Japanese Aesthetics of Packaging

Abstract

In contemporary Japan, Westernization has transformed so many aspects of everyday lives in a relatively short period of time-just over a century-ranging from architecture to clothing, political system to industry. In the midst of this rapid Westernization, it may appear that traditional Japanese aesthetic sensibilities can be found only in time-honored art forms such as the tea ceremony, flower arrangement, Noh theater, and calligraphy. However, in the Japanese cultural tradition, aesthetic considerations permeate every aspect of daily life. In the past, aesthetic sensibilities guided not only the creation and appreciation of painting, music, and literature, but also the experience of cooking, swordsmanship, and letter writing, as well as the cultivation of etiquette and moral virtues, and even the execution of ritual suicide.2 This aesthetic attention to various dimensions of daily life is still alive and well today.3 For example, seasonable haikus are featured daily on the front page of major newspapers, business letters are written with reference to the beauty of the season, food is carefully arranged on a plate specifically chosen to suit the particular food item and the season, both at restaurants and at home, and a gift is wrapped with an appropriate material in a meticulous manner. In what follows, I would like to take this last item, Japanese packaging, as an example of how highly sophisticated aesthetic sensibilities are involved in this rather mundane, and otherwise ordinary, object. I. THE ALLURE OF THE HIDDEN