Sakura the Japanese cherry blossom Single branch depiction Steffen Diemer.
Sakura the Japanese cherry blossom Single branch depiction Steffen Diemer. The Japanese cherry blossom is very symbolic in Japanese culture. It focuses on beauty, departure and transience. Especially the transience "The pathos of things" or also "the heartbreak of things" (物の哀れ, mono no aware) denotes a feeling of sadness that dwells on the transience of things only to come to terms with it. As compassion with all things and their inevitable end, mono no aware is an aesthetic principle that primarily describes a feeling, a mood. This attitude is already hinted at in one of the earliest literary works, the collection of Ten Thousand Leaves (万葉集, Man'yōshū). Scholar Motoori Norinaga sees it exemplified in the literary classic of the story of Prince Genji (c. 978-ca. 1014).
Spring immerses Japan in a pink-white sea of cherry blossoms, for almost half of all deciduous trees in Japan are cherry trees. Just as the cherry blossom heralds the warm part of the year, so to speak, it ends with the red colouring of the autumn leaves (紅葉 kōyō). In Japan, the cherry blossom is a symbol of female beauty. It is not uncommon to read that the cherry blossom was a symbol of transience for the samurai, but in this case there is a confusion with the tsubaki (camellia). Like so many things, the western world is covered in myths about Japan and the Far East.
My work, which you see above, corresponds to a classical single-branch representation that I have reinterpreted. Here my conception of Wabi Sabi comes into its own. Ambrotype, 45x45cm, unique piece on black glass. Sakura the Japanese cherry blossom, single branch Steffen Diemer
