World-renowned designer, art director of MUJI and creative advisor for the three Japan Houses Hara Kenya explores how nature, religion and reactions to external influences together explain the importance of empty space in Japanese aesthetics.
A capacity to gain insights from nature
I would like to discuss the concepts of yohaku (empty space surrounding something) and ma (a physical or temporal gap between things) from two different perspectives. The first is our view of nature. In Japan, since ancient times, we have regarded nature as an almighty, divine power, which showers blessings upon our lives. Rather than viewing it as something wild, needing to be tamed, we have seen it as a great governing principle or providence, which benevolently grants us abundant riches.
The roots of this mindset lie in the unique geographical and environmental situation of the Japanese archipelago. It stems from a history marked by nature’s fury, including fierce phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami and typhoons, which human wisdom cannot control. At the same time, such destruction also brings about the next cycle of abundance, and Japanese people have revered and respected the irresistible might inherent in nature through what is known as yaoyorozu (lit. eight million gods). Not referring to this specific number, but rather implying a vast, uncountable number of gods, this is the belief that the divine is present in everything – it can be pictured floating above distant mountains, lying next to a rice paddy, lurking at the bottom of the sea or lingering in the flickers of a flame. The belief that even a single grain of rice contains seven deities is the reality of yaoyorozu.
A gallery of 2 items.
‘Emptiness’ as a creative vessel
In order to communicate with such gods, Japanese people came up with the idea of creating a hollow structure which could be constructed by erecting four pillars and tying their tops together with rope. This is called a shiro and in ancient times, Japanese people believed that precisely because it was empty, spirits might enter. There was however no guarantee that they would, which made the possibility that they might all the more thrilling. By attaching a yane (roof) to the shiro, it becomes a ya-shiro, a structure that a deity might inhabit, and the core configuration of Japan’s Shintō shrines. In other words, by making this ‘emptiness’ function as a creative receptacle, they gained the ability to worship and appease such divine, almighty forces via the medium of prayer. The torii gates found at shrines likewise encompass emptiness, and it is the yohaku and ma, the torii and yashiro, around which Japan’s shrines are constructed.
A gallery of 4 items.
Finding beauty in nothingness
My second viewpoint relates to the facility for discovering beauty in a void, a particular sensibility that emerged suddenly in the mid-15th century, following the widespread cultural destruction wrought by the Ōnin War.
The Japanese archipelago is in a quite unique situation, floating at the easternmost extremity of the Eurasian continent. If you visualize turning the continent 90° clockwise, our archipelago is the ‘saucer’ lying at the bottom of it. Now picture this as a pachinko or pinball machine: balls bearing culture would fall from Rome past the Middle East, central Asia, India, Russia, China, Korea, etc., until they end up dropping into the receptacle that is the Japan archipelago.
As a result, one can describe Japanese cultures as having been influenced by others throughout the world – as is apparent if you look at the artifacts still held at the Shōsōin ‘treasure house’ in Nara. Every culture of the world was for a long time dominated by the ostentatious styles of kings and queens, and as a geographical terminus of the world, Japan was affected by all of these. As a consequence, until the mid-15th century, it too demonstrated a preference for ornate and showy items imported from outside.
However, in the late Muromachi period (mid-15th century), a civil war broke out in the capital city of Kyoto that would last for eleven long years. Fire became a weapon of war, and the city ended up a wasteland, with temples burnt, gardens destroyed, Buddhist statues broken, and kimono stolen… The conflict arose due to a dispute over who was to succeed the shōgun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa, and ended a decade later with the position passing to his son. It had a profound effect on Japanese cultures. Yoshimasa had lacked political acumen, but had had a fine eye for beauty. When he retired from his post, he built a temple Jishōji, better known as the Silver Pavilion (Ginkakuji), in the Higashiyama district of Kyōto, and went to live there. In it, he gave full rein to his artistic sensibilities and effectively created a new style emphasizing cold and desolation. One can imagine that this came from his experience of witnessing the loss of a vast cultural heritage, but either way, the new mode dispensed with gaudiness and instead began to proclaim an unusual new aesthetic wherein people discovered boundless possibilities in absence.
A gallery of 2 items.
Blank spaces are part of the picture, to be filled by the heart
The way of tea, ikebana, gardens, architecture, literature… this new aesthetic affected them all, and gave birth to a style of beauty found nowhere else in the world, known as “Higashiyama culture”. This resonated with traditional Japanese sensibilities, as we had always refused to perceive ‘absence’ as a negative quality, instead seeing it as a receptacle for creativity. Yoshimasa also discovered and – regardless of their social status – placed high value on a group of people with exceptional talents in the realm of artistic craft, equivalent to modern-day artists or art directors, known as the Dōbōshū, Notable individuals included Nōami, a master of interior design and room furnishings, Ryūami, who excelled in ikebana, and Zen’ami, whose skills lay in garden design.
The era also saw the birth of wabi-cha, a form of practising the way of tea, proposed by Murata Jukō, developed by Takeno Jōō and completed by Sen no Rikyū. Wabi-cha emphasized ephemeral tea rooms, spaces of exceptional simplicity. It had an immense impact on the aesthetics of pottery too, introducing bowls such as raku ware, devoid of all ornamentation, Korean-style ido ware, whose beauty lies in its worn, aged look, and Oribe ware, appreciated for its distorted shapes.
In literature too, a new form of poetry arrived: renga, or ‘linked verse’, wherein a poet would compose the opening lines but leave it to others to complete. Here too we see emptiness, a void serving as a space full of expectations for the poets’ creativity to well forth.
A century later, Hasegawa Tōhaku painted two screens depicting a pine forest, where the viewer’s imagination is stimulated by the parts hidden in mist rather than the trees themselves. This work truly embodies the Japanese concepts of yohaku and ma. Moving into the early Edo period, the Compendium of Japanese Painting Techniques (‘Honchō Gahō Taiden’) comments that ‘blank spaces are part of the picture, to be filled by the heart’, indicating that observers should use their mind’s eye to supplement what is not shown.
These yohaku and ma spaces, alongside distortion and imperfection, are concepts quite distinct from the ideas of minimalism or simplicity conjured up by modern rationalism. They are unique to Japanese art and culture.
It is this background that lies behind the feeling that asymmetry or incompleteness, as found in Japanese crafts, can actually inspire the imagination. Look behind contemporary Japanese architecture, design, or even the philosophy underpinning everyday items such as those from MUJI, and you will find this sort of aesthetic sensibility at work. As to what creative interpretations lie ahead, I leave that to your imagination.
A gallery of 4 items.
Further reading
- The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzō
- In Praise of Shadows by Tanizaki Junichirō
- Fragile by Matsuoka Seigō
- White by Hara Kenya
About Hara Kenya
Hara Kenya is a designer, President and CEO of Nippon Design Center, and Professor at Musashino Art University. He is a creative advisor for the Japan House global project. His work spans a wide range of fields, including art direction for MUJI and visual identity design for Mori Building, Tsutaya Books, Mikimoto and Yamato Transport. Through his website ‘Teikūhikō’, he introduces diverse perspectives on Japan and explores new approaches to the tourism industry. For Expo 2025 Osaka, Hara served as the general producer of the Blue Ocean Dome. He has also organised numerous exhibitions in Japan and internationally that examine and reconsider existing value systems, such as ‘RE-DESIGN’ and ‘HOUSE VISION’.