Okakura Kakuzō
Japanese art critic and scholar (1863 to 1913); promoted a critical appreciation of traditional forms in the Meiji era; curator of the Department of Japanese and Chinese Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 1910; author of The Book of Tea (1906), written in English.
Okakura Kakuzō did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Our reading
Teaism is a cult founded on adoring the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday life
Their wordsTeaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence.
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Their wordsThose who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are apt to overlook the greatness of little things in others.
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Our reading
It is better to remain 'barbarians' than to base a claim to civilisation on the glory of war
Their wordsFain would we remain barbarians, if our claim to civilisation were to be based on the gruesome glory of war.
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Their wordsWe have developed along different lines, but there is no reason why one should not supplement the other.
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Their wordsSlavish conformity to traditions and formulas fetters the expression of individuality in architecture.
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Their wordsIn art vanity is equally fatal to sympathetic feeling, whether on the part of the artist or the public.
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Their wordsThe past may well look with pity at the poverty of our civilisation; the future will laugh at the barrenness of our art. We are destroying the beautiful in life.
The line under a date fills as the words age, a quarter at a time: past a month, six months, a year, and three years. Empty means said within the last month; full, more than three years ago. It says when, not whether it still holds — a change of mind is marked on the claim itself.
Dashed means we only know the words existed by that date; they may be older.