On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 4:42 AM, William Conger <[email protected]>wrote:
> Yes, and more. Failure. Gravitas is also the of death that permeates > every > moment of consciousness even in the moments of greatest bliss, faith, > ambition, > love. Some art is just a distraction from that reality and some (the best > in my > view) is suffused with it --reality--while also providing the distraction. > When you say 'death', do you mean 'transience'? Could you mean the Japanese expression 'mono no aware'?: 2. *Mono no aware*: the Pathos of Things The meaning of the phrase *mono no aware* is complex and has changed over time, but it basically refers to a pathos (*aware*) of things (*mono*), deriving from their transience... The most frequently cited example of *mono no aware* in contemporary Japan is the traditional love of cherry blossoms, as manifested by the huge crowds of people that go out every year to view (and picnic under) the cherry trees. The blossoms of the Japanese cherry trees are intrinsically no more beautiful than those of, say, the pear or the apple tree: they are more highly valued because of their transience, since they usually begin to fall within a week of their first appearing. It is precisely the evanescence of their beauty that evokes the wistful feeling of *mono no aware* in the viewer. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-aesthetics/
