wabi-sabi

Wabi-sabi is a difficult moral/aesthetic principle to describe, what with all its nuances. Here are a few descriptions:

"simplicity combined with acute awareness of values... undemonstrative, noble austerity, most discriminating use of simple, well-formed tools, restrained use of color in the teahouses… It has given dignity to poverty.”

- Walter Gropius, Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture, 1960

Chaseki (tearoom) of Shokintei at Katsura Villa, mid-17th century, Kyoto

[As a moral principle:]

“a life of quietness and a withdrawal from worldliness"

“represents the view that an excess of possessions and consumption is a burden that actually diminishes rather than enriches life. An absence of clutter provides room to think and perhaps even to understand.”

[As an aesthetic principle:]

“values the beauty of simplicity and austerity, and looks for the serenity and transcendence that comes with it.”

-John Pawson, Minimum, 1996

And from my own research:

• 12th-century writers in Japan elaborated on the positive qualities of poverty and correlated poverty with liberation.
• In the 16th century, this idea was applied to the aesthetic sensibility of chanoyu (tea ceremony) chiefly conceived by the great tea master Sen no Rikyu.
• Wabi-sabi is often illustrated by the simple, rough, imperfectly shaped raku ware tea bowls preferred by Sen no Rikyu, and by the chaseki (tearoom).
• The concept of wabi-sabi also originated in the Zen principles of the tea ceremony.
• On its own, wabi implies the quality of voluntary poverty.
• Sabi refers to things that possess a quality of rustic imperfection.
• In the context of Zen Buddhism, sabi refers to a state of absolute emptiness, the goal of Zen meditation.

But this clip from Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge is the best description of all:

(start at 1:30)