In 1834, at the age of 75, Katsushika Hokusai published Fugaku hyakkei (One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji). In its postscript, he wrote that at 73 he had begun to grasp the structure of birds, beasts, insects and fish, and how plants grow.
He went on: “So at 80 I will progress further, at 90 I will master their deeper meaning, at 100 I will perhaps be truly marvelous, and at 110 every dot and every line will seem alive.”
Shoshin wasuru bekarazu: do not forget the beginner’s mind. In his treatise Kakyō, the Noh master Zeami names three kinds.
Zehi no shoshin is the unpolished art of one’s early days, kept as a standard. Jiji no shoshin is the inexperience that belongs to each stage of a career. Rōgo no shoshin is the new beginning that old age brings.
The Japanese state designates important intangible cultural properties and certifies the individuals who hold them. These holders are commonly called ningen kokuhō, Living National Treasures. The state pays each of them a special grant of two million yen a year.
A well-known story about the tea master Sen no Rikyū tells that Toyotomi Hideyoshi heard that morning glories were blooming beautifully in Rikyū’s garden, and went to see them. When he arrived, there was not a single morning glory in the garden.
In the tearoom, one flower of vivid color stood alone in the alcove. Hideyoshi was delighted, and Rikyū received a generous reward.
In his treatise Kakyō (The Mirror of the Flower), the Noh master Zeami quotes a remark from the audience: senu tokoro ga omoshiroki, the moments where nothing is done are the interesting ones.
Zeami explains that these moments are the gaps between dance, song, speech and gesture. In them, the actor does not let his mind go. He keeps an inner attention that connects what comes before and after, and he should hide it even from himself.
In Act 7 of the play Kanadehon Chūshingura, first staged in Osaka in 1748, Ōboshi Yuranosuke spends day after day in revelry at the Ichiriki teahouse in Gion. The act is called Bōsui no dan, the scene of feigned drunkenness.
Everyone around him, enemy and ally, tries to learn his true intention. His enemies suspect that his drinking hides a plan of revenge, and they lay traps to expose it. Yuranosuke has prepared for their tricks and defeats them.
A verse attributed to the tea master Sen no Rikyū reads: Kiku sahō mamori tsukushite yaburu tomo hanaruru tote mo moto o wasuru na. Keep the rules and forms completely. Even when breaking them, even when leaving them, do not forget the root.
The verse is linked to shuhari, the stages of learning a traditional art. Shu is holding to the basics. Ha is adapting them. Ri is developing one’s own way.
In an essay on the bamboo paintings of Wen Yuke, the painter Wen Tong, Su Shi wrote: “So to paint bamboo, one must first have the finished bamboo in one’s chest. Take the brush and look closely, and when one sees what one wants to paint, rise quickly and follow it, moving the brush straight on to chase what one sees, like a hare leaping or a falcon diving. Let it go for a moment and it is gone.”
The Handian dictionary traces the idiom 胸有成竹, to have the finished bamboo in one’s chest, to this essay. It first meant having the whole image of the bamboo in mind before painting. Later it came to mean having made up one’s mind before acting.
The Ming imperial kilns at Jingdezhen made porcelain only for the court. Pieces of good quality went to the palace. Pieces with even slight flaws were broken and buried. According to The Paper, all surplus pieces and flawed seconds of the imperial kilns were “smashed together and buried on the spot.”
Excavations at Zhushan in Jingdezhen have recovered rejected and spoiled imperial porcelain from the Hongwu to the Wanli reigns. A 2024 report counted the fragments in tons and the restored pieces at 3,168.
The Yongle Emperor of the Ming admired the regular script of the calligrapher Shen Du and called him “our dynasty’s Wang Xizhi.” The court gave Shen Du its important texts to write. The scholars of the time then imitated his hand one after another “to cater to the emperor’s taste.” The style is also called taige ti, the cabinet style.