ABSTRACT
Kyoto informants and foreign observers alike, when deploring the growing disarray of Kyoto’s townscape or a lack of respect for traditions such as the Gion matsuri, often blame it on aesthetic insensitivity. Through continual exposure to ugliness, people either have become so blunted that they no longer recognise true beauty or have learned to keep what little remains of it in focus by shutting out even the most obvious disturbances. By such selective perception, it is said, the Japanese manage to endure the many ugly modifications to their natural and built environments, all the while seeing themselves as heirs to a culture of heightened aesthetic sensitivity.
