Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers

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Leonard Koren

Imperfect, Point Reyes, CA, 2008, 1994, English

Design, General

ISBN: 9780981484600

From the Publisher. This is an updated version of the enduring classic that first introduced the concept of “imperfect beauty” to the West. Text, images, and book design seamlessly meld into a wabi-sabi-like experience. Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete . . . . . . wabi-sabi could even be called the “Zen of things,” as it exemplifies many of Zen’s core spiritual-philosophical tenets . . . Wabi-sabi is the most conspicuous and characteristic feature of what we think of as traditional Japanese beauty. It occupies roughly the same position in the Japanese pantheon of aesthetic values as do the Greek ideals of beauty and perfection in the West . . . Wabi-sabi, in its purest, most idealized form, is precisely about the delicate traces, the faint evidence, at the borders of nothingness . . .

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George Yabu

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What I love about this simple book is the philosophical exploration of beauty in impermanence and imperfection. I've always strived to attain the opposite in our work and I know I see the beauty in almost everything seen or unseen.

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