Japanese Buddhists saw the temporary beauty of such things as the tea ceremony and Noh theater as tools to aid enlightenment. In contrast to Buddhists, Tanizaki and his characters appreciate the finite beauty of the temporary for its own sake. His characters discuss refinement in cooking, gardening, singing, acting, hand-writing, and architecture. They go on outings to catch fireflies, to see cherry trees blossom, to view the moon and write poetry. At times, this pursuit of the aesthetic becomes perverse.
Characters develop fetishes and obsessions.
In The Secret History of Lord Mushashi , Mushashi has a fascination with real, and then simulated, decapitation. Unlike the conventional Japanese aestheticism of his time, Tanizaki's aestheticism includes the possibility of the perverse, the decadent. Tanizaki is relevant because aestheticism is not merely an idea, an alternative on a menu of choices. Aestheticism has come to be the spiritual link between the individuals of the industrialized world, the shape of our ethical life. Aestheticism for our era defines our possibilities.