Wabi-sabi
The essence of the Japanese aesthetic is based on Wabi-Sabi. Here, beauty is expressed as poetry and grace through the principles of impermanence, incompleteness, and imperfection. This contrasts with the Western notion of beauty as spectacular, pristine, and enduring. Western beauty can be seen and heard from a block away and is expected to last forever; wabi-sabi beauty is experienced quietly, intimately and is momentary. It is an experience of transcendence in a single moment, revealing the nature of things.
Wabi-sabi is expressed in the Fujiwara no Teika poem:
All around, no flowers in bloom
Nor maple leaves in glare,
A solitary fisherman’s hut alone
On the twighlight shore
Of this autumn eve.
