海古籍出版社, 2002), 1839. 33 Chun Chen 陳淳 states, “只是事物上一个当然之则便是理……只是事物上正当合做处 便是‘当然’，即这恰好，无过些，亦无不及些。” Bei Xi Zi Yi 北溪字義 [Neo-Confucian Terms Explained] (Beijing: zhong hua shu ju 中華書局, 1983), 42. 34 Zhu states, “格物只是就事物上求个当然之理。” Zhu Zi Quan Shu · Zhu Zi Yu Lei 朱子全書· 朱子語類 [A Collection of Conversations of Master Zhu], 3784. 35 Zhu states, “随事理会” (599). 36 Zhu states, “所以格物，便是要闲时理会，不是要临时理会” (600).

Investigation of Things

81

Historically, the Neo-Confucians reinvented the notion of gewu for metaethical salvation in the face of challenges from Daoism and Buddhism. Gewu calls for a re-orientation of the metaphysical quests for meaning, truth, and ultimate values back to everyday matters, namely, to the ten thousand things we encounter and interact with within our living world. For instance, the most prominent advocator of gewu, Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), believes that dao spoke by his contemporary Daoists and Buddhists “is empty, void, still and dead, and of no use to the people,” but within Confucianism, dao is so named – literally, the way – “precisely because it is the li of everyday life, like the roads that ought to be traveled by millions of people within the four seas and on the nine continents.”37 Recognizing the appropriateness in things via the practice of gewu reveals, not only what the Confucians regarded as universal moral facts pervasive in the world and embodied by all things, but ultimately a coherent principle within oneself – the possibility and capacity of being appropriate and harmonious within one’s context is revealed.38 Neo-Confucian philosopher Cheng Yi 程 颐 (1033–1107) remarks, “either in wu or in me, there is only one coherent li; as soon as the one side is enlightened, the other too, for the dao within or without are united. Speaking of its greatness, it compares to the height of heaven and the depth of earth; speaking of its minuteness, it lies in how a single wu ought to be.”39 Of course, neo-Confucian gewu as a practical method is not foremost articulated for the sake of aesthetic appreciation of the everyday – it is much more than that. I think an insight of Arto Haapala sheds light on this blending nature of gewu: “when we are talking about everydayness, its aesthetics, in this sense, it is difficult to draw any strict line between the ethical and the aesthetic aspects of life … Especially in familiarity and accordingly, in the concept of the place, ontological, ethical and aesthetic considerations are 37 Xi Zhu 朱熹 states, “道之得名, 正以人生日用当然之理, 犹四海九州百千万人当行之路尔, 非若老佛之所谓道者, 空虚寂灭而无用于人也。” Zhu Zi Quan Shu · Zhu Hui an Xian Sheng Zhu Wen Gong Jí  朱子全書·朱晦庵先生朱文公集 [The Collection of Zhu Ziquan, Mr. Zhu Hui’an, Zhu Wengong] (Shanghai: Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House 上海古籍出版社, 2002), 1690. 38 Xiao Ouyang, “Towards Moral Teleology – A Comparative Study of Kant and Zhu Xi,” Rivista Di Estetica 72 (2019): 120, https://doi.org/10.4000/estetica.6054; For a more detailed account of the notion of gewu and its philosophical implications, see Xiao Ouyang, “Gewu: The Investigation of Things in Neo-Confucianism,” in Key Concepts in World Philosophies: Everything You Need to Know About Doing Cross-Cultural Philosophy, ed. Sarah Flavel and Chiara Robbiano (Londonou: Bloomsbury Academic, forthcoming). 39 Yi Cheng 程頤 and Hao Cheng 程顥 state, “物我一理，才明彼即晓此，合内外之道也。语 其大，至天地之高厚；语其小，至一物之所以然。”Er Cheng Ji 二程集 [Collected Works of the Two Chengs] (Beijing: zhong hua shu ju 中華書局, 1981), 193.

82 

Ouyang Xiao

intertwined with each other.”40 From “the gliding hawk and the jumping fish” (yuan fei yu yue 鸢飞鱼跃) – a symbolic image iconized as Neo-Confucian enlightenment – one can identify an immersive aesthetical experience, characterized by a sensuous and intuitive recognition of the harmony and contentment of things dwelling in their contexts. This insight into things also leads to a cosmic understanding that is both profound and poetic. In his charming poem Observing the Things (Guan Wu 观物), neo-Confucian philosopher Chen Xianzhang 陈献章 (1428–1500), being in awe of cosmic changes, expresses something we may call an aesthetic liberation indeed! A spring ripple, a plume of smoke, transforming the transformed and generating the generated, as each self-so, not me, this seven-feet body belongs to, between heaven and earth, winter and summer, let it change and evolve.41

Contemplating on the Collective in Everyday Aesthetic Experience Indeed, the neo-Confucian gewu inevitably leads us to cultivate what Thomé H. Fang calls the “sense of comprehensive harmony,”42 as integral to the Neo-Confucian ideology of min bao wu yu 民胞物与 (literally, people are my siblings and things are my kind), and cheng ji cheng wu 成己成物, (literally, fulfill oneself, fulfilling things). 43 There is a Confucian cosmic duty that self-cultivation does not end with the flourishing of the human race but has to extend to the fulfillment of the natures of all things, sentient and 40 Arto Haapala, “On the Aesthetics of the Everyday: Familiarity, Strangeness, and the Meaning of Place,” in The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, ed. Andrew Light and Jonathan M. Smith (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 52. 41 Chen Xianzhang’s poem: “一痕春水一条烟，化化生生各自然。七尺形躯非我有，两间 寒暑任推迁。” Mu Qian 錢穆, ed., Li Xue Liu Jia Shi Chao 理學六家詩鈔 [The Six Schools of Neo-Confucianism Poems] (Beijing: jiu zhou chu ban she 九州出版社, 2014), 113. 42 Thomé H. Fang, states “Chinese mentality is best characterized by what I call the cultivated sense of comprehensive harmony, in unison with which man and life in the world can enter into a fellowship in sympathetic unity so that a bliss of peace and well-being may be enjoyed by all.” The Chinese View of Life: The Philosophy of Comprehensive Harmony (Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. Ltd., 1980), ii. 43 These two notions respectively come from Neo-Confucian philosopher Zai 張載 Zhang, Zhang Zai Ji 張載集 [Book of Zhang Zai] (Beijing: zhong hua shu ju 中華書局, 2006), 62; and the Confucian classic Zhongyong 中庸 [Doctrine of the Mean Xi] according to 朱熹 Zhu, Si Shu Zhang Ju Ji Zhu 四書章句集注 [Annotation of Chapters and Sentences of the Four Books] (Beijing: zhong hua shu ju 中華書局, 2005), 34.

Investigation of Things

83

non-sentient beings alike. This is nothing mysterious or transcendental; gewu does not pull us out of the mundane to achieve something sacred or spiritual. Gewu, as attentively and mindfully conducted alongside everyday activities, does not await life-changing sudden enlightenment or require “forgetting the stakes when the fish are got” or realizing a spiritual elevation to the “worlds apart.”44 Therefore, the aesthetic experience, facilitated by gewu, does not aim to render the ordinary things and events extraordinary, as suddenly out of the commonplace, shining with an “aura.” Perhaps, it is even the opposite – gewu intends to see things and events in their commonplace, the right place. Only then is there the possibility of proper aesthetical and moral recognition. As Zhu explains it – “Consider this fan, being a fan, there is dao and li of a fan. A fan is made as such and employed as such – therein is li above the form … in these everyday events and things, there are dao and li. The two [things and dao-li] are never sparable.”45 Looking into and appreciating the ordinariness of such a fan, made and employed as such, may lead us to recognize coherent li and a feeling of being connected within and fusion into a larger context of cosmic life. Things are still things as such with their particular ways of being. In other words, gewu is, in Saito’s terms, “experiencing the ordinary as ordinary.”46 The moment of aesthetic and moral recognition facilitated by gewu provides the feeling of togetherness, unity, and being at home (with the familiar). We also realize that the nature of everyday life is associated with living with other sentient and non-sentient beings alike. Gewu is not the Daoist “communicating with the spirit of heaven and earth alone (du yu tiandi jingshen wang lai 独与天地精神往来),”47 which may well capture the disposition of those big-moment aesthetics. I argue that many influential Western aesthetic theories inspired by the paradigmatic experience of high art and beauty assume a singular subject, an individual with a cultivated taste. It is the ultimate privacy of self that entails the possibilities of many familiar aesthetic theses – beauty as subjective universality, aesthetic properties as non-condition governed, individual artist’s intentionality in defining art, just to name a few. In contrast, the aesthetic 44 Here I refer to Peter Kivy’s theory of musical liberation in Philosophies of Arts: An Essay in Differences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 206. 45 Zhu states, “且如这个扇子，此物也，便有个扇子底道理。扇子是如此做，合当如此用， 此便是形而上之理……只那日用事物上，道理便在上面，这两个元不相离。” Zhu Zi Quan Shu Zhu Hui an Xian Sheng Zhu Wen Gong Jí 朱子全書·朱晦庵先生朱文公集 [The Collection of Zhu Ziquan, Mr. Zhu Hui’an, Zhu Wengong] (2024–25). 46 Saito, Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and Worldmaking, 24. 47 See chapter “Tianxia 天下” in Guo, Zhuang Zi Ji Shi 莊子集釋 [Zhuangzi Collection], 1098.

84 

Ouyang Xiao

experience via gewu is hardly characterized by the Cartesian isolationism of the self that haunts these Western aesthetic theories but an immersive experience of co-existence that leads to a recognition of the collective. Everyday life itself is a collective effort and achievement, not a creation by a few superheroes. The aesthetic space coterminous with our daily life is also not designed by a few song-minded artists. Contemplating the everyday aesthetic experience, I propose an even more radical idea – that aesthetic experience itself is typically not individual but collective. I do not merely mean that we often find collective facts in our aesthetic experience. For instance, as a film legend, “Jackie Chan” is not an individual as shown in the movies, but an incredible team with Jackie Chan himself and a dozen stuntmen; or in a jam session, when we feel we lose ourselves in a collective musical creation which is possible only when all the individuals do not cling to their own rhythm and intention. Rather, I want to suggest that many perfectly private and individual aesthetic experiences are possible only because of the collective underneath. Unlike the aesthetic experience associated with the lonely artist-heroes, unprecedented masterpieces of art, and superlative experience of aesthetic excellence, everyday aesthetic experience has the strength to help reveal this truth. Allow me to present an example. Two weeks ago, in my lodging during a conference trip, I was lying on the bed after a long day, trying to get to sleep. Suddenly I noticed that the crickets were chirping outside, under my window. I probably had heard them earlier when other things occupied me. I never paid much attention until now, and it brought about an ineffable moment of deep feelings. “Autumn is here,” I murmured, with a melancholy suddenly coming over me – this lonely traveler in a strange place, on a cool autumn night with crickets chirping by the window. It was a perfect everyday aesthetic moment, and it felt so personal. Crickets’ songs and autumn melancholy come together so naturally at that moment as if I suddenly discovered a beautiful resonance between them when I was fully attentive. But if one looks closely, this particular experience of mine is possible only because it is collective. The truth is that this specific aesthetic experience of crickets’ songs is a cultural creation and lodged in me throughout my entire life of being Chinese and an enthusiast of classical poetry. In Chinese literature, “longing ladies in spring and susceptible gentlemen in autumn”48 may summarize a large group of works. Autumn melancholy is a familiar aesthetic category in Chinese classical poetry, with numerous influential lines throughout history that became part of my language, shaped my 48 This common saying goes, “春女善怀，秋士易感。”

Investigation of Things

85

taste, and constituted my emotional life. I am a “susceptible gentleman in autumn” like many of my predecessors, and we share and pass on this particular autumn melancholy provoked by the crickets’ songs. Underlying this prima facie personal aesthetic experience is our co-existence – “longing ladies in spring and susceptible gentlemen in autumn.” This kind of everyday aesthetic experience is nothing miracle-like. Still, it is powerful enough, as it extends beyond the spatiotemporal limitation of my own life experience and brings many past and future susceptible minds into one. I guess this is how Sun Ran 孙髯 (1711–1773) felt when he stood at the Da-guan Tower on an ordinary day, like many tourists before him and after him, seeing “the f ive-hundred-mile Lake Dian comes to my [his] sight.” With “thousands of years of the past surging in my [his] heart,”49 he wrote the famous 180-character Da-Guan Lou Changlian 大 观楼长联 (A long couplet written for the Da-guan Tower), which utilizes various past literary quotations, while itself becomes part of the collective memory too. Within the moment of aesthetic enlightenment, thanks to the ordinary, the familiar, and the commonplace, we realize that we are at home, accompanied by heaven and earth, by ten thousand things, by “my siblings” and “my kind.” We are united in a significant transformation and shall never depart.50

Conclusion Everyday aesthetics is still an ongoing discourse. Trans-cultural comparative studies entail harvesting new and enlightening perspectives of our aesthetic life and reflecting on our cultural traditions. Despite the initial bifurcation between shenghuo meixue and everyday aesthetics, we find meaningful convergence, as seen in the resonance between Liu Yuedi’s and Thomas Leddy’s phenomenological approaches and their methods of 49 Here I refer to two lines from the Da-Guan Lou Changlian, namely, “五百里滇池奔来眼 底……数千年往事注到心头。” The Wikisource has recorded this famous couplet, see https:// zh.m.wikisource.org/zh/昆明大观楼长联. 50 In addition to the above cultural examples, I have a feeling that my thesis can also find support in evolutionary aesthetics, for which aesthetic experience of nature as well as art behaviors have to do with group survival and are coded in the nature of our species. In fact, even in the Kantian big-moment aesthetics, a personal experience of the beautiful with the feeling of pleasure is associated with the universal communicability of the presentation in the aesthetic judgment of taste. Considering the length of this chapter, I will keep this discussion for another essay.

86 

Ouyang Xiao

defamiliarization, or my elaboration of the Neo-Confucian gewu to join Yuriko Saito’s rank in promoting “experiencing the ordinary as ordinary.” An irreplaceable value of everyday aesthetics lies in revealing what is often hidden by the dominant theories of aesthetic experience. Aesthetic experience is typically not individual but collective. Many prima facie private and personal aesthetic experiences are possible only because of the collective underlying. Let us say, “a person of taste is never alone.” Everyday aesthetics urges us to recognize the fact of associated living, challenging the foundational individualistic assumptions behind many mainstream contemporary philosophies beyond the domain of aesthetics.

Acknowledgment This publication resulted (in part) from the research project “A Philosophical Aesthetic Study of Style,” supported by the National Social Sciences Fund of China (Award Number: 19CZX062).

Bibliography Beardsley, Monroe C. “An Aesthetic Definition of Art.” In Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology, edited by Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen, 22–29. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2019. Chen, Chun 陳淳. Bei Xi Zi Yi 北溪字義 [Neo-Confucian Terms Explained]. Beijing: zhong hua shu ju 中華書局, 1983. Cheng, Yi 程頤, and Hao 程顥 Cheng. Er Cheng Ji 二程集 [Collected Works of the Two Chengs]. Beijing: zhong hua shu ju 中華書局, 1981. Dowling, Christopher. “The Aesthetics of Daily Life.” The British Journal of Aesthetics 50, no. 3 (2010): 225–42. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayq021. Fang, Thomé H. The Chinese View of Life: The Philosophy of Comprehensive Harmony. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co. Ltd., 1980. Guo, Qinfan 郭慶藩. Zhuang Zi Ji Shi 莊子集釋 [Zhuangzi Collection]. Beijing: zhong hua shu ju 中華書局, 1961. Haapala, Arto. “On the Aesthetics of the Everyday: Familiarity, Strangeness, and the Meaning of Place.” In The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by Andrew Light and Jonathan M. Smith, 38–55. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Kivy, Peter. Philosophies of Arts: An Essay in Differences. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Investigation of Things

87

Leddy, Thomas. The Extraordinary in the Ordinary. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2012. Leddy, Thomas. “The Nature of Everyday Aesthetics.” In The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by Andrew P Light and Jonathan M. Smith, 3–22. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Lin, Mu 林木. “Qiong Li Jin Xing, Guan Wu Cha Ji—— Songdai Lixue Yu Song Hua Zhi Li 穷理尽性，观物察己——宋代理学与宋画之理 [Exhausting the Ratio­ nale to Exhaust the Nature, Observe the Object and Observe Onself——Song Dynasty’s Theory of Represntation and Song Painting].” Yi Shu Tan Suo 艺术探 索 1 (2018): 6–12. https://doi.org/10.13574/j.cnki.artsexp.2018.01.001. Liu, Yuedi, and Curtis L. Carter, eds. Aesthetics of Everyday Life: East and West. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014. Liu, Yuedi 刘悦笛. “Cong ‘Mei Shi Sheng Huo’ Dao ‘Sheng Huo Mei Xue’: Dang Dai Zhong Guo Mei Xue Fa Zhan de Yi Tiao Zhu Liu Xian Suo 从‘美是生活’到‘生 活美学’: 当代中国美学发展的一条主流线索 [From ‘Beauty Is Life’ to ‘Life Aesthetics’: A Mainstream Clue for the Development of Contemporary Chinese Aesthetics].” Guang Zhou Da Xue Xue Bao (She Hui Ke Xue Ban) 广州大学学报 (社会科学版) 18, no. 5 (2019): 59–66. Liu, Yuedi 刘悦笛. “‘Living Aesthetics’ from the Perspective of the Intercultural Turn.” In Aesthetics of Everyday Life: East and West, edited by Yuedi Liu and Curtis L. Carter. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014. Liu, Yuedi 刘悦笛. “Ri Chang Sheng Huo Shen Mei Hua Yu Shen Mei Ri Chang Sheng Guo Hua —— Shi Lun Sheng Huo Mei Xue He Yi Ke Neng 日常生活审美化与 审美日常生活化——试论‘生活美学’何以可能 [Aestheticization of Daily Life and Aestheticization of Daily Life——On How ‘Life Aesthetics’ Is Possible].” Zhe Xue Yan Jiu 哲学研究 1 (2005): 107–11. Liu, Yuedi 刘悦笛. “‘Sheng Huo Mei Xue’ Jian Gou de Zhong Xi Yuan Quan ‘生活美 学’建构的中西源泉 [The Chinese and Western Sources of the Construction of ’Aesthetics of Life’].” Xue Shu Yue Kan 学术月刊 41, no. 5 (2009): 119–25. Ouyang, Xiao. “A Letter from Wuhan.” RTE, February 14, 2020. https://www.rte.ie/ brainstorm/2020/0213/1115104-wuhan-letter-coronavirus/. Ouyang, Xiao. “Gewu: The Investigation of Things in Neo-Confucianism.” In Key Concepts in World Philosophies: Everything You Need to Know About Doing CrossCultural Philosophy, edited by Sarah Flavel and Chiara Robbiano. Londonou: Bloomsbury Academic, forthcoming. Ouyang, Xiao. “Towards Moral Teleology – A Comparative Study of Kant and Zhu Xi.” Rivista Di Estetica 72 (2019): 99–124. https://doi.org/10.4000/estetica.6054. Ouyang, Xiao. “What Is Confucian Meritocracy – A Clarification in Cross-Cultural Translation.” Monumenta Serica: Journal of Oriental Studies MS 69, no. 1 (2021): 1–12.

88 

Ouyang Xiao

Qian, Mu 錢穆, ed. Li Xue Liu Jia Shi Chao 理學六家詩鈔 [The Six Schools of NeoConfucianism Poems]. Beijing: jiu zhou chu ban she 九州出版社, 2014. Saito, Yuriko. “Aesthetics of the Everyday.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2015. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-of-everyday/. Saito, Yuriko. Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and Worldmaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Saito, Yuriko. Everyday Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Zhang, Zai 張載. Zhang Zai Ji 張載集 [Book of Zhang Zai]. Beijing: zhong hua shu ju 中華書局, 2006. Zheng, Xuan 鄭玄. Li Ji Zheng Yi 禮記正義 [Book of Rites Justice]. Beijing: Peking University Press 北京大學出版社, 2000. Zhu, Xi 朱熹. Si Shu Zhang Ju Ji Zhu 四書章句集注 [Annotation of Chapters and Sentences of the Four Books]. Beijing: zhong hua shu ju 中華書局, 2005. Zhu, Xi 朱熹. Zhu Zi Quan Shu · Zhu Hui an Xian Sheng Zhu Wen Gong Jí  朱子全書·朱 晦庵先生朱文公集 [The Collection of Zhu Ziquan, Mr. Zhu Hui’an, Zhu Wengong]. Shanghai: Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House 上海古籍出版社, 2002. Zhu, Xi 朱熹. Zhu Zi Quan Shu · Zhu Zi Yu Lei 朱子全書·朱子語類 [A Collection of Conversations of Master Zhu]. Shanghai: Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House 上海古籍出版社, 2002.

About the Author Ouyang Xiao (欧阳霄) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Peking University, China. He works on comparative philosophy and is interested in various topics in aesthetics, ethics, and political philosophy. He publishes on international journals and also works on translation. Besides academic work, he devotes himself to Chinese classical arts such as poetry, calligraphy, painting and literati music.

Part 2 Nature and Environment

4

The Aesthetics of Nature and the Environment From the Perspective of Comparison between China and the West Gao Jianping

Abstract The study of environmental and ecological aesthetics in China only began in the 21st century. But environmental aesthetics has a long history including the design of Chinese gardens and the practice and the evaluation of ancient Chinese landscape paintings. Comparing the aesthetic discourses on nature in China and in Europe, this essay lists Western discourses on the beauty of creation, of the sublime, and of the picturesque. Chinese discourses of the beauty of the nature have undergone a discursive development, which has formed a transformation of the discipline of aesthetics. From the appreciation of the beauty of nature in ancient times to contemporary ecological and environmental aesthetics, discourses in both cultures demonstrate similarities and differences. Understanding contemporary schools of Chinese aesthetics, from subjectivism to the materialists, shows that an historical analysis has positive implications for our understanding of the aesthetics of nature in both eastern and western cultures. Keywords: environmental aesthetics, Chinese gardens, Chinese landscape painting, natural environment

There are both similarities and differences between contemporary ecological and environmental aesthetics and the appreciation of the beauty of nature in ancient times. Likewise, the Chinese appreciation of nature and the environment is similar to and different from that of Europeans and

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch04

92 

Gao Jianping

Westerners. A historical analysis of the reasons for the formation of these similarities and differences has positive implications for our understanding of contemporary aesthetics, especially that of everyday life.

Contemporary Western environmental and ecological aesthetics and relevant research in China In contemporary Chinese aesthetics, it is possible to divide discussions on nature and the environment into two stages, the first of which was the discussion on natural beauty, which lasted from the 1950s to the 1980s. There were two main categories of views on the beauty of nature at this stage. A believer in objective beauty, Cai Yi (1906–1992) represented views of the first category. For him, some natural objects are beautiful, and some are not, and the principle distinction between the former and the latter resides in their “typicalness.” A concept imported from the West, “typicalness” had initially been used in the realm of arts and had referred to characters in literary works. In his system of aesthetic thought, Cai Yi transplanted the concept of “typicalness” to animals and even to plants, arguing that these living beings could be “typical.” For instance, he believed that plants and animals that grew in a normal and healthy manner were typical, whereas mutilated living beings were not. However, it would be difficult to apply the concept of “typicalness” to landscapes. After all, one cannot determine what kind of mountain is a “typical” mountain or what river is a “typical” river. Other aestheticians, including Zhu Guangqian (1897–1986), Li Zehou (1930–2021), and Jiang Kongyang (1923–1999), were opposed to Cai Yi’s theory on the beauty of nature. They offered their respective understandings by transposing a few lines from Marx’s Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. They claimed that beauty consisted of objectifying the “essential power of man”1 or in the “humanized nature.”2 These are interpretations of the beauty of nature from a humanist perspective. According to the former understanding (“objectification of the essential power of man”), the beauty of nature is essentially a result of human activity, which ranges from making a stone ax to constructing a house. Aesthetic appreciation is thus equivalent to the admiration of human labor or of human power. According to the latter understanding (“humanized nature”), one confers their own imagination to 1 Karl Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” in The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W. W. W. Norton & Company, 1978), 89. 2 Marx, 89.

The Aesthetics of Nature and the Environment

93

the object in nature. For instance, while a person appreciates the beauty of the moon, they are, of course, unable to bring about any concrete change to the moon itself. Yet, while they behold the lunar surface, they are perfectly capable of generating imaginative thoughts, and the image of the moon then becomes part of a poem or a painting. Many aestheticians were active in China from the 1950s to the 1980s, and there emerged a wide array of views on the beauty of nature. These views fall into the two main categories mentioned above. Although these aestheticians published many books and articles, the beauty of nature was generally not within the scope of their research. The vast majority of views on the beauty of nature existed alongside debates on the beauty of art. Cai Yi emphasized the objectiveness of the beauty of nature, yet his concept of “typicalness” had its origins in literature. Zhu Guangqian, who was under the profound influence of Hegel, believed that aesthetics was equivalent to the philosophy of art. For him, the actual object of aesthetic appreciation in the beauty of nature was the image of the object or a projection of one’s spirit rather than the natural object itself. The late 1970s and the 1980s were when Chinese aestheticians generally studied aesthetics from the angle of literature and the arts. In 1978, the discussion on “imagery thinking” sprang up in China. The specific features of artistic thinking were at the core of this discussion, giving rise to a new round of “aesthetics craze.” During this period, most Chinese researchers in aesthetics were also literary scholars. As a result, literary theory and aesthetics were closely interrelated in China. This is why a notion called “Literary and Artistic Aesthetics” (Wen Yi Meixue) was proposed and soon received nationwide recognition. This notion proved to be highly useful for advancing the discipline of aesthetics in China. This notion might be incomprehensible in English due to its wording, which seems repetitive. The reason is that, in European languages, the term “aesthetics” already possesses the meaning of the philosophy of art. However, this reformulation takes on a special significance in China, where many scholars in the field of aesthetics had originally been researchers in literature and the arts. The naming of “Literary and Artistic Aesthetics” served as an endorsement for the legitimacy of the discipline. In Europe, unlike in Chinese academia, the discipline of aesthetics had been centered on art for a very long time. In the eighteenth century, Baumgarten first formulated the term “aesthetica” based on his research on poetry. Some scholars believe that Kant’s The Critique of Judgment emphasizes the beauty of nature. This is not entirely accurate. In Kant’s system of thought, due to the complexity of artistic beauty, it is necessary to begin the analysis

94 

Gao Jianping

from simple elements of beauty. Yet, the study of art remains the ultimate purpose. In the nineteenth century, Hegel considered aesthetics as the “philosophy of art” and believed that the latter was the more proper name for the discipline. While discussing the beauty of nature, Hegel characterized it as nature imbued with a living spirit. According to Monroe Beardsley’s account, analytic aesthetics, which started to flourish in the mid-twentieth century, saw aesthetics as a form of “meta-criticism,” which consisted of the study of concepts employed by art criticism. According to Richard Wollheim, analytical aestheticians also discuss the beauty of nature, which they “see as” a form of art.3 It is clear that either in the West or in China, there existed in contemporary aesthetics a common neglect of natural beauty.4 This is, of course, not to say that the beauty of nature was utterly ignored, but to observe that as a distinct branch of the discipline, anesthetics centered on nature had not yet been established. Research on environmental and ecological aesthetics originated at the beginning of the twenty-first century in China. More precisely, some scholars at Wuhan University, represented by Chen Wangheng, started introducing and studying environmental aesthetics. In contrast, several other scholars at Shandong University, represented by Zeng Fanren, began to research ecological aesthetics. There have been some conceptual distinctions in their research, and some specialists have discussed which term was better: “environmental aesthetics” or “ecological aesthetics.” In general, both of these terms reveal a relatively consistent tendency. These scholars have some commonalities in their approaches and methods of studying aesthetics. Firstly, this type of research results from exchanges between Chinese and Western aesthetics. The 13th International Congress of Aesthetics, which took place in Lahti, Finland, emphasized the importance of creating an aesthetic of the natural environment. The 14th International Congress of Aesthetics held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 1998 launched a call to move beyond analytic aesthetics, which had long been centered on the study of art. In 2001, the 15th International Congress of Aesthetics was held in Tokyo, Japan. This congress highlighted the importance of diversity in the analysis 3 Richard Wollheim, Art and Its Objects: With Six Supplementary Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980) 205–226. 4 Ronald W. Hepburn, “Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty,” in The Aesthetics of Natural Environments, ed. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2004), 43–62.

The Aesthetics of Nature and the Environment

95

of aesthetics and drew attention to the theme of oriental aesthetics. These general tendencies exerted an important influence on the advancement of Chinese aesthetics. In 2002, an international conference on aesthetics, “Aesthetics and Culture: East and West,” took place in Beijing, China. Many prominent scholars from around the globe attended this conference. Despite their various viewpoints, there was nevertheless a typical inclination to transcend analytic aesthetics.5 This conference marked a new beginning of Chinese aesthetics in the twenty-first century. The books and articles of some scholars specializing in environmental aesthetics, including Arnold Berleant, Allen Carlson, Yrjö Sepänmaa, and Holmes Rolston III, were translated into Chinese, and gradually became influential. Secondly, this showed that the discipline of aesthetics was eagerly seeking a new path. At this point in the development of Chinese aesthetics, the abstract conclusions in the past, such as “humanized nature,” were no longer productive, and were unable to meet the needs of researchers. Scholars working on aesthetics were called upon by everyday life to search for new theoretical resources. In the study of the aesthetics of everyday life, the works of three Westerners, namely John Dewey, Mike Featherstone, and Wolfgang Welsch, were introduced to China and gave rise to lively discussions. The views of these three men, though different, joined forces and formed a new breakthrough in the mainstream aesthetic theory of the time. This constituted a challenge to the aesthetic theories of Kant, Hegel, Croce, Edward Bullough, Theodor Lipps, and others who had previously been influential in China. More specifically, these three scholars blurred the boundary between art and life, and sought to venture beyond traditional aesthetics, in order to establish a new aesthetics focused on everyday life. The new theoretical framework they provided also prepared the ground for the reception of ecological and environmental aesthetics in China. Thirdly, in the first decades of the twenty-first century, China’s economic growth brought many serious ecological problems to the surface. The Reform and Opening-up in the 1980s started with reforms in rural areas. At that time, “township and village enterprises” emerged as something new, and soon became the most vibrant part of the Chinese economy as they experienced significant expansion. These enterprises founded numerous factories in the countryside and were mainly labor-intensive industries. In the 1980s, under the planned economy, Chinese enterprises were still mainly state-owned enterprises that were generally inefficient compared to private corporations. 5 Jianping Gao 高建平 and Keping Wang 王柯平, eds., Aesthetics and Culture: East and West (Hefei: Anhui Educational Press, 2004).

96 

Gao Jianping

At that time, allowing townships and villages to build factories and run enterprises had a positive influence, and contributed to the revitalization of the economy as well as to the improvement of the peasants’ livelihood. However, most of these “township and village enterprises” also caused serious pollution, and after a period of development, multiple problems were exposed. In the process of modernization, the protection of the environment has continuously been an issue of worldwide importance. Many developed countries have experienced environmental pollution over the course of their industrialization. Throughout China’s Reform and Opening-up, there have been grave environmental problems as well. Faced with these problems, the Chinese government decided to promote the “Scientific Outlook on Development,” emphasizing the necessity to foster an environmentally friendly economy. The demand for a new model of economic development was also a motivation for studies on ecological and environmental aesthetics and made it possible for aesthetics to play a part in the preservation of the eco-system.

Different conceptions of nature among Europeans and Chinese While employing the term “aesthetics,” it generally implies two different levels of meaning. The first level refers to aesthetics as a modern field of knowledge. This kind of aesthetics took shape in Europe in the eighteenth century, when Baumgarten first proposed the term “aesthetica,” and when some other important concepts, including “f ine arts,” “taste,” “genius,” “imagination,” “disinterestedness,” etc., were (re)def ined and became part of the glossary of aesthetic terms. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Kant realized a combination of these concepts to create a system of aesthetics. In the meantime, aesthetics became a branch of the discipline of philosophy taught in universities. In the nineteenth century, aesthetics entered the university curriculum. Aesthetics in this sense was only established in China in the early twentieth century, due to the introduction of the European term of “aesthetics.” Later on, “aesthetics” was instituted by education administrators as an academic discipline, and this proved to be crucial for the advancement of research and teaching. Another level of meaning implies traditional aesthetics, or in other words, philosophical reflections on beauty and the arts. Aesthetics in this sense had existed in many ancient civilizations, in which the genesis of philosophical concepts naturally resulted in the formation of aesthetic

The Aesthetics of Nature and the Environment

97

concepts. This explains why a history of Western aesthetics generally starts from Ancient Greece, whereas a history of Chinese aesthetics considers the pre-Qin period as its point of origin. According to Zhu Guangqian’s distinction, if we use the term “aesthetics” to denote the modern discipline of aesthetics, then we might use “aesthetic ideas” to signify those previous philosophical reflections.6 The difference between European and Chinese aesthetics has its roots in the origins of Western and Chinese civilizations. Western aesthetics originated in Ancient Greece, which was essentially a maritime civilization. The Greeks lived in the Greek peninsula, but the growth and evolution of this civilization was profoundly shaped by cross-sea migration. The Homeric epics, for instance, tell of the maritime journey from mainland Greece across the sea to Troy, and of the way back. Since then, the Greeks have continuously migrated to the sea and to Asia Minor on a very large scale and established overseas colonies. This was an arduous process, during which the Greeks fought against foreign enemies and the vagaries of the sea. It was precisely in this harsh environment that Greek civilization grew and flourished. The earliest school of philosophy, the so-called Miletus school, originated in Asia Minor, far away from mainland Greece. The earliest aesthetic thinkers were also great travelers. Pythagoras, for example, was born in Samos, a small island in the Aegean Sea, and visited many places, including the ancient kingdom of Babylon, and even to Egypt or India, according to the legend. Thus, the dawn of aesthetic thought on nature was closely related to the adventurous and exploratory spirit of the ancient Greeks. In contrast, the Chinese were originally agrarian people. During the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, the “axial age” (term coined by Karl Jaspers) of Chinese civilization, the Chinese people had already completed the transformation of farming. Under an increasingly weak central authority, there was fierce competition between the feudal states. This was the reason why, although the various schools of thought had a wide array of views, they unanimously focused their main attention on political ethics, since “this is the issue related to governing” (Sima Tan, On the Essentials of Six Schools of Thought). It was the inevitable result of the inward evolution of ideas in agrarian societies. The view of nature that emerged from this ideological background also bears the characteristics of an agrarian society. The word “nature” is generally 6 Guangqian Zhu 朱光潜, “Mei Xue Shi Sui Ji 美學拾穗集 [The Gleaner of Aesthetics],” in Zhu Guang Qian Quan Jí 朱光潜全集, vol. 15 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju 中华书局, 2014), 121.

98 

Gao Jianping

translated into Chinese as ziran. An examination of the etymology of ziran shows that the word had originally been used to emphasize the natural rather than the artificial. “Nature” was thus opposed to the “man-made.” “Nature” refers above all to the movement of things without human involvement. In the Tao Te Ching, it is said that “Man models himself after Earth. Earth models itself after Heaven. Heaven models itself after Tao. And Tao models itself after Nature,”7 which means that human behavior ought to follow the non-human laws. “Nature” here not only indicates the static existence of natural objects, but also stipulates that things move or operate according to their own laws. In an essentially agricultural society, it is common sense to sow seeds in the spring, to harvest in the autumn, and not to violate the farming season. From this observation, one deduces the most profound truth about nature. Human behavior ought to abide by the laws of nature. The violation of these laws would entail punishment. When speaking of nature, Zhuang Zi emphasized that this obedience to natural laws remained unaffected by human emotions. According to the Zhuangzi, “When I talk about having no feelings, I mean that a man doesn’t allow likes or dislikes to get in and do him harm. He just lets things be the way they are (ziran) and doesn’t try to help life along.”8 Nature functions according to its own laws, and one should not interfere with it, nor should one attach one’s joy and sorrow to it. There are various patterns of human behavior. Some types of behavior are externally imposed, while other types of behavior can be achieved through persistent effort or become part of the intrinsic nature through repetition and automation. This is to suggest that human beings are endowed with an innate quality, which refers to one’s natural behaivor. According to The School Sayings of Confucius (Kongzi Jiayu), “a habit acquired at a young age is like part of the character, and habit is second nature.” This shows that the external rule can be internalized and deeply ingrained as to appear habitual and automatic. In the realm of art, “nature” became the highest paradigm. According to the second volume of Zhang Yanyuan’s Famous Paintings through History (Lidai Minghua Ji), “Now, if one falls short of a natural spontaneity, then next is inspiration; if one falls short of inspiration, then next is subtlety; if one falls short of subtlety, then next is refinement; and when there is fault 7 Wing-Tsit Chan, ed., A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, trans. Wing-Tsit Chan (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969), 153. 8 Chuang Tzu, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 75–6 (my italics).

The Aesthetics of Nature and the Environment

99

in refinement, carefulness and elaboration are produced.”9 In this context, nature points to a supreme state of art. Art is by definition man-made, but the best art is “natural.” This opposition between the “natural” and the “man-made” reflects the nature of man and is in harmony with the nature of the world. The other extreme is the “careful and meticulous,” which signifies the artist’s serious attitude, arduous work, and attention to detail. On the contrary, the “natural” requires the artist to act out of one’s natural instincts. The poet’s choice of words and the painter’s use of colors seem to be effortless yet graceful. In Europe, “nature” can be traced back to Antiquity, to the Latin word “natura,” which means “birth” or “nature.” The word “nature” can refer to the physical world, to mountains and rivers, trees and animals, to all kinds of beings that exist independently of man. It can also refer to the inherent nature or laws of things that do not depend on human will, which we often translate as “innate quality.” “Nature” also possesses the meaning of “birth” and “growth.” In English, there are two words, namely “nature” and “nurture,” which are often cited in pairs. They divide the various characteristics of human personality into two categories, “nature” being the innate qualities and “nurture” being the acquired attributes. These two categories are opposed to each other but can also combine with each other. These understandings of “nature” are both similar to and different from the Chinese conception of the term. The opposition between the “natural” and the “man-made” was something that China and Europe had in common. Another shared characteristic was the opposition between nature, or the inner quality of man, on the one hand, and various external influences, on the other. However, since Chinese and Western civilizations originated in highly contrastive settings, there had been significant differences in their understanding of nature as an external environment. In “Home Again Among Fields and Gardens,” the renowned poet Tao Yuanming wrote: “After so long caged in that trap, I’ve come / back again to occurrence appearing of itself.”10 The place where Yao returned to was a garden, “I’ve got nearly two acres here, / and four or five rooms in our thatch hut, / elms and willows shading the eaves in back, / and in front, peach and plum spread wide. / Villages lost across mist-and-haze distances, / kitchen smoke drifting 9 Yen-yuan 张彦远 Chang, “Li-Tai Ming-Hua Chi (历代名画记) [History of Famous Paintings],” in Early Chinese Texts on Painting, ed. Susan Bush and Hsio-yen Shih, 2012, 78. 10 David Hinton, ed., Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology, trans. David Hinton (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), 148–149.

100 

Gao Jianping

wide-open country, / dogs bark deep among back roads out here, / and roosters crow from mulberry treetops.”11 In another poem, Yao described that since “air lovely at dusk, birds in flight / going home,”12 he believed that “All this means something, / something absolute: whenever I start / to explain it, I forget words altogether.”13 Thus, Tao Yuanming advocated a form of quiet contemplation and meditation, through which one could grasp the “true meaning,” or the Tao. Many Chinese poets were in love with the idyllic scenery in Stopping at a Friend’s Farmhouse by Meng Haoran: “We watch the green trees that circle your village / And the pale blue of outlying mountains.”14 They also appreciate Wang Wei’s careful observation of the mountain scenery in An Autumn Evening in the Mountains: “Moonlight in its groves of pine, / Stones of crystal in its brooks.”15 All of these show agrarian culture’s profound affection for the beauty of nature. Nature in the European sense has its own characteristics. More specifically, Europeans have three concepts regarding nature: natural beauty, the sublime and the picturesque. Here, beauty had been under the influence of a formalist tradition permeated with a mathematical spirit and which was passed down from Pythagoras through Plato. In the Middle Ages, this aesthetic tradition elaborated by Pythagoras and Plato came to be associated with theology. Medieval aesthetics was equivalent to theological aesthetics, and combined nature with divine creation. The distinction between the natural and the man-made was understood as that between divine and human creation. God created nature, and man created art. Therefore, nature was to be superior to art, art was an imitation of nature, and imitation was nothing more than man learning from God. However, God’s creation also followed certain rules. In other words, from a disegno perspective, nature was perceived as something beautiful only when it conformed to divine rules. The world was created by God, but creation itself followed a mathematical rule. In the European aesthetic tradition, only beauty that follows these rules was genuinely beautiful. The concept of the “sublime” came into being in the early modern age. The “sublime” had its origins in an ancient Roman text written by the pseudo-Longinus, in which the term referred to a grandiose style. As a modern aesthetic category, it began with the appreciation of nature. It 11 Hinton, 148. 12 Hinton, 154. 13 See Hinton, 154, “Drinking Wine,” 5). 14 Kang-Hu Kiang, The Jade Mountain : A Chinese Anthology : Being Three Hundred Poems of the T’ang Dynasty, 618–906, trans. Witter Bynner (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929), 111. 15 Kiang, 192.

The Aesthetics of Nature and the Environment

101

originated from the writings of three Englishmen, John Dennis, Joseph Addison and Ashley Cooper, who went to the Alps and wrote down their feelings. In order to be transformed into beauty, nature had to become an object of intimidation for man. Later on, this led to the praise of mountains and seas, of vast and endless deserts, of blue skies and white clouds. Kant’s mathematical sublime and dynamic sublime were both indicative of the oppression of nature over man. In addition to these two types of beauty, there was in Europe another category of beauty related to nature, namely the “picturesque.” Indeed, nature and art had always been closely related, but the appreciation of nature had never solely relied on the admiration of art. For instance, the enjoyment of the wilderness or that of rules had nothing to do with art. The separation of nature and art, however, created another need, which was the recombination of the two. It was possible to learn to appreciate nature with the help of art, as painters often taught us how to appreciate nature, and it was on this basis that the concept of the “picturesque” came into being. This implied an interaction between art and nature. Seen through the lens of painting, nature thus had a very different appearance.

Environmental and Ecological Aesthetics in Contemporary China As China entered the twenty-first century, the discipline of aesthetics found itself in an entirely new context. Traditional systems of aesthetic thought gradually became outdated, and the 1980s and 1990s bore testimony to the publication of numerous textbooks of aesthetics. Each of these textbooks has its own characteristics and presents a variety of features. However, all of them followed a fixed pattern, that is to say, three major blocks: beauty, aesthetics, and art. Unlike in the West, Chinese aestheticians mostly did not opt for an approach that described the history of aesthetics as a succession of different schools of thought. Instead, Chinese aestheticians were more concerned about incorporating new elements into the discipline and allowed new modes of research to exist and expand within the conventional framework. Environmental and ecological aesthetics emerged as a solution to existing problems in contemporary aesthetics. While conceiving a “theory of beauty,” many scholars preferred a tripartite distinction, namely natural, social, and artistic beauty. They went on to contrast environmental and ecological aesthetics with the beauty of nature, and saw the former as a new perspective

102 

Gao Jianping

in the study of the latter. Later on, environmental and ecological aesthetics tended to evolve into a form of ontological aesthetics. “Environment” originally referred to the natural environment, but soon came to include the environment in which people live and operate. The interaction between people and the environment produced a kind of human experience, which gave rise to various types of knowledge and feelings, including a sense of beauty. “Ecology” originally designated the symbiotic relationship between living organisms, and was derived from the term “Ökologie,” which had in turn been coined by the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel based on the Greek word “oikos,” meaning house, dwelling, or residence. The signification of “ecology” was at first not very different from that of “environment.” However, in Chinese translation, “shengtai” (“ecology”) came to possess a distinct, novel connotation. Some scholars started to associate this term with the traditional Chinese concept of “shengsheng” (“production and reproduction”). As a result, “ecology” in the Chinese context took on the connotation of the permanent regeneration of all living beings, an idea in line with the modern philosophy of life. With the advancement of scholarship, these studies on aesthetics were soon endowed with the mission to counter the established system of aesthetic thought and to develop a new understanding of beauty based on the observation of nature. It is noteworthy that the fundamental system of aesthetics in China from the 1950s to the 1980s had initially assimilated many useful elements from Kant and Hegel, and was for the most part an adaptation of the Soviet and Japanese versions of Marxist aesthetics, with a number of local creations during the Grand Aesthetic Discussion (1956–1964). An important feature of aesthetics at that time was the dichotomy between the subject and the object. This dichotomy led to the objectification of beauty as a physical object, as an image presented by a physical object, or as a psychological process, which consisted in considering the sense of beauty as an aesthetic mental activity. As a result, research on aesthetics had long been confined to the isolated event of the encounter between the object and the subject. Environmental aesthetics sought to transcend this limitation by viewing nature not only as an object for human beings (including objects of knowledge and practice), but also as a human environment. To be precise, it is during their interaction with the surroundings that human beings gradually empathize with the environment and acquire a sense of natural beauty. The formation and development of environmental and ecological aesthetics have also been a result of profound transformations within Chinese society over the past four decades. From an external point of view, these

The Aesthetics of Nature and the Environment

103

changes are shown in economic data – in terms of the total GDP, China has grown into the second largest economy in the world. Underpinning such figures is the changing face of cities and villages nationwide. Chinese cities have experienced an unprecedented scale of growth. Small cities have become mid-sized cities, mid-sized cities have become large cities, and large cities have become mega-cities. The city of Shenzhen, for instance, has miraculously grown from a small town to a megalopolis of 20 million people in merely forty years. The rapid expansion of cities gave rise to a certain homogenization, the so-called one-model-fits-all cities. Such quickly emerging cities had originally been designed only to meet the needs of residence, commerce and office work, but beyond these practical requirements, how can the pursuit of beauty be reflected? This has become a common anxiety. The countryside is also in a state of flux. The traditional Chinese countryside had its own natural beauty. However, in recent centuries, poverty and warfare have severely damaged the countryside, and this situation persisted after 1980. The once flourishing “township and village enterprises,” mostly labor-intensive and technologically underdeveloped, have caused serious pollution. In addition, the hasty process of urbanization has caused a large number of young laborers to flock to the cities, leaving the elders, the women, and the children in the countryside. This has led to rural hollowing, especially in traditional agricultural zones. In recent years, there has been a process called “rural reconstruction,” which mainly consists of restoring the vitality of rural areas. Beautiful countryside has become a universal demand. How can we make the countryside beautiful? What kind of role can aesthetic researchers play in this process? This has become a new subject of research. As mentioned earlier, environmental and ecological aesthetics had first appeared in the form of a branch of aesthetics. Today, researchers in this field have been so ambitious as to reformulate the fundamental theories of aesthetics. Environmental aesthetics altered the relationship between man and the surroundings. Human beings form a whole with the environment in which they live, and it is from this whole that beauty and the sense of beauty are born, while both life and body are integrated into the environment. According to the concept of shengsheng (“production and reproduction”) in ecological aesthetics, all living beings live, grow, and encounter each other in the environment. Regeneration is a beautiful thing. It is not only a metaphor for beauty but also beauty itself. Environmental and ecological aesthetics are simply different expressions of the same kind of attempt, and a forced distinction seems unnecessary.

104 

Gao Jianping

Final Thoughts Due to the divergence between the cultural traditions of China and the West, there exists a Chinese sense of the beauty of nature that differs in many ways from that of Europe. However, there are similar changes in China and Europe throughout history in the relationship between nature and art. Since modern times, Chinese aesthetics has been profoundly shaped by the West, and so has the understanding of the beauty of nature. At the same time, China’s historical tradition, its modernization path, and the ecological problems it has encountered have all contributed to a Chinese environmental and ecological aesthetics with its unique characteristics. There has been some research in this field, and some results have been achieved. Yet until now, the majority of studies have been limited to an enumeration of various types of phenomenon, while theorization remains insufficient and awaits to be developed.

Bibliography Chan, Wing-Tsit, ed. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Translated by Wing-Tsit Chan. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969. Chang, Yen-yuan 张彦远. “Li-Tai Ming-Hua Chi (历代名画记) [History of Famous Paintings].” In Early Chinese Texts on Painting, edited by Susan Bush and Hsio-yen Shih, 45–87, 2012. Chuang Tzu. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. Translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. Gao, Jianping 高建平, and Keping Wang 王柯平, eds. Aesthetics and Culture: East and West 美学与文化：东方与西方. Hefei: Anhui Educational Press, 2004. Hepburn, Ronald W. “Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty.” In The Aesthetics of Natural Environments, edited by Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant, 43–62. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2004. Hinton, David, ed. Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology. Translated by David Hinton. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. Kiang, Kang-Hu. The Jade Mountain : A Chinese Anthology : Being Three Hundred Poems of the T’ang Dynasty, 618–906. Translated by Witter Bynner. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929. Marx, Karl. “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.” In The Marx-Engels Reader, edited by Robert C. Tucker, 66–125. New York: W. W. W. Norton & Company, 1978.

The Aesthetics of Nature and the Environment

105

Wollheim, Richard. Art and Its Objects: With Six Supplementary Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Zhu, Guangqian 朱光潜. “Mei Xue Shi Sui Ji 美學拾穗集 [The Gleaner of Aesthetics].” In Zhu Guang Qian Quan Jí 朱光潜全集, 15:115–293. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju 中华书局, 2014.

About the Author Gao Jianping was professor of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and is currently professor and Dean of the College of the Humanities of Shenzhen University. He got his PhD in Aesthetics from Uppsala University, Sweden. He served as the President of the International Association of Aesthetics （IAA）He has published 14 books including The Expressive Act in Chinese Art: From Calligraphy to Painting and Aesthetics and Art: Traditional and Contemporary China.

5

Cryosphere Aesthetics Emily Brady Abstract This essay proposes a mini-toolkit for ‘cryosphere aesthetics’: the conceptual foundations providing a guide for action for positive environmental change. The essay emphasizes the significance of global and intergenerational aesthetics since climate change means that we must take on board transspatial and trans-temporal phenomena and experiences. Also important is cultivating appreciative virtues such as wonder, receptivity, sensitivity, and humility. Given the connections between the earth’s systems and global governance and justice in a climate-changed world, this aesthetic-ethical stance should be accompanied by an awareness of “icy geopolitics.” That is, in thinking through how environmental aesthetics and ethics can support the protection of the cryosphere, understanding indigenous communities and nature-society relationships is very important. Keywords: cryosphere aesthetics, environmental aesthetics, geopolitics, indigenous communities, aesthetic appreciation

Introduction Human-induced global warming significantly affects the cryosphere – those parts of the earth formed by frozen water: frozen rivers and lakes, sea ice, ice sheets, ice caps, shelf ice, glaciers, snow, and permafrost.1 These phenomena play a crucial role in our climate, and they are susceptible to changes from global warming. Glacial melt is occurring at an alarming rate, and icebergs are melting and calving much more quickly than scientists had predicted. These and other effects of climate change lead to sea-level rise, 1 NOAA, “What Is the Cryosphere?” (National Ocean Service website, January 11, 2022), https:// oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/cryosphere.html.

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch05

108 

Emily Br ady

avalanches, and weather-related events that harm humans and nonhumans. As we witness change and loss to the cryosphere, aesthetics is important in illuminating and disclosing multisensory aesthetic qualities, meanings, and values of ice and snow. Many parts of the cryosphere are inaccessible and uninhabitable, while others are home to humans and nonhuman communities. How can aesthetics illuminate various features of remote frozen places and capture more everyday aesthetic experiences of them? In this chapter, I formulate an environmental aesthetics of the cryosphere through a theory that I have called the “integrated aesthetic.” I aim to show the what, why, and how of cryosphere aesthetics by drawing on theoretical and other methods of aesthetics. To conclude the chapter, I offer a “mini-toolkit,” a resource for other disciplines, decision-making, and practice.

Why Explore the Cryosphere Aesthetically? A richer and broader grasp of the cryosphere for the purposes of an aesthetic exploration must include the lived experience of communities inhabiting regions such as the Arctic, Antarctica, Greenland, and other parts of the world. This chapter will focus mainly on the Circumpolar North and the environmental processes and changes related to aesthetic experience. There will be a range of nature-culture and nature-society relationships situated within ecologies constituted by a diversity of sea and land-based mammals, birds, plants, insects, and human inhabitants and visitors in these communities. These relationships shape cultural productions, such as literature, music, and the visual arts; however, the cryosphere’s everyday and environmental non-artistic aesthetic qualities, meanings, and values will occupy my attention. Why is the cryosphere a concern for aesthetics? So much of recent research on the cryosphere has highlighted what has been and is being lost. Fundamentally, the tools of aesthetics can help to capture the meanings and values of things, processes, relationships, and places that are being lost. Aestheticians have long been concerned with the historical change in the arts and the aesthetic and cultural values of things that have been lost.2 To add to this, if one agrees that aesthetics features in meaningful nature-culture relationships, it can play a role in supporting the preservation, conservation, mitigation, and adaptation of cryosphere places concerning climate change. Philosophers have provided strong arguments showing how 2

Carolyn Korsmeyer, Things: In Touch with the Past (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

Cryosphere Aesthetics

109

aesthetics can support environmentalism.3 Finally, the cryosphere is one of a handful of the earth’s systems that deserve special attention due to the adverse effects of our rapidly warming world (others include, for example, marine systems and the atmosphere). These systems and the increasing impacts of climate change, such as drought, floods, desertification, wildfires, etc., have received little attention in aesthetics, 4 and this chapter aims to make progress in addressing this gap. How is the cryosphere special in this regard? The Arctic is heating up faster than any other part of the globe, and as a result, there has been a massive loss of sea ice.5 Climate change is both trans-spatial and trans-temporal. Being trans-spatial means that changes occurring in one part of the world affect other parts of the world and, here, the cryosphere plays a crucial role: Snow and ice reflect heat from the sun, helping to regulate our planet’s temperature. Because polar regions are some of the most sensitive to climate shifts, the cryosphere may be one of the first places scientists can identify global changes in climate.6 The projected responses of the ocean and cryosphere to past and current human-induced greenhouse gas emissions and ongoing global warming include climate feedbacks, changes over decades to millennia that cannot be avoided, thresholds of abrupt change, and irreversibility.7

The trans-spatial effects of higher temperatures include melting glaciers and the loss of ice sheets and icebergs, which can lead to sea-level rise, flooding, and loss of the places which provide habitation and food for ecological 3 Allen Carlson and Sheila Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism: From Beauty to Duty (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008); Emily Brady, Brook Isis, and Jonathan Prior, Between Nature and Culture: The Aesthetics of Modified Environment. (London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2018). 4 Emily Brady, “Aesthetic Value, Ethics and Climate Change,” Environmental Values 23, no. 5 (2014), https://doi.org/doi.org/10.3197/096327114x13947900181112; Emily Brady, “Global Climate Change and Aesthetics,” Environmental Values 31, no. 1 (2022): https://doi.org/10.3197/09632712 1X16141642287683. 5 NASA (2022) provides graphics to illustrate this loss: “Arctic Sea ice reaches its minimum each September. September Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 13.1 percent per decade, relative to the 1981 to 2010 average.” 6 NOAA, “What Is the Cryosphere?” 7 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Summary for Policymakers,” ed. Hans-Otto Pörtner et al. (IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, 2019), https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/summary-for-policymakers/.

110 

Emily Br ady

communities. These spatial effects occur within an intergenerational transtemporal framework. That is, humans and non-humans are experiencing significant changes across their lifetimes, with future generations being left with the devastating effects of the anthropogenic causes of global warming. Considering this spatial and temporal context, aesthetic issues and questions are one of how climate change should already matter to us and will undoubtedly come to matter more with the potential loss of places of both cultural and natural beauty and ecological uniqueness. What should we think about the world we are both destroying and creating for future generations, in aesthetic terms?8 This project of developing cryosphere aesthetics will be grounded in a revised version of my environmental, aesthetic theory, the “integrated aesthetic.”9 As I see it, many aspects of the theory remain relevant: environmental, aesthetic experience is grounded in a human-environment relationship that integrates multisensory, sympathetic perceptual attention with emotion, imagination, knowledge, and narratives. Although the limits of space do not allow me to elaborate here, the theory also incorporates ideas about critical interpretation and an approach to aesthetic judgments defined through intersubjectivity.10 Given climate change and the context of the cryosphere, revision to the integrated aesthetic will incorporate ideas concerning intergenerational thinking, critical “descriptive aesthetics,” and global aesthetics. Considering my position as an author and the aesthetic situations that I discuss in this chapter, I should note that my interest in the cryosphere begins from the standpoint of Western and European philosophy and includes personal experience of ice and snow through the seasonal change in the US, Scotland, and Norway, with visits to the glaciers, Skaftafell (Iceland) and Plateau Rosa (Switzerland). My method is mainly conceptual, but I also draw upon examples and empirical sources to inform my discussion of the Arctic.

Relational, Multisensory Experience of the Cryosphere What shapes aesthetic experiences of the cryosphere? Let me begin by emphasizing the relational foundation of the integrated aesthetic. This 8 Brady, “Aesthetic Value, Ethics and Climate Change”; Brady, “Global Climate Change and Aesthetics.” 9 Emily Brady, Aesthetics of the Natural Environment (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003). 10 Brady.

Cryosphere Aesthetics

111

is especially important when discussing environmental aesthetics in an everyday context. Some theories of environmental aesthetics follow the contours of theories of environmental ethics, which emphasize the intrinsic value of wild places. The context of that valuing often configures the subject as appreciating nature in places that are not lived in on a day-to-day basis but instead visited, such as national parks and nature reserves. The integrated aesthetic is intended, instead, to apply to a broad range of environmental experiences, from more natural to more cultural environments.11 My approach attempts to capture the breadth of aesthetic relations that arise through sensing, participating with, interacting with, and working in the environment, landscape, or place and places significant to the ways in which the environmental situation shapes the discovery of meaning and value. The seal hunter’s experience of ice and snow is shaped not only by actions that lead to a successful hunt, but they also take place within a relationship to place that is influenced by light and darkness, weather, seasonal changes, climatic change, and the aesthetic aspects of any particular situation. So, the integrated aesthetic encompasses those interactions which are developed into relationships on an everyday basis or across periods of time, for example, through visits to the same place. The environmental, aesthetic experience begins in the senses and sympathetic attention. Sympathetic attention is a perception that is strongly focused on the qualities and meanings of some everyday happening, landscape, weather process, or ecological entity. Here, multisensory attention is directed outwards from the experiencing subject/s and toward features of things lying beyond the self. We can begin to give content to these features, on a theoretical level, through aesthetic concepts which identify visual, aural, tactile, olfactory, and even gustatory qualities of ice and snow: stark whites and greys; vivid blues of glaciers, icebergs, and the sky; aurora colors, curtains, and pulses in the night sky; crystalline shapes; the sounds of melting, shifting ice or the quiet of a snow-laden forest; the feeling of cold, wind, snow, ice on the body or underfoot; the clean smell and taste of snow; and so on. Moving to forms of aesthetic testimony or second-hand descriptions of aesthetic qualities, discussions of the Arctic often discuss explorer narratives.12 John Muir’s writings reflect a strong non-anthropocentric 11 Brady; Brady, Isis, and Prior, Between Nature and Culture: The Aesthetics of Modified Environment. 12 Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape (London: Harvill Press, 1986).

112 

Emily Br ady

relationship with the places he explores, as he merges aesthetic, spiritual, and scientific observations. In his Tlingit-guided exploration of Glacier Bay in Alaska, John Muir (1915) recounts the aural qualities that he hears while climbing in the area: Hundreds of small rills and good-sized streams were falling into the lake from the glacier, singing in low tones, some of them pouring in sheer falls over blue cliffs from narrow ice valleys, some spouting from pipelike channels in the solid front of the glacier, others gurgling out of arched openings at the base. All these water-streams were riding on the parent ice stream, their voices joined in one grand anthem telling the wonders of their near and far-off fountains.13

Stunning “basins of azure ice” are mentioned, too, alongside his descriptions of the brown, grey, and black colors of glacial rivers and mud. Moving forward in time, present Huna Tlingit people and visitors to Glacier Bay National Park experience a different landscape that is now characterized by extensive glacial retreat and a wider area of ice-free land and water.14 Moving eastwards to Greenland, Pete, a glaciologist, conveys the aesthetic aspects of camping and fieldwork on an elevated ice sheet there. Compared to his site in the Alps, the Greenland ice sheet is more remote and isolated, with the team being flown in and left to work for several weeks in the spring. Quite a wide range of weather and light conditions are experienced, with much colder temperatures than the Alps and more time in the tent to cope with the strong katabatic winds that occur at different times in the day. The sounds of these winds are ever-present and affect all aspects of living and working at the site.15 In the cryosphere, aesthetic qualities change and shift at different temporal registers. When one appreciates a place, the flight of a bird or other new things enter into our perceptional, multisensory field. There will be changes in light, wind, and temperature. Water freezes, and precipitation becomes ice, snow, frost, or fog. The change also occurs for the aesthetic valuer or community as their particular situation shifts from day to day, season to season, or generation to generation. While environmental aesthetics has 13 John Muir, Travels in Alaska (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1915), 107. 14 Eugene S Hunn et al., “Huna Tlingit Traditional Environmental Knowledge, Conservation, and the Management of a ‘Wilderness’ Park,” Current Anthropology 44, no. S5 (2003), https:// doi.org/10.1086/377666. 15 Pete, Zoom interview with author, May 13, 2021.

Cryosphere Aesthetics

113

always taken on board temporal changes on a small scale, climate change demands that we grapple with geological time frames and seek ways to envisage longer-term environmental change.16 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, who is an Inuk born in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, opens her memoir of growing up in Arctic Quebec with a moving account of her everyday experience of ice and snow: I would view the vast expanses of Arctic sky and feel the crunching of the snow and ice below me … I remember just as vividly the Arctic summer scenes that slipped by as I sat in the canoe on the way to our hunting and fishing grounds. The world was blue and white and rocky and defined by the things that had an immediate bearing on us – the people who helped and cared for us, the dogs that gave us their strength, the water, and the land that nurtured us.17

Here, Watt-Cloutier describes a visceral connection to her environment and the kinship she experienced with all living beings and things around her. She contrasts this idyllic recollection with how Inuit life has developed, with snow machines and powerboats replacing dogs and canoes creating new economic opportunities – but also the drastic effects of climate change: “The land that is such an important part of our spirit, our culture, and our physical and economic well-being is becoming an often unpredictable and precarious place for us.”18 Imagine how one’s aesthetic experience will change and how such precarity is felt amidst the melting ice, a greater presence of biting insects, and new, invasive species of plants which she describes.19 Changing weather patterns, conditions, and the changing appearance of the landscape present new challenges for navigation, hunting, and other activities.”20 Sytukie Joamie, a resident of Iqaluit, observes weather changes and how they affect daily life: “It is getting more unpredictable as to what will happen; because the signs are misleading the Inuit who are used to weather that follows these signs.”21 16 Brady, “Aesthetic Value, Ethics and Climate Change”; Brady, “Global Climate Change and Aesthetics.” 17 Sheila Watt-Cloutier, The Right to Be Cold (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018), xvii. 18 Watt-Cloutier xix. 19 Watt-Cloutier, 210. 20 Watt-Cloutier, 202. 21 The Municipal Corporation of the City of Iqaluit, “Iqaluit Sustainable Community Plan,” 2014, https://www.iqaluit.ca/sites/default/files/iqaluit_sustainable_community_plan.pdf, 25.

114 

Emily Br ady

These recollections and observations from Joamie, Watt-Cloutier, and Muir illustrate how the aesthetic qualities of the cryosphere are part of everyday and not so everyday experience.

Knowledge and Narratives of the Cryosphere Some of our aesthetic responses are more immediate, with aesthetic qualities grabbing and holding our attention. In contrast, others begin with focused attention, which more consciously draws in various kinds of knowledge and narrative. The integrated aesthetic proposes a pluralistic understanding of the kinds of knowledge and narrative that shape aesthetic experience. In this respect and, in contrast to a leading environmental, aesthetic theory, “scientific cognitivism,”22 it shares features of other pluralistic non-cognitive theories such as we find in the philosophy of Yuriko Saito (2007) or Arnold Berleant (1992). Scientific cognitivism grounds aesthetic judgments in the familiar features of multisensory, environmental experience but with the added requirement of the natural sciences for grounding “appropriate” experience and judgment. While the intention is to ensure non-trivial or subjective aesthetic judgments that can lead to all kinds of problems concerning environmental protection, the theory has been the subject of criticism for the reductive, narrow perspective it defines. By contrast, many “non-cognitive” theories embrace a broader foundation of what does and should shape aesthetic responses and judgment. As a non-cognitive approach, the integrated aesthetic does not exclude scientific knowledge; instead, its conception of knowledge is broader. By adopting critical pluralism, it is possible to fold in, alongside the natural sciences (glaciology, atmospheric science), indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge, and the range of perspectives – stories, folklore, myths, and cosmologies – to assist in aesthetically characterizing the cryosphere. As this volume shows, the field of aesthetics is enriched by global perspectives, but such perspectives are also fitting when it comes to considering the wide-ranging impacts of climate change. To enrich and, to some extent, ground this approach, I draw from Berleant’s idea of “descriptive aesthetics” or “accounts of art and aesthetic experience that may be partly narrative, partly phenomenological, partly evocative, and sometimes even revelatory” found “most often as parts of other kinds of writing – novels, poems, nature 22 Allen Carlson, Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture (New York: Routledge, 2000).

Cryosphere Aesthetics

115

writing, criticism, philosophical aesthetics.”23 The benefits of drawing upon descriptive aesthetics include the ways in which such accounts can serve to draw attention to aesthetic qualities and lead to more “vivid aesthetic encounters.” Alongside other philosophers, I also argue that pluralistic perspectives work better to capture the many stories about place, ecologies, and the lived experience of the environment.24 Bringing these ideas into conversation with cryosphere aesthetics, it is likely that descriptive aesthetics will have a larger role to play if we are to capture the aesthetic qualities, meanings, and values of what’s been lost, what’s changing, and what lies ahead for future generations. Here, the arts can play an important role, and I offer two cases from the art practice of Devora Neumark 25 to illustrate the environmental and everyday aesthetics of the cryosphere. Currently based in Iqaluit, the Eastern Arctic capital city of Nunavut in Inuit Nunangat (homeland of the Inuit), their performance art project, Instructions for Being Ice and Snow (2018), gathered together Iqaluit high school students in which they “spoke of their first-hand knowledge and family traditions … focused on the lighting of the qulliq (traditional Inuit oil lamp) while giving thanks to the ecosystem that sustained life in the north for millennia. The event continued with explorations of/in the snow, poetry recitation, throat singing, the sharing of freshly cooked caribou stew & tea.”26 Their project brought together an Inuit community to reconnect culturally, aesthetically, and intergenerationally with the place. More recently, Letters to the Ice “is a public project that invites people from around the world to engage directly with the grim reality that global ice loss is currently catching up to the worst-case scenario predictions.”27 Here is one letter from the project: Ice is – For me, ice is something good. I will relate to one of our communities: we believe that God resided in the ice in one of our mountains – in 23 Arnold Berleant, Aesthetics of Environment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992): 26. 24 Thomas Heyd, “Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories About Nature,” The British Journal of Aesthetics 41, no. 2 (2001): 125–37; Jukka Mikkonen, “Knowledge, Imagination, and Stories in the Aesthetic Experience of Forests.,” Estetika: The Central European Journal of Aesthetics 55, no. 1 (2018), https://doi.org/doi.org/10.33134/eeja.168. 25 Neumark are an Interdisciplinary Artist-Researcher, Yale-certified Climate Change Adaptation Practitioner, and Arctic Winter College Fellow 2021. “Letters from the Ice” expands out from their original project, “Letters to the Water” (Neumark 2015) 26 Devora Neumark, “Instructions of Being Ice and Snow” (Devora Neumark website, 2018), http://devoraneumark.com/works/being-ice-snow/. 27 Devora Neumark, Zoom interview with author, May 15, 2021.

116 

Emily Br ady

Mt. Kenya, where the ice was, where the first man and the first woman were created. So, I feel like ice is a kind of a god, is kind of a nature. It controls the world – like destiny. It’s connected – if you see the ice in the north pole, when it melts the sea rises. It controls everything. So, ice, I feel like, for me, it’s God. It’s water. It’s life. It’s healing. It quenches your thirst. It’s something really, really, really powerful. From a conversation with John Titi Namai, Nairobi, Kenya, April 18, 2021.

The letters in this project, communicated through a web-based platform, describe firsthand experience of the qualities, meanings, and emotional attachments to ice experienced by authors writing from quite different places and perspectives. They provide individual narratives and forms of aesthetic testimony which enrich our understanding of the cryosphere and reveal a shared sense of loss.

Emotions and Imagination in the Cryosphere John Titi Namai’s letter illustrates the affective dimension of aesthetic experiences of environment and place. The role of emotions is central to many aesthetic theories, including the integrated aesthetic. When it comes to the cryosphere, imagine the range of emotions and feelings that will be part of aesthetic experiences – wonder, fascination, admiration, shock, fear, amazement, respect, awe. With the massive loss of ice and its effects on life on earth, I would also point to intergenerational emotions, or emotions felt in response to witnessing aesthetic losses over time, past and projected into the future. For example, uncertainty, grief, mourning, and guilt in the face of drastic changes name just a few emotions which may form part of aesthetic responses. Pete, during a personal interview (2021), describes some of the emotions he felt during his fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic: “trepidation, fear, and genuine concern for one’s safety.” Referring to the John Evans glacier on the east side of Ellesmere Island (an uninhabited region where there is no nomadic hunting), he spoke about the “feeling of privilege for being able to experience the place, an honor to have the opportunity” and “you’d die” if you didn’t respect dangers of the environment. Pete’s feelings about the place convey a sense of respect rather than a sense of dominating the landscape, the latter theme being one which has become a stereotype of explorer narratives of the Circumpolar North. He also mentioned how he had imagined early explorers to the area and the deep respect held for them, given the present-day challenges of the place.

Cryosphere Aesthetics

117

Moving from the Arctic and to the Haut Glacier d’Arolla in the Alps, Pete described his experience of fieldwork there in 1989 and 1990. Feelings of elation, wonder, and excitement on the glacier, being with his fellow colleagues, working together on the glacier, staying in, and getting to know the communities nearby all contributed to memories of the place formed over an extended period of time. But on a more recent visit to the area in 2015 and seeing, firsthand, how the glacier had retreated, he felt shocked, loss, sadness, and frustration: “it’s like visiting a dying relative who is wasting away.”28 As a mark of respect and to raise awareness, glaciologists and others have been holding funerals, for example, for the Icelandic Okjökull glacier, which was declared dead in 2014. Unlike the dramatic spectacles often shown in films such as Chasing Ice, author Andri Snær Magnason writes that “a dying glacier is actually no more dramatic than the normal changes of the spring season. Ice melts in the heat and the sun, forming streams that frolic and splash. In fact, a dying glacier is more a sad, frail sight, disappearing quietly.”29 The emotions felt in the face of ice loss are shaped not only by present perception but also by memories and imagination.30 Memories and past accounts of landscapes provide individual and community recollections or empirical baselines which assist in understanding environmental change and the work needed for mitigation and adaptation. With respect to the role of imagination in aesthetic experience, the integrated aesthetic incorporates ways in which this activity amplifies what is given in perception and functions to envisage changes to landscape and ecologies. Imagination offers deeper engagement than our perceptual resources alone through visualizing and the inventive leaps that produce entirely new standpoints. Multisensory imaginings of places now and into the future can assist in grasping aesthetic features of environmental change – features that are very much part of the relationships with the place which sustain human and nonhuman communities. Imaginatively stepping into the shoes of future generations can help us to grasp what we are leaving to them and, perhaps, motivate change for the good. Furthermore, now and into the future, much of our knowledge of the cryosphere is and will be iterative rather than definitive. As we work through different possible scenarios, whether this occurs through writing climate fiction or the pursuit of climate science, imagination has a significant part to play. 28 Pete, Zoom interview with author, May 13, 2021. 29 Andri Snær Magnason, “Farewell to the White Giants,” trans. Lytton Smith, Word without Borders Magazine, October 2020, https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/ october-2020-climate-farewell-to-the-white-giants-andri-magnason-Ly. 30 Jemma Wadham, Ice Rivers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021).

118 

Emily Br ady

Developing Critical Descriptive Aesthetics Above, I noted some of the benefits of descriptive aesthetics: how it can function to draw attention to aesthetic qualities, capture aesthetic experiences of things that are being lost, and draw in global perspectives. The meanings and values of environmental aesthetics come through first-hand experience but also through forms of aesthetic testimony or second-hand accounts. The latter is especially relevant if we are to approach aesthetics intergenerationally. What will future generations of humans have to hand when trying to grasp what’s been lost, aesthetically speaking? How are we – and people in the future – to adjudicate among various narratives, arts, and empirical accounts? Are all cases of descriptive aesthetics equally valuable? I have emphasized the importance of pluralism in the integrated aesthetic; however, pluralism is critical, which is to say that some cases of descriptive aesthetics can fail us and should be set aside. What shape might such failures take? The limits of space allow me to offer just a few ideas. Generally, we can file such failures under climate change reductionism. When it comes to glaciology, based on my research for this chapter and my interview with Pete, scientific representations, for example, remote sensing/Landsat, virtual environments and models, and so on, provide only one component of the knowledge that shapes our aesthetic grasp of the cryosphere. Working in the field provides a placebased, visceral experience developed relationally over shorter or longer periods of time. Forms of cultural production can also be reductive, as we find in the “glacier-ruins narrative,” which “tends to overlook the existing state of a glacier and/or glacier systems and speaks instead of imagined states of loss.”31 This calls for the critical examination of disaster narratives, such as the presentation of the “horrifying beauty of glacial loss” in Chasing Ice and other films, which aestheticize loss rather than providing positive tools for addressing climate change.32 There will also be reductionism when it comes to capturing the everyday lived experience of the cryosphere. How am I positioned as a southerner in relation to the Arctic to capture the experiences of people living in the North? In this chapter, I have presented a plurality of sources in order to 31 M. Jackson, “Glaciers and Climate Change: Narratives of Ruined Futures,” WIREs Climate Change 6 (2015), https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.351, 479. 32 Duncan C. Stewart and Taylor N. Johnson, “Complicating Aesthetic Environmentalism: Four Criticisms of Aesthetic Motivations for Environmental Action,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 76, no. 4 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1111/jaac.12600, 446.

Cryosphere Aesthetics

119

convey aesthetic experiences of ice and snow. By providing alternative narratives, this approach can move aesthetics beyond narrower, uncritical romantic narratives and show the distinctiveness of place and relationships with place. Romanticizing the Arctic can lead us away from valuing nature on its own terms. For example, the polar bear has come to symbolize the effects of climate change on arctic ecologies; instead of sentimentalizing or anthropomorphizing this mammal, aesthetic appreciation ought to be shaped by a range of indigenous and scientific accounts. In this respect, I would emphasize that when appreciation involves the exercise of sympathetic attention and perception centered on the aesthetic phenomena in question, we are more likely to be drawn to their actual qualities and meanings.33 Descriptive aesthetics, and imagination, too, need not carry with them self-indulgent or trivializing forms of appreciation.34 When it comes to the lived experience of human and nonhuman inhabi­ tants of the Arctic, avoiding failure in our aesthetic responses will rest upon (at least) engaging with places, people, and ecologies on their own terms and resisting the projection of disaster narratives. Instead, we can work toward framing aesthetic experience in a more balanced way, being cognizant of climate mediation and adaptation. Although much has been lost, we should remember that aesthetic engagement also occurs through the frames of empowerment, resilience, and hope.

Conclusion: A Mini-toolkit for Cryosphere Aesthetics As an environmental philosopher, my role is to lay the conceptual foundations which provide a guide or source for decision-making and action for positive change. To this end, and by bringing the ideas of this chapter together with a few new ones (in order to look ahead), I would like to provide a “mini-toolkit” for articulating the environmental aesthetics of the cryosphere. I have offered a revised theory of the integrated aesthetic with the senses, perception, knowledge, emotions, and imagination folded in. I emphasize the significance of global and intergenerational aesthetics because climate change means that we must take on board trans-spatial and trans-temporal phenomena and experiences. I have pointed to the relationship between 33 Brady, Aesthetics of the Natural Environment. 34 Berleant, Aesthetics of Environment; Ronald W Hepburn, The Reach of the Aesthetic (Farnham: Ashgate, 2001), 5.

120 

Emily Br ady

aesthetics and environmental ethics, and I would add to this the relevance of cultivating appreciative virtues such as wonder, receptivity, sensitivity, and humility. Given the connections between the earth’s systems and global governance and justice in a climate-changed world, this aesthetic-ethical stance should be accompanied by an awareness of “icy geopolitics.”35 That is, in thinking through how environmental aesthetics and ethics can support the protection of the cryosphere, understanding the indigenous communities and nature-society relationships is very important. My argument for descriptive aesthetics proposed the inclusion of various sources, which, in practice, can be brought in through collaboration among disciplines, researchers, community-based researchers, and narrative-based policy development.36 Such collaborations have been underway for some time, for example, through the endeavors of art-sci projects and the emerging cross-disciplinary areas of the arctic and polar humanities. With this toolkit to hand, I hope that a better understanding of the role of aesthetics in the lived experience of the cryosphere will be possible.

Acknowledgments Devora Neumark graciously shared their knowledge, and art practice suggested literature and assorted references, and discussed their experience of living in Iqaluit with me during an interview and correspondence. I’m very grateful to Pete for an interview and correspondence, which opened up to me the science of glaciology and the lived experience of fieldwork in Greenland, the Canadian Arctic, and the Alps.

Bibliography Berleant, Arnold. Aesthetics of Environment. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. Brady, Emily. “Aesthetic Value, Ethics and Climate Change.” Environmental Values 23, no. 5 (2014): 551–70. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.3197/096327114x13947900181112. Brady, Emily. Aesthetics of the Natural Environment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003. 35 Klaus Dodds, “Geopolitics and Ice Humanities: Elemental, Metaphorical and Volumetric Reverberations,” Geopolitics 26, no. 4 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2019.1697240. 36 Devora Neumark, Zoom Interview with author, May 15, 2021.

Cryosphere Aesthetics

121

Brady, Emily. “Global Climate Change and Aesthetics.” Environmental Values 31, no. 1 (2022): 27–46. https://doi.org/10.3197/096327121X16141642287683. Brady, Emily, Brook Isis, and Jonathan Prior. Between Nature and Culture: The Aesthetics of Modified Environment. London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2018. Carlson, Allen. Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture. New York: Routledge, 2000. Carlson, Allen, and Sheila Lintott. Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism: From Beauty to Duty. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Dodds, Klaus. “Geopolitics and Ice Humanities: Elemental, Metaphorical and Volumetric Reverberations.” Geopolitics 26, no. 4 (2021): 1–29. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/14650045.2019.1697240. Hepburn, Ronald W. The Reach of the Aesthetic. Farnham: Ashgate, 2001. Heyd, Thomas. “Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories About Nature.” The British Journal of Aesthetics 41, no. 2 (2001): 125–37. Hunn, Eugene S, Darryll R. Johnson, Priscilla N. Russell, and Thomas F. Thornton. “Huna Tlingit Traditional Environmental Knowledge, Conservation, and the Management of a ‘Wilderness’ Park.” Current Anthropology 44, no. S5 (2003): S79–103. https://doi.org/10.1086/377666. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Summary for Policymakers.” Edited by Hans-Otto Pörtner, Deborah C. Robert, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Panmao Zhai, Melinda Tignor, Elvira Poloczanska, Katja Mintenbeck, et al. IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, 2019. https://www. ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/summary-for-policymakers/. Jackson, M. “Glaciers and Climate Change: Narratives of Ruined Futures.” WIREs Climate Change 6 (2015): 479–92. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.351. Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Things: In Touch with the Past. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Lopez, Barry. Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape. London: Harvill Press, 1986. Magnason, Andri Snær. “Farewell to the White Giants.” Translated by Lytton Smith. Words without Borders Magazine, October 2020. https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/october-2020-climate-farewell-to-the-white-giantsandri-magnason-Ly. Mikkonen, Jukka. “Knowledge, Imagination, and Stories in the Aesthetic Experience of Forests.” Estetika: The Central European Journal of Aesthetics 55, no. 1 (2018): 3–24. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.33134/eeja.168. Muir, John. Travels in Alaska. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1915. Neumark, Devora. “Instructions of Being Ice and Snow.” Devora Neumark, 2018. http://devoraneumark.com/works/being-ice-snow/.

122 

Emily Br ady

NOAA. “What Is the Cryosphere?” National Ocean Service, January 11, 2022. https:// oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/cryosphere.html. Pete. 2021. Interview. Stewart, Duncan C., and Taylor N. Johnson. “Complicating Aesthetic Environmentalism: Four Criticisms of Aesthetic Motivations for Environmental Action.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 76, no. 4 (2018): 441–51. https://doi. org/10.1111/jaac.12600. The Municipal Corporation of the City of Iqaluit. “Iqaluit Sustainable Community Plan,” 2014. https://www.iqaluit.ca/sites/default/files/iqaluit_sustainable_community_plan.pdf. Wadham, Jemma. Ice Rivers. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021. Watt-Cloutier, Sheila. The Right to Be Cold. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018.

About the Author Emily Brady is Professor of Philosophy and Susanne M. and Melbern G. Glasscock Director and Chair at the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University. She has authored or co-edited seven books, including, Sublime in Modern Philosophy: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature (2013), and Between Nature and Culture: The Aesthetics of Modified Environments (with Isis Brook and Jonathan Prior, 2018). Her current book project is Planetary Aesthetics, focusing on urgent environmental problems.

Part 3 Eating and Drinking

6

Memory’s Kitchen In Search of a Taste Carolyn Korsmeyer Abstract This essay tells the story of baking kuchen, a kind of sweet cake. The story tallies with Yuriko Saito’s observation that everyday aesthetics is action oriented. The act of family baking is about memories: the right color, the right feeling of the dough and the right scent, which lead one back to personal histories. The aesthetic experience of food of a particular culture at a particular time, and the search for a taste, are also acts of searching for identity. There is a dialectic between memories of a taste and human imagination, evident in everyday baking, where sense memories and emotional adventure are combined. Keywords: baking, food aesthetics, aesthetic experience, memory, imagination, brain science

Smells are surer than sounds or sights To make your heart-strings crack. —Rudyard Kipling, “Lichtenberg” Memory it would, in my opinion, be right to call the preservation of sensation … And when the soul that has lost the memory of a sensation resumes that memory within itself and goes over the old ground, we speak of these processes as ‘recollections.’ —Plato, Philebus 34b–c

When my brother and I closed our parents’ house, I saved the recipe boxes that had been tucked into a kitchen cupboard. Once found in just about every

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch06

126 

Carolyn Korsmeyer

American kitchen, these little metal receptacles preserved for generations recipes recorded on index cards. Some of these cards are in my mother’s hand, some of my grandmother’s, and a very few in my great-grandmother’s. Many are in unfamiliar handwriting that indicates contributions from friends, and still other recipes are typed or torn from newspapers and magazines. They tell me how to make casseroles and cookies, stews and gelatin molds, soups, cakes, and many dishes that I might read about but never bother to prepare. I remember eating with pleasure some of them: sauerbraten, Christmas cookies, and fudge. Some sound awful: chocolate cake with mayonnaise, quick dinners assembled from frozen vegetables, ground meat, and canned soups. There was one recipe that I hungered after, but a complete card for that was missing: kuchen. The word harkens back to a time long gone. Kuchen just means cake – any cake. But German has not been spoken in my family for five generations, and to us, the word came to mean just one particular sweet bread and no other. Although I have tried repeatedly to make it from the partial instructions left behind, I have not yet succeeded in producing the yeasty delight that I remember so vividly. If I fail, that word will lose its meaning, and its distinctive taste, scent, and capacity to deliver a simple and absorbing pleasure will be forgotten.

Sensory Qualities: Foreground and Background Food preparation has become a common topic for aesthetics of the “everyday,” including the sensory attention it commands. Baking arouses the senses in a coordinated way: How does the dough look? Is it rising at an expected speed? Does it come together and become springy to the touch as you knead the mixture? When you open the oven just a crack to check the progress from dough to bread, does the warm scent escaping promise success? Does it have that slightly hollow sound when you tap the baked loaf that indicates it is done? And above all, does the finished product taste the way it should? Contributions from each sense converge in the complex of receptors that register what we eat. These sensuous tests track the transformation from flour to dough to bread. Still, they take place amid a riot of competing sensory distractions: a ringing telephone, the sound of voices outside, the lingering garlicky smell from last night’s dinner, crumbly crunching underfoot from a mishandled box of cereal, the daunting sight of a pile of dishes in the sink. It is easy to become sidetracked while baking, and in everyday contexts, it is often

Memory’s Kitchen

127

challenging to draw an exact boundary around the “object” of aesthetic attention.1 Moreover, not all attention to sense experience counts as aesthetic. One may ask why the sensations listed above are not merely diagnostic, registering progress with no requisite appreciative savoring. Or even why the bodily pleasures aroused by tasting, smelling, and eating deserve an aesthetic imprimatur at all.2 These are important issues that have prompted objections and enjoined caution when extending the notion of the aesthetic to everyday matters.3 Even without these concerns, activities in the kitchen vary considerably in their aesthetic determinability. Much depends on the baker and whether she is routinely preparing a quick lunch or engaged in making something more spectacular. In the latter case, the product that emerges from the oven stands out from the debris of preparation, rather like a sculpture emerging from stone, to borrow an image from the art world. But attention to the everyday also underscores that an experience need not be only aesthetic – purely so, as it were – in order to have a significance that squarely qualifies for that label. The fact is that much of life is permeated with valence and value that is agreeable or not, lends subtle meaning or warning, and cumulatively contributes to the significance of a moment, a day, a year. 4 Aesthetic features color virtually everything we do. Yuriko Saito notes that the “doing” is particularly important, as the aesthetics of the everyday is not a “spectator-like experience” but is “action-oriented, rather than contemplation-oriented.”5 This is not to say that contemplation is entirely absent. To apply this observation to baking: action is punctuated with deliberative pauses to assess the progress of the task at hand: mixing, kneading, rising, baking. One appreciates food through reflection as well as the senses. That reflection extends beyond the immediate moment. Suppose one is preparing a dish that has been passed down over the years, perhaps 1 Yuriko Saito, Everyday Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Sherri Irvin, “The Pervasiveness of the Aesthetic in Ordinary Experience,” British Journal of Aesthetics 48, no. 1 (2008): 29–44, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/aym039. 2 Extension of the realm of the aesthetic to experiences of the bodily senses remains controversial. For a systematic defense, see Yuriko Saito, Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and Worldmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), chapter 2. 3 Glenn Parsons and Allen Carlson, Functional Beauty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 194; Christopher Dowling, “The Aesthetics of Daily Life,” The British Journal of Aesthetics 50, no. 3 (2010): 225–42, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayq021. 4 Kevin Melchionne, “Aesthetic Experience in Everyday Life: A Reply to Dowling,” British Journal of Aesthetics 51, no. 4 (2011): 437–42, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayr034. 5 Saito, Everyday Aesthetics, 4.

128 

Carolyn Korsmeyer

from a family recipe. In that case, there is another factor in play amid the riot of stimuli circulating in the room, and that is memory. In some ways, memory is almost always at work in aesthetically marked moments. Unless one is struck by purely formal designs in nature or in art, a background of knowledge informs how we regard an object, how we judge it aesthetically and artistically.6 Speaking of the everyday, Ossi Naukkarinen remarks that “… the past and the future influence all that there now is … The present oozes what there was and what we believe will be.”7 In other words, recollection is an operating condition for informed judgment and appreciation. But in addition, when one is deliberately trying to recreate an object from the past that is no longer available to sample, memory itself is summoned to attention as an object for introspective scrutiny: memories of past eating, of how this thing you have just concocted should taste, how it tasted when your grandmother made it, how it tasted when you were young. Memory provides an additional yardstick for a baking project such as mine – a gauge to use as it is smelled, tasted, and judged a success. Or a failure.

Kuchen It should be a fragrant, yeasty mound, gently rounded and covered with a crust of dark sugar. And the sugar should have melted into crusty pools in small, buttery dents finger-poked into the dough before it goes into the oven, delivering intense sweetness in every other bite. But it is not right. Neither the taste nor the texture nor the aroma filling the kitchen, not even the way it looks. What emerges from the oven has puffed into a dry hemisphere, and it has shed its crumbly topping into the pan. It is the wrong color, the wrong feel, and most of all, the wrong taste. The scent alone should have transported me back to my grandmother’s kitchen – a little girl sitting by the window at a green-painted table before a plate rimmed with flowers, breathing the scent of heaven and waiting for the first warm slice straight from the pan. The very same round pan in which now sits my failure. In some vague and magical way, I had hoped that the pan itself might recall how to make kuchen. After all, it had done so many times before. In 6 Stephen Davies, The Philosophy of Art (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 56–58. 7 Ossi Naukkarinen, “What Is ‘Everyday’ in Everyday Aesthetics?,” Contemporary Aesthetics 11 (2013), https://contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=675.

Memory’s Kitchen

129

my kitchen, I have not only my grandmother’s cake pans but also the plates and teacups that I ate from on summer visits up north, the set now chipped and incomplete. I have her flatware, her double boiler, her egg-coddler, and – my favorite – a metal spatula that is slightly crumpled at the end and prone to rust, but that is still just perfect for slipping hot cookies off the baking sheet. I have her writing desk in my living room, her China in a cabinet, and her long-tined forks in my drawer. But what I truly want is the fragrant, sweet coffee cake that greeted me every time I stepped into her house: a wide door, a slippery hall floor covered with blue and rose-patterned carpets, gladioli in tall vases, and a kitchen that smelled like paradise. For my next baking attempt, I scrupulously followed a revised recipe that replaced the incomplete and almost illegible handwritten card that I’d used to produce several previous flops. This one was supplied by a second cousin, who sent it to me over email – and already aesthetic differences have arisen. My handwritten cards are small, intimate, filled with distinctive handwriting, slightly stained from long-ago spills. The writing is the lingering physical trace of those who lived before. The paper printed out from my computer is orderly, standardized, easy to read. I was grateful to receive its clear instructions, hoping finally to have a reliable guide for kuchen. But the experience of this recipe was not the same as trying to follow directions from an old card, which invited me back into my grandmother’s kitchen even before I assembled the ingredients for the bread. Much has been written about the emotional resonance of old things, such as weathered barn wood, worn stone in old graveyards, or the ancient, chipped cups treasured for use in tea ceremonies.8 Some of these objects are valued explicitly in a particular culture; some have transcultural interest; some enjoy periods of wide popularity. (Ruins are a good example of the latter.) Domestic items that have been passed down over generations are more personal and unlikely to appeal strongly to anyone outside of a family. Think of all the faded photographs and ragged books that end up in second-hand shops or garbage bins. My recipe boxes are common, without economic value, perhaps on the verge of becoming historical curiosities. But they possess a meaning that is embodied not only in the information they impart but also in the very fact that they have been used over and over, and that such use is imprinted in their stained and frayed edges and the individual handwriting they bear. They are material remains of connections forged among generations. 8

Carolyn Korsmeyer, Things: In Touch with the Past (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

130 

Carolyn Korsmeyer

Aged objects such as old relics, ruins, musty books, and tattered and frayed fabrics exemplify the effects of the march of time … What they present to us can be characterized variously as tension, balance, dialogue, or dialectic, but in short, it is the fragile and delicate relationship between two opposing forces: nature’s own process and our attempt (via what we create) at defying and counteracting it.9

The dialogue initiated by my scribbled card was incomplete. It had not led me to produce what I wanted. Therefore, I set aside nostalgia and embarked on another baking attempt with the unsentimental printout. I began with what seemed well-founded confidence, because my cousin had gotten the recipe from her grandmother, who was my grandmother’s sister. And since both of them had learned to make kuchen from their shared mother, it should have been the same recipe. But no one had recorded the ingredients or the steps in quite the same way, and after three generations, something had shifted. My creation was a coffee cake, to be sure, but it was not exactly right. Is the recipe itself not quite correct, or is it my clumsy technique that is amiss? Or worse, have I embarked on an impossible quest: to resurrect a flavor from the past that would only be truly successful if I were to become a child again? This thought raises an unsettling question: Why am I so sure that my baking efforts are wrong? That only my taste will be proof of success? I am wary of insisting on a measurement for which I am the sole assessor, something that is “ontologically limited to me alone.”10 However, there is no other gauge, for only taste will unlock the memory of that first bite. But memory is deceptive, and the world seldom matches the mental images we harbor. How often have I searched my shelves for a book that I remember clearly has a blue spine, only to find that it is covered in brown. After most of a lifetime, I still have a vivid mental picture of a girl one year ahead of me in grade school whose hair was so long it touched the ground. But, of course, it never did; her puzzled mother assured me of this fact when I was in high school. And distorted memories are not limited to the distant past. A bout of hilarity still rises when I think of the time that my husband turned the spigot on a hotel bidet, and the water shot so high it splashed the ceiling. Naturally, it was nowhere near that high – only sufficient to catch him in the face. Funny enough (for me at least), but not a true picture of the event. 9 Saito, Everyday Aesthetics, 183. 10 Brian Soucek, “Resisting the Itch to Redefine Aesthetics: A Response to Sherri Irvin,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 67, no. 2 (2009): 223–26, 225.

Memory’s Kitchen

131

Memory should cede to correction; the image ought to fade in the face of the real thing. But the real thing I seek is nowhere to be found unless I succeed in my baking task, that is, unless the taste is just as I remember. I will know that I have succeeded because I know that so far I have failed. I am so sure that the sweet bread that has just come out of my oven is wrong, and I am equally certain that I will know when it is right. But a feeling of conviction, no matter how firm, is not evidence of true belief.

Sense Memory What actually is a sense memory? Is the memory of a taste or a smell like a visual memory, which summons a mental image of a scene from the past? Or like the memory of a piece of music whose melody plays through one’s head? Opinions differ. William Ian Miller states that one cannot smell or taste in imagination in the way that we can recall sights and sounds: “Memories of taste and smell can only be triggered by a real experience of the same smell or taste.”11 But others disagree. Flavor scientist Arielle Johnson, on an episode of Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio, goes so far as to suggest that perceiving a flavor rides on experiencing memories of flavors: “With flavor, you actually experience your memories of similar flavors and your emotions connected to those before you consciously perceive the qualities of the flavor.”12 Avery Gilbert calls odor memory “recoverable on demand,”13 but A.S. Barwich notes that “explicit memory for odor, recalling odors as odors, is not a pronounced human ability.”14 Despite the doubters, my conviction that I will know when I have baked kuchen with the taste it should deliver does not fade. My frustrated quest led me to dig a little deeper into the grounds for trusting memories. As it happens, smell currently has the best reputation as the sense that reliably captures experiences of the past. The senses of taste and smell obviously comingle in eating and drinking, especially if 11 William Ian Miller, The Anatomy of Disgust (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 77. 12 Arielle Johnson, quoted on Christopher Kimball, “The Science of Food: Steaks, Bugs, and Expiration Dates,” June 4, 2021, in Milk Street, podcast, website, 50:47, https://www.177milkstreet. com/radio/arielle-johnson-food-science-1. 13 Gilbert, What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life (United States: Synesthetics Inc, 2014), 204. 14 A.S. Barwich, Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020), 128.

132 

Carolyn Korsmeyer

one thinks of retronasal olfaction, which is registered towards the back of the throat. If smell is a reliable gateway to memory, taste should be as well. However, the evidence for this is a little murky. The most famous whiff that summons recollection, of course, comes from Proust.15 Marcel, the narrator of Swann’s Way, surmises that “the past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die.”16 That chance moment arises one winter day when his mother offers him a cup of tea and a plateful of the small cakes called madeleines. One bite and the world opens: “No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body … an exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses …”17 After several pages of introspection, the memory returns of the tea given him by his aunt when he was very young. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead and after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.18

It was that vast structure of recollection that I was relying on, although in a reverse direction. Marcel’s memory is triggered by a scent and a taste. I am using memory to resurrect the scent and taste of the past. Quite a number of smell researchers support Proust’s perspective by appealing to the way that olfactory nerves pass through areas of the brain that house emotion and memory. Neuroscientist Justus Verhagen observes that “The sense of smell is tightly interwoven with the evolutionarily old limbic system of the brain by having direct access to structures like the amygdala, hippocampal complex, and cortex. These are strongly involved in emotions and memories.” In contrast, other senses, like vision, are “much 15 For samples of other writers who also describe smell memories, see Gilbert, What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life, chapter 10. 16 Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way, trans. C.K. Scott Moncrieff (New York: Modern Library-Random House, 1956), 61. 17 Proust, 62. 18 Proust, 65.

Memory’s Kitchen

133

less direct, as they are gated via the thalamus, among other things.”19 Arielle Johnson agrees: “We actually have molecular receptors at the top of our nasal cavity that bind with smell molecules. And then to actually experience smell and flavor, those signals are passed to the brain where they pass through the emotional centers and are checked against all the memories we have of smell sensations we’ve had before.”20 One forms an image of odors that enter our nasal passages and travel up into the brain, collecting emotions and memories along the way as if they were able to pick up left luggage, until they arrive at awareness fully loaded with the necessary baggage to deliver the past intact and vivid. However, the idea that olfactory memory is uniquely indelible, attractive as it may be, is not borne out by other research, which “shows that olfactory memory obeys the same rules as memory in the other senses: it erodes with time and is muddied by subsequent experience. The purity and infallibility of smell memory – an insight central to Proust’s literary conceit – doesn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny.”21 Experiments regarding olfactory memory show that if we learn different scents after a period of time, we might not identify them easily. Both time and competing experiences jumble our recollection. The Proustian phenomenon, however, is not a test where smells can be experimentally identified; rather, it occurs when an odor or a flavor unexpectedly conjures up past experiences. The number of accounts of how whiffs and tastes can return one to moments from the past is sufficiently deep that the notion of bodily sense memory cannot be simply dismissed, although whether it occurs because of the proximity in the brain of odor receptors, emotions, and memories, I cannot say. Still, my own project, trusting a sense memory to determine if the outcome of a baking project is successful, is different in its direction. Marcel’s taste of tea took him into his childhood. I am trying to recreate the original thing that produced the sense memory, using the recollection to determine if I have done so. A hazardous enterprise, but having no other yardstick than my own sense memory, I persist in the endeavor.

19 Justus Verhagen, quoted on Menachem Wecker, “Ever Wonder What a Seventeenth Century Dutch Canal Smells Like?,” Artnet News, March 16, 2021, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ mauritshuis-smells-show-1951453?utm_content=from_newscta&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_ medium=email&utm_campaign=3%2F21%20Sunday&utm_term=Daily%20Newsletter%20 %5BALL%5D%20%5BMORNING%5D. 20 Johnson, quoted on Kimball, “The Science of Food: Steaks, Bugs, and Expiration Dates.” 21 Gilbert, What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life, 198.

134 

Carolyn Korsmeyer

If at first, you don’t succeed … The first failure was years ago when my mother and I attempted to recreate the cake whose secrets had skipped a generation. Old recipes are designed for large families, and neither of us had the skill to knead dough that contained seven cups of flour, much of which had dusted the kitchen and its perspiring cooks. When your fiasco calls for seven cups of flour, there is a lot to clean up. (“If Grandma is looking down on us now,” said my mother, using a steak knife to scrape dough from under her fingernails, “she must be laughing her head off.”) The second failure was mine alone. In one of the old recipe boxes, I had found a handwritten card labeled: kuchen recipe. I was elated – finally! The recipe was incomplete: only the bread, but I tried anyhow. Again, those seven cups of flour laboriously kneaded into an unwieldy lump. Which refused to rise. Even after I turned up the furnace and put the heavy bowl into a low oven, it still did not rise enough to make the four loaves that it should have. Rising dough smells heavenly. When I arrived early at my grandmother’s house, there were bowls in the kitchen covered with dampened linen towels that gradually, gently bulged with the expanding dough. I would lift the cloth and feel the living warmth. Sometimes I was allowed the ritual of punching down the dough, which softly exhaled a yeasty smell and then rose again after a second kneading, tempting me with its sensuous promise. But my sullen loaf refused to rise even enough to deflate when poked. After hours of fruitless waiting for the yeast to do its magic, I put it all into a weighty pan and shoved it into the oven. The heat of baking should increase the final rise, the cookbooks assured me, but my lump remained stubbornly hunkered into itself. Nonetheless, a recognizable if reluctant bread did emerge from the oven. It was not an utter failure; the flavor was almost right … almost. Like a dense and overweight version of the real thing. But none of my kitchen resources suggested the right crusty sugary topping. I tried them all and know for certain, therefore, that the missing half of the recipe is not streusel. It does not contain oatmeal. It is not flavored with clove or cinnamon or allspice. Nor with maple syrup, corn syrup, or molasses. Each variation lessens the match to memory. I know what it is not. On my kitchen shelf is an old cookbook salvaged from a warehouse packed by a globe-trotting great-aunt. It had belonged to her mother – a different great-grandmother from the one who taught her daughters to bake kuchen. It is not the right branch of the family, but the twig might be close enough to the branch, and it is the right vintage. I page through Our Home Cyclopedia and discover hints on the preparation of Catsup, Jumbles, Mush, and Frogs (“scald

Memory’s Kitchen

135

the hindquarters in boiling water”). I note instructions on how to clarify lard. There are pages scribbled with various handwritten sketches of additional recipes. They all seem to presume knowledge beyond what is written, and the quantities called for are mammoth. (Cream 1 cup of butter with 8 cups of sugar, five eggs, and a half-dozen cloves.) Over the years, someone interleaved the cookbook with clippings from newspapers and advice columns. One query urgently needs a reply: I have heard that you can test mushrooms by putting a silver spoon in the dish, and if it does not turn black, the mushrooms are safe to eat. Is this true? (Is it? I couldn’t find the answer.) It is easy to get lost in a cookbook, and if the volume is old, it provides a brief excursion into history. If this were truly something that happened every day, dinner would never get prepared; still, it is an example of how quotidian things can capture the imagination, rather like a novel that one starts to glance through and then cannot put down. The kitchen holds a wealth of aesthetic and imaginative temptations, opening paths to the past, other generations, other cooks, other hands – hands that wrote and hands that baked. The section on Cakes in this old book contains nothing recognizable as kuchen, though the one on Bread commences with a list of warnings about how easy it is to ruin the staff of life. I already know that. Nothing printed turns up a useful hint, but there are handwritten recipes under “Memoranda” as well as pages pasted in the back of the book, all of which prompt imaginings about the many hands that wrote and chopped and cooked four generations ago. And there, in unfamiliar handwriting, is a scrap of paper labeled Kuchen. My pulse increases. 1qt milk, two eggs, 1 cup sugar, ½ lb. butter, three lb. flour, one compressed yeast. And that’s all. No topping. No clue as to how to concoct that celestial sweetness. Besides, I don’t dare tackle three pounds of flour. Why did my grandmother not teach me how to bake, nor my mother either? Why did we not ask to be taught? Why did it not occur to us that her time was short? Perhaps she wanted that heady greeting ready for my arrival to be her own special gift. Or perhaps, realizing how messy baking can be, she preferred to tackle it alone. (She was a fastidious housekeeper, and I think of the day I baked a pie with my own granddaughter and all the little floury footprints she scampered around the house.) These kitchen regrets are familiar to the many who mourn that they never learned from the one person who could have taught them how to prepare a dish now forgotten. Fruitless remorse, as one seldom contemplates the vain longing that will arise years later.

136 

Carolyn Korsmeyer

That longing itself is intensely aesthetic in character, combining sense memory and emotions and summoning it all into an imagined whole that may or may not match the real, lost thing. But it seems intensely that it does – and that something precious is just beyond reach. It is a kind of domestic aesthetic idea, to repurpose Kant’s grand notion. Communing with the past is not a daily occurrence. But it is on the threshold of the everyday, ready to step into a kitchen that houses the cookbooks and recipe cards of mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers. Even paging through these things – with their wrinkled paper, their softened edges, their faded margin notes, and the occasional splash of ancient tea – delivers a sense of bygone meals and the flavors once conjured by those recipes. They open times and places both recognizable and unfamiliar. With the words of previous generations whispering in the kitchen, the everyday world of today opens a door to the past. So when I think that I might never succeed in making kuchen, it feels like a kind of death, the extinction of a special taste that future generations will not know. No one can be a child again, but it is sweet now and then to retrieve a glimpse of what it was like to be very young, a time full of promise when the future is distant and comfortably vague. With each attempt at baking, I ponder the outcome as it sits on the table, radiating promise. I cut a piece and bring it to my lips in anxious anticipation, wondering if, at last, taste will open the lock and let the past unfurl. So far, it has not.

Bibliography Barwich, A.S. 2020. Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Davies, Stephen. 2006. The Philosophy of Art. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Gilbert, Avery. 2014, What the Nose Knows: The science of scent in everyday life. Synesthetics, Inc. (Orig. New York: Crown Publishers, 2008). Irvin, Sherri. 2008. “The Pervasiveness of the Aesthetic in Ordinary Experience,” British Journal of Aesthetics 48:1, 29-44. Johnson, Arielle. 2021. Quoted on Milk Street Radio, host Christopher Kimball, 8 June, 2021. https://www.177milkstreet.com/radio/arielle-johnson-food-science-1 Melchionne, Kevin. 2011. “Aesthetic Experience in Everyday Life: A Reply to Dowling, British Journal of Aesthetics 51:4, 437-42. Korsmeyer, Carolyn. 2019. Things: In Touch with the Past. New York: Oxford University Press.

Memory’s Kitchen

137

Naukkarinen, Ossi. 2013. “What is ‘Everyday’ in Everyday Aesthetics?” Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive) 11: Article 14. Available at: https://digitalcommons. risd.edu/liberalarts_contempaesthetics/vol11/iss1/14/ Parsons, Glenn and Allen Carlson. 2008. Functional Beauty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Proust, Marcel. 1928/1956. Swann’s Way. Trans. C.K. Scott Moncrieff. New York: Modern Library-Random House. Saito, Yuriko. 2007. Everyday Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. _____. 2017. Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and World-Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Soucek, Brian. 2009. “Resisting the Itch to Redefine Aesthetics: A Response to Sherri Irvin,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 67:2, 223-26. Verhagen, Justus. 2021. Quoted in Menachem Wecker, “Ever Wonder What a 17th-Century Dutch Canal Smells Like?” Artnet News, March 16, 2021. https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/mauritshuis-smells-show-1951453?utm_ content=from_newscta&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_ campaign=3%2F21%20Sunday&utm_term=Daily%20Newsletter%20 %5BALL%5D%20%5BMORNING%5D

About the Author Carolyn Korsmeyer is a philosopher and (more recently) a novelist. She writes in the field of aesthetics, focusing on how emotions, memory, and the senses are engaged by both works of art and ordinary objects. These topics are explored in her books Making Sense of Taste: Food and Philosophy and Savoring Disgust: The Foul and the Fair in Aesthetics, both of which consider the senses of taste and smell. The role of touch is examined in Things: In Touch with the Past.

7

Chopsticks and the Haptic Aesthetics of Eating Richard Shusterman

Abstract This essay explores the topic of chopsticks to illustrate the haptic aesthetics of eating as a form of everyday aesthetics. After analyzing the art of eating, conceived in the stricter sense of styles of ingesting food, this chapter explores this art as a form of aesthetic and social performance in everyday life. It does so through the prism of chopsticks, noting in particular their relationship to haptic, proprioceptive, and other somaesthetic pleasures. Examining factors in the history of chopsticks in East Asian cultures, the essay highlights differences in the styles of chopsticks and their use in the food cultures of China, Japan, and Korea. Keywords: chopsticks, eating, haptic aesthetics, somaesthetics, China, Japan, Korea

I The activities of eating and drinking are manifestly present in every culture, in every age, and among all the different classes of society. Life would be impossible without such acts and their regular daily performance. Apart from occasional days of total fasting (such as the Jewish Yom Kippur), the everyday activities of eating and drinking are performed every day and most typically more than once a day. Not only a necessity of life-sustaining nourishment, they are a source of life-enriching pleasures and entertainment, and they have long been cultivated as such through the arts of cuisine, winemaking, and brewing, but also through the various decorative artistry of serving vessels and utensils with which we eat and drink. However, the

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch07

140 

Richard Shusterman

dominant Western philosophical tradition has long excluded these arts and pleasures from the domain of aesthetics and the realm of beauty. We see this already in Plato. In Greater Hippias 298e–299a, he limits beauty (τὸ καλόν) to what is perceived through the senses of sight and hearing. He explicitly excludes the perceptual pleasures of “food and drinks” (as well as “making love”) from being beautiful because they depend on other senses, namely taste, smell, and touch. The privileging of the distant senses of sight and hearing over the more proximal senses of taste, touch, and smell remains central to the powerful idealist tradition of philosophical aesthetics and rests on the assumption that sight and hearing are both cognitively and spiritually superior because they are less bodily in that their objects are more remote from the body. Complementing this ancient argument against eating as an activity with aesthetic potential is a further argument from perhaps the most influential modern theory of aesthetics, that of Immanuel Kant. That theory insists on the disinterested status of aesthetic judgment and the idea of beauty as exhibiting purposiveness without purpose. It thus defines the aesthetic in opposition to the practical. As eating is a practical necessity for life and has the practical aim or interest of nourishment to sustain the diverse energies and aims of living, it cannot be truly disinterested. Hence by the Kantian standard, it cannot be truly aesthetic but rather belongs to the “agreeable” or pleasant. One could make the same sort of argument about drinking, which we can assimilate under a broad concept of eating, just as we can include drinks under a general concept of food. For brevity, I henceforth use the terms “eating” and “food” in this broad sense to include drinking. Since ancient times, China, arguably the oldest and richest gastronomical culture, employed a term that combined food and drinks: 飲食 yinshi. Moreover, the Chinese character for beauty 美 suggests eating pleasure as it derives from two characters indicating a big sheep.1 We know from the Analects that Confucius took his style of eating very carefully (10.7–10.13), so traditional Chinese philosophical culture seems relatively free of the Platonic and Kantian prejudices against gastronomical aesthetics and more sympathetic to the role of embodiment in human life. This greater 1 Confucius, “Li Yun 禮運 [Ceremonial Usages; Their Origins, Development, and Intention],” trans. James Legge, Chinese Text Project, accessed February 18, 2022, https://ctext.org/liji/ li-yun. The term appears frequently in the Confucian classic Liji. For example, in the famous passage 19 of Book 7 (Li Yun): “The things which men greatly desire are comprehended in food and drink and sexual pleasure.” 飲食男女，人之大欲存焉. I cite from the Liji in the James Legge translation, which translates shi (“food”) more narrowly as “meat.”

Chopstick s and the Haptic Aesthe tics of Eating

141

appreciation of the body helps explain the enthusiastic Chinese reception of somaesthetics.2 In contrast to its philosophical aesthetic tradition, the last few decades of contemporary Western culture have shown increasing attention to and valorization of gastronomy, perhaps resulting from greater hedonism and wealth or from the loss of other values (whether moral, religious, or political). Parallel to this cultural emphasis on cuisine, we find new philosophical trends that resist the Platonic and Kantian restrictions on aesthetic taste as concerned only with perceptions of sound and sight and with disinterested pleasures. Somaesthetics is one of those trends that highlight the aesthetic potential of all bodily senses. It forms the theoretical framework of this chapter on the everyday aesthetics of eating.

II Eating is only one of the three branches that constitute the general field of gastronomy. First is what I would call the art of cuisine, which involves food preparation and presentation. Second, aesthetic study and discussion can focus on the food objects themselves in terms of their properties relevant for aesthetic experience and judgment. These include not only the formal and sensory qualities that these edible objects present to taste, smell, and other senses involved in our appreciation of food but also the more significant symbolic and social meanings of various foods. Apart from cookbooks, most food writing seems to belong to this branch, which I call the art of food appreciation and criticism. The third branch concerns our modes, manners, and perceptions of ingesting food and drink. This is the art of eating in the strict sense, and the haptic dimensions of this art, namely those that relate to the senses of touch and proprioception, will constitute the focus of this chapter. However, we should begin by defining key features of the art of eating. More than the mere act of eating, the art of eating implies ingesting food in a manner involving critical selection, reflection, and sequencing aimed at aesthetic values of orderly form and reflecting cultural knowledge. The art of eating is a temporal art in which time and timing are crucial. We enjoy it through temporal sequencing: not merely of courses but one mouthful leading to the next with the necessary time to savor between mouthfuls and between courses. Good eating requires taking one’s time. Eating is a performative art; its enjoyment is in the performative process of eating. 2 See, for example, the symposium on “Richard Shusterman’s Somasthetics,” in Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 10:2 (2015), 163-211.

142 

Richard Shusterman

Although food’s flavor and nourishment may reside in the objects we ingest, the enjoyment of eating belongs firmly in its performative activity, whose pleasures go beyond the familiar ones of the taste and smell and visual presentation of food objects to include all the somatic senses, including the haptic senses of touch and proprioception. We can derive aesthetic pleasure in the qualities of the somatic movements and perceptions involved in how we eat: the arc of movement that brings the fork or cup to our lips; the way we bite, chew, sip, slurp, or swallow; the warmth and weight of a bowl of hot coffee in our hands. The performative nature of the art of eating has significant consequences. As a performative art, its stylistic qualities and aesthetic effects are so closely connected with the person performing that they can reshape her aesthetically and affect health. In this respect, the art of eating is closer to Aristotle’s notion of praxis (action) rather than his notion of poiesis (the making of an external object) with which he (and most subsequent aestheticians) identified the essence of art. Cooking exemplifies poiesis because its valued end is an external object – the dish created, which does not directly affect the cook (unless he eats it). In contrast, the valued end of the art of eating is in the enjoyment of eating itself, which directly affects the eater. Since eating is a daily activity, often repeated at least three times a day, one can cultivate its performative artistry through regular practice. As bad eating habits harm us, improved eating practices can bring health and pleasure benefits. Because we eat so often, so regularly, and so long as we live, we have extensive opportunities to cultivate the art of eating through critical everyday practice. Such practice requires careful reflection on our actions of eating and the perceptions we have in performing them. This involves not only what foods we eat but the style in which we eat them; what utensils or implements we use to ingest food and how we manipulate them; how much and how quickly we eat; our sequencing of meals, courses, and mouthfuls; the forms and rhythms of chewing and swallowing. A reflective art of eating promotes the philosophical aim of self-knowledge by making us more aware of our eating habits and how they affect the people who share (or simply witness) our meals and us. It also provides a medium for meliorative self-cultivation through which the individual develops greater powers of perception, attention, introspection, discipline, sensorimotor skills, and sensitivity to other persons and their needs.3 3 I elaborate these points more fully and explore other features of the art of eating in Richard Shusterman, “Somaesthetics and the Art of Eating,” in Body Aesthetics, ed. Sherri Irvin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 261-80.

Chopstick s and the Haptic Aesthe tics of Eating

143

Practicing eating as an everyday art can improve our capacities for sensory discrimination through the transmodal appreciation of the perceptual pleasures involved in the dining experience. Although Western theorists of gastronomy since Brillat-Savarin have insisted on the multisensory enjoyment of eating, they typically neglect the full range of its sensory pleasures. Ferguson, for example, who views eating as a “total social phenomenon,” claims “food is also a ‘total sensory phenomenon’ [that] addresses the baser senses – the tongue, the nose, and the palate – along with the traditionally nobler eye and ear.”4 However, she ignores the important haptic pleasures of eating from other body parts. Our lips appreciate the warmth of a hot soup or the cool wetness of a beer; we enjoy the firm crunchiness of an apple through the feelings of teeth and jaw. Haptic pleasures of eating extend beyond the mouth. We enjoy the warmth felt in our hands as we cradle a mug or bowl of hot tea. We can derive tactile pleasure from the shape, texture, and weight of these and other utensils we use to ingest our food. We should not forget the hands – our most basic tool for bringing food to the mouth. Even cultures that pride themselves on other eating implements – East Asian chopstick culture and Western cutlery culture – still enjoy various forms of finger food that provide the hands with direct tactile pleasures of eating: the textured feel of a waffle cone, the warm, grainy feel of a toasted sesame bagel. Before chopsticks and cutlery became standard tools for eating in those cultures, the hand was the essential tool for eating. The hand’s tactile sensations and skills were inevitably prominent in the art of eating. Today, some cultures (in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia) continue to use the hand (typically the right hand) as the traditional implement in eating. Theorists have divided the world’s food cultures into three general spheres defined by their method of eating: chopstick culture, cutlery culture, and hand culture. Interestingly, demographically and geographically, these food culture spheres significantly resemble the tripartite division of cultures into Western (Judeo-Christian), Islamic, and East Asian cultures. Proprioceptive pleasures of eating belong to the haptic but go beyond the mere sense of touch. Proprioception and interoception include feelings of body positioning and movement (kinaesthesia) and inner bodily feelings (from the viscera and other body parts). Though most cultures enjoy eating in a sitting position (whether on a chair or the floor), Japanese culture (in formal contexts such as the ritual tea ceremony or other ceremonial dining occasions) calls for the special seiza (正座) or kneeling position. In some everyday Western 4 Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, Accounting for Taste: The Triumph of French Cuisine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 16.

144 

Richard Shusterman

contexts, a standing posture can be aesthetically preferable, for example, when taking a shot of espresso or whiskey at a bar or when circulating while looking for interesting people at a cocktail party. Proprioceptive pleasures include our feelings of graceful movement in bringing food smoothly to our mouths through our skill in manipulating eating utensils. There are also proprioceptive pleasures within the mouth: the feelings of power and rhythmic unity in biting, chewing, and swallowing as harmoniously coordinated with one’s breathing, which must continue while we eat. In the context of comparative everyday aesthetics, one should mention the particular pleasure the Japanese take in their style of eating Soba or Udon noodles by vigorous, noisy sucking that seems out of character for the quiet, well-mannered Japanese. Yet, they regard such loud sucking as a genuinely polite aspect of enjoying this food. Besides showing one’s enthusiastic appreciation of the food, there is a distinctive proprioceptive pleasure in vigorously sucking the long noodle into the mouth, an enjoyable feeling of micro-muscular power, and focused energy through the exuberant sucking action. This pleasure may be related, but is not reducible, to its symbolic association with our initial infant sucking bliss nor simply to the amusing sounds of sucking the noodles. Because proprioception (as inner somatic perception) is typically a very private experience, by emphatically sharing this distinctive act and feeling of sucking, fellow noodle eaters heighten their sense of communal solidarity by sharing private pleasures: a gesture of polite sociality. Interoceptive pleasures of eating include inner visceral sensations of agreeable warmth or refreshing coolness that we can feel beyond the mouth. Consider the comforting warmth of a shot of brandy as it descends from the throat into one’s stomach or how a cold drink relieves a hot, thirsty dryness in the throat. Think of the giddy inner pleasurable sensations of a sugar rush, a coffee buzz, or alcoholic inebriation. Hunger is an interoceptive sensation, and so is being satiated or full. Such perceptions are essential for maximizing the aesthetic quality of the eating experience. Recognizing when one is hungry enough to enjoy a big meal helps to enjoy our eating to the fullest. Recognizing the feeling when one has eaten enough so that one stops before reaching the point when continued intake would cause discomfort is crucial to the art of good eating. It promotes good health by combatting indigestion and obesity. More generally, paying attention to the proprioceptive and interoceptive sensations we have when we eat will encourage us to eat more slowly. Slow eating promotes more enjoyment because it allows us more time to savor our food while avoiding the gastric ills from hurried eating (which include overeating).

Chopstick s and the Haptic Aesthe tics of Eating

145

One Japanese-focused food writer recommends eating with chopsticks precisely for such reasons as slowness. “Eating with chopsticks slows people down, and therefore, they eat less,” she claims, and this slowness further has “the psychological benefit of making you think about the food and the enjoyment you get from it.”5 This may be true for Japanese food culture though I have often witnessed hectically hasty everyday eating in Japan. I would certainly not claim that all chopsticks cultures are free from hurried eating, overeating, and obesity (ills that my Chinese and Korean friends attribute to the influx of Western fast food). It is interesting that the modern Chinese word for chopsticks 筷子 (kuaizi), which replaced the traditional word 箸 (zhu), implies speed, as kuai means “quick,” so the literal meaning of kuaizi would be “quick little ones” or “quick little children.” In contrast, Korea and Japan did not change their traditional words for chopsticks, which derive from the Chinese zhu, and the Japanese character for chopsticks箸 (pronounced hashi) is identical to it. Although there are similarities among the East-Asian chopstick cultures, there are distinct differences in their eating styles, especially in the chopsticks they use. Comparative aesthetics, like comparative philosophy more generally, typically contrasts East Asian culture with Western culture and, in doing so, often ignores the contrasts within East-Asian culture, treating it (for convenience of comparison with the West) as a more or less homogenous whole. By focusing on the everyday utensil of chopsticks, we can highlight some interesting differences in these chopsticks eating cultures.

III Chopsticks were invented in China (already in the Bronze Age), and their use spread to the East Asian lands whose cultures bore the formative imprint of Chinese traditions: Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Initially, chopsticks functioned (along with knives and forks) as cooking and serving instruments rather than as eating utensils. The Chinese originally ate with their hands alone but “from the fourth century BCE, eating with utensils (chopsticks included), rather than fingers, gradually became the preferred dining custom.”6 The Confucian classic Liji (The Book 5 Kimiko Barber, The Chopsticks Diet: Japanese-Inspired Recipes for Easy Weight-Loss (Lanham: Kyle Books, 2009), 7. 6 Q. Edward Wang, Chopsticks: A Cultural and Culinary History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 4.

146 

Richard Shusterman

A triptych consisting of chopsticks in Korea, China, and Japan, 2021

of Rites) instructs on proper eating form with hands and chopsticks.7 Knives and forks remained confined to preparing or serving food. In ancient China, the first and principal eating utensil was the spoon, which was best for eating grain (the food staple) whose principal form (millet) was cooked as porridge, so it had a more liquid form than clumps of rice. Chopsticks were used to complement the spoon for fishing out the nongrain elements in the porridge or stew. These two utensils were recognized as a set bizhu 匕箸 (spoon and chopsticks), with the spoon’s linguistic precedence indicating its priority. With the increasing popularity of rice as the preferred grain and the growing appeal of wheat foods such as noodles (which are made from grain but typically eaten with vegetables or meat and are challenging to eat with a spoon), “chopsticks began to challenge the spoon’s primacy from approximately the first century.”8 Over its long history, chopsticks have displayed different design forms and varying manners of use that evoke aesthetic judgments. Some of them relate to the haptic qualities of touch and proprioception. Although China, Korea, and Japan all use chopsticks, they differ in some interesting ways in the forms of chopsticks they prefer and how they use them. My immersion in the aesthetics of chopsticks cultures of these nations began in Japan when I spent a year as a visiting research professor at Hiroshima University from 2002 to 2003, but most dramatically during my training with Zen Master Inoue Kido at his dojo in the village of Tadanoumi on the Inland Sea. “You have technical skill in using chopsticks,” he noted at the first communal meal we shared there, “perhaps because your wife’s family is Japanese. But 7 See the instructions on serving and eating in Confucius, “Qu Li I 曲禮上 [Summary of the Rules of Propriety Part 1],” trans. James Legge, Chinese Text Project, n.d., accessed February 18, 2022, 45–54. 8 Wang, Chopsticks: A Cultural and Culinary History, 9.

Chopstick s and the Haptic Aesthe tics of Eating

147

for a professor of aesthetics, you eat in the ugliest manner. You have a lot more than zazen to learn here!” Too stunned and shamed to reply, I listened. At the same time, Roshi explained the careless, sloppy way I picked up and set down my chopsticks but also the graceless handling of my rice bowl and teacup – the inelegant positioning of my hands on these vessels and the ungainly postural manner in which I brought their contents to my mouth by excessively bending and lowering my head. My subsequent stays in China and Korea revealed how the techniques and aesthetic norms for eating in those nations differ from Japan and from each other, even though they all share chopsticks as the principal eating tool. Before elaborating on some of these differences, I should emphasize a point about the art of eating as a form of everyday aesthetics, one that is relevant to everyday aesthetics more generally. In contrast to the aesthetics of fine art, which tends to emphasize (wrongly in my view) art’s autonomy and elevated difference from real life and life’s practical concerns, everyday aesthetics considers the activities of ordinary everyday life with their practical interests and constraints as worthy of aesthetic analysis. Pragmatist aesthetics and somaesthetics have always rejected this elitist retreat into an allegedly pure autonomous realm of fine art, free from practical interests, and these movements (with their validating study of popular arts and body practices) have always been part of the trend toward everyday aesthetics.9 Practical interests and constraints certainly are and should be relevant to the art of eating, as eating is a practical necessity. Moreover, the choice of what we eat and how we eat is motivated by practical considerations and constraints that influence the aesthetics of eating, including its haptic dimensions. Consider chopsticks. One reason for their immense success as an eating utensil is their practical efficiency, which also translates into aesthetic values. First, although sometimes made of more expensive materials (porcelain, ivory, gold, and other metals), chopsticks are easily made from cheap wood or bamboo, which rendered them more cost-effective than spoons, forks, and knives. Second, their pointed ends make them more effective than spoons for eating rice and other foods that stick to surfaces because the points of the chopsticks present less surface for sticking than spoons do. As the sight of leftover rice clinging to one’s eating instrument after one has eaten from it is a blemish against one’s tidiness and cleanliness of eating, 9 See Richard Shusterman, Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1992); Richard Shusterman, Thinking through the Body (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

148 

Richard Shusterman

it also presents an aesthetic blemish of disorder and impurity. Cleanliness relates not only to beauty but also to health. The chopsticks’ pointed tips give them a hygienic advantage because they present less surface for carrying germs from a diner’s mouth to a communally shared dish than would a spoon. Such factors may explain why communal dining endorses using chopsticks to take from a communal dish, while one should not use one’s soup spoon to take soup from a communal dish of soup. The same practical logic of attractive precision, cleanliness, and health explain the superiority of chopsticks to hands. Hot food may be unpleasant or even painful to grasp with the hands. Moreover, many foods (such as those with sauces or oiliness) make hands sticky, dirty, or uncomfortable. Furthermore, hands present a larger surface than chopsticks (or spoons) to spread germs and the unseemly sticking of food particles. This helps explain why in cultures that eat with the hands, the elegant style of eating uses only a single hand (typically the right). In some cultures, only a few fingers of that one hand (typically the thumb and index and middle fingers) are used. Chopsticks function like extensions of fingers, allowing one in communal dining to reach farther than one otherwise could to take food from communal dishes. Over its long history, China has made chopsticks from bone, bronze, gold, silver, jade, and ivory, but the dominant material has been wood and bamboo, which are often lacquered or painted. Today, with the popularity of disposable chopsticks, plastic has joined cheap wood and bamboo as a favored material. Each material has its tactile quality, and lacquer adds another. Japanese chopsticks are mostly from wood rather than bamboo and preferably from whitewood. Although Japanese chopsticks are sometimes lacquered or painted, the preferred form for elegance is unadorned but slightly polished whitewood. This is not simply an aesthetic of authenticity and naturalism; there is the pleasurably fresh tactile feel of undressed quality wood in its purity of natural whiteness. Its aesthetic quality is heightened by association with Shinto spirituality, which attributes a form of natural divinity to trees, so handling the pure wood in eating provides a way of imbibing the tree’s divine spirit. Another distinctive feature of some Japanese chopsticks is their being equally tapered to a narrow circular point at both ends, with the middle somewhat thicker, so there is no top or bottom. Besides the aesthetics of perfect symmetry, there is the practical advantage of having both ends for use. This enables you to eat with one end and use the other to take food from a communal dish (or pass food to another person) without passing your saliva germs. Korean chopsticks culture distinctively differs from China and Japan in two important features. First is its preference for metal chopsticks that are

Chopstick s and the Haptic Aesthe tics of Eating

149

typically longer and pointier than those used for eating in China and Japan. A likely reason for this is Korean cuisine’s emphasis on searing hot meat. Metal chopsticks will be more resistant to intense heat and fire than wooden ones, while the extra length helps keep one’s fingers at a safe distance from the scorching heat. Second, Korea distinctively insists on the metal spoon (often with a longish stem) as the standard utensil to accompany chopsticks in a dining setting, even if the meal includes no soup or porridge.10 One reason for this may be Korea’s deep attachment to the Confucian heritage. The spoon was an essential utensil to complement chopsticks in the bizhu tradition, and Confucian ritual prohibited chopsticks for some foods. The Liji states, “If the soup be made with vegetables, chopsticks should be used; but not if there be no vegetables” and “do not use chopsticks in eating millet.”11 It is evident that metal chopsticks, lacquered or painted chopsticks, and pure undressed wooden chopsticks provide different visual and tactile sensations with diverse aesthetic qualities. I prefer the pure wooden ones not only for how they feel in the hand but especially for the gentle way they feel on the lips and mouth. Perhaps my preference derives from my formative chopsticks experience in Japan and because my everyday diet is predominantly vegetarian and simple. There is a harmony between the raw or simply cooked plant products I eat and the simple plant-derived utensils I use to eat them (my favorite rice bowls at home are also wood). I conclude by commenting briefly on one striking point of diversity in the proprioceptive haptics of eating in chopsticks cultures. Leaving aside the question of sitting posture (on the floor or chairs), let us consider the different movements and postural adjustments of using chopsticks to bring food from one’s eating bowl to one’s mouth or to bring food from some communal dish to one’s eating bowl. Here Korean etiquette clearly differs from that of China and Japan. In the latter two cultures, one typically lifts one’s eating bowl with one hand to bring it closer to one’s mouth (or to the communal dish one wants to sample), thereby reducing the chances for food to fall from the chopsticks before it reaches one’s mouth (or one’s eating bowl). Dropping food from one’s chopsticks will dirty the table or floor, which is aesthetically unsightly and suggests an embarrassing lack of care or skill. Koreans, however, eschew the practice of lifting their eating bowl, much as Westerners do not raise their plates to eat but keep them 10 One should note that Korean and Chinese place settings lay the chopsticks vertically pointing toward the food, while Japanese lay the chopsticks horizontally. 11 Confucius, “Qu Li I 曲禮上 [Summary of the Rules of Propriety Part 1],” 48,53. The prohibition “Do not roll the rice into a ball” (48) is evidence that rice was eaten by hand.

150 

Richard Shusterman

firmly on the table. Instead, Koreans need to lower their chopsticks and their eyes (which naturally lowers the head) toward their eating bowl to lift the food items with careful attention. In eating rice with a spoon, they also need to lower their gaze and head to the bowl. Korean, Chinese, and Japanese eating styles have the same practical and aesthetic aim: to avoid dropping food. However, the proprioceptive feelings differ between lifting and holding one’s eating bowl in one hand while using the chopsticks in the other versus the actions of lowering one’s gaze and head and chopsticks toward the stationary bowl on the table or floor. Representatives of these contrasting chopsticks cultures offer different aesthetic arguments to justify the superiority of their style, sometimes diminishing the rival style with pejorative associations. I have heard Japanese colleagues condemn the Korean practice of not lifting their eating bowls as “eating like dogs” because dogs do not raise or hold the dish from which they eat but simply lower their mouths toward the food. Koreans sometimes defend their practice by saying that holding one’s food bowl aloft is the gesture of a beggar asking for food. Still, they also counterattack with an aesthetic critique of the Chinese and Japanese style of raising the eating bowl close to one’s face and shoveling its rice or other contents into one’s mouth. They condemn it as inelegant because bringing the face so close to the food and shoveling it into the mouth suggests animality and the haste of immoderate desire rather than the rational measured eating of cultivated humans. The Liji repeatedly proscribes hurried eating: “When eating with others from the same dishes, one should not try to eat (hastily) to satiety … do not bolt down the various dishes; do not swill down (the soup). Do not make a noise in eating; do not crunch the bones with the teeth; do not put back fish you have been eating; do not throw the bones to the dogs; do not snatch (at what you want). Do not (try to) gulp down soup with vegetables in it, nor add condiments to it; do not keep picking the teeth, nor swill down the sauces.”12 Here again, besides the strong Confucian influence on Korean culture (as evident in the Confucian inscriptions on the Korean flag), there may be practical reasons for the Korean eating style. The hot foods of Korean cuisine (meaty stews and barbecues or even a vegetarian dolsat bibimbap) can make one’s bowl unpleasantly hot and difficult to hold. The conflict of eating styles among chopsticks cultures is not something we should mourn but rather celebrate. A function of the diversity and competitive pride of these culinary traditions that continue to develop, it contributes to a healthy rivalry for gastronomical excellence and greater 12 Confucius, 47–8.

Chopstick s and the Haptic Aesthe tics of Eating

151

variety in our eating pleasures. Our ways of eating (Western, Asian, or African) will continue to change with changes in our diets, equipment, and the changing contexts of everyday life that shape the frameworks for our daily meals. Trends of globalization and transcultural exchange will continue to affect these changes of ways and contexts of eating.

Bibliography Barber, Kimiko. The Chopsticks Diet: Japanese-Inspired Recipes for Easy Weight-Loss. Lanham: Kyle Books, 2009. Confucius. “Li Yun 禮運 [Ceremonial Usages; Their Origins, Development, and Intention].” Translated by James Legge. Chinese Text Project. Accessed February 18, 2022. https://ctext.org/liji/li-yun. Confucius. “Qu Li I 曲禮上 [Summary of the Rules of Propriety Part 1].” Translated by James Legge. Chinese Text Project, n.d. Accessed February 18, 2022. Ferguson, Priscilla Parkhurst. Accounting for Taste: The Triumph of French Cuisine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Shusterman, Richard. Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1992. Shusterman, Richard. “Somaesthetics and the Art of Eating.” In Body Aesthetics, edited by Sherri Irvin, 261–80. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Shusterman, Richard. Thinking through the Body. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Wang, Q. Edward. Chopsticks: A Cultural and Culinary History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

About the Author Richard Shusterman is the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar of the Humanities at Florida Atlantic University and Director of its Center for Body, Mind, and Culture. His Pragmatist Aesthetics is published in fifteen languages, and his many other books in philosophy and aesthetics have also been widely translated, including East-Asian languages. The French government awarded him the honor of Chevalier des Palmes Académiques for his philosophical and cultural work.

8

Taking Tea, but Differently The Chinese Tea Tradition and its European Transformations Yanping Gao Abstract Tea drinking is part of the everyday culinary aesthetics of China and Europe, which adopted Chinese tea drinking and equipage in the 17th century, but transformed them into their own system. This chapter explains how Europe adapted Chinese tea equipage. As the English are the most sophisticated tea drinkers among Europeans, this article focuses on English tea drinking and equipage in the 18th century as an instructive example. European knowledge of tea came only at the end of the Ming dynasty, and what they adopted was essentially the tea style (cha dao or “way of tea”) of the Ming. This chapter concentrates on comparing the English and Ming styles of tea drinking. Keywords: tea ceremony, tea drinking, tea utensils, food aesthetics, cha dao

Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. —T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”1

1 T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Poetry: A Magazine of Verses, 1915, https:// www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock.

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch08

154 

Yanping Gao

Introduction Whether a culture can successfully absorb alien elements from another culture into its own depends on how its spirit and contextual conditions can cultivate and transform the cultural imports. Initially, the most obvious (material or formal) elements are taken or imitated. Later, however, the imports are somehow transformed by the absorbing culture and adapted to their own tradition and way of life, thus creating new forms with their style and aesthetics. With imports relating to daily life, this kind of transcultural adaption happens more quickly. Everyday life involves both practical adaptation pressures and the repetition of daily habits and functional activities. Drinking, along with eating, is an essential daily activity with crucial practical importance, even for our somatic survival, but it also has rich aesthetic potential.2 This chapter explores how Europeans transformed Chinese tea drinking into their usage and custom, focusing on the comparative styles of tea-drinking equipment. Tea equipage is an interesting site for everyday aesthetics because it combines practical everyday functionality with aesthetic appreciation. Discovering the pleasures of tea only at the close of the Ming dynasty, Europeans were ignorant of older styles of tea drinking. We, therefore, compare the Ming dynasty tea apparatus with that of Europe, particularly that of England, whose people became the most enthusiastic European tea drinkers.

I In 1610, the Dutch East India Company ships brought the first tea into Europe. Reaching France in 1636 and Russia in 1638, tea got its English welcome in 1650.3 The craze for tea drinking began to sweep across Europe in the later seventeenth century. But England, rather than all other countries in Europe (except for Ireland), became a nation of tea drinkers, 4 perhaps partly because of the English East India Company, which brought so much tea to England’s shores. “By 1730, London’s craze for coffee had dissipated 2 See Richard Shusterman, “Somaesthetics and the Art of Eating,” in Body Aesthetics, ed. Sherri Irvin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 261–80. 3 For more information about the introduction of Chinese tea in Europe, see William H. Ukers, All about Tea (New York: The Tea and Coffee Trade Company, 1935). 4 Erling Hoh and Hector H. Mair, The True History of Tea (London: Thames & Hudson, 2009), 178.

Taking Tea, but Differently

155

as suddenly as it had caught on, and England’s preference for tea had been firmly established.”5 At the end of the eighteenth century in England, thanks to tea’s comparative cheapness (because of the lowering of duties on it), the expensiveness of malt, and the difficulty of procuring milk, tea became a standard liquid for moistening the bread of the breakfast diet even among the poor.6 Before England became a tea empire owing to their colonization of India, which produced tea in the nineteenth century, China was England’s primary source of tea. The taste for tea drinking led to an enormous demand for porcelain or pottery drinking vessels. The fact that the teaware should be strong enough to withstand boiling water and everyday usage created the need for hard-paste porcelain vessels of durability. Chinese porcelain was imported into Portugal in the seventeenth century. The East India Company’s tea trade (including porcelain as cargo) made Chinese porcelain available for northern European countries. After Europeans developed their porcelain, like Meissen in Germany and Sevres in France in the late eighteenth century, many Europeans who could not afford Meissen or Sevres made do with Chinese export porcelain.7 From the late Ming dynasty, Chinese cities such as Jingdezhen, Dehua, and Guangzhou became the leading centers for exporting porcelain to Europe. Jingdezhen flourished as a porcelain center and exportation center as early as the the15th and 16th centuries. Later, during the Qing Dynasty, Europeans frequently ordered Jingdezhen porcelain. In the Rococo period, we learn that “western merchants appreciate colorfulness more than painting quality” (西商重画之心不如其重色).8 Ordering porcelain from China, western merchants offered their designs, motifs, or special emblems from Chinese manufactories. Some kinds of porcelain ware were adapted further after they arrived in Europe. Sometimes European designers added metal, like gold or silver, as decoration or attached handles to teacups for practical convenience. In other cases, Chinese export porcelain wares were painted or redesigned by Europeans after their arrival, such as enameling gilt borders on Dehua white porcelain or repainting the pattern with a color glaze.9 5 Hoh and Mair, 178. 6 See Sidney W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: Penguin Random House Company, 1986), 114–5. 7 Howard Coutts, The Art of Ceramics: European Ceramic Design 1500–1830 (London: Yale University Press, 2001), 143. 8 Yuansou Ji 寂园叟, Tao Ya 陶雅 (Shandong: Shandong Huabao Press 山東畫報出版社, 2010), 7. 9 Rose Kerr, Luisa E. Mengoni, and Ming Wilson, Chinese Export Porcelain (London: V & A Publishing, 2011).

156 

Yanping Gao

Such transformation was not only a function of European aesthetic taste but also a product of eating customs, social lifestyles, and the practical exigencies of everyday living. Although adopting the practice of tea drinking from China, the English gradually developed their own tea culture and transformed the alien tradition into their own. If Chinoiserie style in decorative art was clearly distinguished from original Chinese artifacts and often described as “whimsical,” “capricious,” and “droll,”10 then the English style of tea drinking, owing to its everyday practical functions and constraints contrastingly presented a very stable and reasonable style clearly different and autonomous from the original Chinese source. It engendered different items of teaware and a distinct “system of objects” of tea equipage. In what follows, we compare these two systems of tea equipage that reflect different styles or aesthetics in the everyday art of drinking tea, but that requires saying something about tea preparation.

II Ignorant of the older forms of whipped tea (dian cha点茶) in the Song dynasty and the boiled tea (煮茶) in the Tang dynasty, Europeans adopted the Ming dynasty style of steeping tea. The first Ming emperor, Taizu (Zhu Yuanzhang, 1368–1398), banned the traditional use of cake tea as a tribute because its production was too labor-intensive. Instead, he ordered wholeleaf tea to be sent to the court. Thereafter, as historian Qiu Jun (1421–1495) reported, leaf tea was drunk throughout China and by foreigners.11 Thus, steeped tea replaced whipped tea. For the latter, tea leaves were ground to a fine powder before being placed in a big teacup and whipped in hot water by a delicate whisk made of split bamboo. In contrast, teapots were used for properly steeping tea in hot water. Only after the tea liquid in the teapot was ready should it then be poured into cups. Because the teacups were no longer used for whipping tea powder, they no longer needed to be large but could be attractively and functionally petite. Consequently, teapots and tiny teacups constituted the basic tea apparatus. Yixing stoneware was the most favored type of teapot because of its material qualities for steeping tea. As Wen Zhenhen says, “The best teapot is made from sand, for the latter neither takes away the fragrance nor does 10 Coutts, The Art of Ceramics: European Ceramic Design 1500–1830, 178. 11 James A. Benn, Tea in China, A Religious and Cultural History (Honolulu: University of Hawii Press, 2015), 172.

Taking Tea, but Differently

157

Anonymous, A Painting of Tea Preparation煮茶图, Ming, Forbidden City Museum (Beijing). From Liao Baoxiu’s The Tea Equipage and Tea Events.

it make the liquid over-steeped” (茶壶以砂者为上，盖既不夺香，又无熟 汤气).12 Its appeal for Europe also stemmed from the practical reasons that it effectively maintained the heat of the liquid tea and did not crack when filled with boiling water. Exported to Europe, it was soon imitated by the Dutch as early as 1672 and by the English shortly thereafter.13 12 Zhenhe Wen 文震享, Chang Wu Zhi 长物志 [The Superfluous Things] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang Renming Press 浙江人民出版社, 2012), 161. 13 Linlin Zeng 曾玲玲, Ci Hua Zhong Guo – Zou Xiang Shi Jie de Zhong Guo Wai Xioo Cí 瓷话中 国——走向世界的中国外销瓷 [Chinese Export Porcelain and the World] (Beijing: Commercial

158 

Yanping Gao

Arthur Devis, Mr. and Mrs. Hill, 1750 -1751, Oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, in courtesy of Yale Center for British Art.

We find a good visual representation of the Ming aesthetics of tea drinking in A Painting of Tea Preparation 煮茶图 from an anonymous painter in the Ming Dynasty. With his two servants standing beside him preparing tea, the gentleman is sitting on a rock, with plantain trees, bamboo, red flowers, and lake rocks as the background. The tea utensils are spread on a stone table. Besides the brown stoneware teapot, white porcelain teacups, and a red lacquer saucer, there is also a tea kettle, a water jar, a tea jar, even an Press 商务印书馆有限公司, 2014), 266.

Taking Tea, but Differently

159

incense burner, and incense container. The painting shows not only Ming tea equipage but also how incense was used to heighten the multisensory pleasures of traditional Chinese tea drinking. It also exemplifies the importance of environmental context in the aesthetics of tea drinking and the beauties of nature added to the aesthetic atmosphere of taking tea. In his painting, Mr. and Mrs. Hill (1750-1751), the British painter Arthur Devis reveals the eighteenth century British way of tea. In this two-figure conversation piece, we see a wealthy, well-dressed couple in a grand room displaying their porcelain as an essential marker of their status, property, and taste. A tray with seven porcelain teacups and saucers, a sugar bowl and a big slops bowl, a silver jug for milk, a brown stoneware teapot, and a sugar bowl on the wood table. The wife holds a sugar tong in her right hand. If this picture displays how the material objects of the tea equipage needed in eighteenth century England for properly taking tea differ from the Ming (where tea drinking had neither milk nor sugar), it also shows the persistence of Chinese elements. Besides a blue porcelain Chinese vase in the fireplace against the wall, the tea equipage is mostly Chinese style. The porcelain teacups, saucers, and bowls with the presence of pink color overglazed enamel in the painting were recognized as Chinese famille rose（粉彩）porcelain from Jingdezhen. The brown stoneware teapot was recognized as a Delft stoneware imitation of Chinese Yixing stoneware, with decoration in the form of sprays of plum blossom trailing over the side. Despite all this Chinese influence, the transformations the English introduced into their English tea ware are also distinctively present. We would find no silver vessels for milk or sugar on the Chinese tea table. The slops bowl (for holding used or waste materials from the tea service) seems too unsightly to grace a refined Chinese tea table. As far as the complete English tea equipage system is concerned, at least one item is missing in the picture, i.e., the teaspoons for stirring milk or sugar in the tea liquid. A saucer and teaspoon usually accompanied every teacup on the European tea table. Teacups were supposed to be big and flat enough to hold a spoon, which didn’t exist in the Chinese tea ceremony. If we look at George Morland’s A Tea Garden (1790), the teaspoons are seen either reclining in the teacup or lying on the saucer on a table with bread and butter. This scene of the co-presence of the bread, tea, and functional spoons would have shocked a Chinese in the Ming or Qing dynasty because the Chinese at that time had an entirely different order of tea and food. Europeans gradually transformed even the way of holding teacups. Initially, early eighteenth century Europeans tried to imitate the Chinese way: “the cups do not have handles, and – when full of scalding tea – are held

160 

Yanping Gao

in various ways between the thumb and forefinger by the rim and base.”14 It was close to a Chinese way of holding cups, i.e., with three fingers (the forefinger and thumb touching the cup, and the middle finger holding the bottom). However, for practical reasons, partly to avoid unpleasant or painful heat on their hands from the hot liquid tea in the cup (or from equally hot coffee or chocolate also imbibed from the same cups), Europeans eventually insisted on adding a handle to the cup. For Chinese, holding a cup through the mediation of a handle would hurt the intimacy with the tea liquid in the cup and the haptic feeling of such proximity.

III Tea was imported to England as a warm liquid, along with coffee and chocolate in the 1650s. In the early eighteenth century, tea (whether green or black) was typically consumed independently, without milk or sugar. However, either for health or taste reasons, Europeans gradually came to use sugar as a popular additive and (especially in England) milk. In his 1748 A Letter to a Friend, Concerning Tea, John Wesley praised tea’s functioning for relieving headaches and kidney stones. Yet, he still suggested drinking less tea, making it weaker, and adding more milk and sugar to reduce the effects of tea on the nerves.15 Moreover, some questioned tea’s position as a noble beverage because of its slightly bitter taste. If “tea is luxury,” claimed a late eighteenth century Englishman, “you mean fine hyson tea, sweetened with refined sugar, and softened with cream.”16 Proper tea drinking at that time (and much later) should include sugar and milk or cream. When tea played a role in breakfast, it was integrated into the context of bread and butter. As early as 1711, the Spectator insists: “I would therefore in a particular manner recommend these my speculations to all well-regulated families that set apart an hour every morning for tea, bread, and butter.”17 In contrast to the British history of integrating tea into a broader dietary context, Chinese tea history reveals a process of growing autonomy and purification of tea from impurities and foreign substances. At the beginning of tea drinking, the leaves were steamed, crushed in a mortar, made into a 14 Markman Ellis, Richard Coulton, and Matthew Mauger, Empire of Tea: The Asian Leaf That Conquered the World (London: Reaction Books, 2015), 138. 15 John Wesley, A Letter to a Friend, Concerning Tea (London: A. Macintosh, 1825), 4. 16 Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, 115. 17 Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea (New York: Dover Publications, 1964), 7.

Taking Tea, but Differently

161

cake, and boiled together with rice, ginger, salt, orange peel, spices, milk, and sometimes with onions. Until a Tang Dynasty tea purist, Lu Yu (author of Cha Jing) denounced all the popular condiments used to hide the coarse taste of tea leaves: scallion, ginger, jujube, tangerine peel, cornel (dogwood) berries, peppermint, and so on. He thus introduced the nobler method of treating tea by eliminating all ingredients except salt, and then, in the Song dynasty, an improved processing technic enabled to discard also salt. The Ming inherited this tea purism tradition and made concrete rules to sustain the purity of tea taste. Hence, only very select foods should be permitted to accompany the proper taking of tea. In his Cha Pu 茶谱, Qian Chunnian notes how fruits affected our appreciation of tea and distinguished three kinds of fruit that should be forbidden from the aesthetics of proper tea drinking. These are (1) fruits with a strong smell that thus affects our olfactory appreciation of tea (夺其香者), for example, pine nuts, mandarin orange, almonds; (2) fruits with a strong flavor, thus affecting our appreciation of tea’s taste (夺其味者), such as sweet peach, lychee, water pear, loquat, etc.; (3) fruits having intense color, thus affecting our visual appreciation of tea (夺其色者), such as persimmon, jujube, fire peach, bayberry, orange, etc.18 Chinese tea aesthetics not only strived for the purity of tea taste but also cared for the autonomy of time and space for tea drinking. Unlike the English way of treating tea as a part of breakfast, classical Chinese tea drinking was separate from mealtime, and tea-drinking was a “pure” time. The Chinese culture has a special understanding of the suitable time for tea; it is not continuous with other eating activities in daily life, but a break, a stop, a detachment from the daily secular engagements. Taking tea in this way can be an everyday activity that breaks from the ordinary everyday. Cha Shu 茶疏 (1597) defined the proper time for tea, “when your mind and hands are not occupied,” “when you listen to a song,” and “when you play Guqin or regard some painting,” etc.19 Similar to the formal English tea space of the grand hall represented in the painting of Mr. and Mrs. Hill, the Chinese space for formal tea drinking should be separated from other areas in the house and rarely overlapped with the dining room for three meals. In China, the ideal tea space could even be somewhere in the mountains at a considerable distance from one’s usual 18 Chunnian Qian 钱椿年, “Cha Pu 茶谱 [Tea Recipe],” in Zhong Guo Li Dai Cha Shu Hui Bian Xiao Zhu Ben 中国历代茶书汇编校注本 [Chinese Tea Books Collections], ed. Peikai Zhen 郑培凯 and Zizhen Zhu 朱自振 (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2007), 1:181. 19 Cishu Xu 许次纾, “Cha Shu 茶疏 [Tea Sparse],” in Zhong Guo Li Dai Cha Shu Hui Bian Xiao Zhu Ben 中国历代茶书汇编校注本 [Chinese Tea Books Collections], ed. Peikai Zhen 郑培凯 and Zizhen Zhu 朱自振 (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2007), 1: 274.

162 

Yanping Gao

residence, not only because such a location provides good spring water for tea making but also because the natural environment has its charm as an autonomous space distinguished from domestic space. Cha Shu described the ideal environment for tea ceremony as a richly natural “with forest and bamboo, with flowers and birds, with incense in the garden, with serene spectacles, with spring and grotesque stone” (“茂林修竹、课花责鸟、小院焚 香、清幽奇观、名泉怪石”).20 Recall the natural scene portrayed in A Painting of Tea Preparation discussed above. Compare its natural space to the very formal English tea space and atmosphere in the painting of Mr. and Mrs. Hill, where even the couple’s posture is very proper. Mr. Hill’s right-angled placement of feet and the position of his hand in his waistcoat follow the standard rules for posture set out in contemporary etiquette manuals. Unlike the serene and quiet Chinese atmosphere, English tea gatherings were more social and active. The seven cups show that the Hills expect five guests for tea; in Charles Philips’ (1708–1747) Tea Party at Lord Harrington’s House (1730), three groups of well-dressed guests gather in a spacious, heavily decorated hall. They are playing cards while dogs are walking in the room. The search for serenity in traditional Chinese taking of tea would eschew inviting many people and the busy distraction of cards. Zhang Yuan in his Cha Lu claimed, “It is better if few guests are present for drinking tea because too many guests lead to noisiness, which decreases the feeling of gracefulness” (“饮茶以客少为贵，客众则喧，喧则雅趣乏矣。”)21 Chen Jiru（1558-1639）wrote in his Cha Hua, “If you drink alone, you’ll get the spirit of tea. If two persons drink together, they get the interest of tea. If three persons drink together, they would have a better tasting.” However, “If seven or eight persons drink together, it is just like handing out tea as charity.” He mocked crowdedness in the proper taking of tea and took it as bad taste. (“一人得神，二人得趣，三人得味，七八名是名施茶。”)22 That is also the reason why Chinese tea rooms should be compact in size, while Europeans can enjoy the aesthetics of taking tea in a grand spacious chamber. Yuan Hongdao(1568–1610), another renowned writer from the Ming dynasty (1568–1610), praised tea tasting as the pinnacle of the art of living. “Tea tasting is the highest art of life, even better than good conversations, 20 Xu, 274. 21 Yuan Zhang 张源, “Cha Lu 茶录 [Tea Record],” in Zhong Guo Li Dai Cha Shu Hui Bian Xiao Zhu Ben 中国历代茶书汇编校注本 [Chinese Tea Books Collections], ed. Peikai Zhen 郑培凯 and Zizhen Zhu 朱自振 (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2007), 1: 253. 22 Jiru Chen 陈继儒, “Cha Hua 茶话 [Tea Talk],” in Zhong Guo Li Dai Cha Shu Hui Bian Xiao Zhu Ben 中国历代茶书汇编校注本 [Chinese Tea Books Collections], ed. Peikai Zhen 郑培凯 and Zizhen Zhu 朱自振 (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2007), 1: 278.

Taking Tea, but Differently

163

and wine tasting is the lowest ” (茗赏者上也，谈赏者次也，酒赏者下也).23 If in the English tea party, tea-drinking typically combined with other activities such as playing cards, China’s tradition of tea tasting focused more on the tea itself and its aesthetic qualities, not only of the aroma and taste of the tea liquid but even the tea leaves themselves, whose material form was visible and foregrounded. Even in the case of whipped tea (in China’s Song dynasty and still practiced in Japan’s formal tea ceremony), we find an appreciation of its aesthetic materiality in the transformative play between the tea powder, water, and teacup that creates an astonishingly new and attractive amalgam. In contemporary China, green tea is served in transparent glass to appreciate leaves unfolding in the brewing process aesthetically. In European tea drinking, tea leaves should be largely invisible, either kept hidden in the teapot or (in contemporary times) pulverized into powder and wrapped in teabags. For Europeans, tea is essentially a beverage that accompanies food and facilitates social meetings rather than a meaningful practice rich in meaning and value of its own. We can trace the Chinese appreciation of the materiality of tea leaves to ancient cosmology and natural philosophy. “Every plant in the world absorbs the energy of nature, but tea gets the energy most delicately, and thus could express the beauty of color, smell, and flavor to the utmost” (夫一草一木，罔不得山川之气而生也， 唯茶之得气最精，固能兼色、香、味之美焉).24 In other words, Chinese tradition praised tea as an especially sensitive plant whose transactional absorptions of nature’s energies were superior to those of other plants. In the traditional Chinese aesthetic way, taking tea was never merely a way of quenching thirst or a medium for socializing; it was also a performative reenactment of the intimate and essential transaction between human cultural and natural powers. In this drama performed on the Chinese tea table as a stage, the tea was the hero – a material yet transcendent, transformative element (like an alchemic elixir). In contrast, porcelain, stoneware, and other tea equipage were the supporting cast in unfolding the powers of the tea. By participating in this drama, serious Chinese tea drinkers still find themselves transformed physically and metaphysically from the taking of tea. 23 Qiande Zhang 张德谦 and Hongdao Yuan 袁宏道, Ping Hua Pu Ping Shi 瓶花谱·瓶史 [Catalogue of Vase Followers & the History of Potters] (Beijing: China Publishing House 中国纺 织出版社, 2018), 168. 24 Jun Ye 叶隽, “Jian Cha Jue 煎茶诀 [Sencha Recipe],” in Zhong Guo Li Dai Cha Shu Hui Bian Xiao Zhu Ben 中国历代茶书汇编校注本 [Chinese Tea Books Collections], ed. Peikai Zhen 郑培凯 and Zizhen Zhu 朱自振 (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2007), 2: 852.

164 

Yanping Gao

Bibliography Benn, James A. Tea in China, A Religious and Cultural History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2015. Chen, Jiru 陈继儒. “Cha Hua 茶话 [Tea Talk].” In Zhong Guo Li Dai Cha Shu Hui Bian Xiao Zhu Ben 中国历代茶书汇编校注本 [Chinese Tea Books Collections], edited by Peikai Zhen 郑培凯 and Zizhen Zhu 朱自振, 278–81. Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2007. Coutts, Howard. The Art of Ceramics: European Ceramic Design 1500-1830. London: Yale University Press, 2001. Eliot, T.S. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Poetry: A Magazine of Verses, 1915. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/ the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock. Hoh, Erling, and Hector H. Mair. The True History of Tea. London: Thames & Hudson, 2009. Ji, Yuansou 寂园叟. Tao Ya 陶雅. Shandong: Shandong Huabao Press 山東畫報 出版社, 2010. Kerr, Rose, Luisa E. Mengoni, and Ming Wilson. Chinese Export Porcelain. London: V & A Publishing, 2011. Liao, Baoxiu 廖宝秀. Li Dai Cha Qi Yu Cha Shi 历代茶器与茶事 [The Tea Equipage and Tea Events]，Beijing: Gugong Press, 故宫出版社,2017. Markman Ellis, Richard Coulton, and Matthew Mauger. Empire of Tea: The Asian Leaf That Conquered the World. London: Reaktion Books, 2015. Mintz, Sidney W. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin Random House, 1986. Okakura, Kakuzo. The Book of Tea. New York: Dover Publications, 1964. Qian, Chunnian 钱椿年. “Cha Pu 茶谱 [Tea Recipe].” In Zhong Guo Li Dai Cha Shu Hui Bian Xiao Zhu Ben 中国历代茶书汇编校注本 [Chinese Tea Books Collections], edited by Peikai Zhen 郑培凯 and Zizhen Zhu 朱自振, 178–85. Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2007. Shusterman, Richard. “Somaesthetics and the Art of Eating.” In Body Aesthetics, edited by Sherri Irvin, 261–80. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Ukers, William H. All about Tea. New York: The Tea and Coffee Trade Company, 1935. Wen, Zhenhe 文震享. Chang Wu Zhi 长物志 [The Superfluous Things]. Hangzhou: Zhejiang Renming Press 浙江人民出版社, 2012. Wesley, John. A Letter to a Friend, Concerning Tea. London: A. Macintosh, 1825. Xu, Cishu 许次纾. “Cha Shu 茶疏 [Tea Sparse].” In Zhong Guo Li Dai Cha Shu Hui Bian Xiao Zhu Ben 中国历代茶书汇编校注本 [Chinese Tea Books Collections], edited by Peikai Zhen 郑培凯 and Zizhen Zhu 朱自振, 267–77. Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2007.

Taking Tea, but Differently

165

Ye, Jun 叶隽. “Jian Cha Jue 煎茶诀 [Sencha Recipe].” In Zhong Guo Li Dai Cha Shu Hui Bian Xiao Zhu Ben 中国历代茶书汇编校注本 [Chinese Tea Books Collections], edited by Peikai Zhen 郑培凯 and Zizhen Zhu 朱自振, 850–56. Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2007. Zeng, Linlin 曾玲玲. Ci Hua Zhong Guo – Zou Xiang Shi Jie de Zhong Guo Wai Xiou Cí 瓷话中国——走向世界的中国外销瓷 [Chinese Export Porcelain and the World]. Beijing: Commercial Press 商务印书馆有限公司, 2014. Zhang, Qiande 张德谦, and Hongdao Yuan 袁宏道. Ping Hua Pu Ping Shi 瓶花谱· 瓶史 [Catalogue of Vase Followers & the History of Potters]. Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing House 中华书局, 2018. Zhang, Yuan 张源. “Cha Lu 茶录 [Tea Record].” In Zhong Guo Li Dai Cha Shu Hui Bian Xiao Zhu Ben 中国历代茶书汇编校注本 [Chinese Tea Books Collections], edited by Peikai Zhen 郑培凯 and Zizhen Zhu 朱自振, 251–55. Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2007.

About the Author Gao Yanping holds a PhD in Aesthetics from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing (CASS), where she is now an Associate Professor at the Institute of Literature. She is the author of Winckelmann’s Vision of Greek Art (2016), the translator of Feeling and Form (2013), The Chinese Way of Thinking (2017), Act and Affect (2018). She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Somaesthetics and Bachelard Studies.

Part 4 Creative Life

9

Dô (Dao) in the Practice of Art Everyday Aesthetic Life in Japan Through the Japanese Tea Ceremony Tanehisa Otabe Abstract Art practice in Japan is intertwined with everyday life. The “tea ceremony” (cha-dô, literally the “way of tea”) is an example. This chapter focuses on the theory of the Japanese tea ceremony by Kakuzô Okakura and Yoshinori Ônishi, exploring how everyday life is the main topic of modern Japanese aesthetics. The ceremony is an aestheticization of the ordinary action of drinking tea, testifying that beauty consists in treating the smallest incidents of life aesthetically. It is held in a teahouse designed for the ceremony, creating a space of conviviality. The focus of the tea ceremony is not a resulting work of art, but rather the process of performance, and also steady training in both a mental and physical sense. The essay argues that these characteristics are based on the Japanese understanding of the “dô” (in Chinese: dào) and that the creativity is not attributed to individuals but to it. Keywords: tea ceremony, teahouse, dao aesthetics, Japanese aesthetics, cha dao

Introduction Aesthetics as a modern philosophical discipline and the modern idea of art – both of which were established in eighteenth century Europe – were introduced in Japan in the late nineteenth century as a part of modernization or Westernization. At the turn of the century, however, aesthetics as a modern philosophical discipline took root in the Japanese intellectual world, where art was addressed chiefly in the context of everyday life. The idea of “the aesthetic life [biteki seikatsu]” – a term coined by Chogû Takayama

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch09

170 

Tanehisa Otabe

(1871–1902) in 1901 – may be considered the leitmotiv of modern aesthetics in Japan and marked the Japanization of modern Western aesthetics.1 In my view, a traditional Japanese view of art in the sense of gei-dô (literally “the way of art”) underlies this idea of aesthetic life. This chapter will focus mainly on the theory of the Japanese tea ceremony, cha-dô (also pronounced as “sa-dô,” literally “the way of tea”),2 by Kakuzô Okakura (1862–1913), also known by his sobriquet Tenshin, and Yoshinori Ônishi (1888–1959) – two representatives of Japanese academic aesthetics in the f irst half of the twentieth century – and explore how and why everyday life became the main topic of modern Japanese aesthetics.3

Art and Life As a starting point for my argument, this section briefly examines the aesthetic theory of Ernest F. Fenollosa (1853–1908), who exerted significant influence on Okakura. In 1878, Fenollosa, who studied philosophy at Harvard College and drawing and painting at the Art School of the Boston Museum, was appointed to the University of Tokyo, established the previous year. While teaching political economy and philosophy at the university, he developed a keen interest “in an art new to him, the art of Old Japan.”4 He worked with Okakura, one of his first students, in art management. Fenollosa and Okakura were especially interested in protecting temples and their art treasures, which had sunk into oblivion with the increasing modernization.5 Fenollosa was impressed that the Japanese did not feel it was necessary to distinguish fine art from decorative art: “In Japan, all art is decoration, 1 Tanehisa Otabe, “‘Aesthetic Life’: A Leitmotif in Modern Japanese Aesthetics,” Contemporary Aesthetics Special Volume 6 (2018), https://doi.org/10.15083/00076543. 2 The tea ceremony that was established as a form of art during the sixteenth century was originally called cha-no-yu, literally “hot water for tea.” It was in the Edo period (1603–1868) that the concept of cha-dô prevailed in Japan. As for the tea ceremony, see Seno Tanaka and Sendo Tanaka, The Tea Ceremony (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1998). 3 In this chapter Japanese words and names are transcribed basically according to the Hepburn system, using a circumflex instead of a macron for representing a long vowel except for the terms that are already incorporated into English (e.g., Tokyo). As for the names in the modern era, I put the given name first to avoid any confusion. 4 Ernest F. Fenollosa, Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic Design, 2 vols. (London: William Heinemann, 1912), 1: xiv. 5 As for Fenollosa and Okakura, see Kojin Karatani, “History and Museum: Okakura Kakuzô and Ernest Fenollosa,” in Nation and Aesthetics: On Kant and Freud, trans. Jonathan E. Abel, 2017, 65–77.

Dô (Dao) in the Pr ac tice of Art

171

and all decoration is fine. That is not the case in Europe.”6 He was thus convinced that art consists in “beautifying the life”7 and that the decline of modern European art was mainly due to its being separated from life. Fenollosa evaluated Hôgai Kanô (1828–88), one of the last painters of the Kanô school of painting, an academic style of the Edo period that developed under the patronage of the Tokugawa shogunate. Fenollosa was also granted the artist’s name Eitan Kanô, placing him thus in the lineage of the Kanô school. However, he was not biased solely toward the Kanô school: “Great as is this [aristocratic] art [of the Kanô school], the importance of it to the whole Tokugawa period is not so great as the plebian art.”8 Indeed, he highly estimated the “perfect and complete civic art” of Maruyama Ôkyo (1733–95) in Kyoto, whose works furnished “adequate designs” for the “industries,” thus penetrating civic life in Kyoto.9 While traveling around Japan with Okakura to explore old art, Fenollosa was amazed by the “rustics who could appreciate and judge beauty better than the artists in Europe and America.”10 He was thus convinced of the civic or plebian character of Japanese art, and through Okakura, his views on art permeated other Japanese intellectuals. At the end of Okakura’s influential 1910 lecture on the “History of Art and Design in Asia,” he notes that “‘Art is life’ – this makes Japanese art great … Art is completely fused with social life – even in rural areas, we find flowers in rooms and decency among people. All life is art.”11 In the following section, we will address cha-dô, a form of art most closely related to life, thus clarifying how art can be fused with life.

Cha-dô and the “Art of Life” According to Ônishi, who taught aesthetics at the University of Tokyo from 1927 to 1949 and was one of the leading figures in aesthetics from the 1930s to 6 Ernest F. Fenollosa, “Bigaku [Aesthetics],” in Okakura Tenshin Zenshû [Complete Works], vol. 8, 8 vols. (Heibonsha Limited, 1980), 457–58. 7 Fenollosa, 457. 8 Fenollosa, Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic Design, 2: 139. 9 Fenollosa, 2: 169–70. 10 Ernest F. Fenollosa, Bijutsu Ronshû [Collected Works on Fine Art], ed. Seiichi Yamaguchi (Tokyo: Chuokoron Bijutsu Shuppan Co., Ltd., 1988), 103. 11 Kakuzo Okakura, Okakura Tenshin Zenshû [Complete Works], vol. 4, 8 vols. (Tokyo: Heibonsha Limited, 1980), 316.

172 

Tanehisa Otabe

1950s,12 in contrast to art in the modern Western sense, cha-dô intrinsically contains “three main aspects of life,” namely a “physical” aspect of eating and drinking, a “spiritual” aspect of appreciating art, and a “social” aspect of conversation and conviviality.13 The question then arises of how cha-dô, which is thus rooted in life, could be regarded as a form of art in modern Japan. A clue to answering this question can be found in Okakura’s “The Book of Tea.” This 1906 essay, written in English and addressed to Western readers, ranks as one of the earliest and most significant attempts to formulate an aesthetic theory of tea in modern Japan. Okakura insists that Taoism forms the spiritual background of cha-dô – for which he coins the term “Teaism” to draw attention to its kinship with Taoism14 and Zennism.15 [The] chief contribution of Taoism to Asiatic life has been in the realm of aesthetics. Chinese historians have always spoken of Taoism as the “art of being in the world,”16 for it deals with the present – ourselves … The Present is the moving Infinity, the legitimate sphere of the Relative. Relativity seeks Adjustment; Adjustment is Art. The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings. Taoism accepts the mundane as it is and, unlike the Confucians or the Buddhists, tries to find beauty in our world of woe and worry.17

To “accept the mundane as it is” means to affirm the “world of woe and worry,” that is, “the Imperfect.”18 It does not, however, mean preserving the status quo, but rather “find[ing] beauty” in “the Imperfect” – a transvaluation of a 12 As for Ônishi, see Michele Marra, “Onishi Yoshinori and the Category of the Aesthetic,” in Modern Japanese Aesthetics: Reader (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), 115–40; Tanehisa Otabe, “Representations of ‘Japaneseness’ in Modern Japanese Aesthetics: An Introduction to the Critique of Comparative Reason,” in Japanese Hermeneutics: Current Debates on Aesthetics and Interpretation, ed. Michael F. Marra (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), 153–64. 13 Yoshinori Onishi, Toyo-Teki Geijutsu-Seishin [Eastern Spirit of Art] (Tokyo: Koubundou Publishers Inc, 1988), 76. 14 In The Book of Tea, Okakura understands, through Taoism, a philosophical doctrine of Laozi and Zhuangzi that he calls “Laoism” in his 1903 book, The Ideals of the East. See Kakuzo Okakura, Collected English Writings, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Heibonsha Limited, 1984), 41. 15 The term Zennism was also coined by Okakura. 16 Okakura uses this odd expression to render the Chinese term chǔ-shì-zhú (literally the “art of dealing with the world”) into English. 17 Okakura, Collected English Writings, 289. 18 Okakura, 269.

Dô (Dao) in the Pr ac tice of Art

173

value. In the world we live in, there is no absolute and everything is relative, according to Okakura. The art of being in the world or of life consists in constantly (re)adjusting ourselves to the world of which we are constitutive, so that our conduct may become congruent with that of others. Therefore, to “give place to others without losing one’s own position”19 underlies the art of life, and beauty is only possible in the process of adjustment. Okakura argues further that in the Song dynasty in China (ca. tenth to thirteenth centuries) and in the Muromachi era in Japan (ca. fourteenth to sixteenth centuries), the “Taoist conception that immortality lay in the eternal change permeated all [the] modes of thought,”20 and people became aware of the art of life under the influence of Zennism. Okakura defines Teaism as a “religion of the art of life”;21 that is, in Teaism, people consciously practice the art of life, thus aiming for higher ideals. The [tea] ceremony was an improvised drama whose plot was woven about the tea, the flowers, and the paintings. Not a color to disturb the tone of the room, not a sound to mar the rhythm of things, not a gesture to obtrude on the harmony, not a word to break the unity of the surroundings, all movements to be performed simply and naturally – such were the aims of the tea ceremony.22

Okakura regards the tea ceremony as a spontaneous performance by the host and the guests in a small teahouse specially designed for the ceremony. Although every action has its roots in daily life, the host and guests perform in perfect accord with their aesthetic ideal. Thus, teaism is not subordinated to life, but rather can affect it: “[The tea-masters] sought to regulate their daily life by the high standard of refinement which obtained in the tearoom.”23 Okakura, therefore, argues that “the influence of the tea-masters in the field of art” is “as nothing compared to that which they have exerted on the conduct of life.”24 Okakura’s view found great resonance among the intellectuals. For example, Sutemi Horiguchi (1895–1984), an architect and a historian of architecture, who sought an original style that combined modern design and Japanese teahouses, characterizes cha-dô as an “art of constructing 19 20 21 22 23 24

Okakura, 289. Okakura, 281. Okakura, 283. Okakura, 284. Okakura, 322. Okakura, 323.

174 

Tanehisa Otabe

life.”25 Ônishi claims that cha-dô can be compared to what the early German romantics called “Lebenskunst” (i.e., an art of life).26 In modern aesthetics in Japan, cha-dô has a unique position in art as the art of life par excellence.

The Worship of the Imperfect In this section, I consider the question of what Okakura understands by the “art of life” or the “art of being in the world” in cha-dô in concrete terms. As shown in the previous section, the “art of life” consists in “find[ing] beauty” in “the Imperfect.” This is quite contradictory to our ordinary view of what the imperfect or the perfect is and is based on a Taoist and Zennist conception: “It was the process, not the deed, which was interesting. It was the completing, not the completion, which was really vital.”27 Okakura finds it concretized in the teahouse: “[It] is consecrated to the worship of the Imperfect, purposely leaving some thing [sic] unfinished for the play of the imagination to complete.”28 To worship the imperfect does not mean being content with the imperfect as it is, but rather being aware of its potential and thus completing it. In the face of imperfection, we must use our imagination to discover beauty. Therefore, imagination is essential: The dynamic nature of their philosophy [i.e., Taoism and Zennism] laid more stress upon the process through which perfection was sought than upon perfection itself. True beauty could be discovered only by one who mentally completed the incomplete. The virility of life and art lay in its possibilities for growth. In the tea-room, each guest in imagination is left to complete the total effect in relation to himself.29

The host and guests cooperatively and extemporaneously conduct the tea ceremony as a performance in a small teahouse. Thus, nothing other than perfecting the process of performance counts. This testifies to “the value of suggestion” in art: “In leaving something unsaid, the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea. Thus, a great 25 Sutemi Horiguchi, “Cha-Shitsu No Shisô Teki Haikei to Sono Kôsei [The Intellectual Background and Structure of Teahouses],” in Cha-Dô Zenshû [Complete Works on Cha-Dô], vol. 3, 15 vols. (Osaka: Sogensha Inc, 1936), 142. 26 Ônishi, Toyo-Teki Geijutsu-Seishin [Eastern Spirit of Art], 359. 27 Okakura, Collected English Writings. 28 Okakura, 281. 29 Okakura, 294.

Dô (Dao) in the Pr ac tice of Art

175

masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention until you seem to become actually a part of it.”30 A work of art that is incomplete prompts the recipient to participate actively and become a part of it. This process, however, never reaches completion; it is rather open-ended and infinite: “Not to display, but to suggest, is the secret of infinity. Perfection, like all maturity, fails to impress because of its limitation of growth.”31 Okakura points out, for example, that the blank spaces that characterize ink wash painting in East Asia are often more replete with meaning than the painted parts. Okakura, thus, underlines the interaction between an artist and a recipient via a work of art. The worship of the imperfect consists mainly of two dimensions. The first dimension pertains to the minute and seemingly insignificant things: “[Zen] held that in the great relation of things there was no distinction of small and great … every most minor action must be done absolutely perfectly … The whole ideal of Teaism is a result of this Zen conception of greatness in the minor incidents of life. Taoism furnished the basis for aesthetic ideals; Zennism made them practical.”32 The “mundane” must be accepted because it is endowed with greatness, and we must complete every little thing “absolutely perfectly” for the mundane to show its greatness. Okakura cites the example of Zen temples. Beginners are assigned the simplest tasks, whereas senior monks are given the most difficult and servile tasks; monks may also be required to participate in Zen discussions while doing their daily work, such as weeding the garden, cutting beets, or serving tea. “Such services formed a part of the Zen discipline”33; thus, affirming the mundane means taking care of the “details.”34 This attitude reduces the unnecessary and seeks the minimal: “In the tea-room, the fear of repetition is a constant presence. The various objects for decorating a room should be so selected that no color or design shall be repeated.”35 Okakura illustrates this ideal using an anecdote of Sen no Rikyû (1522–1591), the most famous tea master, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536/37–1598), a feudal lord who unified Japan. Sen no Rikyû planted morning glories in his garden, which were hard to find in his time. Word of their beauty in full bloom reached the ears of Hideyoshi, and Rikyû invited him 30 31 32 33 34 35

Okakura, 302–3. Okakura, 290. Okakura, 99. Okakura, 293. Okakura, 294. Okakura, 303.

176 

Tanehisa Otabe

to a morning tea ceremony at his house. However, when Hideyoshi arrived, all morning glories in the garden had been cut down, and no vestige was visible: “With sullen anger, the despot [Hideyoshi] entered the tea-room, but a sight waited for him there which completely restored his humor. On the tokonoma [alcove], in a rare bronze of Sung [sic] workmanship, lay a single morning-glory – the queen of the whole garden!”36 Hideyoshi, who had anticipated the plentiful morning glories of his imagination, was initially furious with their absence from the garden. Later, he was amazed by a single morning glory, indicating admiration for the simplest beauty that was reduced to the limits, contrary to the supposed plentiful beauty. This anecdote has often been considered to exemplify wabi aesthetics. According to “Nampô-Roku,” one of the seminal works on the tea ceremony written in 1690, Rikyû is believed to have clarified the aesthetic idea of wabi by referring to the famous tanka poem by Fujiwara no Teika (Sadaie) (1162–1241): “There are neither flowers [i.e., cherry blossoms] nor red-colored leaves around, in the autumn sunset behind a thatched hut.” The contrast between “flowers” or “red-colored leaves” and “a thatched hut,” that is, the contrast between the splendid city that the poet can only imagine in the mind’s eye and the mean countryside he sees with the naked eye, evokes the difference between the luxurious tea ceremony using expensive products imported from China and the simple wabi-style tea ceremony using ordinary Japanese utensils. Takeo Narukawa (1919–), a leading scholar on cha-dô, claims that Rikyû’s wabi aesthetics aims at a “contrast effect resulting from comparing simplicity in juxtaposition with missing luxury.”37 However, I argue that this comparison can only be used as a background for explaining simple beauty rather than a sufficient basis. In other words, this comparison is certainly a clue to becoming aware of the beauty of simplicity, but it does not fully explain it. Based on “Nampô-Roku,” Okakura answers the question of how minimal simplicity can be beautiful as follows: Perfection is everywhere if we only choose to recognize it. Rikiu [sic] loved to quote an old poem that says: “To those who long only for flowers [i.e., cherry blossoms], fain would I show the full-blown spring which abides in the toiling buds of snow-covered hills.”38 36 Okakura, 321. 37 Takeo Narukawa, Sen No Rikyû: Cha No Bigaku [Aesthetics of Tea] (Tokyo: Tamagawa University Press, 1983), 162. 38 Okakura, Collected English Writings, 322.

Dô (Dao) in the Pr ac tice of Art

177

“Nampô-Roku” notes that Rikyû finds the idea of wabi exemplified not only in Teika’s previously quoted tanka poem (“There are neither flowers …) but also and foremost in the tanka poem of Fujiwara no Ietaka (1158–1237) (“To those who …). “Snow-covered hills” are understood as a synonym for a “thatched hut,” and the contrast between “flowers” or “red-colored leaves” and “a thatched hut” corresponds to the contrast between “flowers” and “snow-covered hills.” Ietaka’s tanka poem points out that on snow-covered hills is the “spring which abides in the toiling buds,” namely a sign of spring. To those who have the imagination to find spring among “the toiling buds,” nature is in a continuous process toward perfection. This is why Okakura writes: “Perfection is everywhere if we only choose to recognize it.”39 In other words, minimal simplicity, represented by a “thatched hut,” has the potential for plenitude. Therefore, the “worship of the Imperfect,” which Okakura uses to define Teaism, makes us aware of the omnipresence of perfection. Further, the idea of the “perfection of the imperfect” is combined with the so-called “usefulness of the useless.”40 When a thing is reduced to a minimum and thus decontextualized, it is deprived of its original meanings and thus becomes useless. This, however, induces us to discover, or even invent, a new use for it if we have sufficient imagination. Thus, art came into existence: “The primeval man … became human in thus rising above the crude necessities of nature. He entered the realm of art when he perceived the subtle use of the useless.”41 Human beings need the “art of life” because we are free from the yoke of necessity and have to constantly “readjust to our surroundings.”42 This readjustment process makes us realize how the useless can be useful. While the first dimension of the “worship of the Imperfect” pertains to the minute and insignificant things, the second dimension relates to transient and fleeting things. Zennism, with the Buddhist theory of evanescence and its demands for the mastery of spirit over matter, recognized the house only as a temporary refuge for the body. The body itself was but a hut in the 39 Okakura, 322. 40 The idea of “usefulness of the useless” originates in Daode Jing [Tao-Teh-King], chapter 11: “When the existence of things is profitable, it is the non-existent in them which renders them useful.” See Lao-tzu and Paul Carus, Lao-Tze’s Tao-teh-king: Chinese-English (Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1898), 102. 41 Okakura, Collected English Writings, 312. 42 Okakura, 289.

178 

Tanehisa Otabe

wilderness, a flimsy shelter made by tying together the grasses that grew around – when these ceased to be bound together, they again became resolved into the original waste. In the tea-room, fugitiveness is suggested in the thatched roof, frailty in the slender pillars, lightness in the bamboo support, and apparent carelessness in using commonplace materials. The eternal is to be found only in the spirit which, embodied in these simple surroundings, beautifies them with the subtle light of its refinement. 43

By the “eternal,” the author does not mean something free from change, such as Platonic ideas; the eternal reality of the world is, instead, its impermanence: “Change is the only Eternal.”44 Therefore, “mastery of spirit over matter” in this context has nothing to do with a Platonic or Christian dualism; instead, it means giving our full attention to transient matters to comply with the principle of impermanence. Being aware of this principle, we can and should beautify our ever-changing surroundings. Things in the world are often assumed to be fixed and constant, in which case there would be no room for readjustment in Okakura’s sense. However, because everything in the world is regarded as being subject to change, it is susceptible, or even in need, of our readjustment, which is where the beauty lies. In cha-dô, everything (including our every action) is oriented toward finding beauty in the world.

The Art of Life as a Dô As noted in the introduction section of this chapter, a traditional Japanese view of art in the sense of gei-dô (literally “the way of art”) played a pivotal role in modern Japan’s integration of the western concept of art. The term geidô consists of two familiar Chinese characters, “art” and “way,” respectively. However, the two-character idiom gei-dô is a Japan-made Chinese word coined in the fifteenth century and spread in the Edo period; this idiom reflects a Japanese view of dô. Okakura explains Laozi’s “dô” (in Chinese, “dao”) as follows: The Tao [sic] literally means a Path. It has been severally translated as the Way, the Absolute, the Law, Nature, Supreme Reason, the Mode … The 43 Okakura, 300–1. 44 Okakura, 317.

Dô (Dao) in the Pr ac tice of Art

179

Tao is in the Passage rather than the Path … The Tao might be spoken of as the Great Transition. Subjectively it is the Mood of the Universe. Its Absolute is the Relative. 45

Okakura owes much to Paul Carus’s 1898 translation of Daode Jing, 46 but his understanding of dao deviates from that of Carus, who paraphrases the term dao as follows: It means “path, way, method, or mode of doing a thing,” then also, the mode of expressing a thing, or “word”; and thus finally, it acquires its primary meaning, which is “reason.”47

Although Carus, in his translation of Daode Jing, renders “dao” into English as “Reason” with a capital R, Okakura not only avoids the term “Reason” but also disapproves of the translated term “path,” proposing the term “passage” instead, certainly not in the static, physical sense, but rather in the active sense of passing through. 48 Here, we find reflected the concept of dô peculiar to Japan – a concept not used as such but added to the words that designate various fields of sciences and arts. Ônishi, a forerunner in the research on gei-dô, argues that, under the influence of the Chinese state regime of the Tang dynasty, the term dô was initially used in the sense of region or area (both literally, such as in the sense of an administrative area, and figuratively, in the sense of a discipline taught at the academy for bureaucrats), and gradually came to be applied to various performing arts: In Japan, as in China, in the beginning, the concept of dô was focused on its intellectualist aspects; later, along with the expanded range of its

45 Okakura, 286. 46 Okakura, 285. 47 Paul Carus, “Introduction: Laozi and His Philosophy,” in Lao-Tze’s Tao-Teh-King: ChineseEnglish (Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1898), 9. 48 For more discussion see Okakura, Collected English Writings. Okakura’s emphasis on “passage” echoes his conviction that at issue is “the process, not the deed,” and “the completing, not the completion” (281). Also, the proposition that “Its [i.e., Tao’s] Absolute is the Relative” reminds us of his definition of the “art of life” as a “constant readjustment to our surroundings”: “Relativity seeks Adjustment; Adjustment is Art” (289). For more detail on the relationship between Okakura and Carus regarding the concept of “dô (tao)” see Shigemi Inaga, “Kuki Shûzô and the Idea of Metempsychosis: Recontextualizing Kuki’s Lecture on Time in the Intellectual Milieu Between the Two World Wars,” Japan Reviw 31 (2017): 112–113.

180 

Tanehisa Otabe

application, it came to underline its voluntarist aspects (in the sense of training in performing arts). 49

In China, the dao was mainly thought to be intellectually grasped, whereas the dô in Japan became associated with the Japanese mental and physical training called keiko. This literally means “examining old times” and refers to training to achieve the ideals left by one’s predecessors. Ônishi understands this in terms of the voluntarist aspects of dô. As something a practitioner should follow by learning under and emulating, or even surpassing their masters, the dô enables “collaborative activities” among those who have partaken, partake, and will partake in the same dô. This leads to an emphasis on kata (literally “mold”) in art – a “kind of spiritual legacy many great masters in the past have inherited, cultivated, and refined by participating in the same dô.”50 Although kata certainly serves as a prescribed form for practitioners, it does not restrict their creativity. However, their creativity is not attributed to “original” individuals, as in modern Western aesthetics, but rather to the dô, that is, to use Okakura’s expression, the “eternal growth which returns upon itself to produce new forms.”51 Thus, individuals are creative in so far as they are involved in a creative process of dô. Against this background of the Japanese understanding of dô, the concept of gei-dô developed in Japan, which is quite distinct from the Western concept of art in the sense of fine art.52 Fine art is distinguished from other arts by the criteria of being purely focused on beauty. The criteria to distinguish wide-ranging gei-dô from other arts is explained by Ônishi as follows: Over time and with cultural development, we increasingly tend to subsume all arts that require practice and exercise in all senses (namely, mental and physical), regardless of their purposes and contents, under the concept of gei-dô … Thus, it has become increasingly challenging to differentiate fine art from other arts, such as martial arts, games, and plays. This is because people increasingly became focused on dô, a common factor that conceptually unified these various arts, paying

49 Ônishi, Toyo-Teki Geijutsu-Seishin [Eastern Spirit of Art], 38. 50 Ônishi, 57. 51 Okakura, Collected English Writings, 286. 52 The Western concept of f ine art was introduced into Japan in the 1870s and translated into Japanese at first as bi-jutsu (literally “beautiful or fine art”), later as gei-jutsu, a term that originates in the eighth century and meant “arts and sciences” in the broad sense.

Dô (Dao) in the Pr ac tice of Art

181

little attention to the essence and content of each art (such as “beauty,” “martialness,” and “playfulness”).53

The modern Western concept of art generally excludes nonautonomous arts (e.g., applied art). The concept of gei-dô, on the contrary, tends to include all arts in so far as they are related to mental and physical training (such as Jû-dô, literally “gentle way,” or Ki-dô, namely Japanese chess). Here, “the ‘dô’ in ‘dô of training’ has ethical implications that should generally apply to the ‘life’ of human beings,”54 so that art as gei-dô becomes deeply rooted in life. This does not imply that the content or target of the training of each art is helpful for our life. Instead, the individual’s mental and physical disposition for a particular training forms a nucleus of their life because life consists of ongoing psychological and physical training. This is precisely captured by the Japanese proverb, “Being a master in one art makes you versatile.” In short, it is by theoretically reflecting the long-time traditional gei-dô that modern Japanese aesthetics has focused on everyday life.

Bibliography Carus, Paul. “Introduction: Lao-Tze and His Philosophy.” In Lao-Tze’s Tao-Teh-King: Chinese-English, 1–48. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1898. Fenollosa, Ernest F. “Bigaku [Aesthetics].” In Okakura Tenshin Zenshû [Complete Works], 8:450–75. Heibonsha Limited, 1980. Fenollosa, Ernest F. Bijutsu Ronshû [Collected Works on Fine Art]. Edited by Seiichi Yamaguchi. Tokyo: Chuokoron Bijutsu Shuppan Co., Ltd., 1988. Fenollosa, Ernest F. Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic Design. 2 vols. London: William Heinemann, 1912. Horiguchi, Sutemi. “Cha-Shitsu No Shisô Teki Haikei to Sono Kôsei [The Intellectual Background and Structure of Teahouses].” In Cha-Dô Zenshû [Complete Works on Cha-Dô], 3:121–208. Osaka: Sogensha Inc, 1936. Inaga, Shigemi. “Kuki Shûzô and the Idea of Metempsychosis: Recontextualizing Kuki’s Lecture on Time in the Intellectual Milieu Between the Two World Wars.” Japan Reviw 31 (2017): 105–22. Karatani, Kojin. “History and Museum: Okakura Kakuzô and Ernest Fenollosa.” In Nation and Aesthetics: On Kant and Freud, translated by Jonathan E. Abel, 65–77, 2017. 53 Ônishi, Toyo-Teki Geijutsu-Seishin [Eastern Spirit of Art], 40. 54 Ônishi, 196.

182 

Tanehisa Otabe

Laozi, and Paul Carus. Lao-Tze’s Tao-teh-king: Chinese-English. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1898. Marra, Michele. “Onishi Yoshinori and the Category of the Aesthetic.” In Modern Japanese Aesthetics: Reader, 115–40. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999. Narukawa, Takeo. Sen No Rikyû: Cha No Bigaku [Aesthetics of Tea]. Tokyo: Tamagawa University Press, 1983. Okakura, Kakuzo. Collected English Writings. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Heibonsha Limited, 1984. Okakura, Kakuzo. Okakura Tenshin Zenshû [Complete Works]. Vol. 4. 8 vols. Tokyo: Heibonsha Limited, 1980. Ônishi, Yoshinori. Toyo-Teki Geijutsu-Seishin [Eastern Spirit of Art]. Tokyo: Koubundou Publishers Inc, 1988. Otabe, Tanehisa. “‘Aesthetic Life’: A Leitmotif in Modern Japanese Aesthetics.” Contemporary Aesthetics Special Volume 6 (2018). https://doi.org/10.15083/00076543. Otabe, Tanehisa. “Representations of ‘Japaneseness’ in Modern Japanese Aesthetics: An Introduction to the Critique of Comparative Reason.” In Japanese Hermeneutics: Current Debates on Aesthetics and Interpretation, edited by Michael F. Marra, 153–64. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002. Tanaka, Seno, and Sendo Tanaka. The Tea Ceremony. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1998.

About the Author Tanehisa Otabe (born in 1958) is professor of aesthetics at the University of Tokyo. His areas of interest cover eighteenth century German aesthetics as well as intercultural aesthetics. He was president of the Japanese Society for Aesthetics from 2013–2016.

10 Skill Stories from the Zhuangzi and Arts and Crafts Aesthetic Fit, Harmony, and Transformation: Toward a Developmental, Comparative Everyday Aesthetics Jeffrey Petts

Abstract Skill stories from the Zhuangzi – the cook’s, the woodcarver’s, and the wheelwright’s, among others – are stories of craftsmanship, describing displays of skill and awe-inspiring outcomes. Also, the stories are usually understood to show that the skilled worker acts instinctively and achieves success without knowing why. This chapter examines descriptions of skill stories from the Zhuangzi in a western, as well as Chinese, philosophical aesthetic light. That is, in terms of aesthetic concepts like ‘fit’ and ‘harmony’ that occur in the skill stories. Skill stories from the Zhuangzi and arts and crafts tend to a global idea of developmental aesthetics: an everyday philosophical aesthetics that embraces both individual cultivation and social progress while maintaining different cultural traditions of beauty and creative making. Keywords: Zhuangzi, skill, craft, aesthetic experience, aesthetic education

Skill, Aesthetic Experience, and Development Skill stories from the Zhuangzi – the cook, the woodcarver, and the wheelwright, among others – have been explained as “stories of craftsmanship,” describing “displays of skill” and “awe-inspiring outcomes.”1 Also, the stories 1 Karyn Lai and Wai Wai Chiu, eds., Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi (Washington D.C.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), vii.

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch10

184 

Jeffrey Pe t ts

are usually understood to show that “the skilled woodcarver, the skilled butcher … does not ponder … on the course of action he should take: his skill has become so much part of him that he merely acts instinctively … and, without knowing why, achieves success.”2 I examine descriptions of skill stories from the Zhuangzi – about craftsmanship, spontaneity, and successful outcomes – in a western, as well as Chinese, philosophical, aesthetic light. That is, in terms of aesthetic concepts like “fit” and “harmony” that occur in the skill stories, with the transformational value of aesthetic experience in mind. In that spirit of inquiry, I concur with Thomas Merton’s qualifications and admissions about the western use of ancient Chinese philosophy. His translations of the Zhuangzi are a “free interpretative reading” of two English, one French, and one German translation.3 Similarly, I take the skill stories at their translated face value, as it were. I start, like Merton, by simply liking what I read, the general humanity in the Zhuangzi about good work and living well. I have no intention of claiming to solve a Daoist paradox or problem with some western aesthetic solution. I see the developmental value for humanity in the aesthetic characteristics illustrated by the skill stories. And the task I set is, therefore, reconstructive rather than interpretive. However, I see shared features between Chinese philosophical aesthetics and the ideas of everyday aesthetics in western philosophy that support developmental, comparative everyday aesthetics. In her comparative aesthetics, Kathleen Higgins throws some doubt on this by noting the greater prominence given to ethical considerations in non-western aesthetics: so “Chinese thought about art focuses on the relationship between aesthetics and ethics.”4 Indeed, Karyn Lai’s introduction to Chinese philosophy has headings like “Harmony” and “Self-cultivation” that reveal its aesthetic-ethical focus.5 Furthermore, Lai notes: “The early Chinese thinkers believed that the transformation of the self was the answer to the unrest of the time.”6 Roel Sterckx’s preface to Chinese Thought contends that it is “predominantly human-centered and practice-oriented” and that its “great questions” are about “how we should live our lives,” about 2 Burton Watson, “Introduction,” in The Complete Works of Zhuangzi (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), xii. 3 Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu (New York: New Directions, 1997), 9. 4 Kathleen Higgins, “Comparative Aesthetics,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, ed. Jerrold Levinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 687. 5 Karyn Lai, Introduction to Chinese Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 6. 6 Lai, 6.

Skill Stories from the Zhuangzi and Arts and Cr af ts

185

securing “well-being.”7 Lai also notes that the idea of transformation in the Daoist tradition of the Zhuangzi emphasizes intuition and experience “as opposed to life submerged within conventional practices, beliefs, and expectations.”8 Still, a similar western tradition is also suggested by Paul Guyer’s history of aesthetics, which notes the emphasis on the practical nature of aesthetic experience and the benefits to individuals and societies in the philosophical aesthetics of Friedrich Schiller, John Dewey, and Susanne Langer.9 It is a tradition of aesthetics with a broader focus than fine artworks and their appreciation and shares Chinese philosophical concerns and concepts linking the aesthetic with the ethical. This developmental tradition acknowledges the phenomenology of felt pleasure and sense of the rightness of aesthetic experience and its role in cultivating better individual lives and civilized societies. Dewey is especially associated with it (as well as the everyday aesthetics paradigm). He sets the aim of developmental aesthetics when he defines the core problem of aesthetic theory as “recovering the continuity of aesthetic experience with normal processes of living.”10 He concludes that “aesthetic experience is a record and celebration of the life of a civilization, a means of providing its development, and is also the ultimate judgment upon the quality of a civilization.”11 This general idea of developmental aesthetics in the modern Western philosophic tradition starts with Schiller’s “aesthetic education”: “there are moments or stages of development … through which both the individual man as well as the entire species must necessarily pass … to fulfill the entire arc of their destiny”: this is an “aesthetic path.”12 Langer, also writing in the context of aesthetic education and its broad role, suggested that “Art is the spearhead of human development, social and individual”; and asks, “what sort of thing is art, that it should play such a leading role in human development?”13 We also see similarities between Chinese and western aesthetics in arts and crafts practices and their understanding. Indeed, principles of Chinese

7 Roel Sterckx, Chinese Thought from Confucius to Cook Ding (London: Pelican Books, 2019), xi. 8 Lai, Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, 6. 9 Paul Guyer, The Nineteenth Century, vol. 2, History of Modern Aesthetics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 10 John Dewey, Art as Experience (Minton: Balch & Company, 1934), 10. 11 Dewey, 326. 12 Friedrich Schiller, Aesthetic Education of Man (London: Penguin Classics, 2016), 6. 13 Susanne K. Langer, “Cultural Value of the Arts’,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 1, no. 1 (1966): 12.

186 

Jeffrey Pe t ts

arts and crafts seem universal and certainly accord with exemplary western arts and crafts ideas espoused by John Ruskin and William Morris. They are: the maker as the master of things; making things of practical use that benefit everyone; respect and honesty using raw materials; taking creative leads from nature; using practical skills to convey truth, and balancing outward grace with solid worth.14 Similarly, another recent analysis of Chinese craft notes that the knowledge system of the traditional Chinese craftsman has three interrelated elements: knowledge of materials, methods, tools, and protocols; and form and decoration.15 Furthermore, western arts and crafts shares ideas with Chinese aesthetics about the contribution to living well in general of certain kinds of skilled work. It is evident in thinking about making by, for example, design theorists like Daniel Charny, who contends that “all makers participate in the unique human experience that comes from being completely engrossed in creative activity.”16 The importance or power of making is also noted by the anthropologist Daniel Miller, who conceives it as broader than the skill of crafting a thing, extending to the sense of exhilaration of seeing a “finished product of your own labor” and something that has also “made you more than you otherwise had been.”17 This harks back to the founding ideals of the arts and crafts movement expressed by William Morris. Indeed, Morris argued that work worth doing and pleasurable, if widespread throughout society, changes society to the extent that “discontent and strife and dishonesty would be ended.”18 Moreover, this happy situation follows from a “free and full life and the consciousness of life … the pleasurable exercise of our energies and the enjoyment of the rest which that exercise or expenditure of energy makes necessary to us.”19 This “True Society” is argued to remove obstacles to free work: “I have no elaborate plan, no details of a new society to lay before you … What I ask you to consider is in the main the clearing away of obstacles that stand in the way of the due and unwasteful use of 14 Jiang Han and Quihui Guo, Preface to Chinese Arts and Crafts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 15 Yiyu Xu, “The Knowledge System of the Traditional Chinese Craftsman,” West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 20, no. 2 (2013): 155–72. 16 David Charny, “Thinking of Making,” in Power of Making: The Importance of Being Skilled, ed. Charny, David (London: V&A Publishing, 2011), 7. 17 Daniel Miller, “The Power of Making,” in Power of Making: The Importance of Being Skilled, ed. David Charny, 2011, 15. 18 William Morris, “Art and Socialism,” in Signs of Changes; Lectures on Socialism, vol. 23, Collected Work of William Morris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 192. 19 William Morris, “Society of the Future,” in The Political Writings of William Morris, ed. A.L. Morton (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1984), 191.

Skill Stories from the Zhuangzi and Arts and Cr af ts

187

labor.”20 We’ll see how themes here resonate strongly with those in skill stories from the Zhuangzi. In setting the skill stories from the Zhuangzi in the context of philosophical aesthetics and arts and crafts practices, I bypass epistemological questions about knowledge and ideas of skill and mastery raised by them. The questions addressed here are about the practice of skill and mastery and how that involves nurturing and caring for life and allows personal, social and environmental life to flourish: they are, in short, about aesthetic lives. Nor do I engage with scholarship on the Zhuangzi that focuses on the supposed spiritual fulfillment suggested by the skill stories, preferring to see how far an analysis in everyday aesthetic terms takes us in what might be considered that direction. But I anticipate the skill stories themselves.

“Skill stories” from the Zhuangzi I use Merton’s rewording of translations and titles for the different stories. I have also referenced Burton Watson’s translation. I leave one important skill story to the conclusion, the wheelwright, where I compare it with a similar western example to assess philosophical arguments about aesthetic experience, workmanship, and value. As a preliminary, I present what I think can reasonably be taken as aesthetic features of key skills stories from the Zhuangzi. “Cutting up an Ox” In this story, Cook Ding is cutting up an ox for Lord Wenhui. It is observed as having great skill, where it is initially characterized as like watching “a sacred dance” with its “Rhythm! Timing!”21 Wenhui exclaims, “Imagine skill reaching such heights!”22 The cook explains that he goes from seeing nothing but “the whole ox all in one mass” through a three-year apprenticeship to being able to say, “I saw the distinctions.”23 So, when asked about dealing with rigid joints, he replies, “I feel them coming, I slow down, I watch closely.”24 He explains that “whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the 20 Morris, “Art and Socialism,” 215. 21 Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu, 45. 22 Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Zhuangzi, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 19. 23 Zhuangzi, 19. 24 Zhuangzi, 19.

188 

Jeffrey Pe t ts

Butchers and cooks working. Ink rubbing. Wuliang family shrine, Shandong Province. Second century CE (The Needham Research Institute, Cambridge)

difficulties.”25 Cook Ding then asserts that his “whole being apprehends” the work and that he is “free to work without plan.”26 He also explains why he doesn’t need to keep replacing his tools. It is because he knows how best to use them. When butchering an ox, he understands the “spaces between the joints” that allow efficient use of knives.27 Finally, the cook knows when a job is properly done: “I stand there completely satisfied and reluctant to move on … and put the knife away.”28 Wenhui concludes “excellent … I have learned how to care for life”29 and “how I ought to live my own life.”30 What features of the cook’s work have been indicated? We see the results of training, if not details of the training itself, in a particular skill; knowledge of materials and tools, if not made explicit, relevant to that skill; the centrality to attention always to the job at hand, and a felt consummatory moment of tasks successfully completed. These are features familiar to western philosophical aesthetics in so far as Cook Ding’s skill story resonates with western ideals of the aesthetic interest shown in applying everyday skills at work; and with the corresponding sense of satisfaction felt by the skilled worker and the evident quality of their work. “The Woodcarver” The master woodcarver’s work might seem, at its start, to belie any aesthetic characterization: his work begins with him fasting. “I fasted in order to set my heart at rest,” forgetting “gain,” “success,” “praise,” and “criticism.”31 But we soon realize that this “fasting” simply removes distractions from the job at hand, from anything that distracts from the woodcarver applying his skill. He 25 Zhuangzi, 20. 26 Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu, 46. 27 Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Zhuangzi, 20. 28 Zhuangzi, 20. 29 Zhuangzi, 20. 30 Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu, 47. 31 Merton, 110.

Skill Stories from the Zhuangzi and Arts and Cr af ts

189

needs to get to the point of saying: “All that might distract me from work had vanished.”32 The woodcarver’s single-mindedness is not mere detachment: it is detachment from distracting factors. It, therefore, involves selectivity and attentiveness to factors that do matter. He deliberately stills his mind to escape outside distractions, not for inexplicable inspiration. Then, in another translation, “my skill is concentrated, and all outside distractions fade away.”33 At this point, the woodcarver can examine trees and look for the suitable material for the bell stand he is to carve, for “one of superlative form” in which he can imagine the completed work.34 So, the woodcarver explains: “What happened? My collected thought encountered the hidden potential in the wood; from this live encounter came the work, which you ascribe to the spirits.”35 This idea of personal, live encounters with things culminating in experiences of value is central to western accounts, in the Deweyan tradition at least, of everyday aesthetic experience. The idea of aesthetic interest solely on the job at hand is thematic in the skill stories. And such aesthetic interest, in the western sense at least, excludes both adherence to book rules and to potential external gains from success. The former is illustrated in Cook Ding’s rejection of Lord Wuwei’s book learning and other stories from the Zhuangzi36. For example, in “Means and Ends”: “The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten,” and skilled work commences.37 The latter distraction from the work at hand is observed in “The Need to Win”: “When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill.”38 Here, the reference is to obvious for extraneous external factors like prizes: “if he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind”; “his skill has not changed, but the prize divides him. He cares [for the prize]. He thinks more of winning than of shooting.”39 Both sets of distracting non-aesthetic factors are evident in “When the Shoe Fits”: “when the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten … [Then, there are] “no drives, no compulsions, no needs, no attractions. Then your affairs are under control.”40 32 Merton, 110. 33 Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Zhuangzi, 152. 34 Zhuangzi, 152. 35 Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu, 111. 36 Merton breaks up the Zhuangzi’s stories into poems and gives them titles, which are displayed with quotation marks. 37 Merton, 154. 38 Merton, 107. 39 Merton, 107. 40 Merton, 112-13.

190 

Jeffrey Pe t ts

Yet the skill stories do engage and support an idea about the general value of skilled work beyond a skill’s successful application in particular instances. In short, skill supports, perhaps for want of a better phrase, the good life. So, in “Perfect Joy”: “Contentment and well-being at once become possible the moment you cease to act with them in view” and “you will have both happiness and well-being.”41 In “Active Life,” the virtues of skilled work are set against the lack of pleasure in lives led in accord with the “whirring of the machine” rather than with good workmanship and a product’s or activity’s quality in mind.42 People “are pressed down and crushed by external forces, fashion, the market, events, public opinion.”43 Summarizing thus far, Cook Ding’s and the woodcarver’s skill stories can be understood as descriptions and explanations of the quality and virtue of aesthetic lives. It is right to acknowledge at this juncture that contemporary analyses of skill stories routinely characterize the general “special” character attached to all the skills observed in the Zhuangzi. For example, Nathaniel F. Barrett suggests the skill stories “describe a special kind of skillful action marked by fine-tuned responsiveness, non-deliberative spontaneity, effortlessness, and enjoyment.”44 But is this description in fact one of common or garden features of all skillful work, properly conceived in aesthetic terms? For Barrett, what is supposed “special” is “the Zhuangzian theme of effortless action, or wuwei” that in turn “indicates an intimate relationship between spiritual satisfaction and skill”; as such, the theme also indicates “the transcendence of wuwei with respect to everyday instances of skillful spontaneity.”45 But, in a western aesthetic light at least, the transcendence of wuwei might indicate only all that is meant by skill proper. So, transcendent fulfillment can be conceived as aesthetic satisfaction: that felt sense of fit and harmony of a job well done that is also indicated by other aesthetic concepts like beauty in describing the quality of work, both as workmanship and finished product or activity. I offer another theoretic example. While not explicitly aesthetic, Lai’s philosophical analysis of skill, mastery, and cultivation concludes with observations that are the stock-in-trade of western, at least, developmental aesthetics. They are that there is a “discipline in cultivating particular skills,” 41 Merton, 99-102. 42 Merton, 141-42. 43 Merton, 141-42. 44 Nathaniel F Barrett, “‘”Wuwei” and Flow: Comparative Reflections on Spirituality, Transcen­ dence, and Skill in the Zhuangzi,” Philosophy East and West 61, no. 4 (2011), https://doi.org/10.1353/ pew.2011.0051. 45 Barrett.

Skill Stories from the Zhuangzi and Arts and Cr af ts

191

but they should not “become habitual and unthinking.”46 That “training is a prerequisite for mastery … [but] it is a particular mode of self-directed learning … that renders key aspects of it ineffable and untransmittable.”47 That, in summary, “spontaneity,” if we are to use the term, is careful and measured, engaging thoughtfully in the moment, acutely aware of, and completely engrossed in the act. Importantly, it has prerequisites for a trained and disciplined life. Hence, “spontaneity” is neither untrained action nor unbounded freedom to act in any way one so chooses; rather, it is possible only as a result of extensive practice, of attuning oneself to irreducible, contextual elements of each instantiation of the skill.”48 And indeed, “we need to consider how such mastery relates to life in general.”49 With that final thought in mind, I turn to another skill story from the Zhuangzi, the wheelwright’s story, and a western counterpart. I analyze them in terms of good workmanship and its general value.

Toward a Developmental, Comparative Everyday Aesthetics “The Wheelwright” presents a similar skill story to Cook Ding’s. There is an intrigued but lordly observer, skeptical of everyday, “inexplicable,” “uneducated” skill; more, wanting to assert authority. Duke Hwan questions the wheelwright on how his skill operates. Using his hammer and chisel, the wheelwright replies: “When I make wheels, if I go easy, they fall apart, if I am too rough, they fall apart.”50 So, “if I am neither too easy nor too violent, they come out right, the work is what I want it to be.”51 Pointedly: “you cannot put this into words: you just have to know how it is.”52 All this is a direct counter, a fundamental challenge, to Duke Hwan’s book knowledge, its appeals to “The experts. The authorities.”53 Of the skill, the wheelwright says, in another translation: “You can’t put it into words, and yet there’s a 46 Karyn Lai, “Skill Mastery, Cultivation and Spontaneity in the Zhuangzi: Conversations with Confucius,” in The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Philosophy, ed. Justin Tiwald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), https://www.academia.edu/42762449/_Skill_mastery_cultivation_and_spontaneity_in_the_Zhuangzi_conversations_with_Confucius_in_Justin_Tiwald. 47 Lai. 48 Lai. 49 Lai. 50 Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu, 83. 51 Merton, 83. 52 Merton, 83. 53 Merton, 83.

192 

Jeffrey Pe t ts

A typical, traditional wheelwright’s shop. Color photograph from https://www.megapixl.com/

knack to it somehow.”54 This “knack” involves working, using tools, “not too gentle, not too hard.”55 I think this idea of “knack,” whether the translation is good or not, is key to understanding the skill stories. To explain “knack,” I need to introduce a related western skill story and a separate analysis of workmanship. George Sturt’s twentieth century account of his work as a wheelwright emphasizes the “Moment of Production, when the Craftsman is actually getting his effects – this Moment which has been at the heart of Village life or of all the labor of Peasants.”56 And: “At the very moment of change, when the effort actually comes off and has its effect – this keeps the “peasant” more or less satisfied, but “superior” people never experience that satisfaction.”57 Sturt’s scare quotes mock academic understanding of skill, like that of Duke Hwan. Continuing, Sturt adds that “the moment of effectiveness, when skill is changing the raw material into the desired product is always worth ‘realizing.’” It is momentous every time …”58 Still, Sturt can also talk about the wheelwright’s work and trade for 37 chapters! I mean to suggest that 54 Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Zhuangzi 107. 55 Zhuangzi, 107. 56 George Sturt, The Wheelwright’s Shop (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), xii. 57 Sturt, xii. 58 Sturt, xii.

Skill Stories from the Zhuangzi and Arts and Cr af ts

193

the phenomenology of skilled work – that the skilled worker experiences a moment of felt satisfaction when a job is finally well done, especially – does not discount the possibility of some “knowing how.” The distinction between “skill” and “knack” noted by Christopher Janaway in Plato’s Gorgias is useful here. Socrates distinguishes between the two mutually exclusive categories. “Knack” is a mere procedure, knowing that an activity can be repeated and will work, but “the agent has no explanation.”59 In short, there is “knowing that” but not “knowing how.” A “skill,” by contrast, does involve “knowing how”: the skillful worker can explain their activity. What’s meant in practical terms? While a skill requires the ability to do something, of course, knowledge of how allows the activity to adapt to new circumstances and demands. Crucially, skill also aims at the best that can be done, not simply a repeat performance. The wheelwright in the Zhuangzi knows how: he does the best job he can each time: he just can’t put it into explanatory words. While Sturt writes about the many various tasks performed at a wheelwright’s shop, his words are still, like the wheelwright in the Zhuangzi, descriptive rather than explanatory and prescriptive. Craftspeople, skilled workers, have good, general descriptions of their skill and can display it, show how. To pass on that “knowing how,” they’ll say things like, “now you try,” “do it more like this,” “not quite,” “a good try,” “you’re getting there,” “that’s it, you know how to …!” This aesthetic education is not narrowly conceived as transmitting information, nor is it taught adequately by authorities outside of skilled practitioners. “Try your hand at this” is the educative idiom of skill. Mastery is passed on in ways like Ludwig Wittgenstein’s descriptions of “getting it right” that he argues are at the heart of aesthetic activities and evaluations.60 As David Pye states: “These [skills] can be taught, but never simply by words. Example and practice are essential as well. It is no part of a designer’s job to teach them.”61 All skills share the general features of workmanship. While skills vary between different kinds of work – as we see in the variety of skill stories from the Zhuangzi – workmanship is there in each case as “the application of the technique to making, by the exercise of care, judgment, and dexterity.”62 In the case of skill stories, the good work it exhibits is the “workmanship of risk” where “the result of every operation during production is determined 59 Christopher Janaway, Images of Excellence (Oxford: Clarendon Press Oxford, 1995), 44. 60 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Conversations and Lectures on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief (Oakland: University of California Press, 1967). 61 David Pye, The Nature and Art of Workmanship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 25. 62 Pye, 22.

194 

Jeffrey Pe t ts

by the workman.”63 This risk is what is misconceived as mere instinct by, for example, Watson. The skilled worker’s care, judgment, and dexterity are at play. The Zhuangzi skill stories are, in an aesthetic light, appealing to that feature: to good workmanship of a risky nature. And why is this important to understand? It is significant because a particular kind of workmanship is thus connected to positive personal and social outcomes. Pye concludes that such “free workmanship is one of the main sources of diversity.”64 Indeed, the workmanship of risk is required “to achieve diversity in all its possible manifestations.”65 We can think, then, of a diverse and interesting range of human products and activities; and the infinite variety of humankind behind them. Relatedly, commenting on the wheelwright’s story, Lai concludes that “mastery is personal and experiential and therefore incommunicable, unlike doctrine.”66 The contrast between individual, experiential mastery, and mere adherence to rules is important because it reveals, or at least hints at, a fundamental political contrast between different personal and social states of affairs depending on how work is organized. The ineffability of skill is, then, a function of the workmanship of risk. Its supposed distinctiveness or spontaneity is, in fact, evidence of the master craftsperson at work: of skill applied with care, attention to materials and the needs of the job at hand, and knowing when the job is done well. They aesthetically experience their skillful and good work and feel “just right.” Such lives are worthwhile, aesthetic lives. Eric Schwitzgebel cautions that wordless, spontaneous skill espoused as the highest value is another dogma (like espousing book or authority-led skill and action). But seeing skill in an aesthetic light means we do not also need to agree that “we should reject the commonly held view that Zhuangzi especially values spontaneous skillful activity of the characteristic of highly skilled artisans.”67 Skill stories in the Zhuangzi are not reducible to spontaneity; but seen in an aesthetic and developmental light, they and skillful activity are to be especially valued. I started by quoting Watson’s contention that the skill stories from the Zhuangzi illustrate instinctive actions, something like a “knack.” For him, too, they are analogies of “a purposeless mode of life.”68 The idea of freedom 63 Pye, 24 [my italics]. 64 Pye, 82. 65 Pye, 82. 66 Lai, Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, 218. 67 Eric Schwitzgebel, “The Unskilled Zhuangzi: Big and Useless and Not So Good at Catching Rats,” in Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi, ed. Karyn Lai and Wai Wai Chiu (Washington D.C.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), 107. 68 Watson, “Introduction,” ix.

Skill Stories from the Zhuangzi and Arts and Cr af ts

195

is indeed a “central theme” in the Zhuangzi, and it is right and important to see in the skill stories a general, developmental significance. But to what extent is freedom, personal and social development, simply a matter of “free[ing] yourself from the world,” as Watson interprets Zhuangzi’s central concern?69 Investigating the skill stories in an aesthetic light, we see that freedom is not entirely removed from worldly concerns but experienced and lived. Skilled workers apply their skills to real-life situations. Their freedom to do so is freedom from distractions to the proper application of a skill. In that light, Watson underplays that skill becomes part of the skilled worker before it is freely played out, and that skill is recognizable. This free, skillful work – which I think is usefully seen as the workmanship of risk, not knack – hardly amounts to “mindless activity”: there is a process of becoming skilled and skilled work is open to appraisal. In conclusion, I hope to have at least laid down some preliminary markers and suggested possible grounds for understanding skill stories that foster global, developmental aesthetic understanding and education. There is often skepticism about genuine East-West dialogue, that it must necessarily flounder with the problems of translation. But if translation poses predicaments, it also offers opportunities for the creative, collaborative reconstruction of ideas: for transformations that are also transfiguring. Skill stories from the Zhuangzi and arts and crafts tend to a global idea of developmental aesthetics: an everyday philosophical aesthetics that embraces individual cultivation and social progress while maintaining different cultural traditions of beauty and creative making.

Bibliography Barrett, Nathaniel F. “‘Wuwei’ and Flow: Comparative Reflections on Spirituality, Transcendence, and Skill in the Zhuangzi.” Philosophy East and West 61, no. 4 (2011): 679–706. https://doi.org/10.1353/pew.2011.0051. Charny, David. “Thinking of Making.” In Power of Making: The Importance of Being Skilled, edited by Charny, David, 6–13. London: V&A Publishing, 2011. Dewey, John. Art as Experience. Minton: Balch & Company, 1934. Guyer, Paul. The Nineteenth Century. Vol. 2. History of Modern Aesthetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Han, Jiang, and Quihui Guo. “Preface.” In Chinese Arts and Crafts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 69 Watson, ix.

196 

Jeffrey Pe t ts

Higgins, Kathleen. “Comparative Aesthetics.” In The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, edited by Jerrold Levinson, 679–92. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Janaway, Christopher. Images of Excellence. Oxford: Clarendon Press Oxford, 1995. Lai, Karyn. Introduction to Chinese Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Lai, Karyn. “Skill Mastery, Cultivation and Spontaneity in the Zhuangzi: Conversations with Confucius.” In The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Philosophy, edited by Justin Tiwald. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. https://www.academia. edu/42762449/_Skill_mastery_cultivation_and_spontaneity_in_the_Zhuangzi_conversations_with_Confucius_in_Justin_Tiwald. Lai, Karyn, and Wai Wai Chiu, eds. Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi. Washington D.C.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. Langer, Susanne K. “Cultural Value of the Arts’.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 1, no. 1 (1966): 5–12. Merton, Thomas. The Way of Chuang Tzu. New York: New Directions, 1997. Miller, Daniel. “The Power of Making.” In Power of Making: The Importance of Being Skilled, edited by David Charny, 14–27, 2011. Morris, William. “Art and Socialism.” In Signs of Changes; Lectures on Socialism, 23:192–214. Collected Work of William Morris. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Morris, William. “Society of the Future.” In The Political Writings of William Morris, edited by A.L. Morton, 188–91. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1984. Pye, David. The Nature and Art of Workmanship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968. Schiller, Friedrich. Aesthetic Education of Man. London: Penguin Classics, 2016. Schwitzgebel, Eric. “The Unskilled Zhuangzi: Big and Useless and Not So Good at Catching Rats.” In Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi, edited by Karyn Lai and Wai Wai Chiu, 101–8. Washington D.C.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. Sterckx, Roel. Chinese Thought from Confucius to Cook Ding. London: Pelican Books, 2019. Sturt, George. The Wheelwright’s Shop. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Watson, Burton. “Introduction.” In The Complete Works of Zhuangzi. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Conversations and Lectures on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief. Oakland: University of California Press, 1967. Xu, Yiyu. “The Knowledge System of the Traditional Chinese Craftsman.” West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 20, no. 2 (2013): 155–72. Zhuangzi. The Complete Works of Zhuangzi. Translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.

Skill Stories from the Zhuangzi and Arts and Cr af ts

197

About the Author Jeffrey Petts is an independent scholar. He has a PhD from the University of York and has published work in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, the Journal of Aesthetic Education, Historical Materialism, and the British Journal of Aesthetics. He also has papers translated and published in Chinese journals, China Book Review, and Tianjin Social Science. His book Aesthetics and Design: Experience and Value in Everyday Life is forthcoming.

Part 5 Technology and Images

11

Why We Love Our Phones A Case Study in the Aesthetics of Gadgets Janet McCracken Abstract This essay reflects on using a cell phone, evoking broader claims about our relationship to gadgets in general, arguing that despite (or rather in addition to) people’s ubiquitous claims about their psychological depen­ dence on their cellphones for practical life, we love our phones for the same reason we love most things: for their beauty and for our possession of them. The chapter argues that function follows previous forms at least as much as form follows function. It then considers the handheld quality of handheld gadgets. Furthermore, we enjoy our phones partly because of the enormous breadth of experience they pack into a tiny form. The paper also considers the particular comforting experience we get from fidgeting with our phones. We value our phones for their ability to etch and record our personal interactions, and their allowing us to handily carry our personhood for us. Keywords: mobile phones, cell phones, gadgets, design aesthetics

Introduction This past summer Samsung released their new “Z fold 3” and “Z flip 3” phones, affordable, widely advertised smartphones with folding touchscreens. The “fold” folds lengthwise and the “flip” widthwise, mimicking all the functions of a regular Galaxy smartphone, a mini-tablet, and a flip phone, respectively. As far as I know, these phones do not add any phone, text, or data functional­ ity to the Galaxy (YouTube reviewer Marques Brownlee rightly states: “If this is really the future of … smartphones, … then folding in half [has to

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch11

202 

Jane t McCr acken

be] just another feature”).1 So, why has Samsung produced these, and why are people buying them? It can only be for purely aesthetic reasons: they’re cool, pleasant to the touch, and in the case of the flip, nostalgic: Brownlee says: “kind of like a throwback to the flip phones of yesteryear.” As I’ll argue here, the new Samsung products suggest that phone design, in general, has long since abandoned the modernist mantra, “form follows function.” In fact, few of our favorite gadgets have ever obeyed that mantra. Instead, as Lewis Mumford states in his magnificent Technics and Civilization, func­ tion as often as not follows form: What happened here [with the automobile] unfortunately, is what hap­ pened in almost every department of industrial life. The new machines [of the twentieth century] followed not their own pattern but the pattern laid down by previous economic and technical structures. … [They] … have been frequently used to maintain, renew, and stabilize the structure of the old order. There is a political and financial vested interest in obsolete technical equipment.2

Invention is steeped in human history, human imagination, and human desire and therefore is never disentangled from design. Mumford again: “[the machine] exists as an element in human culture, and it promises well or ill as the social groups that exploit it promise well or ill. The machine itself makes no demands and holds out no promises: it is the human spirit that makes demands and keeps promises.”3 Kenji Ekuan, the revered designer of the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle, puts this even more strongly: “Offering functional explanations is little more than an attempt at vindication for producing something not worth the trouble in the first place.”4 Here, I will offer some reflections on the experience of using a cell phone in the hope of evoking some broader claims about our relationship to gadgets in general, arguing that despite (or rather in addition to) people’s ubiquitous claims about their psychological dependence on their cellphones for practical life, we love our phones for the same reason we love most things: for their beauty and our possession of them. “For,” states Aristotle, “there are two 1 Marques Brownlee, Samsung Z Flip 3 Review: The First Big Step!, YouTube Video, 2021, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uu9VWBgcBU. 2 Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (New York: Harvest/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1963), 236–7, 266. 3 Mumford, 6. 4 Kenji Ekuan, The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox, Ed. David B. Stewart (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 1998), 25.

Why We Love Our Phones

203

things that most cause men to care … and to love … the sense of ownership and the sense of preciousness.”5 I will, of course, never be able to exhaust the argument. For one thing, I’ll have to think in generalizations: I can’t know every individual’s intimate relation to their cellphone. Nor can I, here, get into people’s entire social and political experience of gadgets. And of course, no two models of cellphone are precisely alike. Thus, my discussion will be piecemeal and occasional. In the first section, I will argue that function follows previous forms as much as form follows function. Then, I will consider the handheld quality of handheld gadgets. In the third section, I will argue that we enjoy our phones partly because of the enormous breadth of experience they pack into a tiny form. In section four, I will consider the particular comforting experience we get from fidgeting with our phones. After that, I will develop the claim that we value our phones for their ability to etch and record our personal interactions, allowing us to handily carry our personhood for us.

Form Doesn’t Really Follow Function; Form Follows Previous Forms “We should reconsider the usefulness of the modernist design mantra coined by Louis Sullivan in 1896: ‘It is the pervading law of all things that form ever follows function,’” states Anthony Crabbe, quoting Sullivan. “That Sullivan’s assertion was so quickly accepted as law-like appears surprising today, given the abundant historical evidence that designers often innovate artifacts and systems by adapting some pre-existent form to a new function.”6 Crabbe argues that every artifact always serves at least two functions: the one intended by the designer or engineer and the communicative function that it serves in human society.7 Artifacts always mean things in addition to doing things. “[Things] are ‘interpretable.’ According to this notion, certain properties of certain objects render those objects especially apt to mean,” writes Miguel

5 Aristotle, Politics, “Volume 21.” In Aristotle in 23 Volumes, translated by H. Rackham. Cam­ bridge: Harvard University Press, 1944, 1262b. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc =urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0086.tlg035.perseus-eng1:2.1262b. 6 Anthony Crabbe is quoting Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine (March 1896, 403–09) in “Re­ considering the Form and Function Relationships in Artificial Objects,” Design Issues 29, no. 4 (2013): 5–16, https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00226. 7 Crabbe, 8–9, 16.

204 

Jane t McCr acken

Tamen in his Friends of Interpretable Objects.8 Sometimes, what an artifact means is largely attributable to decorative or symbolic additions to its surface, as in Hegel’s Symbolic Form of Art,9 and this kind of meaning is certainly not alien to the cellphone: people put stickers on their phones or covers; they choose specific colors and styles. An artifact also, of course, and importantly, means in the Marxist sense, what it costs to buy it, and therefore a certain amount of abstract human labor that it commands10 or similarly, for Veblen, the amount of leisure that its ownership demonstrates is available to its owner.11 This is something like a combination of “sign” value and “symbolic” value for Baudrillard.12 But the communicative function that Crabbe describes is also steeped in previous design, in cultural, historical knowledge: he notes, for instance, that during and after the reign of Edward I of England, the mace and long sword, designed as weapons, came to mean that whoever carried them had the king’s authority.13 We haven’t lost these ancient meanings; instead, today every artifact comes with long accreted meaning including, over the last couple of centuries, what has come to be known as “pop culture” references – an enormous, deep lexicon of aesthetic associations available to increasingly many users around the world. In the age of television (or now, serialized programs on various platforms), the depths of this cultural meaning cannot be plumbed. We can say, however, a few things about the cellphone. [We] can thank sci-fi authors for first envisioning credit cards, which go back to 1888 when Edward Bellamy wrote about them in his novel “Looking Backward.” … H. G. Wells anticipated voice mail in 1923; in-ear headphones and large flat-screen TVs were in Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel, Fahrenheit 451 … and Martin Cooper, who created the first mobile phone, said the idea came to him after watching Star Trek.14 8 Miguel Tamen, Friends of Interpretable Objects (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 130. 9 G.W.F Hegel, “The Symbol in General,” in Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T.M. Knox (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 303–426, 313–14. 10 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, trans. Ben Fowkes, vol. 1 (Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd, 1976), 129–31. 11 Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: E.B. Huebsch, 1912), 35–67. 12 Jean Baudrillard, For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, trans. Charles Levin (United States of America: Telos Press, 1981), https://monoskop.org/images/0/08/Baudrillard_ Jean_For_a_critique_of_the_political_economy_of_the_sign_1981.pdf, 154–62. 13 Crabbe, “Reconsidering the Form and Function Relationships in Artificial Objects,” 10–11. 14 Nick Bilton, “Science Fiction Writers Take a Rosier View,” New York Times, September 17, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/fashion/science-fiction-writers-take-a-rosier-view.html.

Why We Love Our Phones

205

Star Trek, 1966–69, William Shatner, using a communicator to contact the Enterprise, Episode ‘Cats paw’, 10/27/67. Paramount/Courtesy: Everett Collection.

That Cooper’s inspiration for the invention of the cellphone in 1973 came from Star Trek The Original Series’ communicator has become a common factoid.15 Cooper’s original cellphone “had limited battery power and [was] enormous … but as time moved on, the Motorola Company looked toward Trek again. The most popular model from the mid-90s flipped up with an agreeable snap, just like a TOS communicator. … The name? The StarTAC.”16 So we know that the inventor and designers of the cellphone in its early years – what Brownlee called “the flip phones of yesteryear” – explicitly evoked the popular TV show, which of course means they also evoked all the historical science and science-fiction influences on the show itself. Of course, not all of these influences are called up for every user, nor could one ever 15 For examples, see “Science Fact: The Tech Predicted by Star Trek,” The Guardian, May 15, 2009, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2009/may/15/star-trek-technology; Fads, “Star Trek and Captain Kirk Inspired Mobile Phone Inventor” (Groovy History, March 6, 2018), https://groovyhistory.com/star-trek-mobile-phone-inventor-martin-cooper; Jordan Hoffman, “First Mobile Phone Call Made 41 Years Ago Today” (Star Trek.com, April 3, 2014), https://www. startrek.com/article/first-mobile-phone-call-made-41-years-ago-today. 16 Hoffman, “First Mobile Phone Call Made 41 Years Ago Today.”

206 

Jane t McCr acken

Get Smart. 1965–70: Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, on his shoe phone. Everett Collection.

identify or articulate them explicitly. But they’re all there in the phone, and they make us feel things, even without our conscious knowledge. We may have feelings about Captain Kirk and William Shatner, including all he has done since Star Trek; we may have feelings about the other characters and actors in the show and its franchise; we may imagine the little “beep-beep” sound made by opening the communicator in the show when we pull the phone to our ear. For folks of the right generations, these feelings may include a sense of living in the future; for almost everybody, they will include nostalgia or nerd culture. Since these are feelings, with no obligation to logic, we can experience them all, even contradictory sensations, at the same time. And this is only a small portion of the sensations evoked by a single influence on the first designer of a cellphone. As a gadget, using a cellphone will always make one feel like a spy. In particular, miniaturism, on which I will say more, is always beneficial to the secret agent. Taking pictures on one’s phone from one’s smartwatch (or eyeglasses, or pen, or belt buckle), for instance, evokes the coat-button

Why We Love Our Phones

207

camera, used since the 1950s by CIA, KGB, and British Intelligence,17 or the tiny cameras used in innumerable spy novels, movies, and TV shows. The ordinary large Samsung Galaxy smartphones are similar to the shoe-phone in the spy send-up TV Show, Get Smart (also made into a 2008 movie). As a send-up, it shows the ridiculous side of the cell phone’s coolness: despite its bulkiness, one carries it everywhere; it rings at inopportune times – all of which we put up with for the sake of its intrigue. Because, as I’ll mention again, we prefer to fold things than not to do so; the mouthpiece on Smart’s shoe-phone betters the Galaxy by folding into place. So much so, then, for a tiny inroad into the gigantic network of previous forms to which we link ourselves aesthetically when we pick up our phones.

The Handheld Quality of Handheld Gadgets In his ingenious Where Are You?: An Ontology of the Cell Phone, Maurizio Ferraris invokes Heidegger’s “being at hand” as a noteworthy feature of the experience of a cell phone.18 For Ferraris, the cell phone is the “device of all devices,”19 partly because of its Heideggerian “intramundaneness.”20 Along with a relatively few other gadgets, it “populates our everyday life.”21 This is not least because of its size and shape: it fits in a human hand. Noting that the cell phone is “handheld and can be grabbed,”22 Ferraris uses the cell phone as one example of the historical continuity of human life and technology, a continuity often overlooked by commentators enrapt with the novelty of gadgets. “The world is full of medium-sized things,” he remarks, “neither too small nor too big. Feet, hands, arms are the traditional units of measurement and define the foundation of our relationship with the world: this must mean something.”23 Ekuan, discussing the pocket calculator (surely also an influence on the design of the cell phone), also notes the perennial attractiveness of little 17 “World’s First Button Camera, 1950’s” (Pimall.com), accessed November 13, 2021, https:// www.pimall.com/nais/pivintage/firstbuttoncamera.html. 18 Maurizio Ferraris, Where Are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone, trans. Sarah De Sanctis (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 65. 19 Ferraris, 27. 20 Ferraris, 26. 21 Ferraris, 26. 22 Ferraris, 30. 23 Ferraris, 30.

208 

Jane t McCr acken

things that fit in one’s hand. The pocket calculator’s “major aim,” he writes, “is operability. Conversely, the sort that is the size and shape of a bankcard approaches a notional philosophy beyond actual ease of use. … All this is to say that people frequently search for opportunities to use their pocket calculators. After all, they were attracted by their thinness.”24 The Star Trek communicator, the pocket calculator, Mattell’s 1977 Football video game, the Walkman, the iPod, the pager, the transistor radio, the wristwatch, even the little pocket notepad – all of these hand-held devices, like the clay tablets of the ancient Mesopotamians – have more design in common with the cell phone than do its telephonic predecessors, even if we consider only the handset of landline phones.25 Joyce Chaplin allies the handiness of the hand-held device with the kind of conspicuous leisure on which I’ve mentioned Veblen focuses: “But the really interesting historical development is that you hold your device in your hand, proudly, for all to see. Rather than most of us being minions who work with our hands, we hold the equivalents of those efforts in our hands. There is no stigma; we are equals.”26 True enough. But beyond the social meaning, as Heidegger, Ferraris, and Ekuan indicate, there is something timelessly aesthetically pleasing about holding one’s phone in one’s hand. The smoothness of the glass and plastic, the coolness of the metal, the tininess of the icons for the apps, the soft click of the home button, the closeness to one’s face as one picks it up (or talks into one’s phone from a distance, more like Captain Kirk): “it is intimate,” Ferraris states, “and it is used for much more private conversations than those we would be willing to have on a home phone or via e-mail.”27 If cell phones had continued along with Cooper’s original design – which looked more like an oversized walkie-talkie or a desk lamp – it is very unlikely, I think, that they would have become the ubiquity that they are for us today. That cell phones are ready to hand and feel pleasant to hold onto are absolutely central qualities of our attraction to them. Note how many people nowadays leave their homes without a pocket or a purse, having only their cellphones. 24 Kenji Ekuan, The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox, 129,133. 25 For example, see Joyce E Chaplin, “The Hand-Held’s Tale” (Aeon, October 16, 2015), https://aeon.co/essays/where-did-our-passion-for-the-handheld-device-originate; and Erin Maloney,“The History of Handheld Devices.” 2014. https://prezi.com/xli0b14xzdro/the-historyof-handheld-devices/.Alexander Santo, “The Evolution of Handheld Technology (and what it means for content marketers) (infographic)”https://www.brafton.com/blog/content-marketing/ the-evolution-of-handheld-technology-and-what-it-means-for-content-marketers-infographic/ 26 Chaplin. 27 Ferraris, Where Are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone, 27.

Why We Love Our Phones

209

The “Profusion of Enjoyment” Ekuan cites “Ten Axioms of Lunchbox Structure,”28 which “sprang from and intensified a spirit of creativity able to transcend … physical poverty.”29 The seventh axiom, “The Profusion of Enjoyment,” refers to the ability of the Japanese bento box to yield an enormous wealth of sensation in a tiny space. The shokado lunchbox, a fancy, traditional type, “contains, on average, five to six types of food in each of its four squares, bringing the total of colors and flavors to between twenty and twenty-five.”30 The bento is “packed full of information;”31 “a view of paradise … [which is] everything all at once;”32 “a richness of narrative capacity.”33 These descriptions might well have been made about the smartphone instead of the bento box, so apt are they to our everyday experience of its wonders. Still, Soroka and Dunaway suggest that people have lower cognitive access to video news content on small screens (i.e., phones) than on big screens.34 Byron Reeves et al. found that small screens elicited less arousal than larger ones and suggested that this would lead to corresponding differences in memory of what was seen.35 In their 2004 article, “Do Size and Structure Matter to Mobile Phone Users?” Chae and Kim found that: [Internet-enabled] phones … have resources vastly inferior to those of the desktop computers that access the … Internet. [They] suffer from small screens, … limited storage, [and] a short battery life … Though mobile devices will … gradually redress many of their present limitations, the display is not likely to become much larger, for the need for portability will continue. … Therefore, most of the time, users … have to scroll … select … scroll … select … and so on, repeatedly.36

28 Ekuan, The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox, 8. 29 Ekuan, 7. 30 Ekuan, 15. 31 Ekuan, 18. 32 Ekuan, 25. 33 Ekuan, 42. 34 Johanna Dunaway and Stuart Soroka, “Smartphone-Size Screens Constrain Cognitive Access to Video News Stories,” Information, Communication & Society 24, no. 1 (2021): 69–84, https:// doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1631367, 10. 35 Byron Reeves et al., “The Effects of Screen Size and Message Content on Attention and Arousal,” Media Psychology 1, no. 1 (1999): 49–67, https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532785xmep0101_, 62. 36 Minhee Chae and Jinwoo Kim, “Do Size and Structure Matter to Mobile Users? An Empirical Study of the Effects of Screen Size, Information Structure, and Task Complexity on User Activities

210 

Jane t McCr acken

Humphreys et al. found that “When the context facilitated a more immersive Internet experience [doing research, shopping, etc.] [people] would use their laptops or netbooks, but if the context encouraged extractive uses [i.e., “checking” things like email], people in our study would typically reach for their mobile phones.”37 These are just a few of the myriad studies finding that the functionality of the web is lower on smartphones than on larger devices. Moreover, “The posture we have while using these devices can potentially give rise to musculoskeletal issues. More and more studies link phone use with pain and dysfunction.”38 So, as little vehicles to the World Wide Web, we can say that smartphones are neither as functional nor as comfortable as larger devices. Why, then, do we love to use our phones this way, as mini-internet devices, at least as much as we like to use them as telephones? As Dunaway and Soroka note, “mobile technology facilitates wide­ spread physical access to information;”39 the cellphone is phenomenally democratic – and populist. “[Hailed] by many as a force of liberation and a socio-technical innovation set almost naturally against repression and surveillance,” write Christensen and Groshek, “[the] aura of the democratic and liberating potential of emerging media is fading as theoretical and empirical analyses … continue …”40 The social and political effects of the ubiquity of mobile phones stem in part, of course, from their being relatively inexpensive. “Even if you are homeless and therefore cannot have a home phone, you can get a mobile phone,” notes Ferraris. 41 While the social or political access and the convenience that smartphones provide influence our attachment to them, I believe we are primarily drawn to them for their access to experience. For Ekuan, the bento box is representative of Japanese design from the tea ceremony onward, a design with Standard Web Phones,” Behaviour & Information Technology 23, no. 3 (2004): 165–81, https:// doi.org/10.1080/01449290410001669923, 165–66. 37 Lee Humphreys, Thilo von Pape, and Veronika Karnowski, “Evolving Mobile Media: Uses and Conceptualizations of the Mobile Internet,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 18, no. 4 (2013): 491–507, https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12019, 502. 38 Marc Lambert, “Postural Awareness with Mobile Devices” (Center for Physical Rehabilita­ tion, September 18, 2018), https://www.cprtherapy.org/blog/Postural-Awareness-with-MobileDevices~6435.html. 39 Dunaway and Soroka, “Smartphone-Size Screens Constrain Cognitive Access to Video News Stories,” 2. 40 Christensen Britt and Jacob Groshek, “Emerging Media, Political Protests, and Government Repression in Autocracies and Democracies from 1995 to 2012,” International Communication Gazette 82, no. 8 (2020): 685–704, https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048518825323, 685–86. 41 Ferraris, Where Are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone, 32–33.

Why We Love Our Phones

211

philosophy he claims has allowed the people of a relatively hardscrabble island nation to “convert poverty into wealth,”42 by which he means a wealth of sensations rather than anything financial or socio-economic. We like to hold in our hands things small and pleasant to the touch. We like to tap little icons, just as, claims Ekuan, pocket calculators, with their tiny buttons, “are presumably only used in times of true emergency … [as] when, at a bar, it is decided to go Dutch, but usually the cashier has already figured out how much each person is to pay …”43 This demonstrates, according to Ekuan, our enjoyment of taking out our little handheld machines and playing with them. The little app icons on our phones are so cute, each its own with little design and meaning. It is pleasant, like ice-skating, to gracefully swipe the screen. The little clicks charm us, not to mention the ringtones. And when we tap on an icon, so unlike with the pocket calculator, an enormous world of experience opens up to us, immeasurably greater than Ekuan foresaw. “Smushed within it, your device holds several diminished bits of history: clock, positioning system, camera, audio works, televisual display, phone, artificial intelligence, game console, all in one case, one that slips into a pocket of your jeans,” writes Joyce Chaplin.44 And while it can be frustrating to scroll and tap our way through the information on our phones, we are somehow willing to do so, even hundreds of times a day. The convenience of having so much information available ready to hand surely accounts for our attachment to our phones. But as I have noted, the actual quality of that information is low, usually unnecessary, and widely available more comfortably through other devices. I can only conclude that we like using our phones: we enjoy having vast experiences pop out of this little package whenever we touch it. As Ekuan writes of the pocket calculator, “[it] is a thing of beauty held in the hand.”45

Phones as Things to Fidget With Peter Marshall, the original Hollywood Squares game show host, often offered a nervous contestant a paper clip to fiddle with. Literature on attention and fidget spinners – pro and con – abounds. 46 Knitting groups, sewing groups, 42 Ekuan, The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox, xv. 43 Ekuan, 129. 44 Chaplin, “The Hand-Held’s Tale.” 45 Ekuan, The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox, 133. 46 For example, see the Introductory literature review in Julia S. Soares and Benjamin C. Storm, “Putting a Negative Spin on It: Using a Fidget Spinner Can Impair Memory for a Video Lecture,”

212 

Jane t McCr acken

quilting groups, etc., extol the calming benef its of intricate work with one’s hands, and a vast wealth of scientific papers support these findings. 47 Fidgeting has been recommended as a weight-loss strategy.48 In a charming essay in The Lancet in 2005, historian Rhodri Hayward notes that “[fidget] has moved full circle – from a way of engaging attention to become a sign of the failure of attention, and now reappearing as a tool for managing our attention. … An irritating habit has now become a new technique in pursuing psychological and bodily perfection.”49 For good or ill, then, people fidget. This is undoubtedly related, in some way, to our love of hand-held, hand-sized things. Joyce Chaplin again: “Here I propose Chaplin’s Law: every eventual hand-held device has shrunk from an earlier portable incarnation, one that had to be borne by two hands … As with the accurate watch, descended from bigger clocks, so with cameras, radios, telephones, computers, TV systems, and pinball machines (the original game consoles). All of them [shrank] … to palm-sized or smaller …”50 Whatever we can devise to fit in our hand, we do, and, according to Chaplin, this marks the bearer as someone who doesn’t work with their hands, their hands being occupied with more heady activity. Better yet, according to Chaplin, as to Veblen,51 one marks one’s social standing by having a pocket, a purse, or ideally, another person, hold one’s hand-held things, including, for Veblen, bringing one’s food to one’s mouth. So what does the high-status, conspicuously leisured person do with their hands? Something useless, intellectual, meditative, beautiful. The banner photo for Chaplin’s article is a detail of Hans Holbein the Younger’s “Portrait of the Merchant Georg Gisze” (1532), which focuses on Gisze’s hands, holding a folded piece of paper, a letter from the sitter’s brother.52 Many other letters Applied Cognitive Psychology 41, no. 1 (2020): 277–84, https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3610. Googling “fidget spinners” will reveal a vast set of online advice, pro and con. 47 For example, see Jill Riley, Betsan Corkhill, and Clare Morris, “The Benefits of Knitting for Personal and Social Wellbeing in Adulthood: Findings from an International Survey” 76, no. 2 (2013): 50–57, https://doi.org/10.4276/030802213X13603244419077. 48 For example, see James A. Levine, Sara J. Schleusner, and Michael D. Jensen, “Energy Ex­ penditure of Nonexercise Activity,” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 72, no. 6 (2000): 1451–54, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/72.6.1451. 49 Rhodri Hayward, “Fidgeting,” The Lancet 366, no. 9486 (2005): 627, https://doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(05)67125-5, 627. 50 Chaplin, “The Hand-Held’s Tale.” 51 Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, 40–43. 52 Thomas S. Holman, “Holbein’s Portraits of the Steelyard Merchants: An Investigation,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 14 (1979): 139–58, https://doi.org/10.2307/1512741, 141.

Why We Love Our Phones

213

hang about the wall.53 The web designer has picked up on Chaplin’s implied relationship between heady hand-held objects and letters written on folded paper. Folding, especially folding paper, or more specifically, folding paper communications of a private nature, comprises a long-beloved category of fidgeting. “[The] earliest evidence for the existence and use of paper comes from China,” writes David Mitchell, but “the history of paper folding is compli­ cated by the fact that most historians of paper seem to concentrate almost exclusively on its manufacture and its use as a medium for writing, drawing, or printing upon and largely ignore its history as a foldable material.”54 Mitchell focuses primarily on “recreational paper folding”: “entertain­ ments and magical effects, for educational purposes, to illustrate mathemati­ cal principles, to create toys and puzzles, to create decorations for the home, as a pastime, as an art form …”55 This habit, too, Ekuan might have described as participating in “lunchbox” culture: “One of the many aspects of Japanese culture is origami,”56 write Kobayashi and Yamada, and Mitchell remarks: “The earliest kind of paper folding we know of from Japan is the folding of kawahori or pleated paper fans. In 988, for instance, such a fan appears in a document … as being among gifts given from Japan to the Song Dynasty in China.”57 Henry Petroski, the marvelous Duke engineering professor who gave us The Pencil (1990), The Toothpick (2007), and Paperboy: Confessions of a Future Engineer (2002), among others, describes the joys of clever newspaper folding, enabling effective tossing by paperboys, noting, “[it] is nice to think that equally appreciative newspaper subscribers admired the properly folded paper that opened easily and presented for reading a minimally creased artifact.”58 It should be no surprise, then, that Samsung has availed itself of our love of folding, especially of folding our private communications. Cellphone use has inherited many of the communicative functions of paper, as I’ll discuss more. How often does one receive a single sheet of paper that one does not immediately fold? Rarely, in my experience. 53 Holman, 143. 54 David Mitchell, “The Public Paperfolding History Project” (Origami Heaven), accessed November 3, 2021, http://www.origamiheaven.com/historyindex.htm. 55 Mitchell. 56 Maria do Carmo Monteiro Kobayashi and Thaís Regina Ueno Yamada, “Origami and Kirigami: Art and Culture as a Recreational and Educational Resource,” Revista Ciência Em Extensão 9, no. 3 (2013), 148-58, 148. 57 Mitchell, “The Public Paperfolding History Project.” 58 Henry Petroski, “Engineering: Industrial Origami,” American Scientist 93, no. 1 (2005): 12–16, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27858507, 16.

214 

Jane t McCr acken

Phones as Inscription Devices “The hand inscribes, the tabula records. … The hand can use prostheses, for example, clubs, daggers, pens, keyboards, a mouse, or a mobile phone. … The tabula also needs prostheses: all the writing surfaces in this world, like cave walls, papyrus, paper, computer memory, or mobile phones,’”59 remarks Ferraris. As ancient as fidgeting, as fundamental as human dimensions, as spiritually necessary as multiplying our sensible experiences, is our love of recording. Ferraris calls “the possibility to leave traces and to record in written form … the most ancient and remote of technical resources.”60 While much can be said about the cellphone as a communicative device, our love of our phones is arguably more closely related to their recording functions. About the social upheavals of the Early Modern period, Mumford claims “[to] exist was to exist in print.”61 Print, the mass production of inscription, “released people from the domination of the immediate and the local.”62 The democratizing effect of print, then, shared in the development of the kind of person who could live in a modern democracy (or rather, for both Mumford and Ferraris, a modern capitalist society),63 the type of person embodied just as much in their “papers” as in their arms and legs. This is a mobile person, one who can go anywhere as long as they show the right documents; one who can have bequeathed after they have died, one whose sex can be determined before they are born; even one who can exist in no way other than in documents, like George Kaplan, invented by American spies as a decoy in Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest.64 Indeed, Ferraris takes his title, Where Are You? from the existential change in our experience of personhood on account of the recording, etching function of the mobile phone. In the olden days, one’s first question upon answering the telephone was “who is this?” a stark acknowledgment of the disembodied voice, of one’s lack of knowledge of personhood on account of not being in the presence of the speaker. Now, on the contrary, notes Ferraris, we know all about the personhood of our contacts and callers. What we want to know is where they are,65 and even this can now be tracked, by one’s parents or by the police, through the recording of their whereabouts 59 Ferraris, Where Are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone, 69. 60 Ferraris, 59. 61 Mumford, Technics and Civilization, 136. 62 Mumford, 136. 63 Mumford, 26–27; Ferraris, Where Are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone, 82–84. 64 Alfred Hitchcock, North By Northwest, Amazon Streaming (Warner Brothers, 1959). 65 Ferraris, Where Are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone, 11–25.

Why We Love Our Phones

215

on their cellphones. “For many years, the cell phone’s ancestor, the landline telephone, had no screen at all. Yet, the cellphone had a screen almost from its very beginning,”66 writes Galit Wellner, attributing this fact to our early desire to read from our phones and hear through them. The recording function made the phone into a “quasi-other.”67 “Important things go in a case,” says George Costanza about his uncom­ fortably large wallet. “You’ve got a filing cabinet under half of your ass,” Jerry tells him. “This is an organizer, a secretary, and a friend,”68 George responds, summing up the essence of this carrier of our public personhood, once again more an ancestor of the cellphone than might be any earlier telephone. Ferraris attributes to Derrida this recognition that inscription precedes communication in at least this crucial aesthetic sense. Inscriptions – idiomatic, public, and enduring – solidify in metal and plastic the social animality that Aristotle observed.69 “The social world,” writes Ferraris, “is a world of receipts, checks, banknotes, and other vouchers. … Acts create objects through writings and papers. … [From] the papers on our desks that now host mainly our computers, to legal writings, … to ID cards, credit cards, and playing cards.”70 To this list of personal documentation now performed for us by our cellphones, we could now add tickets (for special events and travel, as well as for misdemeanors), leases, deeds, and warrantees. Of course, our phones carry our email communication and our calendars. Social media posts and texts are now used ubiquitously as legal evidence of our formerly private misdeeds. Tamen describes the relationship between documents and legal persons, such as those inanimate objects sometimes tried at law: “The physical body that is the cause of my desire for revenge can become an object of revenge only as long as it is embodied by personification, that is, made into a persona (if not a person). The law can only operate on such embodiments.71 Similar to Costanza, Tamen refers to interpretable objects as, in some sense, our “friends.”72 For Mumford and Ferraris, these permanent records form the 66 Galit Wellner, “The Quasi-Face of the Cell Phone: Rethinking Alterity and Screens,” Human Studies 37, no. 3 (2014): 299–316u, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-013-9304-y, 300. 67 Referring to Don Idhe, see Wellner, 300. 68 Seinfeld, season 9, episode 12, “The Reverse Peephole,” directed by Andy Ackerman, written by Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, and Spike Feresten, featuring Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards, aired January 15, 1998, in broadcast syndication, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, DVD. 69 Aristotle, Politics 1253a1. 70 Ferraris, Where Are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone, 112–13. 71 Tamen, Friends of Interpretable Objects, 81. 72 Tamen, 136–41.

216 

Jane t McCr acken

social world. Citing Hemingway, Mumford remarks on the new kind of personhood with which we have been graced, or saddled, in the age of the camera: “Alone, he still thinks of himself as a public character, being watched: … everyone, from the crone in a remote hamlet to the political dictator on his … stage [has a] sense of a public world, [which seems] in part … to be the result of the camera.”73 Bringing together this “point … in political philosophy [with] … discus­ sions about interpretation,” Tamen remarks: [There] is a connection between deferring to an object and ascribing intrinsic properties to it. Deferring to objects … namely, interpretation, [consists] in the ascription of intrinsic properties to those objects. These activities I … call ‘representation.’ In this sense, therefore, intrinsic properties have been described as a function of representation, not, as is customarily the case, as its antecedent. … intrinsic dignity and meaning are bestowed goods, very much like compliments or honors, retrospective forms of acknowledgment.74

“Like death in Heidegger,” echoes Ferraris, “the mobile phone is only ours: no one – in principle – can answer someone else’s phone, just like no one can die in place of someone else.”75 We give our phones, then, like our friends, the respect of vouching for us. They represent us. To become a true outlaw, one must abandon one’s phone.

Closing Thoughts Thus our cellphones, like all gadgets I expect, by following previous forms at least as much as their function, evoke. They are widely interpretable and full of meaning and experience. The other gadgets on my desk – my calculator, my stapler, my tape dispenser shaped like a cat – all mean things as well, of course. But my phone has an evocative power that outstrips every gadget, I imagine, besides the desktop and laptop computer. Aesthetically, the phone has it all over the computer on account of its being hand-sized and handheld: computers can’t be with one all the time, nor consequently, can they display one’s possession of them to the public. And they evoke different sorts of 73 Mumford, Technics and Civilization, 243. 74 Tamen, Friends of Interpretable Objects, 141. 75 Ferraris, Where Are You?: An Ontology of the Cell Phone, 19.

Why We Love Our Phones

217

things – TVs, windshields, canvases, desks – larger, more middle-class, even older, technologies. Bigger computers don’t function well as cameras; they don’t have GPS; they don’t text. Furthermore, while the action of the keyboard, the movement and click of the mouse, and the feel and ease of the touchpad in these other multiply evocative gadgets are undoubtedly vital to one’s enjoyment of them, they cannot rival the sheer amount of pleasant sensations packed into the smartphone, not least on account of their bulky size relative to the magical miniaturism of the phone. Phones are cute. We draw this enormity of experience from a tiny package that makes that experience more fun. Not least among its hand-sized charms is the phone’s service as something to fidget with. Laptops and tablets fold, but phones fold in one’s hand – in one’s pocket. Even non-folding phones can be checked and rechecked at any time and in any place: one can open and close an app just to be doing it. And unlike playing with a paperclip or picking one’s nails, one can appear to be doing something meaningful and worthwhile when one fidgets with one’s phone, even if that might also seem rude. I lastly discussed how one’s cell phone enables one’s social existence; one’s legal recognition as a person, a little like a birth certificate but much more like a wallet. As a wallet, one’s phone is a pocket-sized device into which one places important personal documents; one puts one’s trust in it. But the phone betters the wallet in the sheer number of such personal validations that we entrust to it. Feeling alienated? Refer to a thousand photographs of your ancestors. Insecure? Deposit a check in your bank account or check your credit score. Unappreciated? Buy yourself something nice online. Avoid the gaze of your interlocutor by fiddling with it; escape the boredom of the waiting room; ask it to wake you up if you nod off. One makes one’s cellphone into one’s constant representative, one’s constant companion. One’s cellphone, like any other gadget, but more so, has one’s back – and can betray one’s trust. In that, it’s quite a bit like a friend.

Bibliography Aristotle. “Volume 21.” In Aristotle in 23 Volumes, translated by H. Rackham. Cam­ bridge: Harvard University Press, 1944. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0086.tlg035.perseus-eng1:2.1262b. Baudrillard, Jean. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. Translated by Charles Levin. United States of America: Telos Press, 1981. https://monoskop. org/images/0/08/Baudrillard_Jean_For_a_critique_of_the_political_economy_ of_the_sign_1981.pdf.

218 

Jane t McCr acken

Bilton, Nick. “Science Fiction Writers Take a Rosier View.” New York Times, Sep­ tember 17, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/fashion/science-fictionwriters-take-a-rosier-view.html. Brafton: “Build Your Brand.” May 28, 2019. https://www.brafton.com/blog/contentmarketing/the-evolution-of-handheld-technology-and-what-it-means-forcontent-marketers-infographic/ Brooks, Mel, and Buck Henry. Get Smart. Featuring Don Adams and Barbara Feld­ man. 1965; NBC. TV. Brownlee, Marques. Samsung Z Flip 3 Review: The First Big Step! YouTube Video, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uu9VWBgcBU. Chae, Minhee, and Jinwoo Kim. “Do Size and Structure Matter to Mobile Users? An Empirical Study of the Effects of Screen Size, Information Structure, and Task Complexity on User Activities with Standard Web Phones.” Behaviour & Information Technology 23, no. 3 (2004): 165–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/014492 90410001669923. Chaplin, Joyce E. “The Hand-Held’s Tale.” Aeon, October 16, 2015. https://aeon.co/ essays/where-did-our-passion-for-the-handheld-device-originate. Christensen, Britt and Jacob Groshek. “Emerging Media, Political Protests, and Government Repression in Autocracies and Democracies from 1995 to 2012.” International Communication Gazette 82, no. 8 (2020): 685–704. https://doi. org/10.1177/1748048518825323. Crabbe, Anthony. “Reconsidering the Form and Function Relationships in Artificial Objects.” Design Issues 29, no. 4 (2013): 5–16. https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00226. Dunaway, Johanna, and Stuart Soroka. “Smartphone-Size Screens Constrain Cogni­ tive Access to Video News Stories.” Information, Communication & Society 24, no. 1 (2021): 69–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1631367. Ekuan, Kenji. The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox. Edited by David B. Stewart. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. Fads. “Star Trek and Captain Kirk Inspired Mobile Phone Inventor.” Groovy History, March 6, 2018. https://groovyhistory.com/star-trek-mobile-phone-inventormartin-cooper. Ferraris, Maurizio. Where Are You?: An Ontology of the Cell Phone. Translated by Sarah De Sanctis. New York: Fordham University Press, 2014. The Guardian. “Science Fact: The Tech Predicted by Star Trek,” May 15, 2009. https:// www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2009/may/15/star-trek-technology. Hayward, Rhodri. “Fidgeting.” The Lancet 366, no. 9486 (2005): 627. https://doi. org/10.1016/S0140-6736(05)67125-5. Heatter, Merrill, and Bob Quigley. The Hollywood Squares. Hosted by Peter Marshall. 1966; NBC. TV.

Why We Love Our Phones

219

Hegel, G.W.F. “The Symbol in General.” In Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, translated by T.M. Knox, 303–426. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. Hitchcock, Alfred. North By Northwest. Amazon Streaming. Warner Brothers, 1959. Hoffman, Jordan. “First Mobile Phone Call Made 41 Years Ago Today.” Startrek. com, April 3, 2014. https://www.startrek.com/article/first-mobile-phone-callmade-41-years-ago-today. Holman, Thomas S. “Holbein’s Portraits of the Steelyard Merchants: An In­ vestigation.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 14 (1979): 139–58. https://doi. org/10.2307/1512741. Humphreys, Lee, Thilo von Pape, and Veronika Karnowski. “Evolving Mobile Media: Uses and Conceptualizations of the Mobile Internet.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 18, no. 4 (2013): 491–507. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12019. Kobayashi, Maria do Carmo Monteiro, and Thaís Regina Ueno Yamada. “Origami and Kirigami: Art and Culture as a Recreational and Educational Resource.” Revista Ciência Em Extensão 9, no. 3 (2013). Lambert, Marc. “Postural Awareness with Mobile Devices.” Center for Physical Rehabilitation, September 18, 2018. https://www.cprtherapy.org/blog/PosturalAwareness-with-Mobile-Devices~6435.html. Levine, James A., Sara J. Schleusner, and Michael D. Jensen. “Energy Expenditure of Nonexercise Activity.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 72, no. 6 (2000): 1451–54. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/72.6.1451. Maloney, Erin. “The History of Handheld Devices.” 2014. https://prezi.com/ xli0b14xzdro/the-history-of-handheld-devices/. Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Translated by Ben Fowkes. Vol. 1. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd, 1976. Mitchell, David. “The Public Paperfolding History Project.” Origami Heaven. Ac­ cessed November 3, 2021. http://www.origamiheaven.com/historyindex.htm. Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilization. New York: Harvest/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1963. Petroski, Henry. “Engineering: Industrial Origami.” American Scientist 93, no. 1 (2005): 12–16. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27858507. PI Mall. “World’s First Button Camera, 1950’s.” Accessed November 13, 2021. https:// www.pimall.com/nais/pivintage/firstbuttoncamera.html. Reeves, Byron, Annie Lang, Eun Young Kim, and Deborah Tatar. “The Effects of Screen Size and Message Content on Attention and Arousal.” Media Psychology 1, no. 1 (1999): 49–67. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532785xmep0101_4. Riley, Jill, Betsan Corkhill, and Clare Morris. “The Benefits of Knitting for Personal and Social Wellbeing in Adulthood: Findings from an International Survey” 76, no. 2 (2013): 50–57. https://doi.org/10.4276/030802213X13603244419077.

220 

Jane t McCr acken

Santo, Alexander. “The Evolution of Handheld Technology (and what it means for content marketers) https://www.brafton.com/blog/content-marketing/theevolution-of-handheld-technology-and-what-it-means-for-content-marketersinfographic/ Seinfeld, season 9, episode 12, “The Reverse Peephole.” Directed by Andy Ackerman, featuring Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards, aired January 15, 1998, in broadcast syndication, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, DVD. Soares, Julia S., and Storm, Benjamin C. “Putting a Negative Spin on It: Using a Fidget Spinner Can Impair Memory for a Video Lecture.” Applied Cognitive Psychology 41, no. 1 (2020): 277–84. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3610. Tamen, Miguel. Friends of Interpretable Objects. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: E.B. Huebsch, 1912. Wellner, Galit. “The Quasi-Face of the Cell Phone: Rethinking Alterity and Screens.” Human Studies 37, no. 3 (2014): 299–316u. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10746-013-9304-y.

About the Author Janet McCracken is Professor of Philosophy at Lake Forest College. She specializes in aesthetics, ancient Greek philosophy, philosophy of humans and animals, environmental ethics, and film studies. She has published two books – Taste and the Household (SUNY Press, 2001), and Thinking About Gender (Harcourt-Brace College Publishers, 1997). Her recent articles include reflections on grief, the aesthetics of recycling, and western films of the 1970s.

12 Filming the Everyday Between Aesthetics and Politics Peng Feng Abstract Photography and aesthetics of the everyday are closely related because both seem to go beyond the scope of the arts. Photography is an art particularly suited to this everyday aesthetics, not only because photography takes everyday life as its subject, but also because it challenges the distinction between the arts and popular culture. However, since the technology of photography has made great progress over the past hundred years, and accordingly, our conception of photography as art has changed dramatically. In this chapter, three Chinese artists from different periods are used to illustrate the changes in our conception of photography as art. The chapter argues that, strictly speaking, the aesthetics of everyday life is only possible when surveillance camera technology is widely used. Of course, the questions raised by surveillance footage are not only aesthetic, but also political. Keywords: everyday aesthetics, photography, surveillance cameras, Chinese aesthetics, technology

Photography and everyday aesthetics are closely related because both seem to go beyond the scope of the arts. “Everyday aesthetics,” according to Crispin Sartwell’s definition, “refers to the possibility of aesthetic experience of non-art objects and events, as well as to a current movement within the field of philosophy of art which rejects or puts into question distinctions such as those between fine and popular art, art and craft, and aesthetic and non-aesthetic experiences.”1 Photography is an art particu1 Crispin Sartwell, “Aesthetics of the Everyday,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, ed. Jerrold Levinson, 761. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 761–70.

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch12

222 

Peng Feng

larly suited to this everyday aesthetics, not only because photography takes everyday life as its subject but also because it challenges the distinction between the arts and popular culture. However, since the technology of photography has made significant progress over the past hundred years, our conception of photography as an art has changed dramatically. In this chapter, I select three Chinese artists from different periods to illustrate the changes in our conception of photography as art. I will argue that strictly speaking, the aesthetics of everyday life is only possible when surveillance camera technology is widely used. Of course, the questions raised by the surveillance footage are not only aesthetic but also political.

The Ontology of Photography For some aestheticians, photography is hardly considered an art because it somehow threatens the ontological status of art as representation. André Bazin claims: “The photographic image is the object itself, the object free from the conditions of time and space that govern it.”2 Bazin argues: “Its automatic genesis distinguishes it radically from the other techniques of reproduction. The photograph proceeds by means of the lens to the taking of a veritable impression in light – to a mold. As such, it carries with it more than mere resemblance, namely a kind of identity.”3 Inspired by Bazin’s Realist film theory, Stanly Cavell emphasizes that photography’s automatism eliminates subjective elements from pictorial reproduction. Therefore, a significant distinction between photography and painting pictorial reproduction should be pointed out. Cavell writes: “Photography overcame subjectivity in a way undreamed of by painting, a way that could not satisfy painting, one which does not so much defeat the act of painting as escape it altogether: by automatism, by removing the human agent from pictorial reproduction.”4 Therefore, Cavell claims: “A photograph does not present us with ‘likenesses’ of things; it presents us, we want to say, with the things themselves.”5

2 André Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Images,” in What Is Cinama?, trans. Hugh Gray, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 14. 3 André Bazin, “Theatre and Cinema,” in What is Cinema? trans. Hugh Gray, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 96. 4 Stanley Cavell, The World Viewed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 23. 5 Cavell, 17.

Filming the Everyday

223

Roger Scruton also asserts: “In some sense, looking at a photograph is a substitute for looking at the thing itself.”6 However, both Cavell and Bazin do not ignore the distinction between a photograph and what it is a photograph of. Bazin observes that a film audience identifies himself with the hero in the story more easily than a theater audience. Bazin illustrates it by comparing chorus girls on the stage and the screen: “On the screen, they satisfy an unconscious sexual desire, and when the hero joins them, he satisfies the desire of the spectator in the proportion to which the latter has identified himself with the hero. On the stage, the girls excite the onlooker as they would in real life. The result is that there is no identification with the hero. He becomes instead an object of jealousy and envy.”7 Cavell is also aware of the unique ontological status of photographs. He admits: “We do not know what a photograph is; we do not know how to place it ontologically. We might say that we don’t know how to think of the connection between a photograph and what it is a photograph of. The image is not a likeness; it is not exactly a replica, relic, shadow, or apparition either, though all of these natural candidates share a striking feature with photographs – an aura or history of magic surrounding them.”8 I do not want to clarify the ontological status of photographs in this chapter. The relationship between a photograph and its object cannot be characterized as likeness or unlikeness, but something between likeness and unlikeness. This betweenness seems elusive in Western metaphysics, according to which entities are divided into either physical objects or mental objects. However, works of art seem to be neither physical nor mental objects but something between the material and the mental. To accept entities that exist between the bifurcation categories, we need to extend the system of ontological categories. As Amie Thomasson points out: “to accommodate paintings, sculptures, and the like, we must give up the simple bifurcation between mind-independent and mind-internal entities and acknowledge the existence of entities that depend in different ways on both the physical world and human intentionality.”9 The aesthetic merit of works of art seems to lie in the betweenness or the ontological disparity between a representation and its represented 6 Roger Scruton, “Photography and Representation,” Critical Inquiry 7, no. 3 (1981): 588. 7 Bazin, “Theatre and Cinema,” 99. 8 Cavell, The World Viewed, 17–8. 9 Amie Thomasson, “The Ontology of Art,” in The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics, ed. Peter Kivy (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 89.

224 

Peng Feng

object. According to Adam Smith’s observation, artistic imitation exists only where the resemblance is created between a represented object and its representation in a different medium. The greater the ontological disparity between a representation and its object represented, the greater the aesthetic pleasure arising from the representation. Therefore, Smith asserts that we must enjoy a good painting more than a good sculpture: “In Painting, a plain surface of one kind is made to resemble, not only a plain surface of another but all the three dimensions of a solid substance. In Statuary and Sculpture, a solid substance of one kind is made to resemble a solid substance of another. The disparity between the object imitating and the object imitated is much greater in the one art than in the other, and the pleasure arising from the imitation seems to be greater in proportion as this disparity is greater.”10 Chinese artists and aestheticians are susceptible to this betweenness or ontological disparity. For example, Chinese painters prefer neither likeness nor unlikeness but the betweenness between likeness and unlikeness. As Qi Baishi 齐白石(1864–1957) says: “Painting is wonderful in between likeness and unlikeness. The mere likeness is kitsch, while unlikeness is deceit.”11 “Likeness” means that a painting closely resembles its object or subject matter; “unlikeness” means that a painting does not resemble anything. In a likeness painting, we see only the depicted subject matter, not the medium; in an unlikeness painting, we see only the medium, not the depicted subject matter; in a painting between likeness and unlikeness, we see both the depicted subject matter and the medium. The aesthetic merit lies partly in the disparity or tension between its object and medium. What threatens photography as art is not only its lack of ontological disparity but also its automatism. Because of automatism, the photographer’s intention cannot penetrate her works. Therefore, as Scruton points out: “If one finds a photograph beautiful, it is because one finds something beautiful in its subjects.”12 By the same token, if one recognizes a photograph as art, it is because one recognizes something art in its subject, not because the photograph itself is art. In short, to enter the art family, photography must either maintain its ontological disparity or break its causal link so that photographer’s intention 10 Adam Smith, “Of the Nature of That Imitation Which Takes Place in What Are Called the Imitative Arts,” in Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ed. W. P. D Wightman and J. C. Bryce (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982), 179. 11 Baishi Qi, “Discussing Painting with Hu Peiheng and Others,” in A Collection of Qi Baishi Remarks on Art, ed. Zhende Wang and Tianxiu LI (Zhengzhou: Henan Meishu Press, 1996), 70. 12 Scruton, “Photography and Representation,” 589.

Filming the Everyday

225

can play a more critical role in his work and transform its subject from a very real thing into a work of art. In the history of Chinese photography, we can identify three strategies or stages of transforming photography into art, which is represented by Lang Jingshan, Wang Qingsong, and Xu Bing. I will argue that the last one, i.e., Xu Bing’s photography or film, does not so much transform photography into art as everyday life itself.

Lang Jingshan’s Composite Photography Lang Jingshan 郎静山 (1892–1995) is one of the most famous photographers in early Chinese photography. Although Lang has created photographs in a variety of styles, his name has become almost synonymous with jijin sheying 集锦摄影, which can be literally translated to “composite photography.” Lang started making jijin sheying in the early 1930s and continued practicing it throughout his life.13 Lang’s jijin sheying looks like traditional Chinese shanshui hua, generally translated as landscape painting. However, shanshui hua, which means mountain-water painting, differs from landscape painting. In brief, mountain-water painting is not an imitation of mountains and rivers but a creation of an ideal world named yijing 意境 in Chinese aesthetics. In other words, landscape painting is art for the eyes, while mountain-water painting is for the mind. Landscape painting represents the natural world as faithfully as possible, while mountain-water painting creates an ideal world as perfectly as possible. The ideal world, i.e., yijing, conceived by Chinese aestheticians, is a world with the betweenness or exchange of presence and absence.14 Chinese painters and aestheticians value betweenness. The theory of betweenness goes back a long way. It is found in different formulations, among which the most famous is the one offered by the painter Qi Baishi: “Painting is wonderful in between likeness and unlikeness. The mere likeness is kitsch, while unlikeness is deceit.”15 François Jullien interprets betweenness as a constant change or transition between presence and absence. He highlights that Chinese artists take betweenness as their goal by saying that: “Painters and poets in China do not paint things to 13 Mia Yinxing Liu, “The Allegorical Landscape: Lang Jingshan’s Photography in Context,” Archives of Asian Art 65, no. 1–2 (2015): 1–24. 14 For the definition of yijing, see f, “Defining Mindscape (Yijing 意境): Extension, Intension, and Beyond,” in The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art, ed. Marcello Ghilardi and Hans-Georg Moeller (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), 105–20. 15 Qi, “Discussing Painting with Hu Peiheng and Others.”

226 

Peng Feng

show them better, and, by displaying them before our eyes, to bring forth their presence. Rather, they paint them between ‘there is’ and ‘there is not,’ present-absent, half-light, half-dark, at once light-at once dark.”16 To manifest such “betweenness,” Chinese painters prefer to depict things in transition between presence and absence – an object displaying the character of betweenness. At the very beginning of his book The Great Image Has No Form, Jullien quotes Qian Wenshi’s remarks on mountain-water painting. Jullien interprets Qian’s remarks as follows: Rather than figure states that are distinct – in both senses, sharp and in opposition, rain / fair weather – the Chinese painter paints modification. He grasps the world beyond its distinctive features and in its essential transition. Each aspect implies the other, even when they are mutually exclusive, and one is discreetly at work even as the other is still on display. Behind the curtain of rain sweeping the horizon, one already senses, by the breaking light, that the inclement weather is going to lift. In the same way, fair weather soon sends out a few precursory signs that it will be clouding over.17

In short, the Chinese painter prefers to depict the ideal world in a transitional state, for example, in the transition between fair weather and rain, which is a symbol of the transition between presence and absence. Lang Jingshan tries to transform the landscape into mountain-water painting through his jijin techniques. The so-called jijin “depends on meticulous postproduction and darkroom manipulations, including a laborintensive process of cutting, pasting, shading, and multiple exposures.”18 As a result, Lang’s photographs resemble traditional Chinese mountain-water paintings. They are normally black and white and include large “blank space” that is “in the form of mist, clouds, water, sky, or simply a vast void expanse, thereby giving his works a dreamy, fantastic, celestial, sometimes phantasmagoric look.”19 The most famous work of Lang’s jijin photograph is Hushan Lansheng 湖 山揽胜 (A Panoramic Embrace of Mountains and Lakes). Created in 1981, at the age of 90, this work can be regarded as a summary of Lang’s 60 years of 16 François Jullien, The Great Image Has No Form, On the Nonobject through Painting, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 4. 17 Jullien, 1–2. 18 Liu, “The Allegorical Landscape: Lang Jingshan’s Photography in Context,” 1. 19 Liu, 1.

Filming the Everyday

227

jijin photographic career and a summation of his oeuvre of jijin photography. Hushan Lansheng looks like a handscroll mountain-water painting both in format and image. It is 40 x 296 cm in size, with written colophons and seals. Lang’s jijin photographs with the “phantasmagoric look” exemplify the Chinese aesthetic category yijing. Although Lang’s jijin photographs have political implications as Liu points out, the main appeal of Lang’s works is not political but aesthetic.20 Lang’s photographs are not copies of any real landscape. Through jijin techniques, Lang breaks the causal link in his photography and embodies his aesthetic conception in his works. The beauty of Lang’s photographs is not the beauty of nature but the beauty of art, i.e., to borrow Hegel’s phrase, “beauty born of the spirit and born again.”21

Wang Qingsong’s Pop Photography Wang Qingsong王庆松 (1966–) started his career as an oil painting artist after graduating from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in the early 1990s. After meeting some gifted painters in Beijing and recognizing that he didn’t have much talent for painting, Wang changed his mind to shift from oil painting to photography in the middle of the 1990s. In an interview given by Anne-Celine Jaeger, Wang said, “I became frustrated with painting and found that it was limiting in terms of what I wanted to express about the massive changes that were happening in China but also globally. I discovered there was a whole other medium that could be used. Gradually I found that photography was the best tool for me to describe the experiences and changes I was witnessing in contemporary culture.”22 This is not the change of media but also the evolution of an idea. In the Fine Arts Academy, Wang was educated under the ideal of art for art’s sake. When he graduated and entered society, he witnessed its significant changes and realized the limitations of the idea of art for art’s sake. In an interview by Christine Kuan, the editor of Oxford Art, Wang said, “I think it is very meaningless if an artist only creates art for art’s sake. For me, the dramatic changes in China have transformed China into a huge playground or construction site. Whenever I go into the city, I feel suffocated by the 20 Liu, 18–20. 21 G. W. F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures of Fine Art, trans. T.M. Knox, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 2. 22 Anne-Celine Jaeger, “Interview with Wang Qingsong for Du Magazine 2009,” Wang Qingsong Studio, 2020 1997, http://www.wangqingsong.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=arti cle&id=229&Itemid=37&lang=en.

228 

Peng Feng

pollution, social contradictions, and so forth. All of these factors contribute to the fact that artists cannot just make art for art’s sake. I think it would be absurd for an artist to ignore what’s going on in society.”23 Wang Qingsong’s photographs can be seen as the antithesis of Lang Jingshan’s works. Although Wang Qingsong does not name his photography jijin, his computer-manipulated photographs also break the causal link and embody his thinking. They are, therefore, works of art instead of mechanical records of reality. However, unlike Lang’s aestheticism, Wang never pursues the beautiful or the poetic yijing in his photography. Their taste is entirely opposite. Lang is certainly a highbrow, while Wang enjoys the lowbrow. Wang is “the most prolific and important artist in Gaudy Art.”24 Gaudy Art (yansu yishu 艳俗艺术) is a movement that began to rise in China in the middle of the 1990s. Gaudy Art, according to Britta Erickson’s observation, “appropriates motifs and media from popular culture, and assembles them to produce garishly gorgeous works of art. While visually these pieces may be on the same plane as over-the-top kitschy art from anywhere in the world, the act of producing them in China bears a profound significance.”25 The profound significance is the political implication, i.e., mocking and criticizing contemporary commercial society and traditional spiritual society. In the artist statement about Requesting Buddha Series No.1, Wang said: As the quintessence of Chinese traditional culture, Buddhism has accompanied Chinese civilization for thousands of years. It brings comfort and fortune to the people, inspires their soul[s], and enlightens a responsibility for having good relations with others. This Buddha used to set its goal to save the suffering through self-devotion. However, the respectable Buddha has also been changed in the current commercial society. It reaches out its hands insatiably for money and material goods towards every troubled person. The Requesting Buddha Series (1999) is the faithful representation of such a phenomenon, overflowing with desires, hypocrisy, and exaggeration.26 23 “Wang Qingsong,” Oxford Art Online, accessed January 9, 2022, https://www.oxfordartonline. com/page/1751. 24 Xianting Li, “Irony and Satire – On Wang Qingsong’s Photo Works,” Wang Qingsong Studio, 2000, http://www.wangqingsong.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=163& Itemid=26&lang=en. 25 Britta Erickson, “Wang Qingsong,” Wang Qingsong Studio, 1999, http://www.wangqingsong. com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=162&Itemid=26&lang=en. 26 For details, see Qingsong Wang, Requesting Buddha Series No.1, 1999, photography, 180 x 110 cm, http://www.wangqingsong.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5

Filming the Everyday

229

Night Revels of Lao Li 老栗夜宴图 is one of Wang’s most famous works. It is a parody of Night Revel of Han Xizai 韩熙载夜宴图, a well-known Chinese painting painted by Gu Hongzhong 顾闳中 (910–980), which depicted the life of a literatus and high official in the Post-Tang Dynasty, Han Xizai 韩熙载 (902–970). The emperor Li Yu 李煜 (937–978) wanted to know what Han’s real life was like, so he sent the painter Gu Hongzhong to Han’s home to depict his life. The picture shows that Han indulged in sensuality. According to Wang Qingsong’s interpretation, Han “was powerless to fulfill his ideals of reconstructing the country. To ‘cleanse’ himself, he chose to evade and ‘indulge in’ comfort.”27 Wang replaced Han Xizai with Li Xianting 栗宪廷, the famous critic and curator of contemporary art in China. In the artist’s statement, Wang explained his intention, “After several centuries, even though the Chinese dynasties have changed frequently, the status of intellectuals in society has remained the same. With some thoughts on this question, I created Night Revel of Lao Li. It is a portrait of contemporary Chinese reality in this new century, portraying the situation of contemporary Chinese people, and of intellectuals in particular.”28 Wang’s photographs are more concerned with political implications than aesthetic value. In this sense, Wang’s photographs can be described as postmodernism. Postmodernism, according to David Holt’s observation, was created as an antithesis to the modernist emphasis on aesthetics: Postmodernism’s incorporation of questionable beliefs and its often inappropriate rejection of other established positions have contributed to the production of art that is primarily about [the] meaning and not about aesthetic value; it is political rather than aesthetic, literal, and materialistic rather than transcendent. This state of affairs has been brought about by the establishment within Postmodernism of the belief that the artist is a rebel and social critic and art is primarily a form of political rhetoric.29

Because of the political implication, Wang’s photographs are also classified as political pop art. 1&Itemid=11. 27 For details, see Qingsong Wang, Night Revels of Lao Li, 2000, photography, 120 x 960 cm, http://www.wangqingsong.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58&Item id=12,%20accessible%20Jan.%209,%202022. 28 Wang. 29 David Holt, “Postmodernism: Anomaly in Art-Critical Theory,” The Journal of Aesthetic Education 29, no. 1 (1995): 85.

230 

Peng Feng

Xu Bing’s Real Photography Xu Bing’s 徐冰 (1955–) photography is different from the works of both Lang Jingshan and Wang Qingsong. However, Xu does not synthesize Lang’s thesis and Wang’s antithesis, but the antithesis of both Lang and Wang. In his unique movie Dragonfly Eyes, Xu Bing defends, in a radical way, the authentic theory of photography, i.e., the so-called transparency theory, which means that “we can literally see through photographs, and therefore photographically based films, to the objects photographed.”30 Since photographs are transparent to their object, and so not themselves but their objects of aesthetic interest. For photographs themselves to have aesthetic appeal, this transparency must be destroyed. Lang Jingshan and Wang Qingsong break this transparency in different ways. Whether aesthetic or political, their intentions enter as a serious factor in determining how the picture is seen and, therefore, make their photographs works of art. However, both Lang’s jijin and Yang’s computer manipulation are at the cost of ceasing to be pure photography. In this sense, such photography “pollutes,” in Scruton’s words, the medium and turns photography into a kind of painting.31 Xu wants to keep his photography in its pure form. “Dragonfly Eyes” is made up of surveillance footage without the photographer’s control over the detail in the photograph. Xu’s surveillance footage protects the photography medium from the “pollution” of the photographer’s intention and control and protects the photography object from the “pollution” of acting. Except for certain documentaries, movies usually record actors’ or actresses’ performing their characters. In this sense, even without the photographer’s “pollution,” movies are not real. Actors’ or actresses’ acting is not the characters’ real life. As Xu Bing said, “In my opinion, all footages in feature films are fake, performed, made. However, the surveillance cameras are made to reflect the real and represent the real activities, instead of making unreal images.”32 What is the meaning of Dragonfly Eyes? As a conceptual artist, Ava Kofman noticed that Xu Bing has always been interested in language. Dragonfly Eyes can be seen as exploring a new language game for film. As we know, 30 Berys Gaut, “The Philosophy of the Movies: Cinematic Narration,” in The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics, ed. Peter Kivy (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 231. 31 Scruton, “Photography and Representation,” 578. 32 “Xu Bing: Quan Zhong Guo de She Xiang Tou Du Shi Wo Men de She Ying Shi 徐冰：全中 国的摄像头都是我们的摄影师 [All the Surveillance Cameras in China Are Our Cameramen: Interview with Xu Bing],” Sohu.com, August 15, 2017, https://www.sohu.com/a/164822212_268920.

Filming the Everyday

231

Book from the Sky (1987–1991),33 Xu’s first and perhaps most famous work, is a monumental installation made up of books and scrolls. No one can read the words in the books and scrolls. They are fake Chinese characters forged by the artist. When Xu moved to New York City, he invented a new writing system for English named Square Word English Calligraphy (1994–ongoing).34 The English written in Xu’s way can be read by some people. Unless someone is interested in Chinese calligraphy and knows English, she cannot read it. When Xu returned to China and became an international artist, he devised Book from the Ground (2003–ongoing),35 a language made up of symbols drawn from the public sphere that anyone can read. Dragonfly Eyes can be seen as a continuation of Xu’s language games. Kofman writes: For all its technological novelty, Dragonfly Eyes marks a continuation of these earlier projects, showing that moving images can be just as disturbingly unreliable as the written word. Like Book from the Ground, the film recycles a found visual language to tell a cheeky story. At the same time, like Book from the Sky, the movie invites viewers to impose their meaning on found footage that might seem arbitrary otherwise. But in Dragonfly Eyes, Xu pushes his language games even further – playing not just with known characters and symbols but with real people’s lives.36

Since Dragonfly Eyes is made up of surveillance footage, it naturally raises the question of privacy. Dragonfly Eyes is often interpreted as a critique of invasion of privacy. As Jay Weissberg points out, “It’s as if a critique designed to point out society’s corrupted perception of privacy and reality was made by a misanthrope. … It’s easy to recognize critiques of reality TV, celebrity culture, the obsession with plastic surgery, and the strange isolating phenomenon of video chat rooms.”37

33 For details, see Bing Xu, Book from the Sky, 1987–1991, mixed media installation, various sizes, http://xubing.com/en/work/details/206?year=1991&type=year#206. 34 For details, see Bing Xu, Square Word Calligraphy, 1994–2021, calligraphic system, http:// xubing.com/en/work/details/198?year=1994&type=year#198. 35 For details, see Bing Xu, Book From the Ground, 2003– Ongoing, mixed media installation, http://xubing.com/en/work/details/188?year=2003&type=year#188. 36 Ava Kofman, “Your Face Tomorrow,” Art in America, January 1, 2019, https://www.artnews. com/art-in-america/features/your-face-tomorrow-63595/. 37 Jay Weissberg, “Film Review: ‘Dragonfly Eyes,’” Variety, August 13, 2017, https://variety. com/2017/film/reviews/dragonfly-eyes-review-qing-ting-zhi-yan-1202525754/.

232 

Peng Feng

However, my interpretation is different. In addition to the technological exploration and political critique, Dragonfly Eyes opens a new horizon for the aestheticization of the everyday. Here aestheticization is not so much beautification and representation as the present. Since surveillance cameras do not “pollute” both the medium and the object, we see the present in the film: the real everyday life. As Xu Bing said, “In fact, I found out later that the images grabbed by the surveillance are vivid and peculiar. They transcended our traditional understandings over photography aesthetics.”38 The images are vivid and peculiar because, through them, we see the presence of reallife that is particular and beyond any general aesthetic rules. However, ontologically speaking, the images are not real life. The images made by surveillance cameras reach the “ideal” form of photography. According to Scruton, ideal photography is not an intentional but a causal process.39 In other words, a surveillance camera makes pure images of its subject. The pure image transforms its subject from practical to aesthetic object. We contemplate things through pure images, but we cannot live with things through images. In this sense, surveillance cameras transform the everyday from a practical to an aesthetic realm and realize a kind of aestheticization of the everyday.

Bibliography Bazin, André. “The Ontology of the Photographic Images.” In What Is Cinema?, translated by Hugh Gray, 1:9–16. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Bazin, André. “Theatre and Cinema.” In What is Cinema?, translated by Hugh Gray, 1:76–124. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Cavell, Stanley. The World Viewed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Erickson, Britta. “Wang Qingsong.” Wang Qingsong Studio, 1999. http://www. wangqingsong.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=162& Itemid=26&lang=en. Feng, Peng. “Defining Mindscape (Yijing 意境): Extension, Intension, and Beyond.” In The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art, edited by Marcello Ghilardi and Hans-Georg Moeller, 105–20. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.

38 “Fruits of Surveillance: Xu Bing Interview about ‘Dragonfly Eyes,’” Musée Magazine, October 17, 2017, https://museemagazine.com/features/2017/10/17/dragonfly-eyes-an-interview-with-xu-bing. 39 Scruton, “Photography and Representation,” 579.

Filming the Everyday

233

Musée Magazine. “Fruits of Surveillance: Xu Bing Interview about ‘Dragonfly Eyes,’” October 17, 2017. https://museemagazine.com/features/2017/10/17/ dragonfly-eyes-an-interview-with-xu-bing. Gaut, Berys. “The Philosophy of the Movies: Cinematic Narration.” In The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics, edited by Peter Kivy, 230–53. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Hegel, G. W. F. Aesthetics: Lectures of Fine Art. Translated by T.M. Knox. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. Holt, David. “Postmodernism: Anomaly in Art-Critical Theory.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education 29, no. 1 (1995): 85–93. Jaeger, Anne-Celine. “Interview with Wang Qingsong for Du Magazine 2009.” Wang Qingsong Studio, 2020 1997. http://www.wangqingsong.com/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=229&Itemid=37&lang=en. Jullien, François. The Great Image Has No Form, On the Nonobject through Painting. Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009. Kofman, Ava. “Your Face Tomorrow.” Art in America, January 1, 2019. https://www. artnews.com/art-in-america/features/your-face-tomorrow-63595/. Li, Xianting. “Irony and Satire – On Wang Qingsong’s Photo Works.” Wang Qingsong Studio, 2000. http://www.wangqingsong.com/index.php?option=com_content &view=article&id=163&Itemid=26&lang=en. Liu, Mia Yinxing. “The Allegorical Landscape: Lang Jingshan’s Photography in Context.” Archives of Asian Art 65, no. 1–2 (2015): 1–24. Qi, Baishi. “Discussing Painting with Hu Peiheng and Others.” In A Collection of Qi Baishi Remarks on Art, edited by Zhende Wang and Tianxiu LI, 70. Zhengzhou: Henan Meishu Press, 1996. Sartwell, Crispin. “Aesthetics of the Everyday.” In The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, edited by Jerrold Levinson, 761–70. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Scruton, Roger. “Photography and Representation.” Critical Inquiry 7, no. 3 (1981): 577–603. Smith, Adam. “Of the Nature of That Imitation Which Takes Place in What Are Called the Imitative Arts.” In Essays on Philosophical Subjects, edited by W. P. D Wightman and J. C. Bryce, 176–209. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982. Thomasson, Amie. “The Ontology of Art.” In The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics, edited by Peter Kivy, 78–92. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Wang, Qingsong. Night Revels of Lao Li. 2000. Photography, 120 x 960 cm. http:// www.wangqingsong.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id= 58&Itemid=12,%20accessible%20Jan.%209,%202022. Wang, Qingsong. Requesting Buddha Series No.1. 1999. Photography, 180 x 110 cm. http://www.wangqingsong.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=artic le&id=51&Itemid=11.

234 

Peng Feng

Oxford Art Online. “Wang Qingsong.” Accessed January 9, 2022. https://www. oxfordartonline.com/page/1751. Weissberg, Jay. “Film Review: ‘Dragonfly Eyes.’” Variety, August 13, 2017, https://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/dragonfly-eyes-review-qing-ting-zhi-yan-1202525754/. Xu, Bing. Book From the Ground. Ongoing 2003. Mixed media installation. http:// xubing.com/en/work/details/188?year=2003&type=year#188. Xu, Bing. Book from the Sky. 1991 1987. Mixed media installation. http://xubing. com/en/work/details/206?year=1991&type=year#206. Xu, Bing. Square Word Calligraphy. 2021 1994. Calligraphic system. http://xubing. com/en/work/details/198?year=1994&type=year#198. Sohu.com. “Xu Bing: Quan Zhong Guo de She Xiang Tou Du Shi Wo Men de She Ying Shi 徐冰：全中国的摄像头都是我们的摄影师 [All the Surveillance Cameras in China Are Our Cameramen: Interview with Xu Bing],” August 15, 2017. https:// www.sohu.com/a/164822212_268920.

About the Author PENG Feng is currently the Dean and Professor of the School of Arts at Peking University, vice president of International Association for Aesthetics. His research interests include the history of Chinese philosophy, contemporary aesthetics, and art criticism. He is also an art curator and playwright.

13 Images and Reality John Carvalho Abstract Images cover our world and can be viewed as a threat to its everyday reality. On inspection, images thicken that everyday reality or animate events that pair bodies with the media where images are found. On another interpretation, those events are viewed as scaffolds traced in media by basic minds animating those bodies or as affordances that turn up in media for embodied minds. As affordances, images prove to be resources that, for good or ill, advance the forms of life embodied in minds. It is up to those embodiments to form lives which pick up what is good in affordances and cast aside what is not including the distractions images often present. Education can help us form lives that more regularly turn up the good that images afford us, but that education must be enacted in lives also regularly disposed to enhance the reality where we find images. Keywords: images, everyday aesthetics, reality, aesthetic education

It is a commonplace to say reality is awash with images. The wash can be observed on movie and television screens, on computer screens where multiple images compete for our attention, and on the equally crowded screens attached to various mobile devices. It can be observed on billboards, bulletin boards, mass-transit kiosks, in newspapers, magazines, and wherever we find advertisements posted or delivered, on storefronts and product packaging, for example, or in the mail. The text emerging on the screen in front of me is an image of the text that may be printed and bound together with other texts that came to life-like images on screens. A social media platform, Slack, recommends using emojis and images to save readers the trouble of writing a reply. Other social media platforms – Facebook and Twitter – facilitate sharing images with “friends” and “followers.” Others, still – Tik Tok, Pinterest, Instagram – traffic exclusively, some say excessively,

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch13

236 

John Carvalho

in images. Memes are yet another example of the proliferation of images. Awash we are with images, or so it appears, so long as we are awake and, in our sleep, we dream in images ostensibly taken from scenes in real life which, as we have just noted, is replete with images. It is less common to declare that images have replaced reality, that they are more real than reality, that images do not image reality but precede it, that scenes in everyday life are already images of that life, that dream images and the images that clutter our screens, our public surfaces and our virtual life are images of images without a basis in reality. This declaration was made by French sociologist and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard and promoted with some success, some would say, in several publications at the end of the twentieth century, including Simulations and The Evil Demon of Images.1 Claims that images are “more real than real,” constituting what Baudrillard called a “hyperreality” to replace the real seemed hyperbolic decades ago. Two decades into the twenty-first century, those claims may seem prescient. Nietzsche pronounced the “death of God.” Foucault predicted the death of “man.” Are we witnessing, in our time, the “death of reality” diagnosed by Baudrillard?2 To answer the questions posed by the apparent ubiquity of images and Baudrillard’s radical charge, we have to get clear about what an image is or, in the first place, what images we say are so ubiquitous. There are literary images, the raven who answers every question “Nevermore” and the fog that “comes in on little cat feet,” but they do not appear to be so widely disseminated. There are images projected in some works of music, dance, and theater – “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “The Nutcracker,” “Our Town,” say – but images are not intrinsic to these arts, nor do such images saturate our experience. Dream images are ubiquitous, especially for those prone to daydreaming, but they are local to the dreamer and do not impose themselves on others. The images we say are ubiquitous are, in fact, visual images and a particular species of visual images. We want to know whether these images are properly called pictures, diagrams, representations, signs, or something else, why they are, by turns, informative, entertaining, or vexing, and how to evaluate their impact on what we call reality. Are images “immoral,” as Baudrillard declares, a new “ecstasy of communication,” to borrow another phrase from Baudrillard, an essential element of what we 1 Jean Baudrillard, Simulations, trans. Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman (New York: Semiotext(e), 1983); Jean Baudrillard, The Evil Demon of Images, trans. Paul Patton and Paul Foss (Sydney: The Power Institute of Fine Arts, 1987). 2 Jean Baudrillard, The Perfect Crime, trans. Chris Tucker (New York: Verso, 1996).

Images and Realit y

237

experience as reality, or a benign nuisance, a distraction better avoided than explored?3 Baudrillard thinks images are simulations, copies of copies that have no original. Images of the Annunciation to Mary are a good example. From the second to third century image discovered at the Dura-Europos Church in modern-day Syria to the great canvas by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1898), we have images based on descriptions of an event that was never witnessed f irst-hand (and may not have occurred). Baudrillard would assert that these images substitute for a reality that does not exist apart from its simulation in these images. He has famously said the same thing about Disneyland, awash in images of an America that is no longer or never was real. The attractions there are images of Disney-produced movies presenting a way of life – independent, ingenious, hard-working, romantic, redemptive – that was always an American dream never realized. Disney makes images in its own image, and Los Angeles, where Disneyland lives and movies are made, is awash with images of that image-making industry. For a simpler example, take a traveler’s photograph of a landscape. It shows what the landscape looked like at the moment when the photo was taken. It will never look exactly the same again. The photo does not capture the reality of the landscape but a subjective impression of a moment in the life of the landscape and the rules for photographing landscapes more or less realized in other photographic images of them. Where is the reality, Baudrillard demands, that these images are supposed to picture, represent or signify?4 Tempting as his image of images is, seductive, even, we find that Baudrillard exaggerates his point for dramatic effect to cling, ironically or not, to a romantic notion of reality that is no longer or never was real.5 That notion supposes or imagines an unspoiled realm that has come to be littered with hackneyed artifice – hackneyed because Baudrillard is not concerned with the millions of paintings, drawings, sculptures, videos, and photographs that 3 Jean Baudrillard, The Ecstasy of Communication, trans. Bernard Schutze and Caroline Schutze (New York: Semiotext(e), 1988). 4 Plato famously raised a similar concern in three striking images, the sun, the line and the cave. In Republic (506e–517c), Plato has Socrates argue that images are imitations of so-called real things which are, in fact, imitations of a reality that cannot be seen directly but can only be known by a select few who are properly educated. What these select few can know is, ultimately, the Form of the Good. Baudrillard is not as clear about the reality he thinks is dying out in the onslaught of simulations. 5 For further discussion, see Jean Baudrillard, Seduction, trans. Brian Singer (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990).

238 

John Carvalho

fill the walls and halls of museums, theaters, galleries, studios, and domestic interiors. And neither are we.6 We are concerned with the proliferation of images that everywhere appear to demand our attention and threaten to distract us from, if not an unspoiled realm, a real world – flesh and blood human beings embedded in cultures and acting in ways that have practical, political consequences – a real world that increasingly includes our distracted dallying in displays of images. Were we not led astray by images, seduced by them, even, what might we do with the time we invest in making and delighting in their array?7 What if the images are not a substitute for something that no longer is nor the simulation of what can only be represented, but a natural part of the only reality there is? If images appear to image one another, that’s because, as Roland Barthes has shown, the traffic in the rhetoric of images that contributes to their proliferation.8 And if images seem to precede our experience of the world, that’s because our understanding of people and things is often, but not always, formed in advance by images – conceptual images, memory images, verbal images, graphic images – that we have of them or of the culture where we find them. In short, although Baudrillard fastens on an experience that is widely shared, his account stages a scenario that draws attention to himself and his theory rather than the phenomenon and its effects. His account can prompt us to reflect seriously on images, their apparent ubiquity, and their increasing demand for our attention. And, on reflection, images prove to be a thickening of reality, events that happen in the world, scaffolds for our experience of the world, or, more generally, “affordances,” props or resources that turn up for our more or less 6 In another place I agree with Ivan Gaskell that artworks should be considered things or visual artifacts and not images. For further discussion, see John M. Carvalho, “More Thinking About Thinking with Images: A Response to Ivan Gaskell, Deborah Knight and Sonia Sedivy,” Contemporary Aesthetics Symposium, 20 (2022), Also see, https://contempaesthetics. org/2022/01/27/more-thinking-about-thinking-with-images-a-response-to-ivan-gaskell-deborahknight-and-sonia-sedivy/; James Elkins and Erna Fiorentini, Visual Worlds: Looking, Images, Visual Disciplines (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 3–5. 7 Instagram is a special case where we might wonder whether people post images there, many of them “self ies,” for others or for themselves. Are they sharing images with others or archiving those images to illustrate a story they might tell others about their experiences or just as reminders for themselves of what they experienced, where and when they experienced it? They are not memory images, though, since they are selective – how many shots did it take to get the one privileged instant saved and posted? These are, above all, photographic images. For more discussion, see Roland Barthes, The Responsibility of Forms: Critical Essays on Music, Art, and Representation, trans. Richard Howard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 3–20. 8 Barthes, 21–40.

239

Images and Realit y

local thinking about the world and our acting in it.9 In this view, images abbreviate and shore up what there is to know about reality as part of the reality we seek to understand. However, we should note that what we know and seek to know is not benign. We say we know just what conduces to our successful navigation of the local environment. What we say we know we take to be real, but that reality is always interested, always predisposed to support the purposes we want to achieve in our interactions with others at the locale where we seek to achieve those ends. For example, I may say I know television news images of Black Lives Matter protests are real because I have an interest in supporting shared negative views of those protests, or I may say I know those images distort the reality of those protests because I have an interest in highlighting the not so hidden provocation for them. So, if images afford resources for our more or less local knowledge and action, how do we evaluate their acquaintance with reality and the truth? On the one hand, images appear to be real, but on the other, what is the status of the reality they image if the truth is real only as it is imagined in them? If images image one another, or the rhetoric that relates images to one another, what becomes of those who experience reality in these images? Is their reality reduced or constrained by just what they find in these images? We hope to show that experience makes reality from just those images that turn up as affordances for the form of life locally embodied by that experience which may not turn up for forms of life differently embodied or at other locales. Images do not give us reality but rather afford the realization of an environment that supports our embodied forms of life. *** As to the images that concern us, we can get more specific than the generalizations offered so far. W. J. T. Mitchell’s “What is an Image?” takes its inspiration from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s association of meaning and use.10 Mitchell aims to clarify, there, a theory of images by examining the social and cultural practices where images function “as an actor on the historical stage” who “participates in stories we tell ourselves about our own evolution from creatures ‘made in the image’ of a creator, to creatures who make 9 The terms “affordances” is taken from J.J. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979), who writes, “the affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes,” which implies that “the ‘vales’ and ‘meanings’ of things in the environment can be directly perceived” (127). 10 W. J. T Mitchell, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986), 7–46.

240 

John Carvalho

themselves and their world in their own image.”11 In this view, images are not random signs littering the landscape but representations of our human nature and what that nature is becoming. Mitchell marries Roger Bacon with Michel Foucault to generate an image of images as “figures of knowledge,” powers ramified in specific similitudes which hold the world together. In this marriage, he posits a parent concept, the image “as such,” which presides over all the special cases of imagery.12 This image he identifies with “the graphic or optical representations we see displayed in an objective, publicly shareable space.”13 There remain questions about whether abstract painting, ornamental design, diagrams, or graphs fit this concept, but, provisionally, this aggregate of instances passing as Mitchell presents a concept as the literal sense or intension of “image.” To begin to account for the extensions of “image,” all those things called “images,” which are not “images as such,” Mitchell returns to Wittgenstein. He posits a family resemblance among the many ways “image” is used to describe how his actor variously turns up on the historical stage. Glossing the parent concept as “likeness, resemblance, similitude,” he groups the special cases of imagery as graphic (pictures, statues, designs) and optical (mirrors, projections) but also as perceptual (sense data, “species,” appearances), mental (dreams, memories, ideas, phantasms) and verbal (metaphors, descriptions). He says it is difficult to resist associating images “proper” with graphic and optical images and rehearses the arguments against identifying images “as such” with perceptual, mental, and verbal images, but goes on to defend the claims of those discounted family members to be considered “images as such” as a way of saying that images “proper” contain the meaning of all its uses. Graphic and optical images retain something of the mental, perceptual, and, especially, verbal in them. Those graphic images cannot be limited to two-dimensional exhibitions in publicly shareable spaces. For our purposes, what is important here is that the array of images we take to saturate our experience cannot be reduced to their flattened visual displays. What interests us, and Baudrillard, still, is something the mental and verbal registers contribute to our experience of visual images. Hans Belting wants to improve Mitchell’s account by considering how media and bodies contribute to a new reckoning with images.14 He character11 Mitchell, 9. 12 Mitchell, 11. 13 Mitchell, 13. 14 Hans Belting, “Image, Medium, Body: A New Approach to Iconology,” Critical Inquiry 31 (2005): 302–19.

Images and Realit y

241

izes media as the agents that transmit images and bodies as the perceiving or performing substances on which the transmission of images depends. In Belting’s account, images live a double life. They are what the media animating graphic images transmit, though not reducible to those media. They are what bodies receive or enact, though not what those bodies might be apart from their reception. “In this approach,” Belting writes, “internal and external representations, or mental and physical images, may be considered two sides of the same coin.”15 Images do not exist by themselves, “they happen,” Belting writes, they “take place.”16 “They live in our bodies,” which serve as living media that “perceive, project or remember images.17 Our bodies animate the images transmitted to them, which, he writes, describes better the use we make of images than perception does. What Belting appears to be getting at is the sense that an image is not out there in the world waiting to be encountered, as Mitchell appears to have it, a representation that complicates its visual sign with verbal significations. For Belting, an image happens only when a medium transmits it for reception by a body. An image is what the medium and a body share, or, instead, an image takes place just in case what is present in a medium turn up in a body receptive to it. At times, Belting identifies this body with a brain. Still, he also identifies it with a substance that is capable, “with the help of masks, tattooing, clothing, and performance,” of producing images of itself.18 In the latter case, the body appears to be a medium animated to transmit images for other bodies to receive. (An interesting point that deserves attention elsewhere.) It also seems possible, on this account, that bodies might enact the images they receive in styles of comportment, rather than brain states, responding to the environment where images are transmitted to them. For example, an image of bottled water on a vending machine might animate the bodily movements leading to purchasing water from that machine. In that example, the animation of the medium transmits the image that animates the body to enact that image. Belting traces the animation of media to priests who once consecrated artifacts to bring the dead back to life for the family or community suffering their loss. Later, he says, artists created images that animated the lives of those captured in media, saving them from a second death (as André Bazin says about photographs) or giving them a life they might not otherwise have (as Arthur Danto might 15 16 17 18

Belting, 304. Belting, 302. Belting, 305–6. Belting, 315.

242 

John Carvalho

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain 1917, from Wikicommons.

say about Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box (Soap Pad) (1964)).19 In both cases, the medium is “dead” until animated by the artist, but this animation is only complete, as Belting sees it, when it is enacted by a body that receives it. For example, Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917) is just an ordinary urinal until it is received and enacted by a body as an artwork. In this case, the image, Fountain, is animated in a porcelain medium by Duchamp and transmitted to an observer who enacts the image in her body, who embodies Fountain, we might say, as part of her lived experience in an art world. Today, Belting asserts, technology has replaced the need for priestly powers or artistic skill and “taken over the mimesis of life.”20 Technology, he writes, is responsible for the animation and dissemination of media and for seducing us to complete the circuit that makes images of these animations by enacting them in bodies that populate an environment saturated with 19 André Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Images,” in What Is Cinama? vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 9–16; Arthur Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: A Philosophy of Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981). 20 Belting, “Image, Medium, Body: A New Approach to Iconology,” 309.

243

Images and Realit y

these media. Medieval iconoclasts worried that images of divinity would supplant the mind’s reasoned grasp of divine truth. By destroying public icons, they sought to disengage a collective embodiment of the images animated in them. Today’s iconoclasm, inspired by Baudrillard, seeks to tame the circulation of images because they are simulacra that no longer imitate reality and because the technological media that circulate them make increasing demands on the receiving bodies which enact them. In their variety of comportments and activities, bodies animate images animated in media to mobilize comportments and actions that will animate just those images. This is the conclusion we can be led to by Belting’s improvement on Mitchell. *** So, if we return to our initial observation that our world is awash in images, hyperbolically glossed by Baudrillard as the replacement of reality by simulacra, Mitchell complicates that view with an inter-textual image of those images. In Mitchell’s view, the wash is more viscous than might be supposed on first inspection. It is not just a bath of two-dimensional visual signs but a torrent full of graphic and optical significations thickened with mental, perceptual, and, especially, verbal supplements. A view of the graphic and optical images present in an episode of a popular television series, for example, involves mental images of the plot that is unfolding as well as memory images of prior episodes in the series and the same actors in different roles in other series as well as verbal images of the dialogue. From reviews of the series that alert us to parts of the graphic image, we might not have noticed in addition to perceptual images of the objects and locales imaged in a particular scene and so on. “The” image is actually multiple images overlapping and interpenetrating one another, without which the meanings of these images and the iconology that underwrites them would not affect us and could not be understood. Belting challenges that view with an image of images that are not out there in the world, but that happens when external media are animated to attract the internal responses of bodies active in the environment where those media are animated. In this view, images are more virtual than actual. This account effectively captures the effect or feeling we have of being overwhelmed with images. Images happen, according to Belting, when they are enacted in our bodies’ comportment toward an environment that we feel when we encounter animated media there. Images happen, Belting appears to think only when they are completed by our bodies’ responses to those

244 

John Carvalho

media. So, for the animation of media to be felt, in viewing that same popular television series, say, our bodies must respond to that animation. Our bodies will respond only if they are formed in advance to be so receptive. They are so formed by enacting responses to other animated media, other television images, or images animated in allied media. The saturation of images, thus, assures our bodies’ reception to new media by relentlessly animating our bodies’ responses to familiar media. And since the animation of media is achieved by technological means shorn of artistic skill and priestly powers, Belting gives us more reason to worry than Baudrillard. Images are not immoral because they are driven by internal rhetoric that operates quite apart from our concerns but because the technology of images aims to make us complicit in its operation. We return to this worry shortly. Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin give us a tool for making what is only virtual in Belting’s account appear actual. What they identify as “scaffolds” are not pieces of internal mental architectures that account for the formation of complex concepts on an established conceptual frame but extensions of what they call “basic minds” that emerge in the course of such minds enacting purposes in an environment.21 The achievements of these basic minds leave traces of their accomplishments in the environment for embodied minds capable of acting on them there. Belting’s bodies are such embodied minds, but they appear at a (virtual) distance from the animated media they enact. For Hutto and Myin, the embodiment is continuous with the environment where it seeks to achieve or enacts its aims. Embodiments only emerge in an environment that supports them, and that environment is, in turn, shaped by the aims they set out to accomplish there. Embodied, basic minds accomplish their aims, Hutto and Myin argue, without recourse to internal representations or virtually detached enactments of that environment. When it comes to higher order aims involving, for example, memory, imagination, and reflective judgment, what we might call “image hungry” cognitive capacities, Hutto and Myin appeal to scaffolding, supports for sociocultural practices that, when mastered, enable embodied minds to enact more than basic aims. What Hutto and Myin call sociocultural scaffolding emerges in an environment to mark out and maintain practices that use publicly shared representations – signs, symbols, Mitchell’s images would certainly count 21 See Lawrence E Williams, Julie Y Huang, and John A. Bargh, “The Scaffolded Mind: Higher Mental Processes Are Grounded in Early Experience of the Physical World,” European Journal of Social Psychology 39, no. 7 (2009): 1257–67; Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin, Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds without Content (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013).

Images and Realit y

245

here – to accomplish particular, practical ends.22 Hutto and Myin export into scaffolding the content – the memory, the imagination, the representations – on which “image hungry” cognition appears to depend. Scaffolding gets that content out of our heads and into the world. The enactment by receptive, responsive bodies that Belting matches to media animated by technology is present, in the media themselves, on a truly enactivist view such as Hutto and Myin’s. Thus, with this revision of Belting’s account, we see bodies as basic minds responding to images in the media themselves that emerge from those media as scaffolds for navigating worlds full of images. That is, the animation of media is fully realized when it includes and sustains bodies enacting the animation in those media. Hutto and Myin take their inspiration from dynamic systems theory. They believe that scaffolding emerges naturally in the course of basic minds enacting purposes in an environment. However, it is not clear that signs, symbols, or images only or always emerge naturally, and there are dangers in assuming that they do. As Belting points out, media are increasingly animated by technological means. We can add that these technologies are increasingly animated by algorithmic calculations of the risks involved in animating these media. The perception that these animations are natural or inevitable leads to resignation in the face of their demands on our time and our interests. What Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer dubbed the “culture industry” was the realization of such an autonomous and anonymous technology. Another way of accounting for what Hutto and Myin call scaffolding avoids these concerns. It may happen, for example, in the course of farming a tract of land that patterns of growth will be established and turn up for more than basic minds as signs of agricultural science of farming. It is just as likely, more likely that farmers will mark their plots with stakes and labels to guide practices that did not come about naturally but only when aided by the artifice of sign makers who animated stakes and pigments to mark what was planted where. Using advanced technological means, these same artisans may also design images that direct potential consumers to farms where they can buy produce by exchanging other signs, coins, and paper stamped with government-approved images for the fruit of those farmers’ labors. These signs and images and the evident patterns of growth can be more generally described as what J. J. Gibson calls “affordances”: what an environment furnishes or provides an organism, for good or ill, in the pursuit of its aims. Above all, Gibson highlights the complementarity of affordances for the 22 Hutto and Myin, Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds without Content, 134.

246 

John Carvalho

environment where those affordances turn up and for the organism that skillfully engages them.23 These affordances do not turn up naturally or inevitably but dynamically in the course of the local demands of environments and the embodiments populating those environments. They will turn up differently in an urban setting than on a farm and differently on a farm committed to organic gardening than on an industrial, agricultural plot committed to maximizing profit. Drawing from Gibson, we can say that the images made animate in media are affordances that turn up for embodied minds responding to what is nascent in those media. These affordances are cultivated by technological means to motivate or support the aims those embodiments seek to enact or achieve in an environment. Images are not completed in another place, bodies, as Belting proposes, but in the media themselves that cultivate an environment for the achievement of purposes local to the embodiments populating that environment. In a sense, we have returned to Mitchell. Images are a thick presence in the world, an inter-textual amalgam of visual and verbal significations. They now come to life as affordances in an environment populated by embodiments seeking to achieve ends that extend their life in that environment. These images may lead us astray or help us achieve purposes that enhance our lives. Whether they are good or not for the enhancement of the lives of those embodiments populating an environment will depend on the skills acquired by those embodiments and on the extent to which their ways of being embodied turn up precisely those affordances that enhance their lives. What enhancement amounts to will be determined locally by the demands of those embodiments in those environments. *** Images, then, are not hackneyed artifice littering the landscape of our everyday experience but affordances alternatively enabling and disabling the achievement of our aims in that landscape or environment. Whether they serve for good or ill will depend on how they are animated in the environment and the use made of them by embodied forms of life seeking to advance their aims there. They are neither the “evil demon” posited by Baudrillard nor the benign naturally occurring content that we find described by Mitchell or Hutto and Myin. They are in the world and, as affordances, that turn up differently for differently embodied forms of life. 23 Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, 119–20.

Images and Realit y

247

Flag of the United Farm Workers, from Wikicommons

For example, the image of a blackbird on a white background drawn with exaggerated straight lines will turn up, for some, as a crude rendering. It may turn up for others as an Aztec design and for others, still, as the black eagle logo adopted by the United Farm Workers. For this last group, the image may call up memory images of participating in protests with the UFW and verbal texts from UFW manifestos, none of which will turn up for the second group, which may be caught up in memories from a book on pre-Columbian art. On a recent trip to Los Angeles, billboards were filled with advertising for the forthcoming movie Jungle Cruise (2021). To a non-local observer, the signs of Disney were evident in the style of the image, including the unmistakable identity of the main stars, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, affording reflections on the cultural, industrial production of money-making ventures with no regard for their merit as artworks and recollections of the otherwise fine work Emily Blunt, in particular, has contributed to the art of making movies. To local observers of a certain age, however, the movie advertisements afforded recollections of the attraction at Disneyland the film is based on, including the history of its culturally insensitive original content and reflections on how the new movie might inspire new audiences to visit the now culturally sensitized version of the attraction, something that never turned up for the embodiment of that non-local observer. Our world is awash with images, but those images are not signs of the “death of reality.” They are our reality, and they afford us ways of engaging the reality of flesh and blood human lives with practical, political consequences. We can choose whether or not to travel down the rabbit hole of, say, Instagram (an even more image-centric product of the already image-centric Facebook), and where images seem impossible to avoid, on billboards or product packaging, we can choose how to engage them not as an accomplishment of our impossibly disembodied subjectivity but as our own embodied way of engaging or “gearing into” the world, by making

248 

John Carvalho

ourselves a form of life afforded the possibility of enhancing that life with the images we find in our world. Some forms of embodiment are disposed to accelerate the tendency to go down the rabbit hole and pick up affordances that hasten their absorption in the fog of retail imagery. Advertising is such a form of life high on the fumes sustained by that fog. Some would say that we should do everything to protect vulnerable forms of life from being sucked down that rabbit hole. Education attempts to do that by teaching how to critically engage the affordances that turn up in our world and draw from the resources for embodying lives that turn up affordances for enhancing those lives. Given the widespread, unselfconscious absorption in images that characterizes our contemporary cultural environments, education in schools and the media has a long way to go.24

Bibliography Barthes, Roland. The Responsibility of Forms: Critical Essays on Music, Art, and Representation. Translated by Richard Howard. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Baudrillard, Jean. Seduction. Translated by Brian Singer. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulations. Translated by Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman. New York: Semiotext(e), 1983. Baudrillard, Jean. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated by Bernard Schutze and Caroline Schutze. New York: Semiotext(e), 1988. Baudrillard, Jean. The Evil Demon of Images. Translated by Paul Patton and Paul Foss. Sydney: The Power Institute of Fine Arts, 1987. Baudrillard, Jean. The Perfect Crime. Translated by Chris Tucker. New York: Verso, 1996. Bazin, André. “The Ontology of the Photographic Images.” In What Is Cinema? 1:9–16. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Belting, Hans. “Image, Medium, Body: A New Approach to Iconology.” Critical Inquiry 31 (2005): 302–19. Carvalho, John M. “More Thinking About Thinking with Images: A Response to Ivan Gaskell, Deborah Knight and Sonia Sedivy.” Contemporary Aesthetics Symposium, 20 (2022). https://contempaesthetics.org/2022/01/27/ 24 For further reading, see Sunil Manghani, Image Studies: Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 2013); Sunil Manghani, Images: Critical and Primary Sources. 4 vols. (London: Routledge, 2013).

Images and Realit y

249

more-thinking-about-thinking-with-images-a-response-to-ivan-gaskell-deborahknight-and-sonia-sedivy/. Danto, Arthur. The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: A Philosophy of Art. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981. Elkins, James, and Erna Fiorentini. Visual Worlds: Looking, Images, Visual Disciplines. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Gibson, J.J. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979. Hutto, Daniel, and Erik Myin. Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds without Content. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013. Mitchell, W. J. T. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986. Williams, Lawrence E, Julie Y Huang, and John A. Bargh. “The Scaffolded Mind: Higher Mental Processes Are Grounded in Early Experience of the Physical World.” European Journal of Social Psychology 39, no. 7 (2009): 1257–67.

About the Author John M. Carvalho, Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University and Associate Editor of Contemporary Aesthetics, is the author of Thinking with Images: An Enactivist Aesthetics and of several dozen essays published in journals or anthologies on the history of ancient Greek philosophy, 20th century French philosophy and aesthetics, especially the aesthetics of music and motion pictures.

Part 6 Relationships and Communities

14 Aesthetics in Friendship and Intimacy Kathleen Higgins Abstract Aesthetic matters are important in friendships and intimate relationships. But aesthetic tensions strain relationships if they are not managed. A close relationship between members of different societies is just a special case among close relationships generally. Every individual has a unique aesthetic biography, and the person’s tastes and aesthetic repertoire are shaped by many cultural influences, some of them coming from the micro-cultures to which the person belongs. This ensures that complete accord between two individuals’ aesthetic sensibilities is exceedingly unlikely. People who are close frequently disagree on matters of order, decoration, and style, and this is especially obvious among those who share a home. The strategy of separating spheres of aesthetic control can sometimes mitigate conflict, but managing aesthetic tensions often requires creativity. Fortunately, love for another often leads one to develop affection for his or her quirks, and optimally this extends to the peculiarities of the person’s aesthetic tastes. Keywords: friendship, aesthetic sensibility, aesthetic experience, aesthetic judgement

Accounting for Aesthetic Differences In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera depicts a pair of ill-matched lovers, Sabina and Franz, whose relationship ultimately dissolves because of the many ways in which they misunderstand each other. Kundera’s narrator proposes as an explanation the fact that they met only relatively late in life: While people are relatively young and the musical composition of their lives is still in its opening bars, they can go about writing it together and

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch14

254 

K athleen Higgins

exchange motifs …, but if they meet when they are older, like Franz and Sabina, their musical compositions are more or less complete, and every motif, every object, every word means something different to each of them.1

The narrator proceeds to offer a “short dictionary” that highlights some of the characters’ different understanding of words and what they name, with entries such as “Woman,” “Parades,” and “The Beauty of New York.” In each case, Sabina and Franz have radically different reactions. For example, Franz, an idealistic professor from Geneva, associates parades with the demonstrations he participated in as a student. They make him feel connected to the “real world” of other people and political events. By contrast, Sabina, an artist, associates all parades with the obligatory May Day parades of her student years in Czechoslovakia, in which people were compelled to march in lockstep. She found these May Day marches oppressive, and her reaction is now generalized to apply to parades in general. Some of the narrator’s remarks encourage a cultural account of their different sensibilities. For example, the Bohemian custom of adorning graves with flowers makes cemeteries “like gardens,” and Sabina thinks of them as lovely places for a stroll. In contrast, coming from a society without that custom, Franz sees a cemetery as “an ugly dump of stones and bones.”2 However, cultural differences do not account for all of their misunderstandings. Their differential reactions to parades are based not on cultural membership but on their respective societies’ political circumstances and histories. Franz associates parades with the demonstrations in Paris, in which he participated as a student there. Having been raised in a climate of coerced conformity, Sabina interprets parades as enactments of submission to powers that are opposed to freedom of thought and expression. And Kundera’s lexicon entries make it clear that family dynamics, individual temperament, personal experiences, and differing priorities all conditioned his characters’ different reactions. I begin by referencing Kundera’s novel because it highlights the range of factors that can create aesthetic tensions within close interpersonal relationships. I will consider tensions of this sort, starting with a discussion of cultural aesthetic tendencies, concluding that we should be cautious about applying cultural generalizations to individuals and that we should 1 Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, trans. Michael Henry Heim (New York: Faber & Faber, 1984), 88–89. 2 Kundera, 104.

Aesthe tics in Friendship and Intimac y

255

also recognize the formative role of the smaller “culture” of the family on individuals’ tastes. After noting that aesthetics can influence our choices of friends and romantic partners, I will consider some common aesthetic conflicts that can arise in close relationships and argue that while challenging, they are not always intractable.

The Impact of Cultural Background How much of a role does cultural background play in fostering aesthetic sensibilities? And how much should one rely on generalizations about cultural aesthetic tendencies as one develops a close relationship with a person? If two individuals are from the “same” aesthetic culture, they may anticipate some broad convergences in their sensibilities. However, we commonly find individual differences quite salient in relating to another person, regardless of whether or not we come from the same culture. Even siblings raised together in the same home often have different tastes, squabbling over what music or television show should be playing or whether wearing a particular outfit is appropriate. Getting to know a person makes their eccentricities obvious. In the case of any two people, each is likely to find some aspects of the other’s tastes inexplicable. Cultural differences can help explain divergent aesthetic sensibilities. Given a stereotypical upbringing within a culture and a steady diet of artistic images from the culture’s art, a person is primed to expect and take aesthetic pleasure in particular phenomena. For example, someone brought up as Japanese might take more aesthetic satisfaction in a painting with large areas of unfilled canvas than someone brought up as Italian, all other conditions being equal, for negative space is more highly valued in Japanese art than in Italian art. Long-standing, relatively stable societies have typically developed stylistic tendencies evident in their art and aesthetic practices. Those brought up in such a society are likely to have formative aesthetic experiences that influence their preferences. Cultural differences are relevant because one learns to calibrate one’s behavior and apply categories based on the models in one’s environment. Ronald de Sousa proposes that as children, we learn emotions and emotional vocabulary through “paradigm scenarios,” patterns we observe in everyday interactions that are “reinforced by the stories, art, and culture to which we are exposed.”3 I think it is plausible that some of our aesthetic reactions are 3

Ronald de Sousa, The Rationality of Emotion (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987), 182.

256 

K athleen Higgins

premised on our having internalized similar paradigms for arrangements of elements deemed aesthetic pleasing in our cultures, which we learn through observing others’ responses and discovering which are socially reinforced. Moreover, members of different cultures internalize different sets of “display rules” regarding what is considered seemly self-presentation (here appropriating Paul Ekman’s term for the norms that account for cultural differences in ways that people express the “same” emotion).4 Arthur Danto provides an example of different cultural styles of self-presentation. It is as important to American culture that people look happy as it is to the society of the French that its members look serious, and it will come as a form of anthropological relief to the tourist in Auvergne that the dour looks are not expressions of disapproval occasioned by some gaucherie of his but mere manifestations of an internalized enjoined Auvergnat sobriety. This means that the members of that culture will have to find ways of expressing what a dour look in our culture expresses as disapproval.5

I doubt that the residents of Auvergne actually have to seek such modes of expression since they have presumably internalized display rules for showing disapproval. But that only reinforces the point that cultural differences affect the personal style and the face one presents to the world. Cultural proclivities also impact people’s aesthetic choices, such as arranging items in a home. One might recognize this by comparing domiciles in Japan and the United States. The Japanese tend more toward minimalism in interior decoration, putting most things away when not in use. By contrast, in the United States, whole businesses are devoted to selling “décor,” and many people enjoy displaying knick-knacks. Such generalizations, however, raise the problem of cultural stereotypes, which can be invidious even when not derogatory, treating individual members of societies as simply cases in point. Stereotypes about cultural styles also have an unsavory history in Western intellectual history. In the eighteenth century, when the field of aesthetics was being consolidated, even such philosophical luminaries as David Hume and Immanuel Kant did 4 Paul Ekman, Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2003), 4. 5 Arthur C. Danto, “‘Symbolic Expressions of the Self.,’” in Self as Image in Asian Theory and Practice, ed. Roger T. Ames, Thomas P. Kasulis, and Wimal Dissanayake (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 14.

Aesthe tics in Friendship and Intimac y

257

not hesitate to caricature and belittle other cultures’ aesthetic sensibilities. In his 1764 essay “Observations on the Beautiful and Sublime,” for example, Kant does not hesitate to dismiss the aesthetic tastes of many non-European societies, claiming that Africans have “by nature no feeling that rises above the trifling” and that the compliments of the Chinese contain “trifling grotesqueries … Even their paintings are grotesque and portray strange and unnatural figures such as are encountered nowhere in the world.”6 Although Kant’s later work in aesthetics is more sophisticated and less laden with offensive and racist characterizations, his willingness to brush aside the aesthetic tastes of whole cultures should give us pause. Still, it is hard to attend to cultural patterns without engaging in generalization. And according to psychologist Sam Gosling, stereotypes have a place even in getting to know an individual. He sees them as a means “to fill in the gaps when we are unable to gather all the information” and as “a starting place from which to sort out myriad signals that bombard us.”7 According to Gosling, we can get much prima facie information through a quick look at a person’s office or room. And if the person comes from a different cultural background, we may form some plausible predictions about how our tastes may differ by considering the patterned differences between our cultures’ aesthetic practices that generalizations track. Aesthetic style is one of the most salient characteristics of a culture. When noticing differences between another culture and our own, we often attend to typical ways of organizing, ornamentation, dressing, walking, serving meals, and making art. I would expect soup to be served at the end of a Chinese banquet because I have learned from attending a few that this is the standard practice. But I initially noticed this practice because where I come from, soup (if served at all) is usually presented at the beginning of a meal. Details of cultural practices strike us as conspicuous when they contrast with what we are used to. This may also be true of the culturally conditioned behavior and tastes of a person from a culture that is not our own. Some awareness of a culture’s aesthetic tendencies can be useful as we get acquainted with its members. It can help us differentiate between idiosyncratic characteristics of the person and those that are culturally conditioned. For example, reticence in the style of the person who comes from a community of generally boisterous people is more likely a mark of personal introversion than it would be in a community in which a reserved 6 Immanuel Kant, Observations on the Beautiful and the Sublime, trans. John T. Goldthwait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), 110. 7 Sam Gosling, Snoop: What Your Stuff Says about You (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 135–138.

258 

K athleen Higgins

style is typical. Knowing something about general aesthetic patterns within a culture can help us recognize anomalies and idiosyncrasies in its members. But generalizations are only a starting point for interpreting an individual’s style, and they can certainly be misleading. One reason to be cautious in interpreting a person’s aesthetic characteristics as manifestations of general cultural tendencies is that the same individual may be a member of multiple cultures. Not all cultural groups are organized based on geographical proximity. In contemporary times, when travel and relocation are common to an unprecedented degree, members of many different cultures may live in the same area. Cultural membership can be based on religious belief, occupation, and even aesthetic taste. Members of religious groups with different perspectives on religious images are likely to reflect these differences in their aesthetic response to such representations, even if they reside in the same town. A person may also have parents or other ancestors from various cultural groups that are not homogenous. Most cultures of any size include subcultures, which can be based on commonality of background (for example, ethnic communities), shared status (youth culture), or acquired role (for example, a corporate culture that one joins by taking a job). Subgroups often use aesthetic practices to create esprit de corps and distinguish themselves from other groups, favoring certain music, dress, and formal or informal rituals. Aesthetic practices, in fact, can be ways to signal one’s identification with a subgroup, as was the case in the American “beat generation” of the 1950s or, more recently, the grunge scene. Political circumstances can also influence aesthetic behavior, even in contrast with long-standing cultural traditions. In communist Romania, for example, the political ideology regarded home decorations as rather frivolous and tended to discourage all gestures that emphasized inequalities between individuals. Consequently, urban homes had very similar decorative items, most of which were mass-produced. Although some people who traveled managed to smuggle in a few decorations from outside the country, these objects, too, showed little variety since they tended to be small, easily packable souvenirs that were mass-produced and marketed to tourists. In contrast, in the countryside, many people continued the traditional practice of making decorations by hand and displaying their craftsmanship in their homes.8 A person’s aesthetic repertoire is often layered, affected by multiple cultural memberships. The degree to which the person’s style and tastes 8

Nora Grigore, Email to author, June 24, 2021.

Aesthe tics in Friendship and Intimac y

259

differentially rely on tendencies from the various streams that feed into them may not be easy to predict. We should also recognize that some of the most powerful cultural influences on an individual’s aesthetic style and tastes are the small-scale groups that are central in that person’s social world: the microcultures of the family, the social clique, and one’s group within a workplace. Each of these can serve as a training ground for developing and refining one’s aesthetic sensibility, as can relationships with individuals. A close relationship between members of different cultures is just a special case among close relationships generally. Aesthetic openness to unfamiliarity facilitates mutual comfort as one forms a close relationship with someone from a different cultural background. We often fail to notice that such openness is also needed in close relationships between members of the same cultural group. When two individuals begin to develop a close relationship, even the fact that they come from different families creates the need for small-scale cultural adjustment. Aesthetic differences can create interpersonal tension, perhaps when common cultural background leads one to expect similarity.

Aesthetic Factors in Selecting Associates Even before we notice differences, aesthetic preferences often affect our choices of intimate companions. The selection of friends and romantic partners is often premised, at least in part, on positive aesthetic reactions to the person’s looks and style. Wolfgang Welsch applauds Charles Darwin’s characterization of female mate selection in some species as aesthetic, and he observes, “Already in animals, the aesthetic sense is a subtle one. The females do not just go for any qualities but for highly distinctive aesthetic qualities. Their aesthetic sense is like that of a gourmet, not a gourmand.”9 Whether or not our aesthetic tastes can be explained in evolutionary terms, we certainly exploit ornament, ritualized gestures, and calculated modes of self-presentation when attempting to attract romantic partners. Many of us also make considerable efforts to appear “just so” to make a good impression on those we would like to befriend.10 9 Wolfgang Welsch, “Animal Aesthetics,” Contemporary Aesthetics 2, no. 1 (2004), https:// digitalcommons.risd.edu/liberalarts_contempaesthetics/vol2/iss1/15, section 3, paragraph 4. 10 For discussion of the broad spectrum of human self-beautif ication practices and their importance in our social life, see Stephen Davies, Adornment: What Self-Decoration Tells Us About Who We Are (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).

260 

K athleen Higgins

The desire to befriend or date someone may not be directly motivated by an aesthetic appreciation of that person’s appearance or style. Experiments conducted by psychologist Robert Zajonc and others suggest that “mere exposure” inclines one to view an object more favorably than an object that one has not previously encountered, so familiarity alone may result in favorable regard.11 But even when we are only subliminally aware that we are choosing individuals we want to spend time with, we are more willing to be in the company of those we find attractive (for whatever reason) than those we find unappealing. And people are often drawn to each other by aesthetic merits. Mere familiarity may be attractive, but not as much as a winsome laugh or a graceful gait.

The Inevitability of Aesthetic Tensions The Irish saying, “As the Lord made them, he matched them,” is a wry comment on the quirkiness of human taste and the marvel that even extremely odd individuals seem to find appropriate partners. However well-matched, parties in a relationship rarely experience perfect attunement of taste, and individuals vary in how fine-tuned their aesthetic preferences are. As one gets to know another person, one almost inevitably discovers points of aesthetic dissonance. Friedrich Nietzsche’s character Zarathustra responds to the adage, “There’s no disputing about taste” by saying, “But all of life is a dispute over taste and tasting!”.12 Although this may be an exaggeration, in intimate companionships it contains more than a grain of truth. Different individual tastes, habits, and preferences within a relationship might be experienced as curiosities, mild annoyances, or sources of frustration and resentment. The danger that aesthetic differences will produce the last reaction is especially pronounced in relationships that involve sharing a domicile. In domestic spaces, decisions must be made regarding decoration, arrangement of possessions, degree of tidiness, and maintenance standards, and preferences on these matters can be hard to reconcile. When sharing a home, one routinely confronts objects and arrangements that have been placed there by someone else, not necessarily to one’s satisfaction. 11 Robert B Zajonc, “Exposure Effects: An Unmediated Phenomenon,” in Feelings and Emotions: The Amsterdam Symposium, ed. Antony S. R. Manstead, Nico Frijda, and Agneta Fischer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 194–203. 12 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Graham Parkes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), II:13, 101.

Aesthe tics in Friendship and Intimac y

261

Because aesthetic tensions are especially evident within the household, I will focus on those that arise in this context, though similar tensions may arise in other shared activity spaces. I will also emphasize cases in which different conceptions of order provoke aesthetic disagreements, for many more specific aesthetic conflicts arise from differences on what makes for an orderly environment and how orderly the environment should be.

Aesthetic Order and Household Arrangements Order among the elements within a home is a fundamentally aesthetic matter. Aesthetic order, when achieved, is internal to the set of specific objects involved. Ruth Lorand characterizes aesthetic order as arising when “The elements of the set constitute their principle by generating an individual net of interrelationships among them.”13 Being specific to the elements involved, aesthetic order is not a function of simply applying established principles that are “apprehended prior to and independent of their particular cases.”14 What constitutes aesthetic order is not predictable in advance, nor is it specifiable in general terms that might resolve differences of opinion regarding how elements should be arranged. Any set of objects might be variously ordered, and tastes may differ on which arrangement is preferable. People differ widely on what constitutes an optimally ordered arrangement. What one may consider the “lived-in” look, another may consider a mess, and a third may see it as excessively fussy. I have marveled at different acquaintances’ housekeeping styles. Some treat mounds and stacks of items (such as clothes and books, respectively) as structural features of their homes, while others eschew any departure from a limited color scheme. Even when they cluster in a general area on the taste continuum, members of households are rarely in full agreement about exactly how the contents of the house should be arrayed. “Every couple I know,” says Robert C. Solomon, includes one person who is “the sloppy one” and the other as “the neat one.” In fact, they might both be terrible slobs or terribly neat by any reasonable “objective” standards. There may have been no difference in 13 Ruth Lorand, Aesthetic Order: A Philosophy of Order, Beauty, and Art (London: Routledge, 2000), 47. 14 In Lorand’s analysis, aesthetic order is opposed to “discursive order,” which is achieved by applying external principles to a set of objects, see 51.

262 

K athleen Higgins

their habits whatsoever before they started living together, and in another relationship, they may have had just the opposite roles. But somehow, early on, the difference is defined, the roles are cast, and each person plays into them, the sloppy person even taking some pride in sloppiness, the neat one taking pleasure in his or her remarkable toleration – or enjoying the endless opportunity for criticism.15

Solomon’s suggestion that members of couples specialize in being comparatively neat or sloppy is intriguing. If he is right, this suggests an explanation for why disputes about household order are often perceived as high-stakes conflicts. How one orders one’s environment can be a mode of self-expression within a relationship. Maintaining a preferred degree of order is often crucial to feeling at home in one’s home. If people who live together actually assert their individualities through pursuing their distinctive conceptions of optimal order, it makes sense that acts of tidying or making a mess can feed ongoing power struggles and add fuel to other squabbles. Another person’s sense of order can strike one as a complete mystery, no matter how close one is to the person. The neat member of a pair may find it difficult even to recognize that a particular arrangement of objects was deliberately contrived by the other. I discovered this many years ago with regard to my brother, an artist with an excellent visual memory. His room was an untidy jumble of objects, to the point that I once gave him a humorous plaque that said, “This mess is a room.” While my brother was out and without his permission, I decided to borrow one of his record albums (yes, it was quite some time ago). I enjoyed listening to the record and then returned to where I had found it, confident that my brother would be none the wiser. A couple of days later, though, he complained about my borrowing the record. I confessed but asked him how he knew. He said that he had seen that it was not the way he had left it since he knew how he had positioned the sleeve for the record inside the album cover. His room was chaotic, but he could tell when something had been moved. Differences regarding orders can be manifest in different views of clutter. The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines clutter as “a clotted mass” and “a confused collection, crowded disorder, untidy state, litter.”16 “Clutter” is a term of aesthetic disparagement, and for those bent on organizing, it implies that there is work to be done. However, one person’s clutter is another 15 Robert C Solomon, Love: Emotion, Myth, and Metaphor (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1990), 159–160. 16 “Clutter,” in The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, ed. Lesley Brown (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).

Aesthe tics in Friendship and Intimac y

263

person’s comfort zone, and even individuals who are mostly simpatico on aesthetic matters can differ on which is which. I remember returning home from a trip and seeing that the house-sitter had left pots and pans on the stove. Initially annoyed at what I took to be dirty dishes, I was confused when I saw that they were all clean. Although I never asked her, I surmise that the house-sitter liked having them out and ready to use. I imagine that her attitude was, “Why put it away when you are just going to take it out again?” She probably thought having the pots already on the stove added to the ease of using the kitchen. To me, by contrast, pots that are out are in my way unless I am using them. I like kitchen items to be ready to hand, but to me, that means that they are in their assigned places in cupboards or drawers so that they are there whenever I reach for them. I suspect that different conceptions of clutter and ease availability underlie many disagreements over where items in a household belong. Having to dig out a piece of equipment can discourage a person from beginning a task. I am much less inclined to cook something that requires a blender since I moved it from a counter to the pantry, even though it is easy to take the blender off the shelf. Yet, although extracting equipment from closets can encourage procrastination, many activities involving equipment also require a certain amount of clear space. These considerations each bear on judgments about which items should be stored and immediately accessible, but they point in different directions. Another clutter-related issue is when to get rid of things. Organizing consultant Marie Kondo has gained celebrity in the United States for promoting a signature strategy for de-cluttering. She encourages people to evaluate items according to whether they “spark joy” and get rid of those that do not. But how might this work in the case of a pair for which an item that sparks joy for one inspires gloom in the other? One may cherish an object because it has been part of one’s life for such a long time, while that very fact may strike the other as reason to regard it as battered and expendable. Similarly, one member of a couple may object to the other’s wearing “that old thing” when going out, even though it is among the latter’s favorite garments. In close relationships, one may think the other’s aesthetic choices reflect well or poorly on oneself. The unsentimental party in such a dispute may feel entirely justified in objecting to the partners’ perverse refusal to get rid of unsightly old things. A person’s experiences can influence attitudes toward keeping or discarding things, but exactly how depends on the individual. Moving often may lead one to feel encumbered by too many possessions, while another may be especially attached to objects that have made the moves with them.

264 

K athleen Higgins

Family histories and socio-economic circumstances may also influence individuals’ views about which items to keep and which to offload. Many Americans who, like my parents, grew up in families that experienced economic difficulties during the Great Depression are cautious about getting rid of things, recalling unforeseen circumstances of want. By contrast, individuals who have grown up in families with large disposable incomes may think less of getting rid of things they could easily replace than those of more limited means. On the other hand, aspirations for upward mobility can motivate behavior that contrasts with what was typical in a person’s childhood home. According to Tom Leddy, restriction of pallets and aesthetic aversion to shininess can reflect an effort by upper and middle-class people to differentiate themselves from the poor and the working class, who are often caricatured as being attracted to things that sparkle.17 In general, family background often shapes individual aesthetic preferences regarding the home. It is easy to believe that an offspring’s decorative sense draws on templates acquired from parental practice. A friend of mine makes veritable galleries of framed photographs placed alongside each other on a table or other surface, and her daughter displays photos in similar groupings. The furnishings and decorations in my great-aunt’s airy Arizona apartment resembled those in my grandparents’ Nebraska bungalow, with its heavy wooden fixtures. The family-style interior décor had accompanied her when she moved from the mid-West to Tempe. Another close friend pares down his belongings regularly, a predilection that is in line with his mother’s continual efforts to make the family home shipshape. By contrast, my parents stored numerous items in well-labeled containers in their basement, anticipating that these things might be needed at some stage, even when they had not been used in years. Although their children differ in the degree to which they follow suit, all of us have tended to keep things that we do not often use with the thought that they will be useful someday. However, even when parental models inspire aesthetic tastes, the results vary significantly. In families with two parents, a child can be more influenced by the aesthetic taste and behavior of the neat one, the sloppy one, or both in different respects. In addition to aesthetic differences between household members, each may harbor conflicting aesthetic ideals, further complicating the challenge of finding a way to organize domestic spaces in a way that is acceptable to all household members. 17 Thomas Leddy, “Sparkle and Shine,” British Journal of Aesthetics 37, no. 3 (1997): 259–73, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjaesthetics/37.3.259.

Aesthe tics in Friendship and Intimac y

265

Dealing with Aesthetic Conflict Clashes of taste can be managed. One approach is capitulation by one of the parties to the conflict. One can simply cede aesthetic control to the other, and this was effectively the traditional arrangement of homes in which it was merely assumed that the public sphere was the precinct of husbands and the private sphere that of wives. Alternatively (and potentially more equitably), spaces within the house can be divided up into separate areas of aesthetic control. My father’s sense of order found an outlet in a meticulously ordered closet exclusively for his things in my childhood home. Its tidiness contrasted with the relative chaos in the rest of the house, a testament to my mother’s realism about how much order could be sustained amidst the commotion of six children. The “neat” member of a pair (or larger unit) might take real satisfaction in even a limited sphere of aesthetic control. Many who hanker for order have found gratification in organizing a closet, a pantry, or even a drawer. On the other hand, and more to the liking of “neat” members of conflicting pairs, a limited sphere of the disorder can be established within a larger area that is relatively tidy. My husband liked having numerous paper items (such as a calendar, notes, letters, and other mail) strewn around and easy to inspect. While I could cope with papers scattered on tables in the living room, I grew concerned when I noticed that they were also starting to invade the kitchen. I proposed that we have a “control panel” built as a place for the numerous papers. We were both satisfied with this solution, which liberated counters for more usual kitchen functions. Unfortunately, the policy of assigning separate spheres of aesthetic control is not always practicable. Commonly, many household items are possessed collectively, and many rooms are common areas. Objects that belong to various persons are often most useful when placed near each other (toiletries in a bathroom, for example), but this can create opportunities for collisions of aesthetic sensibilities. One person’s sense of order may call for having different persons’ property segregated in their own assigned areas. At the same time, another may see efforts that separate property in this way as gestures of maintaining distance within the relationship. Just as no prior principles can dictate aesthetic order concerning any given set of elements, no established principles can be relied upon to resolve disagreements about ordering items in a home. Managing aesthetic conflicts among closely connected individuals requires creativity as well as patience. And to thrive while living together, individuals are well-advised to cultivate an attitude of openness toward aesthetic arrangements that were not originally one’s own idea.

266 

K athleen Higgins

Every individual has a distinct aesthetic biography. Kundera’s narrator draws our attention to how such biographies affect individuals’ aesthetic preferences and the symbolic meanings particular objects and arrangements have for them. The experiences that make up these histories may be unique to the person, common to family members, typical across a culture, or widely shared across a historical period. Knowing something about these histories can help one understand the sources of the individuals’ aesthetic preferences and recognize which of a person’s tastes are more entrenched and which are more provisional. Personal histories do not dictate aesthetic sensibilities, but an individual’s aesthetic tendencies are often shaped by what they have lived through and the various communities they belong to. The aesthetic biography of anyone alive remains open, subject to new influences. Aesthetic tastes can change and broaden, sometimes because of learning to appreciate something valued by someone else – possibly a close friend, romantic partner, or family member. When two people get to know each other, even slight differences in tastes become noticeable. Still, over time one can come to feel tolerant affection even for the mystifying aesthetic preferences of a beloved person. A truce or end of the conflict is sometimes attainable in an aesthetic dispute. The other person’s aesthetic choices can become more palatable and even add to one’s repertoire. One of the ways in which close relationships enrich one’s life is by expanding one’s aesthetic horizons. To love someone is to love the singular person that they are, and through love, one can come to feel fondness for the loved one’s strangest quirks – even attachment to that ugly, old chair.

Bibliography “Clutter.” In The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, edited by Lesley Brown. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Danto, Arthur C. “‘Symbolic Expressions of the Self.’” In Self as Image in Asian Theory and Practice, edited by Roger T. Ames, Thomas P. Kasulis, and Wimal Dissanayake, 13–32. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Davies, Stephen. Adornment: What Self-Decoration Tells Us About Who We Are. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. Ekman, Paul. Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2003. Gosling, Sam. Snoop: What Your Stuff Says about You. New York: Basic Books, 2008. Kant, Immanuel. Observations on the Beautiful and the Sublime. Translated by John T. Goldthwait. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960.

Aesthe tics in Friendship and Intimac y

267

Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Translated by Michael Henry Heim. New York: Faber & Faber, 1984. Leddy, Thomas. “Sparkle and Shine.” British Journal of Aesthetics 37, no. 3 (1997): 259–73. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjaesthetics/37.3.259. Lorand, Ruth. Aesthetic Order: A Philosophy of Order, Beauty, and Art. London: Routledge, 2000. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translated by Graham Parkes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Solomon, Robert C. Love: Emotion, Myth, and Metaphor. Buffalo: Prometheus, 1990. Sousa, Ronald de. The Rationality of Emotion. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987. Welsch, Wolfgang. “Animal Aesthetics.” Contemporary Aesthetics 2, no. 1 (2004). https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/liberalarts_contempaesthetics/vol2/iss1/15. Zajonc, Robert B. “Exposure Effects: An Unmediated Phenomenon.” In Feelings and Emotions: The Amsterdam Symposium, edited by Antony S. R. Manstead, Nico Frijda, and Agneta Fischer, 194–203. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

About the Author Kathleen Higgins is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, where she specializes in aesthetics, continental philosophy, and philosophy of emotion. She is a former delegate-at-large in the International Aesthetics Association and a former president of the American Society for Aesthetics. Her current research is focused on aesthetics in connection with loss and mourning.

15 Morality and Aesthetical Lives Real Stories of Two Hong Kong Women Eva Kit Wah Man Abstract This chapter focuses on stories of women who sought refuge in Hong Kong after 1949. The first lived to 103 and passed away in Macau after living a solitary life, going through emotional turmoil and betrayal. She demonstrated toughness in holding an ethical attitude and lived a moral and loyal life towards her work and family. She gained respect and her life was praised as beautiful and graceful. The second story portrays a younger woman who died at the age of 34 of cancer. She was engaged in a long term triangular marital relationship, which was common in Hong Kong and China before concubinage was officially banned in 1971. Her generosity and caring attitudes towards folks and friends led to fond memories of her as a beautiful woman. Analysis of the dilemma of Confucian patriarchal values and the subjects’ autonomy in their attitudes in everyday living are brought into perspective. Keywords: morality, ethics, aesthetic life, Hong Kong, Confucius

The Stories of Our Lives The day will come when one finds that friends and folks are gone. Some have passed away, and some have moved to warmer climates or live near children and grandchildren. Those who cannot afford to move stay to live in buildings where there is support and food is served. An old, familiar story.1 1 Elana D. Buch, “Beyond Independence: Older Chicagoans Living Valued Lives,” in Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession, ed. Sarah Lamb (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2017), 85–96, 85.

Man, E.K.W. & Petts, J., Comparative Everyday Aesthetics: East-West Studies in Contemporary Living. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463723367_ch15

270 

Eva Kit Wah Man

During such times, home care plays a crucial role in daily life. People are grateful to home caregivers, who take care of the aged and help sustain their sense of independence and well-being. We are all taught about indepen­ dence in our lives, about being an individual person. Elana Buch claims that personhood is a fundamentally relational concept describing people’s membership, roles, and status in societies.2 It is essential for the elderly to feel that sense of personhood, and they do so when they are engaged with vibrant moral communities surrounded by other elders, family members, kin, and care workers. Such social relations and moral communities offer possibilities for even frail, disabled, and home-bound older adults to live valued lives.3 Each of us wants to be independent and balance that with social engagement. I agree that it is a central part of the meaning of successful aging. An aged person is praised when they have an active social life and look after their appearance. With the help of caretakers and others, they dress in decent ways and proudly present themselves in social circles. In this sense, independence and personhood become our core values in life and have a necessary aesthetic dimension. This is true across cultural settings, although I stress that the aesthetic dimension of a person is manifested in various ways among different social restrictions and norms. For Chinese women, young or aged, this dimension sits alongside one’s personality and other virtues, all within the social contexts they are living in. This chapter tells the stories of two women who came to live in Hong Kong from Guangdong, a province in South China, during the turmoil of the Sino-Japanese war and the internal conflicts between the Communists and Nationalists in China in the 1930s. There were many like them, and their stories have a lot in common. They reveal the aesthetic dimensions of women regarded as virtuous according to the Chinese norms and discourses held by their folks and clans. Before telling the stories, I acknowledge David Carr’s point about how we review lives. Part of one of the stories is an autobiography told by the person when she was ninety years old; the other involves biographies said by people who adored the younger woman, who died at thirty-four. Carr points out that when the author is advanced in years, that person may have a very different view of life’s meaning than a younger autobiographer. Events like a broken heart or a career loss, which may seem to be tragedies to a middle-aged person, might be a blessing to an aged one who has experienced 2 3

Buch, 86. Buch, 87.

Mor alit y and Aesthe tical Lives

271

the total outcomes of such events. 4 I think that Carr is right. When I heard the elderly lady telling me the story of her younger days, she expressed pride in being independent and in control of her destiny. She was indeed the author of her narrative, in Carr’s terms.5 This aged lady is my grandaunt and most of her story, besides the events I witnessed, is her autobiographical reflection. There was active reassessment in which she might have recast her past in ways that she believed in, but as Carr notes, we are all constantly composing and recomposing the stories of our lives.6 I remember how the face of my grand aunt glowed when she was telling her life story and how beautiful she was as the narrator. When Carr asks what do people gain by looking at aging from a narrative perspective, the answer is, instead of looking at it as something we suffer, it can be seen as a creative process of self-formation and self-interpretation.7 I, therefore, start with the story of the aged one, Grandaunt Eight.

The Story of Eight I was told that my mother passed away in the arms of my Grandaunt Eight. So, Eight has a special place in my heart. My mother died of laryngeal cancer when I was four. I later learned that my mother choked on the milk she drank that morning and could not breathe. Grandaunt Eight was there by her side and held her tight until the ambulance arrived, which was all she could do. Eight was the younger sister of my grandpa, who was among the literati but also a lazy businessman who inherited the tobacco business from my great grandfather. Grandaunt Eight was the eighth child of the line and the only daughter. People called her Eight. Her real name is Pochun Man, meaning “treasure.” She was married through parental arrangement when she was twenty years old, in our hometown near Guangzhou. Her husband disappeared for a year without a trace one day after they married, and no one knew his whereabouts. After waiting for fifteen years, Grandaunt Eight decided to adopt a daughter called King, whom she found in an orphanage, and they moved to Macao. Another twenty years went by until one day in 1970, her husband suddenly turned up in Macao and got in touch with her. 4 David Carr, “The Stories of Our Lives: Aging and Narrative,” in The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Aging, ed. G. Scarre (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 178. 5 Carr, 182. 6 Carr, 184. 7 Carr, 184.

272 

Eva Kit Wah Man

It was revealed that he had gone to Singapore and married another woman. He returned to Macao when his daughter was getting married in the then Portuguese colony. He wanted to seize the chance to reunite with Grandaunt Eight, his first wife and his daughter’s “first mother.” Everybody in my family was invited to the grandiose wedding. Grandaunt Eight followed all the rituals, including drinking the “tea for mother,” but remained looking reserved. She looked lost and astray, distanced all the time, and she was quieter than usual. The wedding banquets lasted for about a week, and after the hosts were gone, it seemed like a dream. We looked at grand aunt Eight in a very different way from then on. Her identity had changed, and she was a married and unmarried woman simultaneously. Her husband passed away in the 1980s. He and Grandaunt Eight had never met again since that bizarre wedding. Grandaunt Eight and King remained mother and daughter, and later they moved to Hong Kong. They loved each other very much, and King brought Eight grandchildren and a family. Grandaunt Eight had been earning her living before and after her husband had gone. She worked at the tobacco factory of my grandfather in Macao, processing tobacco leaves every day. She worked there until she was ninety years old, accumulating enough savings to be independent. King got lung cancer and died at 45, leaving behind her husband Wing and her children. Wing loved Grandaunt Eight and moved her to nursing homes in Macao, treating her like his own mother. But when Wing got sick and could not take care of Eight, she had to move into a care home permanently. If she could have still worked, she would instead have earned her own living, but she could not continue working after being knocked down by a bus and breaking her leg at the age of ninety. I almost forget that Grandaunt Eight had a godson called Hei, the son of her younger brother. She loved Hei like her own son, and he was in charge of her income. After the bus accident, when she started using a wheelchair, she found out that Hei, who used to manage her rental income, had stopped depositing the rent in her bank account. This tough lady tried to confront her godson, but he never responded, which hurt her badly. Amid the continuous failure to contact Hei, she summoned everyone in our family for dinner in Hong Kong. She asked us to invite Hei and make sure of his presence. I will never forget that evening. She asked my sister to dress her right and waited patiently for Hei. Hei turned up with a poker face which later blushed when he was confronted by his godmother in front of everyone regarding the whereabouts of her money. He became so angry that he stood up and made this severe condemnation: “From now on, we will make no contact,

Mor alit y and Aesthe tical Lives

273

and I will never see you again, not even at your funeral. Take my word!” He slammed the door in the face of his godmother, who had been supporting him from his childhood. Eight was smiling and, at other moments, threw Hei a scornful gaze. She then knew she was right about him, and that insight and moral courage gave her so much strength. We were very relieved after Hei’s departure and just enjoyed the dinner with her. As Chinese, we could not endure family betrayal, and Eight was determined. She had followed traditional Confucian values her whole life, and they were her living pillars, sparing her from sadness and struggles. I learned that Wing passed away in 2017. No one dared inform Eight. She might have chosen not to ask about him in any case, realizing what might have happened. After, Eight lived a life of solitude. But I visited her in Macao regularly. I was glad that she was finally admitted to a quiet, tidy, well-managed home for the elderly run by the Catholic Church in the downtown area. She remained smart, and dementia came only very late in her life. She recognized faces, especially those of her loved ones. When I gave her pocket money, she asked me to hide it in a small pocket underneath her clothes. She carried some of her “treasures” with her to ensure they would not be stolen and that she was secure in her identity. She never complained about the food or services she received at home. It seemed as if there were things she aspired to beyond these daily routines. She had no religious belief, read nearly nothing, and never prayed. She was always a reserved lady, very polite, but at the same time, kept a discreet distance from people. She did not ask for anything, but she did not want to be deprived of one thing, particularly her freedom. I visited Grandaunt Eight in Macao quite often. I enjoyed listening to her tell her stories and form the puzzles of her life piece by piece. Grandaunt Eight passed away quickly and peacefully in 2019 at the age of 104. She had breathing problems but no pain during her last few days at the hospital in Macao. It surprised me a lot seeing her beautiful, wrinkleless, and youthful face at the funeral parlor. Her old colleagues, who were still alive and able to walk, attended her funeral. All her grandchildren, family members, and friends attended her funeral, including her stepson-in-law, the bridegroom I had met at his wedding in 1970. She gained all our love and respect in her long life as a woman who had gone through a world war, political turmoil in China for over a century, the loss of loved ones, experienced expectations, and lived in desolation, yet who had successfully kept her independence, dignity, and moral courage. Her life is not charted by knowledge, success, or wealth but is about a decent human being, an exemplary woman of timeless Confucian ethics and beauty.

274 

Eva Kit Wah Man

Grandaunt Eight at age 103.

Aesthetics of Aging: Independence and Serenity Marlene Goldman notes that prevailing representations of and theories about old age, memory, and aesthetics range from classical and religious models to contemporary ones specific to different cultural moments. They relate to people anchoring themselves within specific historical, geographical, and national contexts, not solely to their gender and age.8 I support the idea that the aesthetic lives of seniors involve the confidence to define beauty by their independent perspectives, which simultaneously generates psychological serenity.9 The definition of beauty provided by Grandaunt Eight featured self-worth, independence, freedom of spirit, and 8 Marlene Goldman, “Aging, Old Age, Memory, Aesthetics: Introduction to Special Issue” (Arcade, 2012), https://arcade.stanford.edu/occasion/aging-old-age-memory-aestheticsintroduction-special-issue. 9 Kuei-Chiu Chang and Mei-Ju Chou, “On the Life Aesthetics of Aging People- Slowness Makes Life Beautiful,” Universal Journal of Educational Research 3, no. 12 (2015): 967–72, https://doi. org/10.13189/ujer.2015.031203.

Mor alit y and Aesthe tical Lives

275

a sense of respect, all fundamental aspects of self-esteem that elevate an individual’s self-worth regardless of aging. So, she might not have chosen to define her beauty in specific material ways but learned and achieved it via her life path and her fate. She did not like all the losses in her life but accepted them and countered them by how she chose to live her life. Now that I recall, I never saw her crying, in dismay, anger, or sadness – she just smiled all the time. Was it because of her nature and being, the historical and cultural contexts she lived in, or both? In the Chinese culture in which Eight was living, it should be noted that women were regarded as aesthetic subjects, and objects were not restricted to their being, primarily objects of sensation. Grandaunt Eight was fine-looking, but people did not simply regard her as an object of physical desire. In Chinese culture, the root of “beauty” denotes material benefits and connotes wealth, abundance, longevity, vitality, good reputation, and power. The word also refers to one’s behaviors and outstanding abilities of many kinds. Classical Confucian teachings in the Analects and Mencius relate beauty to moral practices, particularly those of women. The sages are beautiful people, their beauty referring to their good qualities and positive dispositions in personality that define a human being. When “beauty” is used to describe a woman as a sage, it is subjected to particular social and moral norms. The 2,000-year-old Chinese Han dynasty text, Nu Jie (Teachings for Women), states: “a man is great because of his strength; a woman is beautiful because of her weakness.” The term “weakness” here means humility in human relations. Other words used to describe female beauty are “rou” (gentleness), “ruan” (softness), and “zhi” (innocence). These qualities are used to define virtuous women by their inner beauty. When these ideas are developed to the extreme, they praise virtuous women as saints who possess incredible moral courage that manifests the entire humanity that Confucians strive for.10 When referring to gender, the moral practice of women in the old Confucian culture stresses the fundamental virtues of chastity, piety to their parents-in-law, and marital fidelity.11 These considerations are considered to make a woman outstanding with inner beauty. The more persistent women keep these virtues, the more they will be commended in history. The Lie Nu (Records of Women of Admonition), also from the Han dynasty, reveals how Chinese women in the classical Confucian context were willing to make sacrifices in their lives to uphold patriarchal values. So, the ideas of love, chastity, and marriage were internalized by women 10 Eva K.W. Man, Bodies in China (Albany: SUNY Press, 2016), 119. 11 Man, 120.

276 

Eva Kit Wah Man

across dynasties and attained a form of a religious cult, which ensured the success of Confucian teaching to Chinese women.12 I see Grandaunt Eight carried along by and practicing these values all her life. She never thought of remarrying, although her husband had disappeared for a long time and had another family in Singapore when found. She had been waiting and living like a widow: her marriage without love made her a married woman, which was the identity she wanted to keep for her whole life. Was she praised as a model of chastity? Indeed, she gained respect and adoration from her clan because of that, although not merely for that. “She had done nothing wrong; she had done what she should have done,” my grandma once concluded. More importantly, Grandaunt Eight maintained her financial independence as an older woman. She worked till she was ninety years old. She had savings and two properties while leading a very modest life. She did not smoke or gamble even though she had lived in Macau for half her life. She kept extra money by her side and distributed it to all the younger clan members. Her happiness? Whatever that was, she kept it to herself. Eight’s clean face and quiet poise in her portrait displayed at the funeral crystallize all the Confucian aesthetics of a woman of chastity, informed by the four Confucian teachings of no gossip, no curiosity, no wild behaviors, and being discreet. I cannot even recall any negative comments about her, and I think it is because her merit of chastity had covered all flaws, resembling her white and porcelain face on which no black spots were seen. We can conclude that in the Confucian tradition, inner moral dimensions determine the aesthetic qualities, and the presentation and definition of female beauty in that context generates its specific forms and meanings. It is perfectly illustrated by the case of my grand aunt Eight who lived in the twentieth century across Guangdong, Macao, and Hong Kong. The meaning of her beauty is the result of centuries of adaptations and modifications to the idea of beauty in response to political, cultural, and economic conditions in Chinese history. There is a proper contemporary emphasis on independence as essential to successful aging. Many older adults emphasize sociality as compensation for a lack of genuine autonomy. By doing so, they can be seen as living self-determined lives.13 But this was not the compensation that Eight had chosen. She looked beyond concerns of social “success” for her independence. Her sense of self-sufficiency, serenity, peace, and gracefulness was 12 Man, 120. 13 Buch, “Beyond Independence: Older Chicagoans Living Valued Lives,” 97.

Mor alit y and Aesthe tical Lives

277

originated from her Confucian beliefs and values. She blamed no one, made no complaints, nor showed self-pity, but acted and lived a life of her own course with a clear conscience. Her god was not external and beyond herself. Instead, her internalized cultural values were her savior and strength. The following story is biographical, told mainly by people who knew the person, as she did not have the chance to tell her own story.

The Story of Ling Grandaunt Eight was very close to my mother. They were like sisters, differing only that Eight lived a much longer life. My mother, Ling, was born in 1930 in Guangzhou, China. She moved between Guangdong province in South China, Macao, and Hong Kong. She became the daughter of her father’s sister-in-law after the poor woman lost her husband in a bombing during the Sino-Japanese war. She had also lost her only daughter from illness, and she wanted my mother to be her child. She led a lonely life, but this widow was praised for her chastity and was kept by relatives. She had never worked in her life. Ling was not educated. She was brought up in a town in Guangdong, and since she was sixteen, she had earned her living by smuggling tobacco. She hid tobacco in a cart, on top of which lay a tin bowl with boiling pig blood soup and tofu. She succeeded in moving the cart around when Japanese troops were passing by, who hated the smell of the soup and left her alone. Sometimes, she had to transport the tobacco on a sampan. She was dealing with my grandfather, who was a tobacco merchant. He found the young girl intelligent and tough and wanted her to be his daughter-in-law. So, it was an arranged marriage when my mother married my father, who was the eldest son in the Man family. The bridegroom was not happy, though, since he had a high school sweetheart at the time, but he failed in resisting his father’s wishes. After a short refuge in Macao, the Sino-Japanese war drove the whole family to Hong Kong. Ling was busy doing business selling watches in Hong Kong and raising her five children. She also lost one infant son, who died within a month of being born. From the beginning of her marriage, she learned that her husband had a serious relationship with his high school acquaintance, Yuk, who also had four children with him. In the 1950s, the concubine system was still standard among Chinese in Hong Kong, but this did not stop her jealousy. Ling smoked a lot and played mahjong to kill her loneliness. She sometimes lets her mother and relatives take care of her kids.

278 

Eva Kit Wah Man

Folks and friends all felt for her, including her father and mother-inlaw, but no one could change the situation. They were all in favor of Ling, who was generous and loving. She supported her cousin, Leo, to study at Columbia University in New York, and he became the first doctoral holder in Communication Studies in Hong Kong. Ling also gave money to relatives on her mother’s side to pay off business and gambling debts. There are many stories about how she helped people while her husband was expanding his other family. After she died, folks said that everyone owed her money and that no one repaid their debts. It was a time when Hong Kong was filled with refugees from China who had lost everything during the giant escape in 1949, after the Sino-Japanese war and the national conflicts. They went through life and death events and learned to support each other in the British colony. They lost everything, but at least they thought they were safe from political turmoil. Ling’s sister-in-law, Kay, recalled: “Ling was very kind to me. There was a time when food was running out, and there were so many mouths to feed. I brought my friend back home for lunch on weekdays, [but] she had never complained but still smiled and cooked for us. She had such a great heart.” She won people’s hearts with how she was. At the same time, folks hated Yuk and called her “the fox,” who took Ling’s husband from the beginning of her marriage. Once or twice, the two women fought back and forth for the man who went between them. Ling got laryngeal cancer when I was three years old. Some blamed it on her chain-smoking, while others said she got cancer because she had been upset for so long since her broken marriage. No one knew much about cancer back in the 1960s in Hong Kong. She took radiotherapy with wires, and she had to sit in a remote place at the corner of her home for meals, as people thought cancer was contagious. She gradually lost most of her hair and physical strengths. I ran to my mother, wanting her to hug me, but she could not bend down or hold me up. That was my last memory of her. My youngest sister was in her infancy, and she hardly remembered her mother. Ling died at the age of thirty-four. People spread stories about her last moments in melodramatic narratives. They said her man tried to see her at the hospital but was detained by Yuk, who grabbed him and left his body with bloody scratches. These people telling stories did not know Yuk well and had not met her in person until she finally moved into the family with her children. People remember Ling very well to this day. This includes my uncle Leo, who never forgot how her material enabled his education at Columbia University and moral support; moreover, he attributed all his life achievements to Ling. In all their minds, Ling was a beautiful woman, like

Mor alit y and Aesthe tical Lives

279

A portrait of my mother taken when she was four months pregnant with me.

a Chinese female buddha, forever kind and caring. She had always been loyal to her family and put their benefits and well-being first, despite her sufferings and loss in life, including the fact that she would never have the chance to see her children growing up.

Specific Living Contexts: Gender and Confucianism Ling was always very quiet. She was never loud, especially when she was unwell. She was tough at work and financially independent, but she also had a kind personality and a good disposition. She grew up with a dependent widow and never received a formal education, but she was defined through attributes that implied a proper upbringing. I always wonder where those qualities came from. Maybe people saddened by her premature death generated an imaginary picture of her when granting their biographical notes? My memory of her, which is the same as others who knew her, projects an ideal feminine space that she was supposed to be in. It was what Chinese literati in the seventeenth century used to portray when they described the space of a beautiful woman or meiran. The space merged with the

280 

Eva Kit Wah Man

woman’s existence, having four components: xian (unhurried quality), which means the internal state of mind and the external condition of being unhurried and relaxed; jing (tranquility), a tranquil mood required for good quality of work; ming (brightness), reflecting her face in the source of light; and jie (cleanliness), a tidy and uncontaminated environment.14 My mother named me jie – the Cantonese pronunciation is kit – with that same meaning. The aesthetic depiction of a woman in the seventeenth century and her embroidery work was also suggested in a further eight categories: neng (capable), qiao (skillful), miao (marvelous), shen (divine), jinggong (expert), fuli (beautiful), qingxiu (simple and natural), and gaochao (exalted).15 Though my mother was a businesswoman and did not do any embroidery work, she showed those talents, skills, knowledge, and qualities. Her kind deeds also confirmed her status as an understanding, moral and caring person. Her premature death has made her ageless in the memories of all her folks and friends. Ling’s funeral was held for nearly a week. Her body was put in the middle of the sitting room of the family flat for three days, during which people kneeled and prayed. Her children ran around, and they did not know what had happened. When I was four, I had no clue what death was about and thought my mother was sleeping. She looked very young and was a pale beauty lying in the coffin, surrounded by white flowers. She stays ageless in our memory, and all her good deeds for others remain with us. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) presented his writing on old age in de Senectute. One of his statements could appropriately be dedicated to Ling: “The consciousness of a well-spent life and a memory rich in good deeds afford supreme happiness.”16 Another applies to Grandaunt Eight: “A calm and serene old age, which belongs to a life passed peacefully, purely, and gracefully.”17 In his introduction to de Senectute, James S. Reid argues that old age does not withdraw human beings from active life but that aged people do greater and better things, for great things are accomplished not by strength but by

14 Grace Fong, “Female Hands: Embroidery as a Knowledge Field in Women’s Everyday Life in Late Imperial and Early Republican China” (International Symposium on Daily Life, Knowledge, and Chinese Modernities, Taipei: Taipei’s Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 2002), 30. 15 Fong, 37. 16 Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Senectute, trans. Andrew P Peabody (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1887), 8. 17 Cicero, 11.

Mor alit y and Aesthe tical Lives

281

counsel, influence, and deliberate opinion.18 Moreover, old age has far more refined and satisfying pleasures than those of sense. And old age, just as other periods of life, has its season of ripeness and satiety. For Reid: “Old age will only be respected if it fights for itself, maintains its rights, avoids dependence on anyone and asserts control over its own to its last breath … and is not enslaved to anyone.” Reid’s words console me by confirming my perception that grand aunt Eight’s independence had made her life graceful, and indeed she did look that way right up to the end when she passed at the age of 104. She had also lived according to the Daoist teachings of Laozi. The following chapters in Tao Te Ching echo the ways she lived:19 High good is like water. Water is good: it benefits the myriad things yet does not contend. It resides in places all people consider foul. Truly: it’s very close to the path. Good dwelling: that’s on the earth. Good thinking: that’s over the abyss. Good giving: that’s benevolence. Good talking: that’s trustworthiness. Good straightening: that’s governance. Good serving: that’s capability. Good maneuvering: that’s timeliness. Only when not contending are you truly without blame (chapter 8).

To know people is to be clever. To know oneself is to be discerning. One who vanquishes people has force. One who conquers himself is strong. One who knows what’s enough is rich. One who walks firmly has determination. Not losing one’s wherewithal, one endures. In old age, one dies, yet one does not perish (chapter 33). Indeed, the sage ruler declares: I’m without action: the people evolve by themselves. I’m fond of peace: the people straighten themselves. I’m without serving: the people are rich by themselves. I’m without desires: the people are raw by themselves (chapter 57). I am saddened then by the thought that if Ling had not been so fixated on her marital relationship, or if she could have been more relaxed about it like grant aunt Eight, she might have been healthier and happier. But she could not live by Laozi’s teaching: “Act without acting. Serve without serving. Taste without tasting. Great from small and more from less: treat failure as power” (chapter 63). But she did comply with Confucius’s rule of 18 James Reid, “Introduction to Cicero’s Cato Maior de Senectute,” in Cato Maior de Senectute with Introduction and Notes, ed. The Perfect Library (Scotts Valley: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014), 7–24. 19 Laocius, On Paths & Powers: 81 Meditations on Leadership, trans. Cyril Welch (Sackville: Atcost Press, 2019).

282 

Eva Kit Wah Man

leading a virtuous, loving, and caring life, acting with those qualities with all the people around her. The benefits consoled her heart she brought to other people, making her an ageless buddha and beauty. Matthew Kieran states that imagination distinguishes humans as moral agents and that our cultural practices may enhance our imaginative understanding in peculiarly significant and influential ways. So, it is understood that aesthetic experience can evoke a particular imaginative understanding of subjects portrayed in daily life, like representations of life, love, death, and war.20 The two stories of great aunt Eight and Ling remind me that moral subjects also become aesthetic subjects. Marcia Eaton shares some of her arguments with Kieran when she regards aesthetics as the mother of ethics. She observes that humans are moved by “more richly textured narratives,” like the two stories I have told here, which act as a form of “transformative communication” for ethics.21 I admit that both women, Eight and Ling, have become aesthetic objects and imaginary products through stories. But, the aesthetic dimensions of experience, imagination, emotions, and concepts are those that make the meaning and the enhancement of their moral qualities possible.22 At the funeral of both Ling and Eight, there hung a banner with the Chinese words, yifan changchuan, meaning “long live the woman’s model”. It remains a common banner phrase used at funerals, praising a mother or an old lady who has passed away with respect. Today, in the low-income population of Sham Shui Po, where my family has lived since arriving in Hong Kong in the 1950s, one can see a lot of elderly women working diligently in the streets. They are all self-employed, and you can see them collecting old paper boxes, sorting out things from trash bags, and looking for items to gather and sell. They use carts to move things back to their “nests” before transporting them to sell. Often, they are in dangerous situations, with the women oblivious to the trucks driving among them as they work. They can feed themselves by social welfare, but that is not what is at stake. They want to be independent and be in control of their own lives before they can work no more or need to be hospitalized. Their love life is kept in their memories, fond or sad, but the Taoist and Confucian teachings they learn grant them the moral support and inner strength that is the source of their consoling and aesthetic lives. 20 Matthew Kieran, “Art, Imagination, and the Cultivation of Morals,” Journal of Art and Art Criticism 54, no. 4 (1996): 337–51, https://doi.org/10.2307/431916. 21 Marcia Eaton, “Aesthetics: The Mother of Ethics,” Journal of Art and Art Criticism 55, no. 4 (1997): 355–64, https://doi.org/10.2307/430923, 359. 22 Eaton, 360.

Mor alit y and Aesthe tical Lives

283

Accordingly, David Carr says this about our life stories: As we approach the end, while less and less is open to change, more is open to reinterpretation. More material is available for the ‘sense-making’ operation …, the attempt to fashion a coherent narrative of one’s life. ‘Making sense’ of life may not be the highest value, but here at least, it may be said that we have the capacity to improve with age.23

Bibliography Buch, Elana D. “Beyond Independence: Older Chicagoans Living Valued Lives.” In Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession, edited by Sarah Lamb, 85–96. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2017. Carr, David. “The Stories of Our Lives: Aging and Narrative.” In The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Aging, edited by G. Scarre, 171–86. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Chang, Kuei-Chiu, and Mei-Ju Chou. “On the Life Aesthetics of Aging People- Slowness Makes Life Beautiful,.” Universal Journal of Educational Research 3, no. 12 (2015): 967–72. https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2015.031203. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Senectute. Translated by Andrew P Peabody. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1887. Eaton, Marcia. “Aesthetics: The Mother of Ethics.” Journal of Art and Art Criticism 55, no. 4 (1997): 355–64. https://doi.org/10.2307/430923. Fong, Grace. “Female Hands: Embroidery as a Knowledge Field in Women’s Everyday Life in Late Imperial and Early Republican China.” Taipei: Taipei’s Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 2002. Goldman, Marlene. “Aging, Old Age, Memory, Aesthetics: Introduction to Special Issue.” Arcade, 2012. https://arcade.stanford.edu/occasion/ aging-old-age-memory-aesthetics-introduction-special-issue. Kieran, Matthew. “Art, Imagination, and the Cultivation of Morals.” Journal of Art and Art Criticism 54, no. 4 (1996): 337–51. https://doi.org/10.2307/431916. Laocius. On Paths & Powers: 81 Meditations on Leadership. Translated by Cyril Welch. Sackville: Atcost Press, 2019. Man, Eva K.W. Bodies in China. Albany: SUNY Press, 2016. Reid, James. “Introduction to Cicero’s Cato Maior de Senectute.” In Cato Maior de Senectute with Introduction and Notes, edited by The Perfect Library, 7–24. Scotts Valley: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014. 23 Carr, “The Stories of Our Lives: Aging and Narrative.” 184.

284 

Eva Kit Wah Man

About the Author Eva Kit Wah Man is Kiriyama Professor of The Center for Asia and Pacific Studies at University of San Francisco. She is also an Emeritus Professor of Hong Kong Baptist University. She publishes widely in comparative aesthetics, comparative philosophy, woman studies, feminist philosophy, cultural studies, art and cultural criticism. She was named AMUW Endowed Woman Chair Professor of the 100th Anniversary of Marquette University in the US. She was awarded Outstanding Award in Public Services by Home Affairs Bureau of HKSAR.



Index

Acton, Harold 38 Adorno, Theodore and Horkheimer, Max 245 Aestheticism 35-36; see also Epicureanism aesthetic choices 256, 263; see also aesthetic tastes aesthetic tastes 257, 259, 264, 266; see also aesthetic choices aesthetics, comparative 145 aesthetics, cryosphere 110, 115 aesthetics, descriptive 28, 114-15, 118-19, 120 aesthetics, environmental 28, 108, 111-14, 118-19, 119-20; see also aesthetics, ecological; aesthetics, ecological and environmental; aesthetics, environmental and ecological aesthetic, integrated 28, 108, 110, 110-11, 114-15, 117 Alps, the 112; see also Pete Arctic, Canadian 116; see also Pete cognitivism, scientific 114 cryosphere 107-08, 108-10 Arctic, the 109, 111-12, 113, 118-19; see also change, climate; warming, global change, climate 107-08, 108-10, 112-14, 114-15, 118-19; see also Arctic, the; warming, global warming, global 107-08, 109-10; see also change, climate; Arctic, the experience, environmental aesthetic 110, 111 attention, multisensory 111; see also attention, sympathetic attention, sympathetic 111; see also attention, multisensory geopolitics, icy 120 Glacier Bay 112; see also Muir, John Greenland 112; see also Pete narrative, glacier-ruins 118 Quebec, Arctic 113; see also Watt-Cloutier; Watt-Cloutier, Sheila aesthetics, dao 43-44, 46, 48, 53, 55-56 dao, alignment with 48-52; see hedao dao, obtaining 52-55; see dedao Daodejing 46; see also Carus; Carus, Paul yinyang 44, 54, 55 de 56 dedao 52-55; see dao, obtaining consolidation and expansion, the movement of 53-54 Nisha Devi 52-53 stillness, the movement of 53 yield and push, the movement of 54-55 great beauty 43-44, 48

hedao 26, 48-52; see dao, alignment with circulation and pervasion, the vision of 51-52 circulation 51-52; see huanliu; see also pervasion; tong huanliu 51-52; see circulation; see also pervasion; tong pervasion 51-52; see tong; see also circulation; huanliu Lushi Chunqiu 52 tong 51-52; see pervasion; see also circulation; huanliu oneness, the vision of guarding the 5051; see shouyi qi 50-52 shouyi 50-51; see oneness, the vision of guarding the Huangdi Neijing 50 jingluo 50-51 ming, the attainment of 56; see Obvious, illumination of the Nanyue 26, 45, 46, 47 Kundao Academy 45-46, 47 education system, traditional Chinese 46 education systems, contemporary Chinese 46 Huang, Zhian 45, 47; see Master Huang Master Huang 45; see Huang, Zhian Obvious, illumination of the 56; see ming, the attainment of qi 26, 44, 46, 47, 48 n. 9 qi flow 26, 50-51, 53, 55, 56 tidao 45-48; see embodiment of Dao; embodied Dao yijing 56 aesthetics, everyday 9-11, 18-19, 21-26, 35-38, 59-60, 63-65, 66-70, 73-79, 147, 221-22; see aesthetics, life; aesthetics, living; aesthetics of everyday life; aesthetics of living; aesthetics of the everyday; shenghuo meixue aesthetics, Japanese 12, 31, 169-170 aesthetics, living 74-77; see aesthetics, everyday; aesthetics, life; aesthetics of everyday life; aesthetics of living; aesthetics of the everyday; shenghuo meixue aesthetics of everyday life 33, 59-60, 73-74, 73 n. 1, 79, 95, 222; see aesthetics, everyday; aesthetics, life; aesthetics, living; aesthetics of living; aesthetics of the everyday; shenghuo meixue

286  aesthetics of the everyday 32, 65-70, 127; see aesthetics, everyday; aesthetics, life; aesthetics, living; aesthetics of everyday life; aesthetics of living; shenghuo meixue aesthetics, philosophical 21, 24-25 aesthetics, traditional 78, 96 aesthetics, wabi 176; see wabi; see also Rikyû, Sen no; Rikyû Analects and Mencius 275 Aristotle 142, 202-03, 215 poiesis 142 praxis 142 art, aesthetics of 60, 77 n. 18 arts and crafts, Chinese 185-86 arts and crafts, western 186 art, decorative 170-71; see also art, fine; bi-jutsu; gei-jutsu art, fine 170-71, 180-81, 180 n. 52; see also art, decorative bi-jutsu 180 n. 52; see gei-jutsu gei-jutsu 180 n. 52; see bi-jutsu art, the aesthetics of fine 147 Auvergne 256 Bacon, Roger 240; see also Foucault; Foucault, Michel; Mitchell; Mitchell, W. J. T. Balzac, Honore de 36 Treatise on Elegant Living 36 Barrett 190; see Barrett, Nathaniel F.; see also wuwei Barrett, Nathaniel F. 190; see Barrett; see also wuwei Barthes, Roland 238 Barwich, A.S. 131 Baudrillard 204, 236-39, 237 n. 4, 240, 243-44; see Baudrillard, Jean Baudrillard, Jean 236; see Baudrillard, see also death of reality death of reality 34, 236, 247 hyperreality 236 Simulations and The Evil Demon of Images 236 Baumgarten 93, 96 aesthetica 93, 96 Bazin 222, 223; see Bazin, André Bazin, André 222, 241; see Bazin Realist film theory 222 Beardsley, Monroe C. 78 n. 22; see Beardsley, Monroe Beardsley, Monroe 94; see Beardsley, Monroe C. aesthetics, analytic 94-95; see also meta-criticism meta-criticism 94; see also aesthetics, analytic beauty 274-76 Bellamy, Edward 204 Looking Backward 204 Belting 241-46; see Belting, Hans; see also Mitchell; Mitchell, W. J. T.

COMPAR ATIVE EVERYDAY AESTHE TICS

Belting, Hans 240; see Belting; see also Mitchell; Mitchell, W. J. T. bento box, Japanese 209; see also shokado lunchbox bento box 209, 210-11 Berleant 114-15 betweenness 223-26; see also disparity, ontological bias, productionist 15; see ethos, production-centered biography, aesthetic 253, 266 biteki seikatsu 31, 169-70; see life, the aesthetic; see also Takayama, Chogû Bradbury, Ray 204 Fahrenheit 451 204 Brillat-Savarin 143 Brownlee 202, 205; see Brownlee, Marques Brownlee, Marques 201-02; see Brownlee Buch, Elana 270 Buddhism, Chan 68; see Zen, Japanese; see also Yanagi, Sōetsu; Yanagi; Zen; Zennism Buddhism, Zen 14 n.11; see also Buddhism, Chan; Yanagi; Yanagi, Sōetsu; Zen; Zen, Japanese; Zennism Byron Reeves et al. 209 Cai, Yi 92-93; see also Jiang, Kongyang; Li, Zehou; Zhu, Guangqian typicalness 92 Carr 270-71; see Carr, David Carr, David 270-71, 283; see Carr Carter, Robert E. 12 Carus 179; see Carus, Paul; see also Daodejing Carus, Paul 179; see Carus; see also Daodejing Cavell 222-23; see Cavell, Stanly Cavell, Stanly 222; see Cavell automatism 222-23, 224 cha-dô 30, 170 n. 2, 171-74, 178; see tea ceremony, Japanese; see also tea ceremony art of life 171, 172-74, 177, 179 n. 48; see Lebenskunst Lebenskunst 174; see art of life Cha Shu 161-62 Chae and Kim 209 Chan, Jackie 84 Chaplin 212-13; see Chaplin, Joyce Chaplin, Joyce 208, 211, 212 see Chaplin Chaplin’s Law 212 Charny, Daniel 186 chastity, the Confucian aesthetics of a woman of 34, 276 Eight 271-77, 280, 282; see Grandaunt Eight Grandaunt Eight 271-77, 281; see Eight Hei 272-73 King 272; see also Wing Wing 272-73; see also King Chen, Jiru 162 Cha Hua 162

287

Index

Chen Xianzhang 82 Guan Wu 82; see Observing the Things Observing the Things 82; see Guan Wu Cheng, Yi 81; see also Yi Cheng and Hao Cheng Christensen and Groshek 210 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 280 de Senectute 280 clutter 262-63; see also The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary communist Romania 258 Confucius 38, 66, 140, 281-82 Analects 140 Cooper 205, 208; see Cooper, Martin; see also cell phones; cellphones; mobile phones; Star Trek Cooper, Martin 204; see Cooper; see also cell phones; cellphones; mobile phones; Star Trek Costanza, George 215; see George Crabbe 203, 204; see Crabbe, Anthony; see also Sullivan; Sullivan, Louis Crabbe, Anthony 203, 203 n. 6; see Crabbe; see also Sullivan; Sullivan, Louis culture’s aesthetic tendencies 257-58; see tendencies, cultural aesthetic dao 26-27, 43-44, 45-48, 48-52, 52-55, 55-57; see tao Daoism 14 n. 11, 66; see Taoism Utmost Man 66 Darwin, Charles 259; see also Welsch, Wolfgang Davies 24-25; see Davies, David Davies, David 24-25; see Davies defamiliarization 78 Devis, Arthur 158, 159 Mr. and Mrs. Hill 158, 159 Dewey 21, 185; see Dewey, John Dewey, John 21, 185; see Dewey Disney 237, 247; see also Jungle Cruise Disneyland 237, 247 disparity, ontological 223-25; see also betweenness Dowling 24-25, 68-69; see Dowling, Christopher; see also aesthetics, everyday Dowling, Christopher 24-25; see Dowling; see also aesthetics, everyday normative discussion 68-69 Duchamp 242; see Duchamp, Marcel Duchamp, Marcel 242; see Duchamp Fountain 242 Dunaway and Soroka 210; see Soroka and Dunaway Dutch East India Company 154 Eaton, Marcia 282 education 33-34 education, aesthetic 185; see also Schiller Ekman, Paul 256

Ekuan 207-08, 209, 210-11, 213; see Ekuan, Kenji; see also pocket calculator Ekuan, Kenji 202; see Ekuan; see also pocket calculator Eliot, T.S. 153 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 153 embodiments 246 English East India Company 154 Epicureanism 35; see also Aestheticism Epicurus 35 Letter to Menoeceus 35 Erickson, Britta 228 ethics, environmental 111, 119-20 ethos, production-centered 15; see bias, productionist experiences, aesthetic 11-12, 18-19, 21-22, 22 n. 8, 22-23, 24-25, 26-28, 38, 62-65, 66, 78 n. 23-24, 79 n. 29, 83-85, 85 n. 50, 86, 114-15, 116-17, 119, 185, 282; see also experiences, everyday aesthetic experiences, everyday aesthetic 23-25; 84-85; see also experiences, aesthetic Fang, Thomé H. 82 n. 42 harmony, sense of comprehensive 82 n. 42 Featherstone, Mike 95 Fenollosa 170-71; see Fenollosa, Ernest F. see also Okakura; Okakura, Kakuzô Fenollosa, Ernest F. 170; see Fenollosa see also Okakura; Okakura, Kakuzô Ferguson 143 Ferraris 207-08, 210, 214-16; see Ferraris, Maurizio Ferraris, Maurizio 207; see Ferraris Where Are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone 207 fidget 212; see fidgeting; see also Hayward, Rhodri fidgeting 212; see fidget; see also Hayward, Rhodri folding 213 paper, folding 213; see paper folding; see also Mitchell; Mitchell, David newspaper folding 213; see Petroski, Henry origami 213 paper folding, recreational 213; see also Mitchell; Mitchell, David Foucault 236; see Foucault, Michel; see also Bacon, Roger; Mitchell; Mitchell, W. J. T Foucault, Michel 240; see Foucault; see also Bacon, Roger; Mitchell; Mitchell, W. J. T Fukasawa, Naoto 16; see also Super Normal; wabi-sabi fulfillment, transcendent 190 gei-dô 31, 178-81 dô 178-81; see dào; tao kata 180

288  keiko 180 George 215; see Costanza, George Get Smart 206, 207 shoe-phone 206, 207 Gibson 245-46; see Gibson, J. J. Gibson, J. J. 239 n. 9, 245; see Gibson affordances 33-34, 238-39, 239 n. 9, 245-48 The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception 239 n. 9 Gilbert, Avery 131 Goldman, Marlene 274 Gosling 257; see Gosling, Sam Gosling, Sam 257; see Gosling Graham 69-70 Gu Hongzhong 229 Han Xizai 229 Night Revel of Han Xizai 229 Gumbrecht 27, 64-65 Production of Presence 64 presence 64-65; see also presence, intensity of presence, intensity of 64-65; see also presence Guyer, Paul 185 Haapala, Arto 81-82 Hans Holbein the Younger 212 Portrait of the Merchant Georg Gisze 212 Hansen 68 Hayward, Rhodri 212; see also fidget; fidgeting Hegel 78 n. 23, 79 n. 27, 93, 94, 204, 227 Heidegger 12, 14, 14 n.11 Hideyoshi 175; see Hideyoshi, Toyotomi; see also Rikyû; Rikyû, Sen no Hideyoshi, Toyotomi 175-76; see Hideyoshi; see also Rikyû; Rikyû, Sen no Higgins, Kathleen 184 Hitchcock, Alfred 214 North By Northwest 214 Holt, David 229; see also postmodernism Horiguchi, Sutemi 173-74 Humphreys et al. 210 Hutto and Myin 244-45; see Hutto, Daniel and Myin, Erik Hutto, Daniel and Myin, Erik 244; see Hutto and Myin basic minds 244-45 scaffolding 244-45 scaffolds 244, 245 sociocultural scaffolding 244-45 embodiments 244 Huysmans, J-K 36 Against Nature 36 Ietaka 177; see Ietaka, Fujiwara no; see also poem, tanka Ietaka, Fujiwara no 177; see Ietaka; see also poem, tanka

COMPAR ATIVE EVERYDAY AESTHE TICS

Images of the Annunciation to Mary 237 imitations of a reality 237 n. 4 imperfection 15, 174; see also worship of the imperfect Instagram 238 n. 7 Irvin 23-25, 37, 39; see Irvin, Sherri Irvin, Sherri 23-24, 69; see Irvin Janaway, Christopher 193 Jiang, Kongyang 92-93; see also Cai, Yi; Li, Zehou; man, essential power of; nature, humanized; Zhu, Guangqian Joamie, Sytukie 113 Johnson, Arielle 131, 133 Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio 131 judgments, aesthetic 10-11, 68-69 Jullien 226; see Jullien, François Jullien, François 225-26; see Jullien The Great Image Has No Form 226; see also Qian; Qian, Wenshi Jungle Cruise 247; see also Disney Kanô, Eitan 171; see Kanô, Hôgai; see also Kanô school; Ôkyo, Maruyama Kanô, Hôgai 171; see Kanô, Eitan; see also Kanô school; Ôkyo, Maruyama Kanô school 171; see also Kanô, Hôgai; Kanô, Eitan Kant 13, 69, 93-94, 96, 101, 257; see Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel 140, 256-57; see Kant Observations on the Beautiful and the Sublime 257 The Critique of Judgment 93-94 Kido, Inoue 146 Kieran 282; see Kieran, Matthew Kieran, Matthew 282; see Kieran Kipling, Rudyard 125 Lichtenberg 125 knack 31, 191-95; see also skill Kobayashi and Yamada 213 Kofman 231; see Kofman, Ava; see also Book from the Ground; Book from the Sky; Dragonfly Eyes; Square Word English Calligraphy Kofman, Ava 230; see Kofman; see also Book from the Ground; Book from the Sky; Dragonfly Eyes; Square Word English Calligraphy Kondo, Marie 263 Kongzi Jiayu 98; see The School Sayings of Confucius Kundera 253-54, 266; see Kundera, Milan Kundera, Milan 253; see Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being 253 Franz 253-54; see also Sabina Sabina 253-54; see also Franz Lai 184-85, 194; see Lai, Karyn Lai, Karyn 184; see Lai

Index

Lang 225-27, 228; see Lang, Jingshan Lang, Jingshan 225-226, 230; see Lang; see also photography, Chinese composite photography 225; see jijin sheying Hushan Lansheng 226-27 jijin photographs 226-27; see jijin photography jijin photography 226-27; see jijin photographs jijin shying 225; see composite photography jijin 226-27, 228, 230 mountain-water paintings, traditional Chinese 226; see mountain-water painting; shanshui hua painting, mountain-water 225-27; see shanshui hua; paintings, traditional Chinese mountain-water aesthetics, Chinese 225-26; see also yijing yijing 225, 228; see also aesthetics, Chinese shanshui hua 225; see mountain-water painting; mountain-water paintings, traditional Chinese Langer 185 Laozi 65, 68, 172 n.14, 178, 281 Leddy 26-27, 77-79, 77 n. 18, 78 n. 23-24, 79 n. 27; see Leddy, Thomas; Leddy, Tom; see also micro-aesthetics Leddy, Thomas 77 n. 18, 78-79; see Leddy; Leddy, Tom; see also micro-aesthetics aura 78-79 Leddy, Tom 264; see Leddy; Leddy, Thomas; see also micro-aesthetics li 81, 83; see also coherent li Li, Zehou 92-93; see also Cai, Yi; Jiang, Kongyang; man, essential power of; nature, humanized; Zhu, Guangqian Lie Nu 275-76; see Records of Women of Admonition; see also Nu Jie; Teachings for Women life, the aesthetic 31, 169-70; see biteki seikatsu; see also Takayama, Chogû likeness 222-25; see also Cavell; Cavell, Stanly; Qi, Baishi; unlikeness likeness painting 224; see also unlikeness painting Ling 277-79, 281-82 Kay 278 Leo 278 Yuk 278 Liu 227 Liu and Curtis L. Carter 74; see Liu Yuedi and Curtis L. Carter; see also Liu; Liu, Yuedi; Carter Aesthetics of Everyday Life East and West 74 aesthetics of living 74; see aesthetics, everyday; aesthetics, life; aesthetics,

289 living; aesthetics of everyday life; aesthetics of the everyday; shenghuo meixue Liu Yuedi and Curtis L. Carter 73 n. 1; see Liu and Curtis L. Carter; see also Liu; Liu, Yuedi; Carter living aesthetics 74-77, 74 n. 3, 75 n.7; see aesthetics, everyday; aesthetics, life; aesthetics, performing living; aesthetics of everyday life; aesthetics of living; aesthetics of the everyday; shenghuo meixue; see also aesthetics, the big-moment conceptual asymmetry 74-75 hermeneutic fallacy 74 Liu, Yuedi 74, 75, 78, 79; see Liu Liu 74, 74 n. 2, 3, 75-76, 75 n. 10, 76 n. 16, 78, 78 n. 22; see Liu, Yuedi aesthetics, Chinese 76; see aesthetics, Chinese classical; aesthetics, Eastern; see also aesthetics, European classical; aesthetics, Western; yijing aesthetics, Chinese classical 76; see aesthetics, Chinese; aesthetics, Eastern; see also aesthetics, European classical; aesthetics, Western aesthetics, Eastern 76; see aesthetics, Chinese; aesthetics, Chinese classical; see also aesthetics, European classical; aesthetics, Western aesthetics, European classical 76; see aesthetics, Western; see also aesthetics, Chinese; aesthetics, Chinese classical; aesthetics, Eastern; aesthetics, Western tributary of everyday aesthetics, life 74; see aesthetics, everyday; aesthetics, living; aesthetics of living; aesthetics of everyday life; aesthetics of the everyday; aesthetics, performing living; shenghuo meixue; see also aesthetics, the big-moment aesthetics, Western 76; see aesthetics, European classical; see also aesthetics, Chinese; aesthetics, Chinese classical; aesthetics, Eastern; aesthetics, Western tributary of everyday aesthetics, Western tributary of everyday 76; see also aesthetics, Chinese; aesthetics, Chinese classical; aesthetics, Eastern; aesthetics, European classical; aesthetics, Western ‘art as life,’ a movement of 78 n. 22; see also ‘life as art,’ a movement of ‘life as art,’ a movement of 78 n. 22; see also ‘art as life,’ a movement of

290  shenghuo meixue 73, 74-79, 75 n. 7; see aesthetics, everyday; aesthetics, life; aesthetics, living; aesthetics of living; aesthetics of everyday life; aesthetics of the everyday; aesthetics, performing living; see also aesthetics, the big-moment aesthetics, Kantian big-moment 85 n. 50; see also aesthetics, the big-moment aesthetics, the big-moment 77; see also aesthetics, Kantian big-moment everydayness 74, 76-77, 79; see also non-everydayness Husserl 75, 75 n. 10 essences, the intuition of 75 n.10, 76 n.16; see life, original and authentic; Wesenschau Lebenswelt 75; see also Wesenschau life, original and authentic 77; see essences, the intuition of; Wesenschau Wesenschau 75; see essences, the intuition of; life, original and authentic; see also Lebenswelt non-everydayness 74; see also everydayness Lorand 261 n. 14; see Lorand, Ruth; see also order, aesthetic Lorand, Ruth 261; see Lorand; see also order, aesthetic Lu, Yu 161 Cha Jing 161 Lü, Xishen 48; see Prof. Lü ba duanjing 48, 48 n. 8; see eight section movements eight section movements 48, 48 n. 8; see ba duanjing liu zijue 48, 48 n. 9; see six sounds six sounds 48, 48 n. 9; see liu zijue Magnason, Andri Snær 117 Chasing Ice 117 Marcel 132-33; see Proust; see also Swann’s Way Marshall, Peter 211 Marx 92 Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 92 Mattice 67 meiran 279-80; see also woman, beautiful jie 280 jing 280 ming 280 xian 280 melancholy, autumn 84-85

COMPAR ATIVE EVERYDAY AESTHE TICS

Melchionne 25 memory 127-28, 130-31; see recollection kuchen 29, 126, 128-31, 134-36 Our Home Cyclopedia 134-35 memory, olfactory 133 memory, sense 131-33 Meng, Haoran 100 Stopping at a Friend’s Farmhouse 100 Merton 184, 187, 189 n. 36; see Merton, Thomas Merton, Thomas 184; see Merton micro-aesthetics 26-27, 60, 63-65, 69; see also Leddy; Leddy, Thomas; Leddy, Tom experiences, low-level aesthetic 61 experiences, micro-aesthetic 60, 64 experiences, negative aesthetic 61 micro-absorption 64 properties, low-level aesthetic 63 Miller, Daniel 186 Miller, William Ian 131 Mitchell 213; see Mitchell, David; see also paper folding; paper, folding; paper folding, recreational Mitchell 239-41, 243, 244-45, 246; see Mitchell, W. J. T.; see also Bacon, Roger; Belting; Belting, Hans; Foucault; Foucault, Michel Mitchell, David 213; see Mitchell; see also paper folding; paper, folding; paper folding, recreational Mitchell, W. J. T. 239; see Mitchell; see also Bacon, Roger; Belting; Belting, Hans; Foucault; Foucault, Michel mobile person 214 model, long live the woman’s 282; see also yifan changchuan Morland, George 159 A Tea Garden 159 Morris 186-87; see Morris, William Morris, William 186; see Morris Muir, John 111-12; see also Glacier Bay Mumford 202, 214, 215-16; see Mumford, Lewis Mumford, Lewis 202; see Mumford Technics and Civilization 202 Nampô-Roku 176-77 nature, the beauty of 28, 92-94, 101-02, 104 aesthetics 96-97 aesthetics, Chinese 94-95, 97; see also aesthetics, contemporary Chinese aesthetics, contemporary Chinese 92; see also aesthetics, Chinese Literary and Artistic Aesthetics 93; see Wen Yi Meixue man, essential power of 92-93; see also Jiang, Kongyang; Li, Zehou; nature, humanized; Zhu, Guangqian nature 97-101; see ziran; see also Tao Te Ching

Index

nature, humanized 92-93; see also Jiang, Kongyang; Li, Zehou; man, essential power of; Zhu, Guangqian Reform and Opening-up 95-96 enterprises, township and village 95-96 Wen Yi Meixue 93; see Literary and Artistic Aesthetics ziran 97-98; see nature; see also Tao Te Ching aesthetics, ecological 94-96, 103; see also aesthetics, ecological and environmental; aesthetics, environmental; aesthetics, environmental and ecological aesthetics, ecological and environmental 91-92, 95, 96; see aesthetics, environmental and ecological; see also aesthetics, ecological; aesthetics, environmental aesthetics, environmental 28, 94-96, 102-03; see also aesthetics, ecological; aesthetics, ecological and environmental; aesthetics, environmental and ecological ecology 102; see shengtai; see also environment Ökologie 102 oikos 102 shengsheng 102, 103; see also shengtai shengtai 102; see also shengsheng environment 102; see also ecology aesthetics, environmental and ecological 28, 92-96, 101-03; see aesthetics, ecological and environmental; see also aesthetics, ecological; aesthetics, environmental aesthetics, Western 94-95, 96-97 Ancient Greece 97 Asia Minor 97 Miletus school 97 nature 99; see also nurture picturesque 101; see also sublime sublime 100-01; see also picturesque nurture 99; see also nature International Congress of Aesthetics 94-95 reconstruction, rural 103 Shenzhen 103 Naukkarinen, Ossi 128 Neo-Confucians 27-28, 80-82 gewu 27, 79-80, 80-82, 82-84; see also neo-Confucian gewu events 80; see shi; wu shi 80; see events; wu The Great Learning 80 wu 80; see events; shi coherent li 80; see also li

291 neo-Confucian gewu 81-82, 82-83; see also gewu enlightenment, Neo-Confucian 82 liberation, aesthetic 82 Neumark, Devora 115, 115 n. 25 Instructions for Being Ice and Snow 115 Letters to the Ice 115-16 Namai, John Titi 115-16 Nietzsche 236; see Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche, Friedrich 260; see Nietzsche Nu Jie 275; see Teachings for Women; see also Lie Nu; Records of Women of Admonition female beauty 275 weakness 275 Okakura 170-71, 172-74, 172 n. 14-16, 174-78, 178-82, 179 n. 48; see Okakura, Kakuzô; see also Fenollosa; Fenollosa, Ernest F. dao 178-81; see dô; tao dô 178-81; see dao; tao tao 178-79, 179 n. 48; see dao; dô Teaism 31, 172-73, 175, 177; see also Taoism; Zennism The Book of Tea 31, 172 n. 14 usefulness of the useless 177, 177 n. 40 Zennism 172-73, 172 n. 15, 174, 175, 177-78; see also Teaism Okakura, Kakuzô 170; see Okakura; see also Fenollosa; Fenollosa, Ernest F. Ôkyo, Maruyama 171; see also Kanô, Eitan; Kanô, Hôgai old age 280-81 Ônishi 171-72, 174, 179-81; see Ônishi, Yoshinori Ônishi, Yoshinori 170; see Ônishi order, aesthetic 261-64, 261 n. 14; see also Lorand; Lorand, Ruth Pater 36; see Pater, Walter Pater, Walter 36; see Pater The Aesthetic Life 36 person, the aesthetic dimension of a 270 women, the aesthetic dimensions of 270 Pete 112, 116-18; see also Alps, the; Arctic, Canadian; Greenland Petroski, Henry 213; see newspaper folding Philips, Charles 162 Tea Party at Lord Harrington’s House 162 photography 32-33, 221-25, 230, 232 photography, Chinese 225; see also Lang, Jingshan; Wang, Qingsong; Xu, Bing Plato 100, 125, 140, 193, 237 n. 4; see also Socrates Gorgias 193 Greater Hippias 140 Philebus 125 memory 125; see recollections recollections 125; see memory Republic 237 n. 4

292  pocket calculators 207-08, 211; see also Ekuan; Ekuan, Kenji poem, tanka 176-77; see also Ietaka; Ietaka, Fujiwara; Teika; Teika, Fujiwara no pop culture 204 postmodernism 229; see also Holt, David Prof. Lü 48-50; see Lü, Xishen Proust 132-33; see Marcel; see also Swann’s Way Pye 193-94; see Pye, David Pye, David 193; see Pye Pythagoras 97, 100 Qi, Baishi 225; see also likeness; unlikeness Qian 226; see Qian, Wenshi Qian, Chunnian 161 Cha Pu 161 tea drinking, proper 160 Qian, Wenshi 226; see Qian mountain-water painting 226 Qiu, Jun 156 qualities, negative aesthetic 77-78; see also qualities, positive aesthetic qualities, positive aesthetic 78; see also qualities, negative aesthetic Read, Herbert 37-38 recollection 128, 132-33; see memory Records of Women of Admonition 275-76; see Lie Nu; see also Nu Jie; Teachings for Women Reid 281; see Reid, James S. Reid, James S. 280-81; see Reid relationship, ethical 11, 16-18 Rikyû 175-77; see Rikyû, Sen no; see also aesthetics, wabi; Hideyoshi; Hideyoshi, Toyotomi; wabi Rikyû, Sen no 175; see Rikyû; see also aesthetics, wabi; Hideyoshi; Hideyoshi, Toyotomi; wabi Ruskin, John 186 Saito 22-23, 29, 37-38, 77 n. 18, 78-79, 83; see Saito, Yuriko Saito, Yuriko 10, 68, 77, 77 n. 18, 79 n. 29, 127; see Saito Aesthetics of the Familiar 37-38, 79 n. 29 Samsung 32, 201-02, 207, 213 Sartwell 21-22, 35-37, see Sartwell, Crispin; see also aesthetics of the everyday Sartwell, Crispin 21, 221; see Sartwell; see also aesthetics of the everyday Schiller 185; see also education, aesthetic Schwitzgebel, Eric 194 Scruton 23, 33, 224, 230, 232; see Scruton, Roger Scruton, Roger 23, 223; see Scruton seniors, the aesthetic lives of 274-75 sensibilities, aesthetic 11-12, 15, 255, 256-57, 265

COMPAR ATIVE EVERYDAY AESTHE TICS

Sham Shui Po 282 Shatner, William 205; see also Star Trek shokado lunchbox 209 see also bento box, Japanese Simenon, Georges 36 Pedigree 36 skill 191-95; see also knack Smith 224; see Smith, Adam Smith, Adam 224; see Smith Socrates 193, 237 n. 4; see also Plato Solomon 262; see Solomon, Robert C. Solomon, Robert C. 261-62; see Solomon somaesthetics 29, 140-41, 147 aesthetics, gastronomical 140 gastronomy 141 cuisine, the art of 141 eating, the art of 141-143 food appreciation and criticism, the art of 141 art, performative 141-42 chopsticks, the aesthetics of using 29, 145 bizhu 146, 149; see chopsticks; spoon and chopsticks; spoons cultures, chopsticks 143, 145-46, 149-151; see also culture, cutlery; culture, hand chopsticks 143, 145, 145-50; see kuaizi; see also bizhu; chopsticks, Japanese; chopsticks, Korean; spoon and chopsticks; spoons chopsticks, Japanese 148; see also chopsticks; chopsticks, Korean; kuaizi chopsticks, Korean 148-49; see also chopsticks; chopsticks, Japanese; kuaizi kuaizi 145; see chopsticks; see also bizhu; chopsticks, Japanese; chopsticks, Korean; spoon and chopsticks; spoons Liji 145-46, 149-50; see The Book of Rites spoon and chopsticks 146; see bizhu; chopsticks; spoon spoons 146-50; see also bizhu; chopsticks; spoon and chopsticks The Book of Rites 145-46; see Liji eating, haptic pleasures of 143 eating, interoceptive pleasures of 144 sensation, interoceptive 144 eating, proprioceptive pleasures of 143-44 culture, cutlery 144; see also culture, chopstick; culture, hand culture, hand 144; see also culture, chopstick; culture, cutlery pleasures, proprioceptive 144

Index

proprioception 144 proprioception and interoception 143-44 Soroka and Dunaway 209; see Dunaway and Soroka Sousa, Ronald de 255 Spectator 160 spontaneity 69, 191, 194; see tzu jan Star Trek 204-05; see also cell phones; cellphones; Cooper; Cooper, Martin; mobile phones; Shatner, William Stecker, Robert 23 Sterckx, Roel 184-85 Chinese Thought 184-85 stereotypes 256-57; see also stereotypes, cultural stereotypes, cultural 256; see also stereotypes Sturt 192-93; see Sturt, George Sturt, George 192; see Sturt Sullivan 203; see Sullivan, Louis; see also Crabbe; Crabbe, Anthony Sullivan, Louis 203; see Sullivan; see also Crabbe; Crabbe, Anthony Sun, Ran 85 Da-Guan Lou Changlian 85 Super Normal 16; see also Fukasawa, Naoto Swann’s Way 132; see also Proust; Marcel Taizu 156; see also Zhu, Yuanzhang Takayama, Chogû 31, 169-70; see also biteki seikatsu; life, the aesthetic Tamen 215-16; see Tamen, Miguel Tamen, Miguel 203-04; see Tamen Friends of Interpretable Objects 203-04 Tao Te Ching 98, 281; see also nature; ziran Tao, Yuanming 99-100 Home Again Among Fields and Gardens 99-100 Taoism 65, 172, 172 n. 14, 174, 175; see Daoism tea ceremony 30-31,169-70, 170 n. 2, 173, 176; see also cha-dô tea ceremony, Japanese 170; see cha-dô; see also tea ceremony tea drinking 154-56, 159, 160-63 tea 160-61 tea drinking, Chinese 158-159 aesthetics, Chinese tea 161 history, Chinese tea 160-61 tea drinking, formal 161-62 tea drinking, Ming aesthetics of 158 A painting of Tea Preparation 157, 158 Ming tea equipage 158-59 tea, Ming dynasty style of steeping 156 tea drinking, English 154-56 gatherings, English tea 162 system, English tea equipage 159 tea drinking, English style of 156

293 tea drinking, proper 160 tea drinking, European 163 teacups, the way of holding 159-60 tea equipage 29-30, 159 porcelain, Chinese 155; see porcelain, Chinese export Jingdezhen 155 porcelain, Chinese export 155-56; see porcelain, Chinese teacups 155, 156-159 teapots 156-59, 163 stoneware, Yixing 156-57, 159 tea tasting 162-63 tea tasting, China’s tradition of 163 Teachings for Women 275; see Nu Jie; see also Lie Nu; Records of Women of Admonition Teika 177; see Teika, Fujiwara no; see also poem, tanka; wabi Teika, Fujiwara no 176; see Teika; see also poem, tanka; wabi tendencies, cultural aesthetic 254-55; see culture’s aesthetic tendencies conflicts, aesthetic 265-66; see tensions, aesthetic; see also control, aesthetic control, aesthetic 265; see also conflicts, aesthetic; proclivities, cultural; sensibilities, aesthetic; tensions, aesthetic cultural individuals’ aesthetic preferences 264, 266; see individual’s aesthetic tendencies individual’s aesthetic tendencies 266; see individuals’ aesthetic preferences differences, aesthetic 253-55, 259, 260, 264; see also differences, cultural; preferences, aesthetic; proclivities, cultural; sensibilities, aesthetic differences, cultural 254-56; see proclivities, cultural; see also differences, aesthetic; preferences, aesthetic; sensibilities, aesthetic preferences, aesthetic 259-60, 260; see also differences, aesthetic; differences, cultural; proclivities, cultural; sensibilities, aesthetic sensibilities, aesthetic 255, 256-57, 258-59, 265; see also differences, aesthetic; differences, cultural; preferences, aesthetic; proclivities, cultural tensions, aesthetic 34, 254-55, 260-61; see conflicts, aesthetic; see also control, aesthetic proclivities, cultural 256; see differences, cultural; see also differences, aesthetic; preferences, aesthetic; sensibilities, aesthetic The Lancet 212

294  The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary 262; see also clutter The School Sayings of Confucius 98; see Kongzi Jiayu Thomasson, Amie 223 transparency theory 230; see also Dragonfly Eyes tzu jan 69; see spontaneity UFW 247; see United Farm Workers United Farm Workers 247; see UFW unlikeness 223-25; see also likeness; Qi, Baishi unlikeness painting 224; see also likeness painting Veblen 204, 208, 212 Verhagen, Justus 132-33 wabi 176-77; see aesthetics, wabi; see also Rikyû, Sen no; Rikyû; Teika; Teika, Fujiwara no wabi-sabi 16; see also Fukasawa, Naoto Wang 227-29; see Wang, Qingsong Wang, Qingsong 227-29, 230; see Wang; see also photography, Chinese Gaudy Art 228; see yansu yishu Night Revels of Lao Li see also Night Revel of Han Xizai 229 Requesting Buddha 228 Buddha 228 political pop art 229 yansu yishu 228; see Gaudy Art Wang, Wei 100 An Autumn Evening in the Mountains 100 Watson 194-95; see Watson, Burton Watson, Burton 70 n. 32, 187; see Watson Watt-Cloutier 113; see Watt-Cloutier, Sheila; see also Quebec, Arctic Watt-Cloutier, Sheila 113; see Watt-Cloutier; see also Quebec, Arctic Weissberg, Jay 231; see also Dragonfly Eyes Wellner, Galit 215 Wells, H.G. 204 Welsch, Wolfgang 95, 259; see also Darwin, Charles Wen, Zhenhen 156-57 Wesley, John 160 A Letter to a Friend, Concerning Tea 160 Wittgenstein 23; see Wittgenstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ludwig 23, 193; see Wittgenstein Wollheim, Richard 94 woman, beautiful 279-80; see also meiran worship of the imperfect 174-75, 177; see also imperfection wuwei 190; see also Barrett; Barrett, Nathaniel F

COMPAR ATIVE EVERYDAY AESTHE TICS

Xu 230-31; see Xu, Bing Xu, Bing 33, 225, 230, 232; see Xu; see also photography, Chinese Book from the Ground 231; see also Book from the Sky; Dragonfly Eyes; Kofman; Kofman, Ava; Square Word English Calligraphy Book from the Sky 231; see also Book from the Ground; Dragonfly Eyes; Kofman; Kofman, Ava; Square Word English Calligraphy Dragonfly Eyes 231-32; see also Book from the Ground; Book from the Sky; Kofman; Kofman, Ava; Square Word English Calligraphy; theory, transparency; Weissberg, Jay Square Word English Calligraphy 231; see also Book from the Ground; Book from the Sky; Dragonfly Eyes; Kofman; Kofman, Ava; surveillance cameras 33, 230, 232; see also surveillance footage surveillance footage 33, 230-31; see also surveillance cameras Yanagi 14 n.11; see Yanagi, Sōetsu; see also Buddhism, Chan; Zen; Zen, Japanese; Zennism Yanagi, Sōetsu 13; see Yanagi; see also Buddhism, Chan; Zen; Zen, Japanese; Zennism Yi Cheng and Hao Cheng 81 n. 39; see also Cheng, Yi yifan changchuan 282; see also model, long live the woman’s yinshi 140 Yuan, Hongdao 162-63 Zajonc, Robert 260 Zen 70-71, 175; see also Buddhism, Chan; Yanagi; Yanagi, Sōetsu; Zen, Japanese; Zennism Zen, Japanese 68; see Buddhism, Chan; see also Yanagi, Sōetsu; Yanagi; Zen; Zennism Zhang, Yanyuan 98 Famous Paintings through History 98; see Lidai Minghua Ji Lidai Minghua Ji 98; see Famous Paintings through History Zhang, Yuan 162 Cha Lu 162 Zhu 83, 83 n. 45 Zhu, Guangqian 92-93; see also Cai, Yi; Jiang, Kongyang; Li, Zehou; man, essential power of; nature, humanized Zhu, Xi 80 n. 32, 81, 81 n. 37 Zhu, Yuanzhang 156; see also Taizu

Index

Zhuangzi 27, 31-32, 43, 56-57, 65-70, 65 n. 7, 71, 77, 98, 172 n. 14, 183-85, 187, 187-91, 193-95 skill stories 31-32, 183-84, 187-91, 191-95 aesthetics, developmental 32, 183, 185, 195 Cook Ding 187-88, 189, 190, 191-92; see Cook Ting

295 Cook Ting 67,69, 71; see Cook Ding Spontaneity 69, 191, 194; see tzu jan tzu jan 69; see spontaneity The wheelwright 191-94 The woodcarver 188-90 workmanship of risk 31, 194