Moreover，theJapaneseevadesymmetry，intheunitoftheirrepeatingpatterns，byanothersimpledevice——thatofnumbers。Theymakeasmalldifferenceinthenumberofcurvesandoflines。A
greatdifferencewouldnotmakethesameeffectofvariety；itwouldlooktoomuchlikeacontrast。Forexample，threerodsononesideandsixonanotherwouldbesomethingelsethanamerevariation，andvarietywouldbelostbytheuseofthem。TheJapanesedecoratorwillvarythreeinthisplacebytwointhat，andasenseofthedefeatofsymmetryisimmediatelyproduced。Withmoreviolentmeanstheideaofsymmetrywouldhavebeenneithersuggestednorrefuted。
Leavingmererepeatingpatternsanddiaperdesigns，youfind，inJapanesecompositions，completedesignsinwhichthereisnopointofsymmetry。Itisabalanceofsuspensionandofantithesis。
Thereisnosenseoflackofequilibrium，becauseplaceis，mostsubtly，madetohavetheeffectofgivingorofsubtractingvalue。
Asmallthingisarrangedtoreplytoalargeone，forthesmallthingisplacedattheprecisedistancethatmakesita（Japanese）