Kakuzō Okakura: The Book of Tea

Kakuzō Okakura (1863 – 1913) was a Japanese scholar and art critic who defended core Japanese ideals, traditions and customs in the era of Meiji Restoration Reform. His major written work titled The Book of Tea [1906] distils the meaning and finer elements of the Japanese tea ceremony (“…the whole ideal of Teaism is a result of the Zen conception of greatness in the smallest incidents of life…”), but the book is not only about the tea ritual, and there are many insights offered in the book on life and death, Zen Buddhism, art, aesthetics, drama, and architecture, among other topics. Below are just a few quotes from this thought-provoking essay-book.

On the nature of art:

“In religion the Future is behind us. In art the Present is the eternal...”

“...art is of value only to the extent that it speaks to us. It might be a universal language if we ourselves were universal in our sympathies. Our finite nature, the power of tradition and conventionality, as well as our hereditary instincts, restrict the scope of our capacity for artistic enjoyment. Our very individuality establishes in one sense a limit to our understanding, and our aesthetic personality seeks its own affinities in the creations of the past. It is true that with cultivation our sense of art appreciation broadens, and we become able to enjoy many hitherto unrecognised expressions of beauty. But, after all, we see only our image in the universe, – our particular idiosyncrasies dictate the mode of our perception. The tea masters collected only objects which fell strictly within the measure of their individual appreciation“.

On drama:

“The (drama) masters are immortal, for their loves and fears live in us over and over again. It is rather the soul than the hand, the man than the technique, which appeals to us. – the more human the call the deeper is our response. It is because of this secret understanding between the master and ourselves that in poetry and romance we suffer and rejoice with the hero and heroine. Shikamatsu, our Japanese Shakespeare, has laid down as one of the first principles of dramatic composition the importance of taking the audience into the confidence of the author”.

Kakuzō Okakura also articulated the value of a “vacuum” and the “power of suggestion” in art/drama:

“…in leaving something unsaid the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea and thus a great masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention until you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up to the full measure of your aesthetic emotion.“