Everyday Aesthetics This page intentionally left blank Everyday Aesthetics Yuriko Saito 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York Yuriko Saito 2007 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk ISBN 978–0–19–927835–0 10987654321 Acknowledgments This book represents a culmination of both my teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and my own research, thinking, and writing for more than two decades. The numerous students I had the privilege of teaching helped me shape my thinking on everyday aesthetics. Not only their contributions in class through comments, examples, or sometimes criticisms, but also their studio works that many of them shared with me provided a constant food for thought. I made acknowledgements throughout this book for the specific comments and examples I gained from some of them, but I am indebted to so many more students for their more general contribution. I am grateful to RISD for its support of this project by granting me a release time through the school-wide Professional Development Grant and Liberal Arts Division’s Humanities Fund. Thanks to these two sources of funding, I was able to devote one whole semester to writing. Over the years I have also been blessed with friends and colleagues here at RISD who helped nurture my work and lend both professional and moral support throughout the process in so many different ways. Simply mentioning them will not do justice to the many intangible gifts they have given me. I will be thanking them individually, but I also want to give public acknowledgement here. Scott Cook, Lindsay French, Elizabeth Grossman, the late Ken Hunnibell, Gerry Immonen, Don Keefer, Marilyn Rueschemeyer, and David Warner have all been great cheerleaders, giving me unfailing support all these years. Many of them also provided me with invaluable references and articles for which I am grateful. I am also greatly indebted to my professional colleagues, many of whom are true mentors, who have guided my professional work with their knowledge, wisdom, and experience, not to mention generosity. I thank Don Crawford, who patiently guided me through the trial and trepidation vi acknowledgments of my doctoral dissertation on the aesthetic appreciation of nature in the B(efore) C(omputer) era. Arnold Berleant’s interest and support for my work has been immeasurable. Not only studying his own works but also working with him closely on Contemporary Aesthetics have provided me with such enlightening and rewarding experiences, and they all had an impact on my own thinking. I am also grateful for the many years of support given by Allen Carlson who, with his writings on nature aesthetics and environmental aesthetics, set a high standard for these fields, to which I always tried to aspire. Working with Steve Rabson for many years on a number of Japan-related publications, both his and mine, has been extremely beneficial and productive. Over the years Barbara Sandrisser raised my awareness of Japanese aesthetics even more with her work on this subject and numerous newspaper articles that she sent me for my reference. Although I was raised in Japan, I credit Barbara for helping me become more sensitive and appreciative of my cultural heritage. David Hanson has also been a source of inspiration, with his unfailing commitment to addressing environmental issues through his photographic works. If Barbara, along with my RISD colleague Gerry Immonen, has been my personal librarian for Japanese materials, David has been the same for environmental issues. My greatest academic appreciation goes to the two reviewers who read and commented on the earlier draft of this book: Carolyn Korsmeyer and Larry Shiner. They went far beyond what is expected of manuscript reviewers by not only providing me with numerous helpful comments and examples but also correcting my writing which is still reflective of mistakes typical of a non-native writer. Their suggestions were invaluable and I thank them for making the revising process an educationally beneficial experience. I tried to respond to and incorporate their comments and suggestions in this final version. I only hope I did justice and honor to their reviews. Peter Momtchiloff, the Philosophy Editor of Oxford University Press, has been most patient and supportive throughout the writing process. I thank him for initiating and facilitating this project. I also thank Jack Sinden for his meticulous and timely copy-editing. Last but not least, my greatest appreciation goes to my family: Gerry, Sarah, and Adam. For the past few years I have been preoccupied with this writing project, at times neglecting what needs to be taken care of acknowledgments vii on the home front. I thank them for their patience and good cheer. My husband, Gerry, constantly reminded me of the importance of saying ‘‘no’’ to various requests and invitations until the manuscript was completed. Part of the motivation for writing this book with a heavy emphasis on Japanese aesthetics is to put in writing the cultural heritage that I tried to impart to my children, Sarah and Adam. It is my hope that, with the help of what I put down here, all those years of ‘‘lecturing’’ to them about moral values and many summers spent in Japan with their grandparents will leave a lasting mark on them as life values. The more I delve into Japanese aesthetics and cultural values, the more I realize how much my parents taught me through their everyday acts (including how to stuff a garbage bag that I refer to in Chapter V). If I succeeded in shedding some light on the moral dimension of Japanese aesthetic sensibility, that is a tribute to the treasures that they have handed down to me. This page intentionally left blank Contents—Summary Introduction 1 I Neglect of Everyday Aesthetics 9 II Significance of Everyday Aesthetics 54 III Aesthetics of Distinctive Characteristics and Ambience 104 IV Everyday Aesthetic Qualities and Transience 149 V Moral-Aesthetic Judgments of Artifacts 205 Conclusion 243 Bibliography 253 Index 269 This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction 1 I. Neglect of Everyday Aesthetics 9 1. Art-centered aesthetics 13 i. Art as the model for aesthetic object 13 ii. Characteristics of paradigmatic art 18 iii. Expanded scope of art-centered aesthetics 28 2. Special experience-based aesthetics 43 i. Aesthetic attitude and aesthetic experience 43 ii. Limitation of special experience-based aesthetics 45 iii. Everyday life ordinarily experienced 48 II. Significance of Everyday Aesthetics 54 1. The environmental significance of everyday aesthetics 58 i. Natural creatures 58 ii. Landscape 61 iii. Built environment and consumer goods 65 2. Green aesthetics 69 i. The power of the aesthetic 69 ii. Landscape aesthetics in the United States 72 iii. Green aesthetics—nature 77 iv. Green aesthetics—artifacts 84 v. Limits of green aesthetics? 96 III. Aesthetics of Distinctive Characteristics and Ambience 104 1. Aesthetics of distinctive characteristics 105 i. Eighteenth-century European aesthetics 105 ii. Aesthetics of the rare and the uncommon 108 iii. Examples from the Japanese aesthetic tradition 111 iv. ‘‘Truth to materials’’ 117 xii contents 2. Aesthetics of ambience 119 i. Creation of ambience 119 ii. Japanese aesthetic appreciation of ambience 124 3. Ramifications of the aesthetics of distinctive characteristics and ambience 129 i. Expansion of aesthetic horizon 129 ii. Humility among designers and artists 133 iii. Limitations on the aesthetics of ambience 138 IV. Everyday Aesthetic Qualities and Transience 149 1. ‘‘Clean,’’ ‘‘dirty,’’ ‘‘neat,’’ ‘‘messy,’’ ‘‘organized,’’ ‘‘disorganized’’ 152 i. Neglect of everyday aesthetic qualities 152 ii. Construction of everyday aesthetic qualities 154 iii. Relevance of functionality 159 iv. Reflection of personal character and moral values 160 v. Positive value of disorder 164 2. Appearance of aging 173 i. Sensuous qualities of aged surface 173 ii. Associationist accounts of the aged appearance 179 iii. Aestheticization of transience 184 iv. Limitations on aestheticizing transience 190 V. Moral-Aesthetic Judgments of Artifacts 205 1. Moral-aesthetic judgments 207 2. Examples from contemporary aesthetic and design discourses 213 i. Propriety of personal appearance 213 ii. Environmental eyesore 214 iii. Designing for special needs 219 3. Design responsive to bodily experience 221 4. Design sensitivity to the temporal dimension of experience 226 i.