Beauty

Beauty:
April 28th 2015

I’ve recently read a book called “The Unknown Craftsman”. While I feel I need to read it again to understand it better, I’d like to summarize some components of it here and compare it to what I may think in the future.

Seeing and Knowing beauty is the difference between intuition and study.

Knowing Beauty: A person who knows beauty studies the techniques of artists and can explain how certain colors, textures, designs, etc. are created. They employ a great deal of intellect upon observation. Their mind is busy with the interpretation of the artist and their goals, amongst many other things. If the object under criticism is beautiful or ugly, they cannot tell. The knowledge they have can never teach them intuition, and can only restrain them from such appreciation.

Seeing beauty: Intuition can be practiced but cannot be learned, we are born with it, but have forgotten how to use it. Seeing beauty is to understand and appreciate nature in its sincerest of forms. A person who can see beauty can of course learn to know beauty, employing knowledge with sight will lead to the ultimate appreciation of nature.

Beauty = Nature

This is the law of beauty. In nature, there is no distinction between attractive and unattractive, beautiful and ugly. Things of nature are all beautiful. Nature produces without intention, it simply exists. As soon as intention is put behind nature, it is no longer natural, and thus no longer beautiful in the eyes of this law.

Artists create with the intention of producing beauty, craftsmen create with the intention of functionality. This is an important distinction because an artist with intention of creating beauty can never produce true beauty. The craftsmen with his intention of functionality can produce beauty unintentionally.

Beyond the artist and craftsman, there exists another classification: the artist-craftsman. Their role is crucial to the future of art, as they will pave the way for tradition to follow in their footsteps. The artist-craftsman creates functional goods that have individuality. Individuality itself is not right or wrong, but it is very difficult to produce goods that have individuality without also imparting an intention of beauty.

The manner in which an artist-craftsman can create natural beauty is to attain Buddhahood. In addition to having a good sense of aesthetics and skill, the artist must produce individual works that do not have the intention of beauty. This is incredibly difficult to do because the very nature of individuality is intention. A person who can create in a mindset where judgment or intention does not exist can be said to truly create beauty. These people can alternatively be referred to as ‘geniuses’.

Individuality has no place in the world of true beauty because it stems from intention, however, through repetition intention is lost. Through multiple repetitions, things are created out of habit or muscle memory, and the process can be done with an empty mind. Surely at this stage, creation is monotonous for the producer, but through this monotony, beauty will be reached. If many people, and generations of people, consistently do the same thing, a tradition is born. Tradition removes personality, and repetition removes intent. Eventually, the path of tradition will arrive at beauty.

Unfortunately for the sake of beauty, to comply with the needs of our ever-growing world, industrialization has taken over the production of what were all once handmade goods. This has dealt a major blow to tradition. The thoughtless craftsmen of the past cannot support themselves anymore because of a price war with mechanization. They can (and have) increased the prices of their products, but now hand-made goods are a luxury, and no longer common for the average person.

The period we live in now is lacking in tradition, and many things created in the idea of tradition are created with intention of the long-lost beauty, no longer repetition. There are of course places in the world that have unbroken lineages of tradition, but they are becoming more and more scarce. Regarding the law of beauty, many things today cannot be beautiful.

With the loss of tradition and the rarity of geniuses in the world, not many things in our era can be truly beautiful. What we can hope for in the future is for our current generation of artists to create traditions of their own, which our descendants can employ thoughtlessly.

Update: May 9th 2021
I’m glad this article still resonates with me. It’s a special feeling to read thoughts that you once had but weren’t necessarily your own and see if you’ve migrated away from them. I have followed these beliefs semi-consciously for the past 5 years and now more than ever I can apply this philosophy to my tea making. The idea of seeing and knowing, the artist-craftsman. To embark on the annual search for tea that I can see is excellent, and pursue the art of brewing it as I know for others in a fashion that is deliberate, skillful, and founded in experience as a way to share with them everyone’s efforts along the way from farm to cup; so that they will appreciate it and pay it forward.