chantelle suen
2
mono no aware
model: Emily
花語人長
flower skin
Mono No Aware: singular
While science or abstract philosophy may give us a knowledge of things in their generality, mono no aware is a more immediate and direct knowledge of the distinctive qualities that characterize a unique phenomenon – what cannot be generalised, but can only be felt by the “heart-mind” as it experiences something singular.
-The School of Life
Mono No Aware: obscure and powerful
The word ‘aware’ was first used, in the Heian period of Japan (794-1185), as an exclamatory particle to express a spontaneous and inarticulate feeling – as with the particles that we use like ‘ah’ or ‘oh’ or ‘wow’. Mono no aware has hence also been translated as ‘the “ahness” of things’. It is the way in which something affects us immediately and involuntarily, before we are able to put that feeling into words – and Japanese art has often sought to present objects and experiences whose emotional impact is both powerful and obscure to us.
-The School of Life