After the Book of Tea

30x22 inches, mixed media and oil on paper.

Transition/transformation

Continuity/segmentation

Cultural codes/natural non-codes

The prompt of this piece was a mural design concept which bridged scenery from a painting titled Auspicious Cranes, by the Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, and Georgie’s cafe on Broome St. in the Lower East Side. The painting transitions from two dimensional perspective to a three dimensional one on the right side, emblematizing the veneration of traditional iconography as an absolute space which signifies its meaning and virtues, but cannot be inhabited and re-enacted in modern times with the same sincere enchantment and fervour. This is the basis of Kakuzō Okakura’s 1906 book, the Book of Tea, which describes the practical philosophy of tea, its Taoist and Zen origins, the schools and architecture, for a Western audience.

The book implies a cultural erasure and the loss of simplicity of tradition in modern times. The ancient view of the mundane as beautiful has been breached by conspicuous consumption, industrialism, luxury aesthetics, and the loss of moral valence through propriety and self centredness. Rather than self-pitying, it adores and venerates the magnificence of Teaism, flower arrangements, the architecture and design of the tea room as art of the eternal and the ever-changing. Here we can trace the spirit of tea traditions as it transitions across nations, cultures, ideologies, and daily purposes. 

“Freed from the fetters of matter, his spirit moves in the rhythm of things. It is thus that art becomes akin to religion and ennobles mankind. It is this which makes a masterpiece something sacred.” 

“To the sympathetic, a masterpiece becomes a living reality towards which we feel drawn in bonds of comradeship. The masters are immortal, for their loves and fears live in us over and over again. It is rather the soul than the hand, the man than the technique, which appeals to us; the more human the call, the deeper is our response.”