Skådespelarens hemligheter : Om Zeamis estetik och värdet av det som inte framträder

This work examines how the aesthetics of Japanese actor and playwright Zeami Motokiyo (1346-1443) offers insight into the value of the unseen elements in art, specifically in the art of acting. What acting makes appear is likened to a vessel, which creates an empty space of what doesn’t appear. This non-appearing element is at the same time what gives the vessel its function. Nō theater is described as an art of suggesting, giving a background to Zeami’s theories. The importance of the tangible in Zeami’s aesthetics is underscored in a discussion of the technique, beauty, specificity, and variation implied by the principals of two basic arts, monomane, and hana. Then, the way the actor according to Zeami can make use of the unseen to fascinate the spectator is thoroughly investigated, relating it among other things to the question of emotion in western theory of acting, and the japanese concept of yūgen. Finally, Zeami’s concept of hana is described as relying on both what appears and what doesn’t appear, and the relevance of hana as a definition of the value of art is emphasized