Birdsong (haiga)

Day 16 of the Oriental art painting challenge. This one is done on shikishi board and with Chinese ink and Marie's watercolor. And I cheated a bit, but then I'm not a traditionalist. Instead of using brush and ink for the lettering, I couldn't get the letters neat enough on the somewhat toothy shikishi so ended up just using a Pigma Brush pen. It's still not great, but it is tons better than I could have done it the traditional way.

Birdsong
Chinese ink, Marie's watercolors and Pigma Brush pen on shikishi.

Two comments to the post made by OASlife members were very intriguing. One person offered the origin of this saying -- from the poet Henry van Dyke (1852-1933):

"Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be a very silent place if not birds sang except the best."

One of the other members commented that this was Japanese haiga art. Oh? So I looked up haiga style on Wikipedia .... 

Haiga art-form

Haiga (俳画, haikai drawing) is a style of Japanese painting that incorporates the aesthetics of haikai. Haiga are typically painted by haiku poets (haijin), and often accompanied by a haiku poem. Like the poetic form it accompanied, haiga was based on simple, yet often profound, observations of the everyday world. Stephen Addiss points out that "since they are both created with the same brush and ink, adding an image to a haiku poem was ... a natural activity." 

Stylistically, haiga vary widely based on the preferences and training of the individual painter, but generally show influences of formal Kanō school painting, minimalist Zen painting, and Ōtsu-e, while sharing much of the aesthetic attitudes of the nanga tradition. Some were reproduced as woodblock prints. The subjects painted likewise vary widely, but are generally elements mentioned in the calligraphy, or poetic images which add meaning or depth to that expressed by the poem. The moon is a common subject in these poems and paintings, sometimes represented by the Zen circle ensō, which evokes a number of other meanings, including that of the void. Other subjects, ranging from Mount Fuji to rooftops, are frequently represented with a minimum of brushstrokes, thus evoking elegance and beauty in simplicity.

And then a note at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry stated to see also wabi-sabi ...

Wabi-sabi

In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete". It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence (三法印 sanbōin), specifically impermanence (無常 mujō), suffering (苦 ku) and emptiness or absence of self-nature (空 kū). 

Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes. 

According to Leonard Koren, wabi-sabi can be defined as "the most conspicuous and characteristic feature of traditional Japanese beauty and it occupies roughly the same position in the Japanese pantheon of aesthetic values as do the Greek ideals of beauty and perfection in the West." Whereas Andrew Juniper notes that "[i]f an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi." For Richard Powell, "[w]abi-sabi nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect." 

The words wabi and sabi do not translate easily. Wabi originally referred to the loneliness of living in nature, remote from society; sabi meant "chill", "lean" or "withered". Around the 14th century these meanings began to change, taking on more positive connotations. Wabi now connotes rustic simplicity, freshness or quietness, and can be applied to both natural and human-made objects, or understated elegance. It can also refer to quirks and anomalies arising from the process of construction, which add uniqueness and elegance to the object. Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age, when the life of the object and its impermanence are evidenced in its patina and wear, or in any visible repairs. 

After centuries of incorporating artistic and Buddhist influences from China, wabi-sabi eventually evolved into a distinctly Japanese ideal. Over time, the meanings of wabi and sabi shifted to become more lighthearted and hopeful. Around 700 years ago, particularly among the Japanese nobility, understanding emptiness and imperfection was honored as tantamount to the first step to satori, or enlightenment. In today's Japan, the meaning of wabi-sabi is often condensed to "wisdom in natural simplicity." In art books, it is typically defined as "flawed beauty."

Wabi-sabi in Japanese Arts

Many Japanese arts over the past thousand years have been influenced by Zen and Mahayana philosophy, particularly acceptance and contemplation of the imperfection, constant flux and impermanence of all things. Such arts can exemplify a wabi-sabi aesthetic. Examples include:

Honkyoku (traditional shakuhachi music of wandering Zen monks)
Ikebana (flower arrangement)
Bonsai design features such as snags, deadwood and hollow trunks highlight passage of time and natural cycles. Bonsai are often displayed in fall color or after they have shed leaves seasonally, to admire their bare branches.
Japanese gardens, Zen gardens (tray gardens)
Japanese poetry Japanese pottery, Hagi ware, Raku ware Japanese tea ceremony