Die Young Stay Pretty

Aesthetics is a philosophy that explores beauty largely through nature and art. The word aesthetics is derived from the Latin aesthetica, a term coined by A.G. Baumgarten (1714-1762) of the Leipritz – Wplffshe school, who further derived aesthetica from the Greek aisthetikos, meaning “sensibility.” The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) refers to aesthetics in his book “Critique of Judgment,” where he defines aesthetics as the study of the critique of beauty, rather than the study of beauty itself. In the latter half of the 19th century, following the lectures of Schelling’s “Philosophy of Art” and Hegel’s “Aesthetics,” German art historian Konrad Fiedler (1841-1895) developed a theory of art that separated art from beauty—two ideas which, up until that point, had been considered as one and the same. The etymology of the word aesthetics—aisthetikos—refers to the understanding that arises when we feel our bodies coming into contact with one another; in the same vein, aesthetic judgments are located not in the world of concepts, but in the world of objects. Aesthetic meaning cannot be “read” or “deduced” in an abstract, symbolic, or metaphorical sense, but must be the result of a physical experience. In other words, aesthetics does not create meaning as language does, but rather comes about as a result of physical experiences. An object does not contain meaning in itself; instead, the actions and behaviors it provokes (that is, its aesthetic effect) becomes its primary form of communication. In other words, since the body and its cultural context structurally influence what shall be determined as beautiful, beauty is subjective, and reflects the physical perceptions of the time. Such a thing as universal beauty does not exist. Beauty is constantly changing.

“To die, at the latest, before one reaches forty, is the least unattractive.”

A modern translation of its meaning would be: “If we never died, neither would the deep emotions of life ever be born within us. Indeed, it is far better for human life to be fleeting.” Yoshida expresses the beauty of life through its relativity to death. Beauty does not exist in and of itself, but appears through its relativity to something else, or by encapsulating such a relative element. This passage has been interpreted as a warning against the increasing shame that comes as ugliness overtakes age.

However, considering that the average life expectancy at the time was around thirty years old, it can be said that the phrase “before one reaches forty” was not referring to the length of life per se, but the loss of spiritual (and not physical) youthfulness. The essence of this passage lies not in its ideas about age, but in its contemplative and critical perspective on the beauty of life. This is an attitude that has remained a continuous underlying thread throughout Japanese aesthetics of subsequent eras, and it is in this sense that Matsuyama chose this passage as the title of this exhibition.

There is no such thing as a universal idea of beauty. On the other hand, the human activity of pondering what “beauty” is has been carried out across all eras, both in the east and west, so in a sense, it is a universal activity. This exhibition functions as an examination of beauty through a critical dialogue between these nine artists. The history of art has been viewed from the perspective of Western aesthetics and organized into what we call, in capital letters, Art History. If we consider this history to be the warp of a loom, this exhibition, which creates a lower-case art history through critical dialogue on beauty, is an attempt to weave a weft across it. It is precisely through such critical examination and refinement of ideas through multifaceted aesthetics that our understanding of “beauty” can be expanded.