Yuugen

Cached October 7, 2007, from
http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/y/yuugen.htm

yuugen　

CATEGORY: 　art history / general terms

Lit. profound mystery. A multivalent and influential medieval aesthetic ideal expressing darkness, depth, mystery, transience, ambiguity, calm, sadness, and elegance. The term originated in China as youxuan and meant Daoist or Buddhist truth beyond intellectual comprehension. In the Chinese preface to the KOKINSHUU, Ki no Yoshimochi (d.919) used yuugen to denote profundity in ancient poetry. By the 12c yuugen was used as a critical term in poetry contests (*uta-awase), again referring to a profound meaning. Fujiwara Shunzei (1114-1204), however, considerably broadened yuugen to embrace the complete effect of a poem, including both style and concept. Shunzei integrated yuugen with aspects of yojou or overtones, evoking associations not overtly expressed in word or form, that reflect a subtleness of thought and emotion. Yuugen is also linked to the Tendai Buddhist idea of shikan which paradoxically interrelates form and formlessness, surface and depth, suggesting the interpenetration of all things.

Shunzei's son Teika (1162-1241) generally subscribed to this ideal, but added an aspect of youen or ethereal charm that held great appeal in later generations. Kamo no Choumei (1155-1216) emphasized yuugen as an uncertainty of heart and words expressed in that which is colorless, indistinct, and emotionally restrained. For later writers such as Yoshida Kenkou (1283-1350) and Shoutetsu (1381-1459), yuugen was a feeling that could not be put into words, a stifling of chromatic intensity, and an elegant emotion. Choumei's yuugen, with its emphasis on the incomplete, the old, and the faded, saw an evolution in the surface appeal of the term but weakened its intellectual or spiritual element.

The *nou dramatist and theoretician Zeami (1363-1443) applied yuugen to the sublime level of acting that expressed a vivid yet tranquil beauty, describing the term metaphorically as a white bird that holds a flower in its beak. The renga master Shinkei (1406-75) reemphasized the spiritual essence of yuugen, associating the creation of elegantly beautiful poetry with a pure state of mind born of Buddhist acceptance of the world. Shinkei's austere conception of yuugen, linked with hiesabi, chill melancholy, was further refined in the stark, withered beauty advocated by the nou dramatist Komparu Zenchiku (1405-68). Yuugen played a formative role in the aesthetic ideals of *sabi and *wabi and was thus expressed indirectly in the whole range of arts associated with *chanoyu as manifest in wabicha. The conception of beauty derived from the imperfect aspect of nature that could suggest spiritual depth below the surface is the ideological essence of wabi. Moreover, Shinkei's yuugen or a specifically "withered" and "cold" beauty, seems to have directly influenced the early developers of wabicha, Murata Jukou (d.1502) and Takeno Jouou (1502-55). Yuugen was brought to bear directly on tea in the mid-17c *kireisabi aesthetic of Kobori Enshuu (1579-1647) who took Teika as his model. Even the name "Tan'yuu" given to the Kanou artist previously called Morinobu (1702-74) by the Daitokuji priest Kougetsu Sougan (1570-1643) is likely related to the taste for yuugen as both men studied tea under Enshuu.