Appreciating pottery needs to include coming to terms with the difference between lovely (Japanese: kirei) and beautiful (Japanese: utsukushii). Lovely is the quality of pleasing the eye. Beautiful is that of nourishing the soul.
People characterize works of pottery or whatever as “lovely” to the extent that the objects in question are free of challenging visual dissonance and rich in soothing visual consonance. Conversely, things that we regard as “beautiful” frequently contain, on careful examination, elements that, alone, we would find repugnant. Few of us would enjoy the scent or the look of some of the substances employed in fermenting delicious beverages, for example, or compounding fine incense.
Contemporary consumer society subsists in coddling the eye and fondling the mind. People have lost sight, literally, of a profounder dynamic that is essential to meaningful aesthetic appreciation and, yes, spiritual realization: that of simultaneously embracing seemingly incompatible elements.
In pottery, us rediscover aesthetic profundity as a vector that emerges from the vigorous interplay of contrasting stimuli, both visual and tactile. In daily life, let us eschew the numbing seductions of consumerism and reacquaint ourselves with the satisfaction of dealing proactively with the gamut of human existence.
