Experience: Japanese aesthetics

On halloween, the art department viewed a presentation on Japanese aesthetics through the lens of the western world. We talked about the major components of this style which are: Wabi, Sabi, and Yugui. The general premise is that the beauty is focussed on simplicity and remembrance as apposed to in the western world where there is a more gaudy view of beauty. What I found interesting about the presentation was that it seems like the Japanese view everything like a memory, they can be simple and sometimes sad but in the end most memories are beautiful. In America we see beauty as a more objective thing, either it is or it isn't, but in Japan it seems that beauty is what each individual makes of it.