The enigma of iki

[imomus]

During one of my long train journeys with Aki Sasamoto recently she mentioned Shuzo Kuki's book Anatomy of Iki, a long essay published in 1930, and asked me if I was familiar with the aesthetic of iki. I said "I don't know much about iki, but I think of it as something to do with the way a geisha turns away slightly or pretends not to be projecting her sexuality, while actually doing so."

In contrast to Japanese aesthetics like wabi sabi, Iki is something I find it very hard to grasp. It seems nebulous and contradictory to me. I wanted to make some notes -- somewhat in the technique we were talking about yesterday, the "pick five adjectives" technique -- today about the ways people have defined iki.

Wikipedia calls iki "a variety of chic culture current among the fashionable set in Edo in the Tokugawa period". Here's the adjective cluster for iki they provide:

simple, improvised, straight, restrained, temporary, romantic, ephemeral, original, refined, inconspicuous, etc. An iki person/deed would be audacious, chic, pert, tacit, sassy, unselfconscious, calm, indifferent, unintentionally coquettish, open-minded, restrained

Things that are not iki: perfect, artistic, arty, complicated, gorgeous, curved, wordy, intentionally coquettish, cute



A couple of years back, Click Opera's own expert in such things, Kumakouji, provided a list of iki things and contrasted them with iki's antonymn, yabo:

Yabo is loud, Iki is sassy.
Yabo is showy, iki is chic.
Yabo is colourful, iki is muted.
Yabo is childish and cute, iki is sombre and restrained.
Yabo is being intentionally sexy, iki is being unintentionally sexy.
Yabo is a samurai, Iki is a buddhist monk.
Yabo is arty, complicated and wordy, Iki is improvisational straight-forward, and to the point.
Yabo is self-concious and closed-minded. Iki is unselfconcious and open-minded.

Hisae gave her definition: "Yabo is more like countryside, whereas Iki is more like a city-type thing. I think of Yabo as something unsophisticated or unrefined or inelegant -- akanokenai, gauche. To me Iki is more like courageous, or with good grace and more straightforward, like edoko or saba saba. Of course Iki is more like you have something natural, they just act from what they have, whereas Yabo is more like you're trying to disguise or to pretend something. Yabo is quite dasai."

The best definitions (though still, for me, confusingly scattershot) come in An aesthetic of everyday life, a paper by Yamamoto Yuji. Yamamoto, following Kuki, associates iki with the sexual attitude of the geisha:

erotic allure, pride, resignation ("dynamically sustaining physical and emotional distance between the opposite sex, but not completely losing it").

Yamamoto quotes an 1853 encyclopedia entry on iki which says it means: pumped up, chivalrous, valiant, courageous, energetic, gallant, dashing, dapper, smart, rakish, stylish (the meaning seems to have changed quite a bit since this definition).

More tips from Yamamoto: iki is casual and impromptu, and can be superficial and vulgar. An iki attitude would represent "disinterestedness, purposiveness without purpose, and the free play and autonomy of the aesthetic function", though art that proclaims itself as such can't be iki.

Kuki recognized iki in stripes, especially vertical rather than horizontal ones, because "parallel lines express the dichotomy of the self and the opposite sex.” Kuki thought that only grey, brown, and blue were truly iki colours. The only paintings which could be iki were simple ones.

Iki has to be implicit, not explicit. You can't be iki if you say you are, or seem to know you are. Your beauty must be something for someone else to discover, to prise out of you or read into you. Iki is an aesthetics of the back, of the nape of the neck. It can't be face-to-face. It's an aesthetic of obliqueness and peripheries -- it "avoids focus and despises intellectual analysis".

If I'm still not sure I understand what iki means, that may be because, as Kuki believed, iki doesn't exist in the West and can't really be grasped by non-Japanese.

Momus plays New York's Highline Ballroom tonight, starting at 7pm sharp.

Comments

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

The closest Western equivalent would be dandyism, especially when compared with bohemianism, which is less paradoxical in nature.

[lana-sv.livejournal.com]

sublime

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think of dandyism as a defiant frontal flamboyance, a rebellion against discretion which declares itself like a righteous challenge. As such, it couldn't be iki, though I suppose there must be a sub-category of "oblique dandyism" which might come closer.

Sprezzatura

[milobusbecq.livejournal.com]

I think the closest Western concept is sprezzatura (for a more or less correct if slightly too schematic, masculine and binary summary, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura ).

Re: Sprezzatura

[imomus.livejournal.com]

That does catch one part of iki rather well, but iki is so multi-faceted; specific yet sprawling and vague.

Hi Momus

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the picture and the chat at the Northampton show - and signing our banana! Really enjoyed your performance and Aki's and I hope you have a safe trip back to Berlin. -Robyn

Re: Sprezzatura

[milobusbecq.livejournal.com]

Sprezzatura can be sprawling and vague, as well (long after Castiglione). A better sense of its much broader conception can be had, for instance, in Harry Berger's _The Absence of Grace_, or more obliquely (and in French) in André Gendre's paper in _Le Doux aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles_. It is, of course, not the exactly the same thing, but the aesthetics of the western European 15th and 16th centuries has a great many resonances with that of Edo-era Japan, especially the subtle intermixture of ease, naturalness, and grace in opposition to effort, artifice, and monstrosity.

Iki lovely in any case.

Any chance for "Sadness of Things" tonight at the Highline?

Twit_opera

[(Anonymous)]

Brilliant - now Twit_opera warns me when there is a new post...

I did enjoy the tweet - "iki with aki"

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Well, dandyism can take obvious, flamboyant forms, but ultimately those are aberrant forms of dandyism. Even when it is being very declarative and upfront, there should be a subtle, oblique quality to it. True dandies leave small, hidden details that most passersby will never notice, but to the initiated eye will be marks of distinction: the slight patina on a button, the use of different colored polishes on one's shoes, etc. The true extent of one's dedication to exquisite detail hides in plain sight.

Dandyism involves dressing around corners, but more importantly, it is a mode of life. Dandyism is mistaken for hedonistic narcissism, but in actuality it is a kind of asceticism, a form of self-effacement--even self-amputation--in the hopes of becoming a living emblem.

Dandyism isn't really the reserve of aristocrats, but of upstarts: the greatest dandies were middle class, and rose through the ranks of society by force of personality and style.

This link (http://www.showstudio.com/project/politicalfashion/movies/2008-04-03/) might help to clarify without boring the hell out of everyone by launching into a tiresome thesis.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

(Oops--too late!)

Re: Sprezzatura

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for bringing up sprezzatura. I wonder though if sprezzatura is more akin to wabi sabi? I don't know enough about iki to say.

Re: Sprezzatura

[milobusbecq.livejournal.com]

Alas, I don't know enough about iki or wabi sabi to be overconfident, but from Momus's post and what little I have read, I think iki is nearer, at least that intention and tone are so important for iki and sprezzatura.

[fishwithissues.livejournal.com]

kinda like mod?

[(Anonymous)]

You know nowt about dandyism, Lordy.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for that, Lord Whimsy (you're not boring, how dare you think you are). I find it quite an interesting topic, especially the part about "hoping to become a living emblem". I wish I had money for your book right now, but alas, I have to wait to get to read it.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

[(Anonymous)]

More Pooterism than Dandyism, I would say, his dining out on a tenuous Depp thing and using sock puppets to sell said book.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

A few years ago, prompted by that entry, I asked a Japanese friend of mine to give me his definition of iki. He said

"Four friends go to a bar one Autumn afternoon. One of the friends has just finished playing a game of baseball and is still in his baseball uniform and sweating slightly. The waiter notices this. The waiter then brings over four oshibori -- three of the oshibori are hot, however the baseball player's oshibori is cold."

more on wabi sabi

[(Anonymous)]

momus, can you summarize your understanding of wabi sabi? or maybe you have in an older post. from my jpals, i get a varied response too. i've never felt like i know 100% what it is.

i kinda take it a an aesthetic beauty in what can be first seen as sad? but then i think that's not wabi sabi, that's like sakura; beauty in somethings that are temporary.

another rough description, i've taken it just to mean 'an unspoken understanding.' like in a intimate relationship i can tell if she's happy or sad by other things then words... maybe how she closes the door, or if she got something for me she knows i like, but didn't ask for.

Hounded by the bitterati again!

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Hah! Yes, apparently you would say. Even though you wouldn't know.

[funazushi.livejournal.com]

I was just talking to my wife about this and I think she defines it close to your example. She said an Iki na hito is someone who is thoughtful towards others without show. Whereas yabo person is someone who is very nosey and would want to know all about your personal business.

[brokenjunior.livejournal.com]

Kuma-kun, I read on Wikipedia that there was a BBC Four documentation 'In Search of Wabi-sab' about the concept of Wabi-sabi as part of the 'Hidden Japan' season.
And I remembered that you were so kind to provided us with some of those documentations some weeks ago.
So I was wondering if you possibly know how to get access to this specific documentation (also from outside the UK) ...

[tropigalia.livejournal.com]

http://lovelyburger.com/pics/momus/momulj.jpg

it was awesome seeing you live and i have to thank you for being so kind and accommodating!

i have about a billion pictures to upload (none of which are very good since i didn't use the flash) but here are some videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tropigalia

Event calendar

[(Anonymous)]

Where can I found out about future appearances? I found out about today's about 20 minutes too late. A little advance warning, please!

Yabo Dabble Do

[jdcasten.livejournal.com]

"Yabo" seems to get quite the thrashing here, but maybe "rudeness" is rarely a positive trait. "Iki" sounds "understated" and "elegant"… maybe "stoic?," but seems to me to overlap a little with "wabi sabi’s" humble imperfections.

I think that not having a full Japanese context for understanding leads to an air of mystery for these concepts… but maybe they were meant to be somewhat mysterious in their native language as well?

[logopandocy.livejournal.com]

Suggests that iki is embodied in the West by the perfect butler: somber and sedate, following manners and rules, anticipating needs, submitting totally to being a kind of furniture; to find him erotic, one has to go deliberately looking for him in the first place nearly. Yet his restraint, service, attentiveness are all very attractive as soon as they are not taken to be the traits of an employee.

The iki of Jeeves, the yabo of Wooster.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know if I should use direct links, but if you google "in search of wabi sabi rapidshare" (without the quotes), the 3rd link should see you right. the 1st link works too, although its a bit more complex.

Rapidshare is always the magic word...

iki or not

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

Sounds like another class bias-ism creating reality. There has been a quiet revolution or is it another form of smothering suburbia!

[margokennedy.livejournal.com]

Momus I am Lindsay from Portland, Oregon!! Thanks for the shoutout. Please come here asap~

you should all be ashamed...

[milky-eyes.livejournal.com]

trying to pin iki down in a western context, is like trying to find the smell of an ex-love in your current lover...

Its fun to explore, but please. To pull ikis clothes apart and spread its legs, takes its life away, and ruins the show.

[atolm.livejournal.com]

What makes "Iki no kouzou" rather problematic as a text, though, is how Kuki's historico-linguistic project, in seeking to locate in Iki an expression of an national/ethnic essence, implicitly dehistoricizes language while obfuscating the processes of use, transmission and interpretation etc. (and the concomitant questions of class, linguistic variation, etc.) as they are involved in the production, perpetuation and interpermeation of various semantic registers. Many of Kuki's insights are, from a philological or semiotic perspective, quite valid, but the theoretical push behind it arguably does more to tell us about the further aestheticization of the Edo period in 1930 and the impetus to formulate new national and linguistic narratives.

That this is all done in ponderous Hegelian/Heideggerian rhetoric points all the more to the sort of linguistic ambivalence running through it, though.

(of class, linguistic variation, etc.)

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

Variation suggests geography with a sort of linguistic ambivalence running it that avoids focus and despises intellectual analysis.
How would it compare to the New York State of mind?

Re: (of class, linguistic variation, etc.)

[atolm.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid all I know of the New York State of mind is how as a conceptual category it seeks to define itself through the difference it perceives between itself and what it would project as the "New York City of mind," which, as we all know, exists somewhere between Tokyo and Calcutta.

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

it's rude to speculate!

Re: you should all be ashamed...

[(Anonymous)]

Now I'm even more interested in iki.

Re: (of class, linguistic variation, etc.)

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

Iki exists, itsu no ma ni ka.

Re: (of class, linguistic variation, etc.)

[atolm.livejournal.com]

It precipitates out of the ether when it becomes the object of discursive investigation. Well, as it is conceived by Kuki or other thinkers; the word itself is used in the literature of the late Edo period, but it is literature that was produced and consumed by a certain social class about a particular a particular social and geographical milieu, so discussing discussions of historical cultural linguistics without taking into account the orientation/tendencies of those discussions is not beyond suspicion, methodologically speaking.

methodologically speaking.

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

You should try majoring in Epidemiology as an applied art.

Re: Hounded by the bitterati again!

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry to pop your fantasy, but there really is no Lordy-geared bitterarti.

I was interested in Momus's take on iki, and found it irritating when one of his hangers-on, who clearly knows nothing about the subject, steered it round to Dandyism in an attempt to seek attention for himself. Not so much Beau Brummell as Paul Burell, I would say.





steering the subject away from iki to Dandyism.

[(Anonymous)]

Is perhaps iki night to yabo's day?

[(Anonymous)]

It seems like "grace" covers 90% of it. Hisae even used that word.

Re: methodologically speaking.

[atolm.livejournal.com]

Location and containment are certainly on my agenda.

[akabe.livejournal.com]

i think thom yorke had it right which might partly explain why he's been taken so well in japan

The Nowness of Now

[(Anonymous)]

John

...you were simply fantastic, only the occasional bead of sweat...I was enrapt from noon to dusk....

tried to donate via Paypal but a bit hungover in East Harlem...


Mark Chapman

Re: The Nowness of Now

[(Anonymous)]

I have been waiting 30 year for you to cover the mystery of Iki.

[(Anonymous)]

That definition makes iki close to the tea ceremony ethos, which is something I wouldn't expect. One of the classical tea ceremony anecdotes goes: Rikyū (basically the God of Tea) was visiting a student and subtly whispered to a companion that he though the garden stepping stones were too straight. After tea, when they came back to the garden, the stones had been silently rearranged. Rikyū then praised the student as one who gets it.