Dô (Dao) in the Practice of Art

Abstract

Art practice in Japan is intertwined with everyday life. The “tea ceremony” (cha-dô, literally the “way of tea”) is an example. This chapter focuses on the theory of the Japanese tea ceremony by Kakuzô Okakura and Yoshinori Ônishi, exploring how everyday life is the main topic of modern Japanese aesthetics. The ceremony is an aestheticization of the ordinary action of drinking tea, testifying that beauty consists in treating the smallest incidents of life aesthetically. It is held in a teahouse designed for the ceremony, creating a space of conviviality. The focus of the tea ceremony is not a resulting work of art, but rather the process of performance, and also steady training in both a mental and physical sense. The essay argues that these characteristics are based on the Japanese understanding of the “dô” (in Chinese: dào) and that the creativity is not attributed to individuals but to it.