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I love how the East codifies aesthetics like this. My favorite is shibui which loosely translated (i'm told) means that every single detail of the object is si

I love how the East codifies aesthetics like this. My favorite is shibui which loosely translated (i'm told) means that every single detail of the object is simultaneously both useful and beautiful.

britta 13y ago
Sort of weird to lump a whole region together. I'd agree though that traditional Japanese aesthetics include a lot of great descriptive terms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aesthetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aesthetics
- askar_yu 13y ago
  Saw your first sentence coming. Just getting past read the generalization "East" in the parent comment and thinking "Oh, somebody is gonna finger point and get up in arms about it!", then I see your comment :)
  - britta 13y ago
    Hm? Not up in arms, just politely noting an inaccuracy. It seemed unnecessary to pull out the Edward Said quotes.
    - askar_yu 13y ago
      Oh, I did not mean to describe your comment exactly as such. That was a polite and concise point-out by you. "Up-in-arms" was what I was expecting to come, not yours. I just found it amusing to immediately read your first sentence just as those thoughts were flowing in my head. Sorry for confusion.
zhemao 13y ago
It's mostly a Japanese thing. In Chinese we don't have a lot of words for particular aesthetic qualities. However, if you want profane homophonic puns or pithy four-word idioms ...
- derefr 13y ago
  Is "pithy four-word idiom," in Chinese, a pithy four-word idiom?
  - ttflee 13y ago
    Yes, if "四字成语" counts.
    - zhemao 13y ago
      So it's not an idiom and the word "pithy" isn't in there, so it isn't quite as recursive as TLA.
- ttflee 13y ago
  Or maybe we had, but lost them in the history.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    You probably lost those words when Qin Shi Huang decided to burn all the (non-legalist) books and bury all the scholars [1]...but there is always YinYang (also Taoism), which at least emphasizes contrasts. Let a hundred schools of thought flourish! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of_scholars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of...
    - zhemao 13y ago
      Well Yin and Yang has more to do with philosophy than aesthetics and is used in martial arts and TCM rather than in design or art, so it doesn't really correspond.

I love how the East codifies aesthetics like this. My favorite is shibui which loosely translated (i'm told) means that every single detail of the object is simultaneously both useful and beautiful.

britta 13y ago

Sort of weird to lump a whole region together. I'd agree though that traditional Japanese aesthetics include a lot of great descriptive terms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aesthetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aesthetics

askar_yu 13y ago
Saw your first sentence coming. Just getting past read the generalization "East" in the parent comment and thinking "Oh, somebody is gonna finger point and get up in arms about it!", then I see your comment :)
- britta 13y ago
  Hm? Not up in arms, just politely noting an inaccuracy. It seemed unnecessary to pull out the Edward Said quotes.
  - askar_yu 13y ago
    Oh, I did not mean to describe your comment exactly as such. That was a polite and concise point-out by you. "Up-in-arms" was what I was expecting to come, not yours. I just found it amusing to immediately read your first sentence just as those thoughts were flowing in my head. Sorry for confusion.

zhemao 13y ago

It's mostly a Japanese thing. In Chinese we don't have a lot of words for particular aesthetic qualities. However, if you want profane homophonic puns or pithy four-word idioms ...

derefr 13y ago
Is "pithy four-word idiom," in Chinese, a pithy four-word idiom?
- ttflee 13y ago
  Yes, if "四字成语" counts.
  - zhemao 13y ago
    So it's not an idiom and the word "pithy" isn't in there, so it isn't quite as recursive as TLA.
ttflee 13y ago
Or maybe we had, but lost them in the history.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  You probably lost those words when Qin Shi Huang decided to burn all the (non-legalist) books and bury all the scholars [1]...but there is always YinYang (also Taoism), which at least emphasizes contrasts. Let a hundred schools of thought flourish! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of_scholars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of...
  - zhemao 13y ago
    Well Yin and Yang has more to do with philosophy than aesthetics and is used in martial arts and TCM rather than in design or art, so it doesn't really correspond.