_Never demand an exact finish for its own sake, but only for some practical or noble end. . . . [t]he demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art. . . . Imperfection is in some sort essential to all we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body. . . . To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed.1 _ Ruskin was rediscovering a large piece of Zen aesthetic theory while laying the groundwork for many of our modern ideals of beauty. To see the similarity, let us examine for a moment a few of the finer points of Zen aesthetic theory as exemplified in the classic tea bowls. In form the bowls are frequently asymmetrical and imperfect; the glaze seems to be a species of moss still in the process of spreading over portions of the sides it somehow never managed to reach, and it is uneven, marred by cracks, lumps, scratches, and foreign contaminants. If imperfection is the goal, these bowls extend well beyond Ruskin's original standards. But not only are they imperfect, they also seem old and weathered, with the natural patina of a dried-up riverbed. They show absolutely no evidence that any conscious attempt was made to create a work of art; they appear to be completely functional. It is all a deception. Master potters spend literally decades perfecting the Zen art of the controlled haphazard. One of the first principles they honor is _wabi_, which deplores nonfunctional decorative objects, polished surfaces, artificiality in shape or color, and anything unnatural to the materials used. Works of art without _wabi_ may have superficial external beauty, but they forfeit inner warmth. Bowls out of shape, with cracks, blobs, and ashes in the glaze, invite us to partake of the process of creation through their asymmetry and imperfection. They also lead us past the surface by virtue of its being deliberately marred. Making a bowl with _wabi _is considerably more difficult than making a smooth, symmetrical, perfectly glazed piece. The creation of contrived "accidents," on which much of the illusion of artlessness depends, is particularly difficult. Everywhere there are scars, contaminants, spotty glaze--all as deliberate as the decoration on a Dresden plate; connoisseurship consists in admiring how the artist managed to make it seem so natural and unavoidable. The same skill goes to make a piece look old, the essential quality of _sabi_. By suggesting long years of use, the bowls acquire humility and richness. There is no need to "wear the new off" in order to give them character; they are already mellow and unpretentious. The potter's genius has gone to create the sense of wear, a quality considerably more difficult to realize than an aura of newness.