An ode to the charm of Japan: an unconventional beauty, veiled by the enchantment of transience that lies in everything. If the originality of this country, its lifestyle and its culture is so often underlined, it is also because there is an impalpable element that pervades much of its culture, giving it a truly unique physiognomy: Zen.
From the most refined aesthetics to food, from the rules of behavior to everyday life in even its most elementary manifestations, almost everything carries within it in some form, often subliminal, the imprint of Zen. His spirit has sunk so deep that most Japanese hardly realize how pervasive his influence was – and still is today. Simplicity, an elegance that is never brazen, a beauty without pretentiousness that renounces any excess or superfluous decoration: here is the essence of beauty according to Zen, and here is the idea of beauty that this volume intends to convey, or rather... "suggest". Because what is only suggested can be much more powerful than what is explicitly stated.
Simple, functional, measured... exquisitely Zen: the secret charm of Japan!
Reasons of interest:
- Compelling texts and essential and refined graphics, which contain powerful and impressive images.
- Japanese art and aesthetics in their purest expression, seen through the magnifying glass of Zen.
- A broad overview of the culture of the Land of the Rising Sun, a wonderful journey through works of art, places and everyday objects.
- The great tradition of Zen temples and gardens.
- The Japanese house with its essential furnishings and the karesansui (garden of sand, rocks and pebbles) that surrounds it.
- Painting and calligraphy, tea ceremonies and ceramics, ikebana and the art of bonsai, design and origami, cooking... so many different aspects, from which the signs of a hidden quality quietly emerge .
