Last Updated on 4日 ago by Nomambo
A Reflection on Three Ways of Beauty in Fukushima
There are places in Japan where beauty does not announce itself.
It does not ask to be admired, photographed, or explained.
It simply remains, embedded in daily objects, gestures, and silences.
Fukushima is one of those places.
To move through this region is to sense differences that are difficult to name at first.
The air feels restrained in one area, enduring in another, expressive somewhere else.
Not louder or quieter in any absolute sense—just shaped by different choices, made over long stretches of time.
If one were to give words to these differences—not as definitions, but as quiet suggestions—they might be understood as three ways of beauty:
the beauty of the side in Aizu,
the beauty of continuance in Hinoemata,
and the beauty of display in Soma.
These are not categories meant to judge.
They are simply ways of noticing.
The Beauty of the Side — Aizu
Aizu lacquerware is often described through the refinement of its surfaces—
the precision of maki-e, the depth of lacquer itself.
What stays with me, however, is something quieter.
Aizu lacquerware as it exists in daily life, shaped to remain close to the ordinary.
On these vessels, decoration is scarce.
There is little gold, little that asks to be noticed.
Black, or a restrained vermilion, settles into the table without insisting on presence.
It frames the meal, but does not interrupt it.
The food remains where attention rests.
Here, beauty does not advance.
It steps aside.
Not diminished, not absent—
but attentive to its place.
The same sensibility appears in Aizu’s candles.
Painted flowers bloom quietly against pale wax, surrounded by deliberate empty space.
The story is not told all at once.
It waits.
This restraint does not feel accidental.
It feels practiced—almost ethical.
One senses it as well in the legacy of samurai culture once rooted here.
Not as heroism or ideology, but as discipline.
An insistence on holding back.
On knowing when not to speak, not to show, not to add.
In a dim workshop, light barely reaches the workbench.
Hands move slowly, confidently.
There is no need to hurry.
The darkness is not a lack—it is part of the form.
Here, beauty seems to emerge
not from expression,
but from what has been deliberately removed.
A deeper look at Aizu can be found here.
The Beauty of Continuance — Hinoemata
Further into the mountains, the rhythm changes.
Hinoemata is quieter still—not because it avoids culture, but because culture here has never separated itself from daily life.
Art does not step onto a stage and declare itself.
It stays close to the ground.
The local kabuki is a good example.
Its costumes and movements are modest, almost austere.
They favor practicality over spectacle, familiarity over surprise.
This is not simplicity as an aesthetic choice.
It feels more like selection.
In an environment where resources were limited and isolation was a given, only what could be carried forward survived.
What remained was not refined to impress, but shaped to endure.
The beauty here is not polished.
It is worn, repeated, remembered by the body rather than preserved behind glass.
Songs, dances, and gestures are not performances detached from life.
They are continuations of it.
Nothing asks to be updated.
Nothing insists on relevance.
Time accumulates quietly, layer by layer, without demanding recognition.
In Hinoemata, beauty does not seek permanence through preservation.
It persists by staying useful, by staying close.
A deeper look at Hinoemata can be found here(Comming soon).
The Beauty of Display — Soma
By the sea, the atmosphere opens outward.
Soma’s beauty moves differently.
It does not retreat or remain still—it advances.
Here, history is not hidden in objects meant to last, but released into motion.
Armor gleams.
Horses run.
Voices rise.
The Soma Nomaoi festival transforms what was once samurai culture into something communal and visible.
The martial becomes ceremonial.
Pride becomes shared.
This is not excess.
It is expression.
Influenced by trade, exchange, and movement along the coast, Soma developed a way of showing rather than withholding.
Beauty here is something that exists between people—seen, recognized, responded to.
Yet even in its dynamism, there is restraint of a different kind.
The display is structured.
The ritual is precise.
What appears spontaneous is carefully held by tradition.
This is not beauty for spectacle alone.
It is beauty as transmission—meant to be witnessed, remembered, and passed on.
A deeper look at Soma can be found here(Comming soon).
Reflection — Three Ways of Seeing
These three ways of beauty—if one chooses to name them—did not emerge from theory or design.
They grew from geography, history, and long habits of living.
None is superior.
None is more authentic than the others.
They are simply different answers to the same quiet question:
How should beauty exist within everyday life?
Should it be reduced until only what matters remains?
Should it continue unchanged, so time itself becomes visible?
Or should it be released outward, shared, and renewed through collective presence?
Fukushima does not provide an answer.
It offers situations.
The challenge is not to understand them intellectually, but to notice them at all.
Can we sense restraint without mistaking it for absence?
Can we recognize endurance without calling it stagnation?
Can we accept expression without reducing it to spectacle?
Perhaps this requires a different way of looking—
one that does not rush to extract meaning,
one that allows time to remain uneven,
one that accepts silence as part of the experience.
Some places do not ask to be consumed.
They ask only to be noticed.
And perhaps, for those willing to slow their gaze,
that is enough.