Hibiki Chikada: Simplicity and Ornamentation

2022/10/26

I am a book designer for books, especially manga. Since I want to share something fresh with you, I would like to write a brief summary of a lecture I recently gave at my other alma mater, Musashino Art University, on "Simplicity and Ornamentation."

Many people interested in design likely enjoy MUJI products. Modern design, including MUJI, is often thought to have simplicity as its norm. However, is that really true? This has been my recent area of interest. Do MUJI fans want to make their rooms "lonely" by furnishing them with MUJI furniture and clothing? On the contrary, perhaps we can find a desire to make their lives more "vibrant."

In other words, the desire to "decorate" is surprisingly fundamental. Consider how dramatically different life was with and without the cave paintings of bulls in Lascaux 20,000 years ago. "Decorating" a room with simple MUJI products might sound contradictory at first, but that is due to the preconception of viewing simplicity as a norm. If we view it as merely a technique rather than a norm, we can better explain reality.

Originally, I was interested in the ambiguity of "Wa" (Japanese style). When we think of Japanese style, we vaguely associate it with simplicity, but in reality, Japanese culture contains both the height of simplicity and the height of opulence. Even looking at National Treasures, the former includes works like "Unohana-gaki," "Dojigiri Yasutsuna," and the "Pine Trees Screen," while the latter includes "Inaba Tenmoku," "Seven-Branched Sword," and the "Scenes in and around Kyoto" screens. If you try to read normativity into simplicity, you cannot explain such ambiguity.

So, if simplicity is not the norm—that is, not the standard of value—then what is the source of the value felt in the masterpieces mentioned above? I believe it might be "the time spent." Not only in detailed works like "Scenes in and around Kyoto," but even in simple works like the "Pine Trees Screen," people sense a vast amount of time through the contemplation and refinement required to compose the image. When we encounter this sense, we feel a determination to enrich life—in other words, ornamentation. Perhaps that is where the source of value lies.

The next time you buy a book, please try to imagine the "time spent" on it.