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Yoshida Kenkô (1283-1350) wrote his Essays in Idleness in about 1330. His keen observations on life, nature, and art have made a lasting impact on Japanese aesthetics. Like Kamo no Chômei, who wrote a century before him, Yoshida was disturbed by the warfare and instability of his time, and eventually became a Buddhist monk. Before taking the tonsure, Yoshida was a courtier during an era in which the aristocratic culture of the Heian Court declined while various groups of warriors sought to extend their control over greater areas of Japan. His Essays is a collection of Kenkô's thoughts about the world around him, much like Sei Shônagon's Pillow Book. The cheerfulness of the Pillow Book, however, is replaced by a feeling of melancholy and nostalgia, because the court was - culturally as well as politically - losing its importance in Japanese society.

Reading

Were we to live on forever - were the dews of Adashino never to vanish, the smoke on Toribeyama never to fade away - then indeed would men not feel the pity of things... Truly the beauty of life is its uncertainty...

Are we to look at flowers in full bloom, at the moon when it is clear? Nay, to look out on the rain and long for the moon, to draw the blinds and not be aware of the passing of spring - these arouse even deeper feelings. There is much to be seen in young boughs about to flower, in gardens strewn with withered blossoms.

There is a charm about a neat and proper dwelling house, although this world, 'tis true, is but a temporary abode... The man is to be envied who lives in a house, not of the modern, garish kind, but set among venerable trees, with a garden where plants grow wild and yet seem to have been disposed with care...

...A room with sliding doors is lighter than one with doors on hinges... As for construction, people agree in admiring a place with plenty of spare room, as being pleasing to the eye and at the same time useful for all sorts of purposes.*

* Selections taken from Donald Keene, Anthology of Japanese Literature from the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Grove Press, 1955) pp. 231-2, 239.

Exercises

1) What are Kenkô's views on houses, interior decoration, and gardens? Find a photograph in a book or magazine of a Japanese house and room. Do Kenkô's views still apply today?

2) How is Kenkô's idea that beauty lies in the impermanence of objects related to Buddhism?

3) How would you compare "An Account of My Hut" to Essays in Idleness? How do the authors of the works approach life?

4) Reread the second paragraph. Evidence of Yoshida's conception of beauty can still be seen in much of Japanese art and architecture today. For instance, a tree with but one live branch will be propped up and preserved for years; or an old, mossy stone lantern will be highly prized for the moss that indicates the passage of time. Find a work of art or architecture and show how it expresses a certain aesthetic -- an idea about what is beautiful.