, also known as Yanagi Muneyoshi, was a Japanese art critic, philosopher, and founder of the ''

mingei The concept of , variously translated into English as "folk craft", "folk art" or "popular art", was developed from the mid-1920s in Japan by a philosopher and aesthete, Yanagi Sōetsu (1889–1961), together with a group of craftsmen, including ...

'' (folk craft) movement in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

in the late 1920s and 1930s.

Personal life

Yanagi was born in 1889 to Yanagi Narayoshi, a hydrographer of the Imperial Navy and Katsuko. His son, Sori Yanagi, was a renowned

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...

er.

Career

In 1916, Yanagi made his first trip to

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

out of curiosity about Korean crafts. The trip led to the establishment of the Korean Folk Crafts Museum in 1924 and the coining of the term ''mingei'' by Yanagi, potters

Hamada Shōji A hamada ( ar, حمادة, ) is a type of desert landscape consisting of high, largely barren, hard rocky plateaus, where most of the sand has been removed by deflation. The majority of the Sahara is in fact hamada. Other examples are Negev des ...

(1894–1978) and

Kawai Kanjirō was a Japanese potter and a key figure in ''mingei'' (Japanese folk art) and studio pottery movements, which included Bernard Leach, Shōji Hamada, Kenkichi Tomimoto, Shikō Munakata, Keisuke Serizawa, and Tatsuzō Shimaoka, among others. Biog ...

(1890–1966). His theory of the in Korean art has been said to have influenced the development of the Korean idea of ''

han Han may refer to: Ethnic groups * Han Chinese, or Han People (): the name for the largest ethnic group in China, which also constitutes the world's largest ethnic group. ** Han Taiwanese (): the name for the ethnic group of the Taiwanese p ...

''. Following the

March First Movement The March 1st Movement, also known as the Sam-il (3-1) Movement (Hangul: 삼일 운동; Hanja: 三一運動), was a protest movement by Korean people and students calling for independence from Japan in 1919, and protesting forced assimilation ...

, Korea's independence movement in which thousands of Koreans died at the hands of the Japanese police and military, Yanagi wrote articles in 1919 and 1920, expressing sympathy for the Korean people and appreciation for Korean art. In 1926, the

Folk Art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative art, decorative. The makers of folk art a ...

Movement was formally declared by Yanagi. He rescued lowly pots used by commoners in the Edo and

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

s that were disappearing in rapidly urbanizing Japan. In 1936, the

Japanese Folk Crafts Museum The is a museum in Komaba, Meguro, Tokyo, Japan, dedicated to the hand-crafted art of ordinary people ('' mingei'').Access is from Komaba-Tōdaimae Station of Keio Inokashira Line. The museum was established in 1936 by Yanagi Sōetsu, the foun ...

(''Nihon Mingeikan'') was established. He was also working together with

Onta ware , also spelled ''Onda'', is a type of Japanese pottery produced in and around the village of Onta in Ōita Prefecture, Japan. History The production dates back to the early 18th century CE. Onta ware is closely associated with Mingei folk ar ...

''Mingei'' theory

The philosophical pillar of ''mingei'' is . Yanagi Sōetsu discovered beauty in everyday ordinary and utilitarian objects created by nameless and unknown craftsmen. According to Yanagi, utilitarian objects made by the common people are "beyond beauty and ugliness". Below are a few criteria of ''mingei'' art and crafts: *made by anonymous crafts people *produced by hand in quantity *inexpensive *used by the masses *functional in daily life *representative of the region in which it was produced. Yanagi's book ''The Unknown Craftsman'' has become an influential work since its first release in English in 1972. It examines the Japanese way of viewing and appreciating art and beauty in everyday crafts that include

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

lacquer Lacquer is a type of hard and usually shiny coating or finish applied to materials such as wood or metal. It is most often made from resin extracted from trees and waxes and has been in use since antiquity. Asian lacquerware, which may be ca ...

, textiles, and

woodwork Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning. History Along with stone, clay and animal parts, wood was one of the first mater ...

. Yanagi was editor of ''Kōgei'' ('Crafts'), the journal of the Japanese Folk Arts Association, issued between 1931 and 1951.

Legacy

In 1984, Yanagi was posthumously awarded the ''Bogwan'' Order of Cultural Merit, the first to be awarded to a non-Korean. Yanagi was a considerable influence over the likes of potter

Bernard Leach Bernard Howell Leach (5 January 1887 – 6 May 1979), was a British studio potter and art teacher. He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery". Biography Early years (Japan) Leach was born in Hong Kong. His mother Eleanor (née ...

, sculptor

Isamu Noguchi was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and severa ...

, and architect

Bruno Taut Bruno Julius Florian Taut (4 May 1880 – 24 December 1938) was a renowned German architect, urban planner and author of Prussian Lithuanian heritage ("taut" means "nation" in Lithuanian). He was active during the Weimar period and is know ...

References

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External links

Nihon Mingeikan (Japanese Folk Crafts Museum)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soetsu, Yanagi 20th-century Japanese philosophers Japanese art collectors Shirakaba-ha University of Tokyo alumni People from Tokyo 1889 births 1961 deaths Mingei