Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Volume 15 Volume 15 (2017) Article 15
1-1-2017
The Role of Imperfection in Everyday AestheticsThe Role of Imperfection in Everyday Aesthetics
Yuriko Saito
Rhode Island School of Design, ysaito@risd.edu
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Saito, Yuriko (2017) "The Role of Imperfection in Everyday Aesthetics," Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal
Archive): Vol. 15 , Article 15.
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The Role of Imperfection in Everyday Aesthetics
Yuriko Saito
Abstract
The notions of perfection and imperfection do not have the same prominent
presence they once occupied in earlier aesthetics discourse. However, they
still play an important role as criteria for aesthetic judgments today in our
everyday life. The wide-spread and easily accepted aesthetic appeal of
objects with perfection tends to overshadow the potential aesthetic value of
imperfect objects that are considered to be defective or deficient. This not
only impoverishes our aesthetic lives but also leads to some serious
environmental and social consequences. I first argue for the need to
cultivate an aesthetic sensibility to appreciate imperfection in our everyday
experience. However, I also argue that such an aesthetic sensibility should
not be applied indiscriminately. As newly emerging negative aesthetics
indicates, in some cases it is critically important to maintain the negative
assessment of imperfection, as it may indicate a need for corrective actions.
Key Words
everyday aesthetics, imperfection, negative aesthetics, perfection, the
picturesque, wabi aesthetics
1. Introduction
The notions of perfection and imperfection frequently appear in eighteenthcentury
European aesthetic theories. Writers ranging from Joseph Addison
and Francis Hutcheson to Joshua Reynolds and Arthur Schopenhauer
address the role that these concepts play in aesthetics, and Edmund Burke
and Immanuel Kant dedicate whole sections of their influential works to
arguments that perfection is not a cause of beauty.[1] Sometimes the
discussion revolves around the aesthetic value or disvalue of deformed
creatures, such as “a monster,” “imperfections of nature,” and “accidental
blemishes and excrescences.”[2] Other times artifacts are judged by the
criteria of perfection/imperfection based upon their success or failure in
fulfilling their functions. Finally, the grand narrative of degeneration of
perfection into imperfection underlies Thomas Burnett’s Sacred Theory of
the Earth (1681-9), which created a controversy in its time. According to
Burnett’s theory, the earth, originally a perfectly smooth and beautifully
proportioned “Mundane Egg,” was subsequently ruined by the Deluge,
caused by humanity’s sin, that created mountains, valleys, and other
distortions, warts, and blemishes that destroyed the once beautiful
surfaces.[3]
It appears that in today’s aesthetics discourse we don’t have the same kind
of lively discussion surrounding the notions of perfection and imperfection,
possibly with the exception of music.[4] However, as I shall argue in this
paper, the aesthetics of perfection and imperfection govern various aspects
of our everyday life, ranging from green lawns and perfectly-shaped fruits
and vegetables to fast fashion and the sculpted human body. As such, it is
still a worthwhile subject matter to explore, particularly because, as with
other matters in everyday aesthetics, our aesthetic judgments based upon
perfection and imperfection almost invariably have consequences that affect
the quality of life, the social and political climate of a society, and the state of
the world.
I will limit my discussion to material objects, although the aesthetics of
perfection and imperfection can be applied to non-material entities like
music, systems, and ideas. Furthermore, for the purpose of my discussion
here, I am going to suppose that perfection is generally considered
aesthetically positive and that anything falling short of perfection is
aesthetically inferior or downright negative. For brevity’s sake, I shall call
this aesthetically favorable view of perfection ‘perfectionism.’ This
supposition is challenged by much of eighteenth-century European
aesthetics and also by Japanese wabi aesthetics, both of which inform my
subsequent discussion.
I am also going to work with the following two common narratives of
perfectionism. One invokes a temporal framework by setting an optimal or
prime state of an object when it is considered perfect, after which it
deteriorates or declines due to weathering, aging, wear and tear, or
destruction. If the object is a manufactured item, the optimal state is usually
when it is brand new, except for those objects that need to be broken in or
seasoned, such as carpenter’s tools. If the object is a living entity, the
optimal state is when it is flourishing, such as flowers in full bloom and
humans as adults before middle age sets in.
The other narrative is atemporal and based upon the norm for perfection of
kind. For example, a deformed body of a living creature, including and
especially humans, is deemed imperfect. An artifact that fails to fulfill its
design, perhaps because of a mishap in the manufacturing process, will be
considered imperfect. Such factory rejects are often sold at a discount with
a tag specifying “slight imperfections.”
In what follows, I will first explore some negative consequences of
perfectionism and argue for developing an aesthetic capacity for
appreciating imperfection, which I shall call imperfectionism. However, in
the second part, I will argue against indiscriminate imperfectionism.
2. Aesthetic argument for imperfectionism
2.1. Sensuous qualities
Perfectionism impoverishes our aesthetic lives because it limits the range of
sensuous qualities for appreciation. Imperfect objects are usually
characterized by irregularity, disorder, complexity, and rough surfaces.
Appreciation of imperfection is part of the eighteenth-century British notion
of the picturesque, most prominently exemplified by architectural ruins.
William Gilpin, for example, acknowledges the beauty and elegance of
Palladian architecture with its symmetry and orderly design, but
recommends that “should we wish to give it picturesque beauty, we must
use the mallet instead of the chisel, we must beat down one half of it, deface
the other, and throw the mutilated members around in heaps. In short, from
a smooth building we must turn it into a rough ruin.”[5] The aesthetics of
ruins requires a sophisticated aesthetic sensibility that appreciates the
complex, irregular, and asymmetrical shape, the interplay of interior and
exterior spaces, and rough surfaces caused by destruction, weathering, and
plants growing in crevices.
The same aesthetics applies to gardens. Alexander Pope criticizes the
symmetry and order of a formal garden because one half is repeated by the
other half and “no pleasing Intricacies intervene, No artful Wilderness to
perplex the Scene.”[6] In the same spirit, Richard Payne Knight, another
picturesque advocate, praises gardens that are overgrown with ivy, moss,
and weeds.[7]
Another well-known example of imperfectionism is Japanese wabi
aesthetics, established with the tea ceremony in the sixteenth century.
Initially introduced as an alternative to the prevailing taste for opulence and
luxury, wabi aesthetics also celebrates irregularity, rough surface,
asymmetry, and defects in tea bowls, other implements, and tea huts.
These qualities often appear in the aging process or result from
happenstance during the creative process, such as an unexpected run of
glaze or adherence of ashes and bits of straw on the pottery surface. At
other times, these effects are deliberately brought about by a destructive act
of a tea master, such as breaking one handle of a vase.[8]
Today, many artists’ works and writings are full of detailed depictions and
descriptions of the beauty of imperfection caused by unevenness, accident,
or wear and tear. For example, Aaron Siskind’s close-up photographs of the
façade of dilapidated houses and streets call attention to a rich lode of
aesthetic gems. The complexity of the surface engages a more involved and
layered visual experience.[9] A sensibility that is sharpened this way will
enable us to develop an “eye for peeling paint,” according to one writer.[10]
Furthermore, not surprisingly, many artists working with textile, ceramics,
and metal also express similar praise of imperfections, defects, signs of
repair, and the like, and create their artworks accordingly.[11]
For quite some time, Americans have been obsessed with creating a perfect
lawn, which is a velvety smooth green carpet bordered by well-manicured
bushes. One book on this American obsession is subtitled, “the Obsessive
Quest for the Perfect Lawn.”[12] In contrast, gardens consisting of
wildflowers and community gardens growing vegetables in urban areas
often arouse objections for their messy, disorderly, and unkempt
appearance. The monoculture of the green lawn is considered aesthetically
superior to the profusion of colors, shapes, and textures provided by the
mixture of wildflowers and vegetable and fruit plants in those alternative
gardens. In contrast, Piet Oudolf, the Dutch designer of New York City’s
Highline and Chicago Millennium Park’s Lurie Garden, articulates how these
gardens offer a new landscape aesthetic: “I think it’s the journey in your life
to find out what real beauty is, of course, but also discover beauty in things
that are at first sight not beautiful.”[13] Thus, purely on the sensuous level,
denying the aesthetic value of imperfection considerably limits one’s
aesthetic palette.
2.2 Imagination
Imperfectionism also enriches imagination. Joseph Addison characterizes
our aesthetic experience as “the pleasures of the imagination,” and identifies
the great, the uncommon, and the beautiful as the sources of such
pleasures. Among them, the uncommon stimulates our mind, and “it is this
that bestows charms on a monster and makes even the imperfections of
nature to please us.”[14] Furthermore, he claims it is the imagination that
“makes the most rude, uncultivated parts of nature administer to his
pleasures” and helps him discover “a multitude of charms that conceal
themselves from the generality of mankind.”[15] Richard Payne Knight also
claims that “as all the pleasures of intellect arise from the association of
ideas, the more the materials of association are multiplied, the more will the
sphere of these pleasures be enlarged.”[16]
Specifically, Addison complains that the “neatness and elegancy” of English
(formal) gardens are “not so entertaining to the fancy” because “the
imagination immediately runs them over and requires something else to
gratify her.”[17] For the same reason, Immanuel Kant prefers the free
beauties of nature to an orderly garden because a thing “with which
imagination can play in an unstudied and purposive manner is always new
to us, and one does not get tired of looking at it.”[18] Ruins again serve as
the prime example of imperfect beauty. The imagination becomes engaged
as we contemplate their original state, the cause of transformation, and the
parallel transience of human life.
Activation of imagination also informs imperfectionism advocated by
Yoshida Kenkō, a retired Buddhist monk in medieval Japan (1283-1350).
Whether regarding the cherry blossoms or the moon, he celebrates the
less-than-the-optimal state of these objects, including their complete
invisibility. He declares “how much more evocative and pleasing it is to think
about the spring without stirring from the house, to dream of the moonlit
night though we remain in our room!”[19] The same point is made by Kamo
no Chōmei, another medieval Japanese writer (1153-1216): “The limitless
vista created in imagination far surpasses anything one can see more
clearly.”[20] For the same reason, Sen no Rikyū (1522-1591), the tea
master who established wabi tea, criticizes those who lament a landscape
devoid of flowers and colorful foliage because they “are merely capable of
taking pleasure in the colorful sights which appear to their physical eyes
alone.”[21] Finally, Tanizaki Junichirō, a noted twentieth-century writer,
states that he loves “things that bear the marks of grime, soot, and weather,
and we love the colors and the sheen that call to mind the past that made
them,” in particular “a polish that comes of being touched over and over
again, a sheen produced by the oils that naturally permeate an object over
long years of handling.”[22]
In short, if beauty consists only of a perfectly maintained Palladian
architecture, cherry blossoms at the height of their bloom, an unhindered
view of the moon, and the monoculture of a green lawn, it makes for a rather
impoverished aesthetic life. Aesthetically appreciating imperfection,
incompleteness, and defects may be more challenging and taxing.
However, developing such aesthetic capacity encourages open-mindedness
and receptivity in appreciating something on its own terms while enhancing
the power of imagination. Rather than imposing a predetermined idea of
what beauty has to be, we are letting the object in various forms speak to
us, even if at first it may defy our usual expectations of beauty. Thus, strictly
from the aesthetic point of view, imperfectionism is beneficial.
3. Moral/existential argument for imperfectionism
This open-mindedness underlying imperfectionism also has a moral
dimension. One of the necessary ingredients of our moral life is that we do
not impose our ideas on others but rather become a good listener and
respect the other’s reality, dignity, and integrity. As such, the capacity to
appreciate diverse kinds of beauty shares the same attitude of humility and
respect required in our moral life.
This willingness to relinquish the urge to exert control over others also leads
to a certain attitude toward life. One of the greatest challenges to humanity
is the limitation of human control over things. Transience of material objects
in this world, including our own bodies, is the law of nature from which
nothing can escape. Furthermore, despite the scientific and technological
advancement in the modern world, things happen beyond our control.
In the aesthetic sphere, this urge to create and keep a timeless ideal is most
prominent among architects. As Rumiko Handa documents, architects tend
to exert what she calls “authorial authority” that prohibits any modifications
once the building is completed.[23] At the time of completion, the structure
is deemed perfect, and any change, whether intentionally inflicted or
naturally developed, is considered to be deterioration, a fall from grace.
Some architects even dictate the activities and objects used within their
designed space, regardless of the life style and wishes of the residents or
users. For example, Frank Lloyd Wright was notorious for designing
everything within the space of his buildings, including furniture and even
plates, to create an overall harmony. In Philip Johnson’s Glass House,
“even table-top bric-a-brac are discretely marked with indications of their
correct location,” making the space “unlivable as a domestic space,”
according to one critic.[24] Architects’ attempts to freeze the building and
things in it at the time of completion reflect an unrealistic expectation that
defies the reality of the life world.
Instead of the ultimately vain effort to fight against transience and other
challenges of this world, the Japanese aesthetic tradition of imperfectionism
offers a strategy for accepting them. By finding beauty in the ephemerality of
life, such as falling cherry blossoms and signs of aging, we reconcile
ourselves to our own impermanence through aestheticization. Wabi
aesthetics, in particular, offers a proactive affirmation of transience and the
limitation of human control over things rather than the more passive
resignation prominently expressed in many Heian period (794-1185) court
poems that lament the transience of youth, beauty, love, and wealth.
Today we are becoming increasingly aware of and concerned with the
legacy of the Enlightenment agenda that equates good life with a life free
from the constraints of nature. We question the wonders of the Baconian
utopia detailed in New Atlantis that can be taken as a blue print for
technological advancement, most of which has been accomplished:
airplane, submarine, genetic engineering, and holography, to name a few.
Particularly in light of the environmental harm caused by humanity’s effort to
control and utilize nature, we are pressed with a paradigm change that
would view our inability to control nature and the march of time as an
opportunity to work with it or to recognize and accept the limitation of human
agency. The aesthetics of imperfectionism offers one strategy for developing
a capacity to appreciate what is otherwise considered a deficiency and
inadequacy.
4. Environmental, social, and political arguments for imperfectionism
So far I have offered aesthetic, moral, and existential arguments for
imperfectionism. Let me add another layer of considerations that particularly
affect our lives today.
First, there are a number of negative environmental consequences of
perfectionism. Let us go back to the ideal of residential gardens in the
United States. Their creation and maintenance incur a considerable
environmental cost: heavy use of water, chemicals like fertilizer, herbicide,
fungicide, and insecticide, and fuel for lawn-care machinery. Such
landscaping is hostile to living creatures, such as birds and butterflies, and it
poses risks to human health and safety.
The effect of perfectionist aesthetics reaches the supermarket shelves as
well. The “apparent perfection” of “strangely uniform and incredibly shiny red
tomatoes and picture-perfect peaches” results from discarding deformed
and ugly fruits and vegetables, such as two-legged carrots, cucumbers that
are too curvy, and green peppers with an extra lump.[25] According to one
estimate, the process of weeding out imperfect fruits and vegetables by both
farmers and supermarkets wastes one third of the total fresh produce grown
in the United States.
Another consequence of perfectionist aesthetics is the accelerated pace of
the perceived obsolescence of manufactured goods, ranging from clothing
to hi-tech gadgets, that encourages fast fashion. This economic system
entices consumers continually to seek more fashionable, stylish, and up-todate
goods. Furthermore, when an object starts showing signs of wear and
tear, even if the object still functions well, we are compelled to discard it and
purchase a new one. Quoting a shopper, one writer points out that, in
today’s economy, “aesthetics, whether people admit it or not, is why you
buy something.”[26] This consumer action fueled by perfectionist aesthetics
is responsible for resource depletion, environmental degradation, mounting
garbage, not to mention human rights violation in those developing nations
where many goods are manufactured and where developed nations’
garbage gets dumped.
Imperfectionist aesthetics is helpful in responding to these environmental
consequences of perfectionism. As mentioned before, wildflower gardens
and community gardens establish a different landscape aesthetic guided by
their environmental stewardship and community spirit. An art project termed
Edible Estates, which replaces a front yard with vegetable gardens and
community gardens where area residents grow fruits and vegetables,
develops imperfectionist aesthetics based upon fecundity, liveliness,
vibrancy, and communal pride and neighborliness.[27]
As for imperfectly shaped fresh produce, one French supermarket chain
launched a successful campaign extolling the virtue of “Inglorious Fruits and
Vegetables,” followed by an American supermarket chain’s campaign for
“Produce with Personality.” Both campaigns promote imperfectionist
aesthetics by featuring deformed fruits and vegetables, with strategic
placement and favorable lighting to showcase their unique beauty. They can
even receive an artistic treatment, such as Uli Westphal’s photographic
project, Mutatoes.[28]
In the matter of consumer goods, there has been a growing interest in
repair. Under perfectionism, repair has a negative connotation because it is
associated with damage. However, in the apparel industry, which is
notorious for promoting fast fashion, some designers are starting to
incorporate signs and potentials for repair in their designs. They often derive
inspirations from the Japanese boro (rag), and quilts that were originally
created in places like the American South, such as Gee’s Bend, by the
slave women who had to make do with limited resources. Both are now
widely exhibited in art museums. In the field of ceramics, there is a growing
interest in the traditional Japanese art of kintsugi (repair with gold) that not
only repairs damaged objects but also provides aesthetically appealing
ornamental elements.
Another set of problematic consequences of perfectionism concerns the
human body. There are many health issues involved in various efforts to
achieve an ideal physique, such as anorexia, extreme dieting, cosmetic
surgery, use of steroids, and tanning booths, among others. The demand
on a female fashion model to be tall and skinny drove one French model to
die from malnutrition, prompting the French government to enact a law
prohibiting fashion companies from using a model whose body mass index
is below a certain level.
Furthermore, humans suffer from various forms of discrimination based
upon physical appearance. Deborah Rhode compiled compelling evidence
that obesity, deformity, and unattractive facial features work against
employment, acceptance to certain groups, and interpersonal relationships,
not only damaging one’s self-esteem and quality of life but also adding
another kind of injustice in today’s society, already laden with various forms
of injustice and discrimination.[29]
In response, there is a growing movement to include various body types and
differently abled bodies as dancers, stage performers, and fashion models
to promote public awareness and respect for diverse types of bodies. One
example is the Swiss campaign called, “Because Who Is Perfect?,” that
featured five imperfect bodies for mannequins.[30] This kind of
inclusiveness and celebration of diversity is a welcome antidote to
perfectionism regarding the human body because its extreme version can
imply, however inadvertently, a kind of aesthetic white supremacism.
5. Arguments against indiscriminate imperfectionism
So far I have been advocating imperfectionist aesthetics. But my promotion
of imperfectionism does not entail a rejection of perfect beauty. Neither do I
share some imperfectionist advocates’ elevation of imperfection above
perfection. For example, the picturesque advocates’ praise for imperfection
in architecture, gardens, other artifacts, and even human appearance is
always accompanied by their criticism of perfection. Yoshida Kenkō also
claims that “branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with faded
flowers are worthier of our admiration” and “only an exceptionally insensitive
man” would find beauty only in flowers in full bloom.[31] Furthermore, “it is
typical of the unintelligent man to insist on assembling complete sets of
everything. Imperfect sets are better.”[32] Wabi aesthetics also elevates the
aesthetic value of defective objects over perfect beauty. Tanizaki’s
imperfectionism cited in Section 2.2 is largely motivated by his
dissatisfaction with Japan’s rapid Westernization, but it is clear that
imperfectionism is also his aesthetic preference.
The imperfectionists’ tendency to elevate imperfection above perfection is
understandable, given that perfectionism is more prevalent and
imperfectionism is aesthetically more challenging and requires a more
sophisticated and cultured sensibility and imagination. However, I now offer
aesthetic and social/political considerations against the indiscriminate
promotion of imperfectionism.
5.1. Co-existence of perfectionism and imperfectionism
First, if one of the reasons to support imperfectionism is to promote inclusive
and multi-faceted aesthetics, perfectionist aesthetics should retain a place
in aesthetic discourse. After all, even those who advocate imperfect beauty
caused by damage, wear and tear, and the effects of aging would most
likely appreciate the perfectly smooth and lustrous appearance of a
lacquerware piece when it is finished by the craftsman, an apple with a
perfectly round shape, and the smooth skin of a youthful body. Different
aesthetic appeals of a lacquerware with a faded surface, an apple with an
asymmetrical shape, and the wrinkles marking the aged face do not negate
the respective beauty of perfection.
Second, even those who advocate imperfectionism often point out the
complementarity of perfection and imperfection. For example, it is instructive
that the picturesque movement appeared during the eighteenth century in
Britain, when the land was being rapidly marked by the checkerboardpatterned
hedgerows as a result of the enclosure movement. The
geometrical monotony of enclosed fields is best broken by landscaping that
utilizes picturesque aesthetics. Conversely, William Marsden praises the
regularity and order of a pepper garden after walking through a jungle in
Sumatra, while admitting that “a pepper garden cultivated in England would
not … be considered as an object of extraordinary beauty; and would be
particularly found fault with for its uniformity.”[33]
It is also instructive that the advocates of wabi aesthetics often point out the
aesthetic effect created by a contrast between perfection and imperfection.
For example, tea master Murata Shukō (d. 1502) illustrates this contrast by
a poem: “A prize horse looks best hitched to a thatched hut.”[34] While the
wabi tea champions the aesthetics of imperfection embodied in an
irregularly shaped tea bowl, a cracked vase, and a crooked wooden pillar for
a tokonoma alcove, all of these irregular and misshapen objects are placed
against the geometrical pattern of tatami mats. If everything, including the
floor, in the tea hut is irregular and misshapen, most likely the overall effect
would be more grotesque than the wabi appeal. On the other hand, if a
perfectionist aesthetic pervades everything, as in Philip Johnson’s Glass
House, the effect will most likely be too stiff and rigid, not allowing much
free play of the imagination. Thus, the ideal aesthetics can be interpreted as
a judicious juxtaposition of perfection and imperfection, rather than an
indiscriminate promotion of everything perfect or everything imperfect.
5.2. Negative aesthetics
Imperfectionist aesthetics turns what is commonly regarded as aesthetically
negative into aesthetically positive. This follows a rather typical trajectory of
aesthetics discourse, such as the contribution made by ugliness to the
overall value of a work of art and the positive aesthetic value accorded to
unattractive objects of nature. In comparison, there has not been sufficient
attention to those that are aesthetically negative with no redeeming
aesthetic value. The problem is particularly acute in everyday life. I don’t
think anybody would believe that we live in an aesthetic utopia with no need
for improvement. Unfortunately, aesthetically negative objects,
environments, and situations exist in today’s world and in our lives.
Katya Mandoki devotes a considerable portion of her book,Everyday
Aesthetics, to negative aesthetic qualities that permeate our daily lives with
what she calls aesthetic poisoning, such as “the disgusting, the obscene,
the coarse, the insignificant, the banal, the ugly, the sordid.”[35] Arnold
Berleant also calls attention to occasions and environments where their
sensory experience “offends, distresses, or has harmful or damaging
consequences.”[36] By carefully analyzing many cases that involve different
relationships between the aesthetic and the moral, including pollution,
commercial enterprise, political propaganda, and urban planning, he
stresses the importance of developing an awareness of “aesthetic
deprivation,” “aesthetic harm,” and “aesthetic damage.”[37] Such aesthetic
negativity dulls, numbs, or assaults our sensibility, stifles creativity, and
compromises our well-being and quality of life. He thus calls for the need to
acknowledge the existence of negative aesthetics.
Let us recall some examples of imperfection that I have discussed: peeling
paint, a dilapidated house with broken windows, sidewalks strewn with litter
and weeds growing in the crevices, and tattered clothes worn by homeless
people. I previously argued in support of the imperfectionist aesthetics
regarding these objects but now want to argue for the importance of
developing negative aesthetic judgments regarding them. These examples
of imperfection often indicate social ills and injustice, and the negative
aesthetics associated with them is the best means of signaling that
something is amiss and change or improvement is in order. These aesthetic
manifestations communicate social problems more powerfully and
effectively than things like statistics regarding the poverty rate. Our
sensibility assaulted by these negative aesthetic experiences affects us
immediately and viscerally, and I believe that it is important that they affect
us this way.
There is something morally problematic about deriving an aesthetic pleasure
from the sign of social ills suffered by others. Indeed, both picturesque
aesthetics and wabi aesthetics were criticized for this reason. For example,
Mary Wollstonecraft was critical of the picturesque estate where “every
thing…is cherished but man,” and “the eye…had wandered indignant from
the stately palace to the pestiferous hovel.”[38] John Ruskin was also critical
of “the heartless ‘lower picturesque’ delight in ‘the look that an old laborer
has, not knowing that there is anything pathetic in his grey hair, and
withered arms, and sunburnt breast.’”[39] In a similar vein, wabi aesthetics
of tea became the target of pointed criticism by Dazai Shundai (1680-1747),
an Edo period Confucian scholar:
Whatever tea dilettantes do is a copy of the poor and
humble. It may be that the rich and noble have a reason to
find pleasure in copying the poor and humble. But what
should those who are, from the outset, poor and humble find
pleasure in further copying the poor and humble? All that tea
dilettante does is to copy everything which looks poor and
shabby.[40]
Today, many instances of imperfectionist aesthetics, such as shabby chic,
grunge, and the distressed look, invoke charges of elitism, classism, and
dilettantism. Wearing an expensive pair of jeans sporting rips, tears, frays,
patches, and faded color, essentially an imitation of a homeless person’s
tattered clothes, cannot but remind us of Marie Antoinette playing at being a
milkmaid. The façade of shabby houses of the residents of Gee’s Bend
certainly offer inspirations for quilt patterns but I doubt that the residents
there have a positive aesthetic appreciation toward the expression of
poverty they are suffering.
Previously I suggested an existential support for imperfectionism by arguing
that there is a kind of wisdom in accepting and developing a positive attitude
toward difficulties in life, such as transience and lack of power and control
over things. However, there are cases where imperfectionism becomes
problematic. Consider the following claim by Sōtaku Jakuan, an Edo-period
tea master:
Always bear in mind that wabi involves not regarding
incapacities as incapacitating, not feeling that lacking
something is deprivation, not thinking that what is not
provided is deficiency. To regard incapacity as
incapacitating, to feel that lack is deprivation, or to believe
that not being provided for is poverty is not wabi but rather
the spirit of a pauper.[41]
The same view is utilized to endorse the status quo of a feudal society by Ii
Naosuke (1815-1860), in his Essay on the Tea Cult as an Aid to
Government:
If pleasure is not gratification accompanied by a sense of
contentment, it is not real pleasure…if each individual is
satisfied with his lot and is not envious, he will enjoy life
because he knows contentment and will be contented
because of enjoying his lot…if the art of drinking tea were
widely practiced through the country…both high and low
would be content with their lots, would enjoy but not grieve,
and would do no wrong…the country would become
peaceful and tranquil spontaneously.[42]
Wabi aesthetics, with its acceptance and affirmation of imperfection, can be
a powerful, effective, and wise strategy for coping with life’s contingencies
that are beyond human control. However, when applied to societal and
political situations, we must pause, for we are glad that people like Rosa
Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela did
not subscribe to the imperfectionism advocated by wabi aesthetics.
Developing negative aesthetics tends to encourage an activist attitude. This
is in contrast with the traditionally held characterization of aesthetic attitude
that is disinterested, typically adopted by a spectator. Reversing the Kantian
notion of beauty that is appreciated regardless of its actual existence, a
spectator with a disinterested attitude toward aesthetically negative objects
would also remain indifferent to their existence. If an interested attitude
toward aesthetically positive objects implies our interest in their existence,
the same attitude toward aesthetically negative objects implies our interest
in their non-existence. Particularly in relation to everyday aesthetic matters,
we should argue against disinterestedness. That is, the existence and
creation of those objects, environments, and social interactions that affect
our everyday life in an aesthetically positive way should be encouraged,
while the opposite should hold for those that are aesthetically negative.
Does my argument against imperfectionism developed in this section mean
that we should never derive a positive aesthetic experience from a cracked
bowl, peeling paint, dilapidated house, and tattered clothes? No. As I
argued in Section 2, excluding these things from the aesthetic arena will
certainly impoverish our aesthetic life. Just as it is often worthwhile
appreciating a representational painting without regard to its content,
appreciating imperfection without regard to its origin and consequences
helps sharpen our perceptual sophistication. However, when these
imperfections indicate people’s suffering and social injustice, I believe it is
ultimately morally problematic to derive a disinterested pleasure based upon
imperfectionism. The appropriate response should be to experience them
as aesthetically negative and take them as a call for an action to change
and improve the condition that gives rise to those imperfections.
I have presented several benefits, aesthetic or otherwise, for developing an
imperfectionist aesthetics. However, I have also argued against the
indiscriminate application of imperfectionist aesthetics. Particularly when it
comes to everyday aesthetics, it is difficult, and also unwise, to separate
aesthetic concerns from moral, social, political, environmental, and practical
concerns. The aesthetic can be a strong ally in our collective effort to
improve the quality of life and create a good society by promoting
aesthetically positive artifacts, environments, and social interactions.
However, it is equally important to keep a vigilant attitude against that which
is aesthetically negative because it signals problems and calls for changes
and solutions. Enrichment of our aesthetic life should not come at the cost
of ignoring aesthetics’ important role in the world-making project.[43]
Yuriko Saito, PhD
ysaito@risd.edu
Professor of Philosophy
Rhode Island School of Design
2 College St., Providence, RI 02903 USA.
Published on July 27, 2017.
Endnotes
[1] Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the
Sublime and Beautiful (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), Part III,
Section IX: “Perfection not the cause of Beauty,” p. 100. Immanuel Kant,
Critique of Judgment, tr. J. H. Bernard (New York: Hafner Press, 1974),
Section 15: “The Judgment of Taste is Quite Independent of the Concept of
Perfection,” pp. 62-5.
[2] The first two phrases come from Joseph Addison, “Pleasures of the
Imagination,” (1712) in Essays in Criticism and Literary Theory, ed. John
Loftis (Northbook: AHM Publishing, 1975), #412, p. 143. The last one is
from Joshua Reynolds, Idler #82 (Nov. 10, 1759), p. 166 of
https://archive.org/stream/idlerintwovolum00langgoog#page/n174/mode/2up
.
[3] For Burnett Controversy, see Basil Willey’sThe Eighteenth Century
Background: Studies on the Idea of Nature in the Thought of the Period
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1961), Chap. II. The subsequent development of
the aesthetics of mountains, see Marjorie Hope Nicolson’s Mountain Gloom
and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite (New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1963).
[4] Contemporary debates surrounding music invoking the notions of
perfection and imperfection often revolve around jazz and recording vs. live
performance.
[5] William Gilpin, Three Essays on picturesque beauty; on picturesque
travel; and on sketching landscape: to which is added a poem, on
landscape painting (1792) at
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/004863369.0001.000/1:4?
rgn=div1;view=fulltext, p. 7.
[6] Alexander Pope, “An Epistle to Lord Burlington” (1731), inThe Genius of
the Place: the English Landscape Garden 1620-1820, eds. John Dixon Hunt
and Peter Willis (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1990), p. 213.
[7] See Richard Payne Knight’sThe Landscape, A Didactic Poem (1794), in
Hunt and Willis, pp. 342-8.
[8] I explored this subject in “The Japanese Aesthetics of Imperfection and
Insufficiency,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 55,4 (Fall 1997):
377-85.
[9] See visual images at http://ccp-
emuseum.catnet.arizona.edu/view/objects/asimages/search@/32/title-asc?
t:state:flow=9ab38fb9-b0cd-4712-9f39-0432fe8476e0.
[10] Gay Leonhardt, “An Eye for Peeling Paint,”Landscape, 28,2 (1985): 23-
5.
[11] See, for example, Kiff Slemmons, “On Imperfection,”Metalsmith, 28, 1
(2008), 26-29; Allen S. Weiss, “The Toilet Bowl and the Tea Bowl,” ArtUS,
27 (2009), 80-85; Allen S. Weiss, “Cracks,” ArtUS, 29 (2010), 62-67; Lois
Martin, “Patina of Cloth,” Surface Design Journal, 28, 4 (Summer 2004), 16-
21.
[12] Ted Steinberg, American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect
Lawn (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007). See also Virginia Scott Jenkins,The
Lawn: A History of an American Obsession (Washington, D. C.:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994) and Georges Teyssot, “The American
Green: Surface of Everyday Life,” in The American Lawn, ed. Georges
Teyssot (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), pp. 1-39.
[13] Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, Thomas Piper, dir. (2014) at You
Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb8LoJyuIC8.
[14] Addison, “Pleasures,” #412, p. 142.
[15] Addison, “Pleasures,” #411, p. 140.
[16] Richard Payne Knight,An Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste
(1805), in Hunt and Willis, p. 181.
[17] Addison, “Pleasures,” #414, p. 151 and p. 149.
[18] Kant, Critique of Judgment, p. 80.
[19] Kenkō Yoshida, Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō, tr.
Donald Keene (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 118. I retain
the name order as it is published, even if it is the reverse of the Japanese
order, which in this case is Yoshida (family name) Kenkō (given name).
[20] Kamo no Chōmei,Mumyōshō, cited by Kōshirō Haga, “TheWabi
Aesthetic,” in Tea in Japan: Essays in the History of Chanoyu, eds. Paul
Varley and Isao Kumakura (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989), p.
204.
[21] Sōkei Nanbō, “Record of Nanbō” (Sen no Rikyū’s teaching recorded by
his disciple, Sōkei Nanbō), in The Theory of Beauty in the Classical
Aesthetics of Japan, ed. and tr. Toshihiko and Toyo Izutsu (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1981), p. 156-7.
[22] Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, tr. Thomas J. Harper and
Edward G. Seidensticker (New Haven: Leete’s Island Books, 1977), pp. 11-
12, emphasis added.
[23] Rumiko Handa, Allure of the Incomplete, Imperfect, and Impermanent:
Designing and Appreciating Architecture as Nature (Abingdon, Oxon:
Routledge, 2015).
[24] Kevin Melchionne, “Living in Glass Houses: Domesticity, Interior
Decoration, and Environmental Aesthetics,” The Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism, 56, 2 (1998), p. 191.
[25] Harvey Blatt, America’s Food: What You Don’t Know About What You
Eat (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008), p. vii. The following estimate regarding
food waste also comes from this work.
[26] Virginia Postrel, The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic
Value is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness (New York:
HarperCollins Publishers, 2003),
p. 8.
[27] Fritz Haeg, Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, 2nd ed. (New
York: Metropolis Books, 2010). The descriptions and examples of Edible
Estates are available at
http://www.fritzhaeg.com/garden/initiatives/edibleestates/main.html.
[28] See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8a4GqSaQcU, as well as
http://www.uliwestphal.de/mutatoes/index.html.
[29] Deborah Rhode, The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life
and Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
[30] See this project athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8umFV69fNg.
[31] Kenkō, Essays, p. 115, emphasis added.
[32] Kenkō, Essays, p. 70, emphasis added.
[33] William Marsden, The History of Sumatra(1783) cited by Keith
Thomas, Man and the Natural World: A History of the Modern Sensibility
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), p. 263.
[34] Cited by Haga, “The Wabi Aesthetic,” p. 196.
[35] Katya Mandoki, Everyday Aesthetics: Prosaics, the Play of Culture and
Social Identities (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2007), p. 38.
[36] Arnold Berleant, Sensibility and Sense: The Aesthetic Transformation of
the Human World (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2010), p. 155.
[37] Berleant, Sensibility and Sense, “aesthetic deprivation” and “aesthetic
harm” on p. 169, and “aesthetic damage” on p. 164.
[38] Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men, cited by Larry
Shiner, The Invention of Art: A Cultural History (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 2001), p. 166.
[39] John Ruskin, Modern Painters, cited by David Lowenthal,The Past is a
Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 166.
[40] Dazai Shundai, Dokugo (1816), cited by Hiroshi Minami,Psychology of
the Japanese People, tr. Albert R. Ikoma (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1971), p. 90.
[41] Sōtaku Jakuan, Zencharoku, cited by Haga, “TheWabi Aesthetic,” pp.
195-6.
[42] Ii Naosuke, An Essay on the Tea Cult as an Aid to Government(19th
century), cited by Minami, Psychology,
p. 88.
[43] The original version of this paper was presented at the Symposium on
the Aesthetics of (Im)perfection held at the University of Tokyo (April 2017).
I thank Peter Cheyne for organizing the symposium and inviting me to
participate. I also thank Carolyn Korsmeyer for her invaluable comments on
the content and on the writing of the first draft of this paper.