Abstract
Concerning Japan and the Japanese, one of the things which particularly interest foreigners is the special characteristics of Japanese etiquette, that is, the "virtue of modesty". Behind this virtue is found isolation, separation and sometimes extreme exclusivity which is found only in a primitive society. And the aesthetic senses based on this "virtue of modesty" are called yugen (quiet beauty), aware (sensitiveness to beauty), wabi (taste for the simple and quiet), sabi (elegant simplicity) etc. But these aesthetic senses seem to be taking on a new aspect : it is a baroque aesthetic sense such as "basara, kabuki" which some scholars on Japanese literature have recently taken up for their studies and which Shuzo KUKI calls "futomi (ampleness)". When we think of this as new creative energy, perhaps we can expect the development of this new aspect in Japanese aesthetic sense coming out of its former one.
