| Abstrakt: |
The philosophers of the Kyoto School have devoted countless pages to refecting on art, especially poetry and painting. Among these philosophers, Hisamatsu Shin’ichi 久松真一 famously wrote about Zen aesthetics and attempted to systematize the characteristics of Zen art. As knowledge about the history of Asian art increased in the West, Hisamatsu’s pioneering attempt, like that of D. T. Suzuki, at interpreting Zen arts through their religious background was criticized for ignoring the sociohistorical context of this type of artistic production (e.g., Levine 2007). However, here I suggest that both approaches may be complementary rather than exclusive. One can read certain works of art as expressions of a spiritual experience without overlooking the material conditions of their production. Based on one of the aesthetic notions with which Hisamatsu defned Zen art, shadatsu 洒脱 (“free from attachment”), which he links to the Buddhist teaching of the absence of obstruction muge 無礙 and the Zen expression yuke sammai 遊化三昧 (the “samadhi of absolutely untrammeled play”), I propose to examine how this approach is fruitful for understanding not only the conception of art in a premodern religious context but also certain works of contemporary art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
