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context: thematic routes > zen > sources
Zen and the Fine Arts by Shin'ichi Hisamatsu
This has the best explanation of Zen aesthetics I've seen - it's largely the basis for what I've said about them here. It does argue around in circles at times, when it gets into philosophy (and there is a lot of this), intellectual language rambling for a while, getting back to where it started and shouting "We've arrived! QED!" (I suspect this is very hard to avoid when talking about Zen), but he understands the art exceptionally well. Its attention is split fairly evenly between Chinese and Japanese artists, covering painting, architecture, ceramics, tea ceremony utensils and other things - I was particularly taken with how persuasive he is describing a couple of examples of Zen flower arrangement.