Art

In Japanese "art" is bidzyutsu. The hieroglyph bi means "beauty”, dzyutsu - "skill", so art is "the skill to create beauty". The skill to create beauty and to see it explicitly or implicitly in everything that surrounds us is a special gift that the Japanese people possess. A great number of esthetic principles that crystallized from the Shinto, Buddhist and Dao ideologies formed centuries-long tradition of the Japanese art. Among its main genres are literature, drama, architecture and landscape design, sculpture, plastic arts, painting (kaiga), calligraphy (syodo), engraving (ukiyo-e), numerous types of decorative-applied arts (highly artistic fabrics and clothes, weapons, varnishes, porcelain and ceramics, wood and stone carving; artistic appliqué work (osiyo), the art of making figures from paper (origami), etc.  A special place is occupied by arts connected with the Zen tradition: tea ceremony (sado or tya-no yu), floristic design (ikebana) as well as the art of a miniature landscape on a tray (bonsai - growing diminutive trees; boonkei and bonseki - miniature landscapes). The artistic principles which form the basis for the "peaceful" arts were also embodied in the martial arts connected with the Samurai tradition. All these arts are viewed by the Japanese as different ways of spiritual perfection and are united under one concept - Way (do).

Scene of tea ceremony. Japan. The Japanese. Late 19th cent.		Traditional dance. Japan. The Japanese. Late 19th cent.		Screen painting. Japan. The Japanese. Late 19th cent.