John Cage’s japanese garden: Ryoanji or the destruction of the ego
Abstract
In 1962 John Cage travelled to Japan, where he visited Ryoanji’s famous Zen garden in Kyoto. There arises a keen interest in the celebrated garden, thus building a lifelong relationship based on mutual influence. The creative significance of such a connection has been widely discussed in the fields of art and music. However, it also urgently needs to be analyzed from an aesthetic-ontological perspective, focused particularly on the destruction of the ego as a basis for the psychological development of “I”. In this context, the present paper argues that Cage’s fascination for Ryoanji goes well beyond mere aesthetic affinities or methodological principles, such as chance and automatism. More specifically, it takes root in the dissolution of the ‘I’.
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References
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