A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics

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

Donald Richie is the foremost explorer of Japanese culture in English, and this work is the culmination of sixty years of observing and writing from his home in Tokyo.

• What Is Japanese Cinema?: A History
• The Book of Tea
• In Praise of Shadows
• Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
• Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence
• The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty
• Wabi-Sabi: Further Thoughts
• Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice
• The Four Chinese Classics: Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu, Analects, Mencius
• The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture