The following is an excerpt (first draft) of an article I am writing. The article’s title is “Better than New: Reflections on Wabi Sabi as a Metaphor for Christian Perfection.”
The Greek ideal of beauty is tied to Platonic philosophy. With this, the goal is to conform an object to an ideal form. A carpenter making a beautiful, “perfect,” chair is then attempting to reproduce the idealized form of a chair. His skill as a craftsman is understood in terms of how closely he is able to conform his creation to that ideal chair. Since the ideal forms cannot be perceived, the standard for perfection is unavailable for judgment, and the imperfection of a creation becomes, in essence, an act of faith. In the eighteenth century, this understanding began to be challenged with J. G. Sulzer and Immanuel Kant, who taught that beauty did not necessarily imply perfection. However, even with Kant, there is still a serious attempt to see beauty as an objective quality, not simply subjective, so a form of idealism persisted.7 The Greek ideal for beauty/perfection could be thought of as otherworldly and superficial. It is otherworldly since the standard is something that does not exist in the world we live in. It is superficial, because beauty is limited primarily to perception – something that is quite literally skin deep. Such a metaphor of ideal forms could be said to be seen used for the animal sacrifice among the Israelites, and the Bride of Christ as described in Ephesians 5. However, I Samuel 16:7 reminds as to the limitations of lessons one can draw from this metaphor since God values more what people are unable to see, and that appearance (beauty) can misinform as to character.
In time, the quest for a flawless perfection became questioned further in the West. As John Ruskin noted in the 19th century.
“…imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we
John Ruskin, Art Critic (1819-1900)
know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. The foxglove blossom,—a third part bud, a third part past, a third part in full bloom,—is a type of the life of this world. And in all things that live there are certain, irregularities and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyse vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy.
Accept this then for a universal law, that neither architecture nor any other noble work of man can be good unless it be imperfect…” 8
Returning to the Bible, flawlessness is not the only aesthetic view. Another is commonly seen in the Old Testament. It has been described in different ways. One way could be an “aesthetic of natural abundance.” This term follows the logic of Gerald Downing who recognizes that natural abundance is not merely a utilitarian appreciation, but also an aesthetic evaluation.9 The Israelite nation was primarily an agrarian society, and so were tied to the land economically. But there is more than this. This writer was raised in an agricultural community and can attest that members of that community can see a large sow with a dozen piglets, or an apple tree straining under the weight of its fruit as objects of beauty. As Yeshua Ben Sirach stated, “The eye likes to look on grace and beauty, but better still on the green shoots in a cornfield.”10 The Hebrew Bible has much appreciation of natural abundance. Psalm 65 would be good example.
Much like the aesthetics of idealized forms, the aesthetics of natural abundance is used at times to point towards ethical holiness and a form of perfection. An example of this is Psalm 1 where a righteous, godly person is compared to a well-watered tree whose leaves never wither, and produces abundant fruit. Isaiah 58:11 speaks of the righteous as being as a well-watered garden. The aesthetics informs the character of the righteous. Berleant and Carlson note that this sort of “environmental aesthetics,” as they describe it, has a quality to it quite unlike an aesthetics based on static ‘flawless’ perfection. Beauty seen in the form of living abundance has an “engaging, inclusive, dynamic character.”11
7Alexander Rueger, “Beautiful Surfaces: Kant on Free and Adherent Beauty in Nature and Art” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 16(3) 2008: 535-557, 535-536.
MMM -- Mission Musings 