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StillnessDesign movement fact

Mingei, Japanese for 'folk crafts', is a word the thinker Yanagi Sōetsu and the potters Kawai Kanjirō and Hamada Shōji coined in 1925. They argued that ordinary, useful objects made by unknown craftspeople could be as beautiful as fine art.

Mingei

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The story behind the card

The word joins minshū, 'the common people', and kōgei, 'craft'. Yanagi's interest began with Korean ceramics: on a visit to Korea in 1916 he came to admire pots by anonymous potters, and in 1924 he opened a folk art museum in Seoul. Mingei turned attention from signed masterpieces to pottery, baskets, textiles, lacquer and tools shaped by repetition and daily use. In 1936 Yanagi founded the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo. His friend the English potter Bernard Leach spread the ideas in the West and translated Yanagi's essays, published in English in 1972 as The Unknown Craftsman. Historians also note that much of the collecting took place in Korea and Taiwan under Japanese rule, which ties the movement to the history of Japan's empire.

Türkçe oku
Japoncada “halk zanaatı” anlamına gelen mingei sözcüğünü 1925'te düşünür Yanagi Sōetsu ile çömlekçiler Kawai Kanjirō ve Hamada Shōji türetti. Onlara göre adı bilinmeyen zanaatkârların yaptığı sıradan, işe yarar eşyalar da güzel sanat eserleri kadar güzel olabilirdi.

Sözcük, “halk” anlamına gelen minshū ile “zanaat” anlamına gelen kōgei'nin birleşimidir. Yanagi'nin ilgisi Kore seramiğiyle başladı: 1916'daki Kore gezisinde adı bilinmeyen çömlekçilerin yaptığı kaplara hayran kaldı ve 1924'te Seul'de bir halk sanatı müzesi açtı. Mingei, dikkati imzalı başyapıtlardan tekrar ve gündelik kullanımla biçimlenen çanak çömleğe, sepete, kumaşa, lake işlere ve aletlere çevirdi. Yanagi 1936'da Tokyo'da Japon Halk Zanaatları Müzesi'ni kurdu. Dostu İngiliz çömlekçi Bernard Leach bu fikirleri Batı'da yaydı ve Yanagi'nin yazılarını çevirdi; bu yazılar 1972'de İngilizcede The Unknown Craftsman adıyla yayımlandı. Tarihçiler, koleksiyonların önemli bir kısmının Japon yönetimi altındaki Kore ve Tayvan'da toplandığını, bunun da akımı Japon imparatorluğunun tarihine bağladığını hatırlatır.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Mingei
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