Bonsai Beautiful - Nature of Japanese Garden Art

The Nature of Japanese Garden Art - Koko

Koko

The Koko principle involves a feeling of the austere but with a sense of maturity. It carries the qualities of age and venerability coupled with a weathered appearance. Visual elements are reduced to their basic bare bones, without sensuous aspects. Koko involves things which seem stern, ascetic and forbidding in appearance. It involves a sense of the harsh, the severe and the rigidly abstemious.

The Silhouette of Izumo Shrine's stark contrast shows us the bare bones of this subject.

It is a principle hard for westerners to grasp or to appreciate as it is quite the opposite from the world of entertainment and indulgence. In fact Koko is quite opposite from the Japanese world of Ukiyo-e (the mirror of the passing world) concept of a worldly and pleasure- bent society. Many aspects of the NIWA to be seen in venerable trees, ancient stones and well-worn, weathered surfaces reflect this concept.

Priest Ganjin with the look of enlightenment in an aged face.

Ancient camphor tree at Miyajima -showing the effects of venerable age.

The Zen Principles which relate to the Niwa
are presented in the following pages:

Fukinsei	asymmetry or dissymmetry
Kanso	simplicity
Koko	austerity, maturity, bare essentials, venerable
Shizen	naturalness, absence of pretense
Yugen	subtly profound, suggestion rather than revelation
Datsuzoku	unworldliness, transcendence of conventional
Seijaku	quiet, calm, silent