The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty

The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty - Paperback

$35.00
$35.00
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The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty
  • The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty
The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty - Paperback

The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty - Paperback

by Soetsu Yanagi
$35.00
$35.00

Book Overview

This book challenges the conventional ideas of art and beauty. What is the value of things made by an anonymous craftsman working in a set tradition for a lifetime? What is the value of handwork? Why should even the roughly lacquered rice bowl of a Japanese farmer be thought beautiful? The late Soetsu Yanagi was the first to fully explore the traditional Japanese appreciation for "objects born, not made."

Mr. Yanagi sees folk art as a manifestation of the essential world from which art, philosophy, and religion arise and in which the barriers between them disappear. The implications of the author's ideas are both far-reaching and practical.

Soetsu Yanagi is often mentioned in books on Japanese art, but this is the first translation in any Western language of a selection of his major writings. The late Bernard Leach, renowned British potter and friend of Mr. Yanagi for fifty years, has clearly transmitted the insights of one of Japan's most important thinkers. The seventy-six plates illustrate objects that underscore the universality of his concepts. The author's profound view of the creative process and his plea for a new artistic freedom within tradition are especially timely now when the importance of craft and the handmade object is being rediscovered.
ISBN9781568365206
Author Soetsu Yanagi
PublisherKodansha International
GenreArts
FormatPaperback
PublishedJune 2013
LanguageENG- English
Pages232
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

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More by Soetsu Yanagi

The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty

The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty - Paperback

The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty - Paperback

By Soetsu Yanagi

About Soetsu Yanagi

Soetsu Yanagi (1889-1961) was a philosopher, art historian, aesthete and poet. He evolved a theory of why certain objects made by unknown craftsmen were so beautiful, and became the founding father of the Japanese folk crafts ("mingei") movement. He helped establish, and was the first director of, the Japanese Folk Crafts Museum.

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