As has already been mentioned, here and here, the tea ceremony is guided by the philosophy specific to the Taoism and Zen. On that basis, the tea room (sukiya) is differently defined, notably as “adobe of fancy”, “adobe of vacancy” or “adobe of the unsymmetrical”, according to some tea masters’ interpretations of the kanji corresponding to the word sukiya. This could become an “adobe of fancy” after Okakura Kakuzō, which in Ch. IV of The Book of Tea, Elliot, 1906, authored by himself, inter alia writes that sukiya is that “inasmuch as it is an ephemeral structure built to house a poetic impulse”. This basic philosophical statement, also applied to the Japanese aesthetics, will be developed later on.
In particular, the term reading “adobe of vacancy” with reference to the tea room flows from the Zen principles for which vacuum is the most prominent attribute of things: what determines, say, a house is rather its own accessible and usable free space than the delimiting materials out of need made of walls, floor and ceiling. The same approach applies to the case of a pitcher: what matters is its full capacity than the fact it is made of clay or silver. And that accounts for the poor materials and restricted dimensions qualifying a tea room: for the sake of simplicity, “it is smaller than the smallest of Japanese houses” (ibidem, Ch. IV), so that the available short spacing can be filled with the occupants’ thoughts and suggestions as much as possible. Therefore, the often redundant décor, typically affecting the interiors of the Western world to give just a sense of wealth, would have the effect of choking the artistic inspiration and divert the disposition to meditation and spiritual enlightenment.
The available space of the tea room accommodates a very limited number of pieces which are selected for their role as source of inspiration: this is the case for the tokonoma, namely, the woody shrine which reminds of that is found in the Zen monasteries. As such, a tokonoma includes the painting to gaze at and a floral arrangement. As previously discussed, this substantial decor is subject to continuous rearrangements and prevent repetitions of any kind because “One cannot listen to different pieces of music at the same time, a real comprehension of the beautiful being possible only through concentration upon some central motive” (ibidem, Ch. IV).
Usage of sober furniture and materials is somewhat evocative of the ephemeral and provisional nature of the tangible in life, a custom also akin to the Buddhist Esprit-over-Matter concept of impermanence: “In the tea-room fugitiveness is suggested in the thatched roof, frailty in the slender pillars, lightness in the bamboo support, apparent carelessness in the use of commonplace materials. The eternal is to be found only in the spirit which, embodied in these simple surroundings, beautifies them with the subtle light of its refinement” (ibidem, Ch. IV).
All that remains is to say a few words about the definition “adobe of the unsymmetrical” applied to the tea room. It is worth considering that the above-mentioned sober décor is often also left undone. The Japanese art is prone to look asymmetric because, according to the Eastern philosophy, beauty turns rather out to identify itself with research effort than some sort of perfection. Within the framework of Taoism, life is development, dynamism, a succession of ever-changing situations: any form must remain unsymmetrical, thus uncompleted, for symmetry and completeness to be rather created in the mind of the one who contemplates that form. A given symmetrical form is accomplished anymore, stationary, and thereby uncommunicative, unable to trigger in the mind of the observer that otherwise rewarding and expected sort of creative and dynamic process.
Therefore the Japanese art widely gives room to something unsaid, to pure suggestion: the artwork merely has an influential role for the Esprit, everything else is left to the observer’s imagination.
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