Our standards of morality are begotten of the past needs of society, but is society to remain always the same?
Kakuzō OkakuraOur mind is the canvas on which the artists lay their colour; their pigments are our emotions; their chiaroscuro the light of joy, the shadow of sadness. The masterpiece is of ourselves, as we are of the masterpiece.
Kakuzō OkakuraTags: art representation
True beauty could be discovered only by one who mentally complete the incomplete.
Kakuzō OkakuraTags: beauty inner-beauty
Approach a great painting as thou wouldst approach a great prince.
Kakuzō OkakuraTags: art
People are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave properly.
Kakuzō OkakuraTags: people virtuosity
One can even buy a so-called Religion,
which is really but common morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her accessories and what remains behind?
Tags: religion
These Taoists' ideas have greatly influenced all our theories of action, even to those of fencing and wrestling. Jiu-jitsu, the Japanese art of self-defence, owes its name to a passage in the Tao-teking. In jiu-jitsu one seeks to draw out and exhaust the enemy's strength by non-resistance, vacuum, while conserving one's own strength for victory in the final struggle.
In art the importance of the same principle is illustrated by the value of suggestion. In leaving something unsaid the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea and thus a great masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention until you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up the full measure of your aesthetic emotion.
But when we consider how small after all the cup of human enjoyment is, how soon overflowed with tears, how easily drained to the dregs in our quenchless thirst for infinity, we shall not blame ourselves for making so much of the tea-cup.
Kakuzō OkakuraTags: infinity tears tea enjoyment
One altar forever is preserved, that whereon we burn incense to the supreme idol,--ourselves, our god is great, and money is his Prophet! We devastate nature in order to make sacrifice to him; we boast that we have conquered Matter and forget that it is matter that has forever enslaved us.
Kakuzō OkakuraThe art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.
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