Shibui(渋い)
Finding beauty in the ordinary, simplicity in complexity and living in harmony with nature.
Shibui (渋い) (adjective), shibumi (渋み) (noun), or shibusa (渋さ) (noun) are Japanese words that refer to a particular aesthetic of simple, subtle, and unobtrusive beauty. Like wabi-sabi, shibui can have wide application.
The Japanese concept of shibui (the literal translation is “astringent”), or refined understatement is a way of being, an approach to life, an attitude that notices and values the beauty in the everyday. Perhaps I should have called this column Shibui…
Shibui focuses on presence, awareness, and finding beauty in the ordinary. The seven elements of shibusa are simplicity, implicity, modesty, naturalness, everydayness, imperfection, and silence.
The person exemplifying shibui takes time to learn, watch, read, understand, develop, think, and merges into understatement, silence and humility. These subtle, silent, reflective and mindful qualities can bring harmony and balance.
Shibui, although seemingly simplistic, evokes appreciation for the underlying complex nature of life. As an aesthetic approach it seeks to reveal the beauty in what has come to be considered ordinary.
Shibui aesthetic acknowledges that we are part of nature, not separate; we merge our life with nature so it flows in harmony. It lends itself not only to mindset, but art, architecture and design, pottery, poetry and painting. Infused with minimalism, found in subdued colours and subtle detail, natural materials and natural light .
Ikebana artist Donna Canning stated:
“Ikebana demonstrates the shibui aesthetic by drawing attention to the everyday life around us that often goes unnoticed. Familiar materials, presented in unfamiliar ways, ask us to slow down and look again, closer. Through observation, intricate details reveal meaning… we begin to see the world and ourselves as an integral part of it, with clarity.”
Perhaps the best example of the shibui aesthetic in architecture is the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, who was directly influenced and inspired by Japanese culture. He found a way to merge architecture with the natural world, the most famous example of this being Fallingwater.
"A certain love of roughness is involved, behind which lurks a hidden beauty, to which we refer in our peculiar adjectives shibui, wabi and sabi. .. It is this beauty with inner implications that is referred to as shibui. It is not a beauty displayed before the viewer by its creator .. a piece that will lead the viewer to draw beauty out of it for themselves. The world may abound with different aspects of beauty. Each person, according to his disposition and environment, will feel a special affinity to one or another aspect. But when their taste grows more refined, they will necessarily arrive at the beauty that is shibui." The Unkown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty, Sosetsu Yanagai
And even poetry can be shibui - take it away Mary Oliver.
The Swan
Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
Gratitude
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