Concept
Iki (aesthetics)
Overview
Iki (粋/いき, roughly "chic, stylish") is a Japanese aesthetical ideal of subdued displays of taste and/or wealth, with an emphasis on belying, on first glance, the efforts taken to appear stylish. It is thought to have originated amongst the merchant classes of Edo (modern-day Tokyo) in Edo period Japan, subverting class through an expression of material wealth that formed an aesthetic language specifically aimed at one's peers.
Sometimes misunderstood in the West as the archetypal or stereotypical aesthetics of Japanese culture, Iki is instead a cornerstone of traditional Japanese aesthetic appeal and thought. Both geisha and kimono, amongst other cultural aspects, are thought to have been influenced by and developed through iki, and remain largely influenced by it to this day.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The object is then called beautiful; and the faculty of judging by means of such a pleasure (and, consequently, with universal validity) is called Taste. For since the ground of the pleasure is placed merely in the form of the object for reflection in general--and, consequently, in no sensation of the object, and also without reference to any concept which anywhere…
Immanuel Kant, Kant's Critique of Judgement
States what Iki is.
It is from our disposition to admire, and consequently to imitate, the rich and the great, that they are enabled to set, or to lead, what is called the fashion. Their dress is the fashionable dress; the language of their conversation, the fashionable style; their air and deportment, the fashionable behaviour. Even their vices and follies are fashionable; and the greater part of men are proud to imitate and resemble…
Adam Smith, The Essays of Adam Smith
States what Iki is.
And the beauty we are discussing seems to assume an idea of the beautiful derived from a source different from experience, for it is this higher notion of the beautiful which has to decide if what is called beauty by experience is entitled to the name.
Michel de Montaigne, Literary and Philosophical Essays
States what Iki is.
Related ideas
Place in the tradition
Part of Outline of aesthetics.