Discover the Wabi-sabi meaning in life and lifestyle – Find principles of wabi-sabi artwork, the secret to the Japanese lifestyle to make your home beautiful
Have you heard of the phrase ‘Perfectly imperfect’? For centuries, great artists and creative minds offer a simple fact – beauty is perfection with a bit of flaw. Yes, it’s true – defects or faults are an essential part of the vision. Think about it for a moment. Everything that you believe is beautiful – Leonardo’s Monalisa, the Taj Mahal at Agra or your humble home – it also is so perfect because it is imperfect. Real beauty is perfection with a touch of imperfection. Don’t believe me – look around your home. Remind yourself how you feel at home. The comfortable and warm feeling of home is so beautiful, right? We can’t find this feeling in the best of the luxury hotels or resorts – so much so that after a few days away we start feeling homesick.
There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.
Tara Brach
Now, your home may look great, maybe very stylish, or it may have little décor. Either way, a home is a home – cosy, comforting and welcoming. So, do you know why your home feels the way it does – it’s because of the imperfect bits in an otherwise perfect home. An aged piece of wood furniture, or a scratch on the wall or the floor – these dents add meaning to your place, bring you closer to nature. Little imperfections make your home more beautiful and more relevant to you and your life.
Wabi-Sabi meaning
At our homes, it is rather easy to ignore the ‘perfectly imperfect’ nature and let it become ‘imperfect’. After all, there is no end to mess at home. By ignoring this fact about our homes, we spend time between messy rooms filled with upsetting vibes. So, let’s not even risk doing that, especially at your home. Wabi-Sabi rules are here. It’s the design guide you need. And for you, it has seven different choices of ‘perfectly imperfect’ home decor.
Wabi-Sabi is a Japanese art of repurposing items and not replacing them.
Wabi-Sabi is a life approach and an art form of finding beauty in imperfection. In this Japanese way of life, Wabi-sabi meaning holds particular importance. It is the humble culture wherein people try to repair the old things as a part of their legacy and heritage.
Wabi-Sabi artwork celebrates beauty in imperfection. Through the use, some décor items may crack or break. In here, Japanese Wabi-Sabi art ‘Kintsugi’ can help you. Kintsugi art uses unique materials, like gold powder, to fill in the cracks. Gold makes the cracked piece special. Many things have memories attached. Suppose a mug or cup, gifted by someone special. There could be your childhood mug that may be given by your grandparents. It does have memories attached, and hence you don’t feel like throwing it away. With Wabi-Sabi, you can preserve the item and the memories attached to it.
Image sourced from art-us.com
Japan’s Wabi Sabi philosophy to life and lifestyle suggests seven principles:
a. Kanso — simplicity
b. Fukinsei — asymmetry or irregularity
c. Shibumi — beauty in the understated
d. Shizen — naturalness without pretence
e. Yugen — subtle grace
f. Datsuzoku — freeness
g. Seijaku — tranquillity
Wabi-Sabi Principles
Kanso: Simplicity
Simplicity beholds the beauty, in anything and everything. The simpler it is, the more attraction it holds. Simple things mean leaving things as they are without hampering their natural beauty. You need not decorate such things.
Kanso is going to add on beauty to your living room, where you allow simplicity of things to show off. Also, simple means clear, and hence by allowing simplicity to show off, you are making things clear rather than complicating them.
Fukinsei: Incomplete
The Zen circle could be the best example of explaining irregularity, as it is incomplete and hence left as it is. It symbolises imperfection and wabi-sabi art sees beauty in imperfection, as imperfection refers to existence.
Nature is the best example of imperfections, you can see the branches of plants or trees, they are never the same, but each size and shape has beauty in itself.
Shibumi: Beauty in the understated
The word means bitter tasting. But even bitter taste is not bad when it does good to our health. Likewise, a direct and easy manner of decoration is always nicer. To modify nature’s beauty for a style seems unnecessary.
Shizen: Naturalness without masking
Shizen means naturalness. Nature is full of diversity. And the variations that occur are not an accident, but an inherent character. Naturalness is wilderness, and this is beautiful. The variety in nature is stunning.
Yugen: Subtle grace
Yugen means sophistication. Suppose if you think about the Japanese garden where we can see many trees, plants, flowers, fruits. Here you can see immense beauty. A photographer can show its beauty not be clicking the entire thing as a whole. But he may capture specific things and magnify them and bring out its beauty.
Datsuzoku: Freeness
Datsuzoku means freedom from habit. Each day, our life is more or less like a routine. However, doing the same thing regularly cause boredom. Wabi-Sabi suggests to come out of routine life and thinks about things differently. It encourages us to see the beauty in differences too. And once you get to change your style, you can enjoy your life in an exciting manner.
Seijaku: Calmness
The other names for Seijaku are tranquillity or solitude, or it merely means stillness. The opposite feeling you may have of Seijaku is noise or disturbance. Seijaku offers you a calm state of mind in a busy life schedule. Afterall you need calmness after a stressful day, and hence wabi-sabi artwork can be the best option to choose to decorate your home.
Essense of Wabi-Sabi
No rule book
Wabi-Sabi meaning is a philosophy, a way of life or an approach to everything and anything. There is no rulebook for Wabi-Sabi. Yes, that’s true. You know, China’s art of placing things, called Feng Shui, suggests specific rules. These rules respect the colour and positioning of décor items. Wabi-Sabi, on the other hand, offers principles to manage and organise your lifestyle. And the best is that you can adapt this art form the way you want to you. With Wabi-Sabi, you have full freedom to choose your style of living.
Feel grateful
At the heart of Wabi-Sabi meaning is repurposing. When you begin to relook a used or broken object for reuse, it is a form of respect and love for the purpose. You begin to feel connected with it. Also, you tend to remember it’s importance in your life. This process pleases you. Wabi-Sabi artwork obliges you to be grateful for the things you behold.
There is no real beauty without some slight imperfection
James Salter
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