Plate 1-8 Advertisement for Schumacher’s Shibui decorating fabrics and coordinated paints by Martin Senour, published in House Beautiful 102/9 (September 1960), p. 66. Elizabeth Gordon encouraged selected home furnishing and paint companies to manufacture “Shibui” lines of products.
Plate 1-9 Lobby of the Okura Hotel, Tokyo, 1962. Designed by Taniguchi Yoshiro (1904–1979). Unchanged since the time of its design, this quietly elegant room, with its white paper shōji screens accented with finely textured and patterned latticework, and pale wood ceiling and wall surfaces, reflects a contemporary interpretation of the shibui aesthetic in Japanese architectural design of the 1960s, influenced by interest then in the Katsura Imperial Villa.
Because Elizabeth Gordon was responsible for making this word, and related aesthetic concepts, the linchpin of the Japanese aesthetic vocabulary in the West, it is worth discussing why she chose to feature shibui and Japanese aesthetics generally in her magazine. Her initial interest in Japanese design followed her exposure to Japanese furnishings in the homes of Americans who had been in Japan during the early post-war Occupation period and the concurrent permeation of Japanese goods into the American marketplace. As editor of a prominent magazine for style-conscious readers, she wanted her magazine not only to reflect current fashions but to set them. A staunch advocate of a more comfortable alternative to the rigid anonymity of orthodox modernist architecture, Gordon initiated a “Pace Setter House” program in 1946 to showcase modern-style houses that she deemed humanistic and livable.11 Her attitude was much influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959; see page 130) and his concept of organic architecture. Indeed, two key members of her editorial team when she produced her Japan issues, Curtis Besinger (1914–1999) and John DeKoven Hill (1920–1996), were disciples of Wright.
The Sumiya, located in Kyoto’s historic Shimabara entertainment district, is the finest extant example of an Edo period ageya, an elegant restaurant and banquet hall where the highest ranking geisha (taiyū) entertained affluent male clients. Originally constructed in 1641, it was greatly expanded in 1787. Elizabeth Gordon prominently featured many illustrations of its rooms and architectural details in her August 1960 House Beautiful issue on shibui, though there she described it as “a famous Kyoto residence … now open to the public … a good example of the shoin style of architecture.”18 Although related aesthetically to Katsura, the Sumiya’s greater opulence derives from its function. In fact, it combined in a single structure both sukiya and shoin elements, which are seen in separate buildings at Katsura.
Plate 1-10 Interior of the Ajiro no Ma (Net Pattern Room) on the first floor of the Sumiya banquet hall, Shimabara licensed district, Kyoto. The room takes its name from the interlocking lattice pattern of the wooden ceiling planks.
Gordon’s highlighting of shibui was also tied to critiques of post-war American affluence raised by economist John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) in his popular book, The Affluent Society.12 Just months after that book’s release, Gordon editorialized about it in the November 1958 issue of House Beautiful, maintaining that “[t]aste, discrimination, and a maturing sense of appropriateness” was what she saw in the “homes of America.”13 As Robert Hobbs has observed, “[o]ver the next few years, her magazine embarked on an educational campaign to teach its readership to “discern differences between ostentation and true value.”14 This was the conceptual basis for her emphasis on shibui.
Gordon’s presentation of shibui was remarkably sophisticated, derived from her steadfast study of Japanese culture over a five-year period preceding her magazine’s feature issues in 1960. Her research included four field trips to Japan during 1959 and 1960, totaling sixteen months.15 She became acquainted with or quoted many authorities in her magazine, including Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904; see page 133) and Yanagi Sōetsu (1889–1961; see page 138), whom she met in Tokyo in December 1959 and whose definition of shibui she paraphrased at length.16 She also met or corresponded with a number of high-profile Japanese design professionals, including architect Yoshimura Junzō, one of the designers of the International House of Japan.
Although she titled her House Beautiful issue “Shibui,” she also introduced many other related Japanese aesthetic terms that she described as either dependent upon shibui (wabi-sabi, for example) or as expressing what she described as less exalted forms of beauty: hade (bright and exuberant beauty), iki (chic and sophisticated beauty), and jimi (somber and proper beauty).17
Plate 1-11 The inner courtyard garden adjacent to the Ajiro no Ma at the Sumiya.
Plate 1-12 View of the main room and garden at the Shisendō, the former residence of the scholar Ishikawa Jōzan, constructed in 1641. As described in House Beautiful, when opened for the summer to its adjacent garden, the exposed framework of this sukiya shoin-style house reveals how the interior rooms function as one large open space.19
Plate 1-13 Transom (ranma) partition in the Matsu no Ma (Pine Viewing Room) at the Sumiya banquet hall, Shimabara licensed district, Kyoto. Elizabeth Gordon commented on this wooden grille attached to the ceiling, a common interior architectural element that allows for ventilation and light between rooms. Note the elegant cloud-shaped metal nail-head covers at the post-and-beam junctures.
Plate 1-14 Sakura (cherry) bark tea caddy, made in Kakunodate, Akita, Japan. Beech wood covered with waxed cherry bark, height 11.5 cm. The lustrous natural wood finish of this traditional craft of northern Japan radiates a quiet beauty much admired by Elizabeth Gordon, who included several of these caddies in her House Beautiful issues on shibui.
WABI AND SABI
RUSTIC AND WITHERED ELEGANCE
The words wabi and sabi have been closely linked to the aesthetics of the chanoyu tea ceremony since the time of Murata Shukō (1421?-1502). He described his preferences for using as tea wares inexpensive, locally made utilitarian vessels (instead of more finely wrought Chinese objects) as wabi-suki, an expression that, by the seventeenth century, had evolved into the phrase wabi-cha (poverty tea). His followers, Takeno Jōō (1502–1555) and Sen no Rikyū (1521–1591), perfected and popularized this tea aesthetic, which remains closely associated with chanoyu today.20 Objects used for wabi-style tea ceremonies, although seemingly simple and humble in appearance, are among the most costly and desirable tea ceremony products of all.
The origin of the wabi style of chanoyu is usually described as emerging from Zen Buddhism’s philosophy of worldly detachment, simplicity, purity, and