Kintsugi

Repair work (right) on Mishima ware hakeme-type tea bowl with kintsugi gold lacquer, 16th century (Ethnological Museum of Berlin)
Small repair (top) on Nabeshima ware dish with hollyhock design, overglaze enamel, 18th century, Edo period {Tokyo National Museum)
Rural cooking pot repaired with Kintsugi technique, Georgia, 19th century.

Kintsugi (金継ぎ, "golden joinery"), also known as Kintsukuroi (金繕い, "golden repair"),[1] is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-e technique.[2][3][4] As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.[5]

Origin

Lacquerware is a longstanding tradition in Japan,[6][7] and at some point kintsugi may have been combined with maki-e as a replacement for other ceramic repair techniques. While the process is associated with Japanese craftsmen, the technique was also applied to ceramic pieces of other origins including China, Vietnam, and Korea.[8]

Kintsugi became closely associated with ceramic vessels used for chanoyu (Japanese tea ceremony).[3] One theory is that kintsugi may have originated when Japanese shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent a damaged Chinese tea bowl back to China for repairs in the late 15th century.[9] When it was returned, repaired with ugly metal staples, it may have prompted Japanese craftsmen to look for a more aesthetic means of repair. Collectors became so enamored with the new art that some were accused of deliberately smashing valuable pottery so it could be repaired with the gold seams of kintsugi.[2]

Philosophy

As a philosophy, kintsugi can be seen to have similarities to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect.[10][11] Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear by the use of an object. This can be seen as a rationale for keeping an object around even after it has broken and as a justification of kintsugi itself, highlighting the cracks and repairs as simply an event in the life of an object rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage.[12]

Kintsugi can relate to the Japanese philosophy of "no mind" (無心, mushin), which encompasses the concepts of non-attachment, acceptance of change and fate as aspects of human life.[13]

Types of joinery

There are a few major styles or types of kintsugi:

  • Crack (ひび), the use of gold dust and resin or lacquer to attach broken pieces with minimal overlap or fill-in from missing pieces
  • Piece method (欠けの金継ぎ例), where a replacement ceramic fragment is not available and the entirety of the addition is gold or gold/lacquer compound
  • Joint call (呼び継ぎ), where a similarly shaped but non-matching fragment is used to replace a missing piece from the original vessel creating a patchwork effect[14]
Nanking reticulated basket, c. 1750, mended with metal staples

Staple repair is a similar technique used to repair broken ceramic pieces,[15] where small holes are drilled on either side of a crack and metal staples are bent to hold the pieces together.[16] Staple repair was used in Europe (in ancient Greece, England and Russia among others) and China as a repair technique for particularly valuable pieces.[16]

Influence on modern art

Kintsugi is the general concept of highlighting or emphasizing imperfections, visualizing mends and seams as an additive or an area to celebrate or focus on, rather than absence or missing pieces. Modern artists experiment with the ancient technique as a means of analyzing the idea of loss, synthesis, and improvement through destruction and repair or rebirth.[17]

While originally ignored as a separate art form, kintsugi and related repair methods have been featured at exhibitions at the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University Ithaca NY, USA.[2][8][11][18]

The concept of kintsugi inspired Tim Baker of the Canadian band Hey Rosetta! in the making of their 2014 album, Second Sight. The lead single, "Kintsukuroi", takes its name directly from the art-form and the cover art of the record features a bowl repaired in the kintsugi method.

Canadian folk band The Rural Alberta Advantage also used kintsugi as inspiration for the art for their tellingly named 2014 record, Mended with Gold.

Death Cab for Cutie named their 2015 release Kintsugi, possibly because during the production of the album, lead guitarist and founding member Chris Walla announced that he was leaving the band (though he continued contributing to the recording and creative process as a full member until the album's completion).[19]

Episode 6 of Season 2 of the Amazon original TV series The Man in the High Castle is named "Kintsugi".

Electronic music duo DROELOE released the 2017 single titled "Kintsugi". The album art features a skull, the logo of the group, on display in a case with shining gold cracks as if remade through the process of kintsugi.[20]

Effects on tourism

Authenticity continues to ignite interest among tourism and marketing scholars[21] and brand heritage can induce the feeling of authentic experience and increase customer retention.[22] In particular kintsugi implies that the authentic is that which displays and values its true, dynamic relation to history. By highlighting that the authentic object or site is that which, despite the ravages of time, retains cultural value (be that local, national, and/or international), site managers can re-figure and promote a conception of authenticity to tourists.[21]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "definition of Kinstugi".
  2. 1 2 3 Gopnik, Blake (March 3, 2009), "At Freer, Aesthetic Is Simply Smashing", The Washington Post .
  3. 1 2 "Golden Seams: The Japanese Art of Mending Ceramics", Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, archived from the original on 2009-03-17, retrieved 3 March 2009 .
  4. ↑ "Daijisen".
  5. ↑ "Kintsugi: The Centuries-Old Art of Repairing Broken Pottery with Gold". My Modern Met. 2017-04-25. Retrieved 2017-07-12.
  6. ↑ Ota, Alan K. (September 22, 1985). "Japan's Ancient Art of Lacquerware". New York Times.
  7. ↑ Ken, Johnson (April 4, 2008). "A Craft Polished to the Lofty Heights of Art". New York Times. Retrieved April 5, 2014.
  8. 1 2 "Golden Seams: The Japanese Art of Mending Ceramics". Smithsonian. November 8, 2008. Retrieved 2014-04-05.
  9. ↑ Gopnik, Blake (March 3, 2009). "'Golden Seams: The Japanese Art of Mending Ceramics' at Freer". The Washington Post.
  10. ↑ "Kintsugi Is Recognizing Beauty in Broken Things | Make:". Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers. 2015-08-17. Retrieved 2017-07-12.
  11. 1 2 Andrea Codrington, Lippke (December 15, 2010). "In Make-Do Objects, Collectors Find Beauty Beyond Repair". New York Times. Retrieved 2014-04-05.
  12. ↑ Kwan, Pui Ying. "Exploring Japanese Art and Aesthetic as inspiration for emotionally durable design" (PDF).
  13. ↑ Flickwerk The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics Paperback, January 1, 2008 by Christy, James Henry Holland and Charly Iten Bartlett
  14. ↑ "Gold joint (mending gold) What is it?" (in Japanese). 2013-05-04. Retrieved 2014-04-02.
  15. ↑ Kahn, Eve (January 17, 2013). "It's as Good as Glue: Mending Shattered China". New York Times. Retrieved 2014-04-05.
  16. 1 2 "Stapled Repairs on Chine; Confessions of a curious collector". Antiques Journal. February 2012: 37–40. Retrieved 2014-04-05.
  17. ↑ Taylor, Andrew (February 27, 2011). "Smashing idea to put it together again". Sydney Morning Herald.
  18. ↑ "The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics | Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art". museum.cornell.edu. Retrieved 2017-09-23.
  19. ↑ Courneen, Trevor (January 12, 2015). "Death Cab for Cutie Reveal Title and Track List for New Album". Paste Magazine. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
  20. ↑ DROELOE - Kintsugi, retrieved 2017-10-03
  21. 1 2 Taheri, Babak; Farrington, Thomas; Curran, Ross; O'Gorman, Kevin (2017-04-11). "Sustainability and the authentic experience. Harnessing brand heritage – a study from Japan". Journal of Sustainable Tourism. 0 (0): 1–19. doi:10.1080/09669582.2017.1310867. ISSN 0966-9582.
  22. ↑ Curran, Ross; Taheri, Babak; MacIntosh, Robert; O'Gorman, Kevin (2016-02-23). "Nonprofit Brand Heritage". Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. 45 (6): 1234–1257. doi:10.1177/0899764016633532.

Further reading

  • Flickwerk The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics — Christy, James; Holland, Henry; Bartlett, Charly Iten (2008). Flickwerk The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics. Cornell University, Herbert Johnson Museum of Art. ASIN B009F3YENM.
  • Kintsugi : The Art of Broken by Audrey Harris | TEDxJanpath (video on YouTube)
  • Kintsugi: The Meaning of Mending by Adam Fulford (video on Vimeo)
  • EASTERN PHILOSOPHY - Kintsugi by School of Life (video on YouTube)
  • Perfect Imperfection (The Art of Healing) by Billie Bond, Dr Jeremy Spencer (2017) Bond, Billie; Spencer, Dr Jeremy (2017). Perfect Imperfection. United Kingdom: Blurb. ISBN 978-1366121998.

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