Soetsu Yanagi Ceramics

Sōetsu s work sets out a clear statement that everyday and mundane things are therapeutic.

Soetsu yanagi ceramics. In league with potters such as the british artist bernard leach hamada shōji and kawai kanjirō yanagi engendered a robust charming type of ceramic which recalled. In leach we see thought and philosophy in action. Pollution greed climate change mass inequality etc. Shoji s eyes are directed at his hands expressing a total body concentration similar to that of john lockwood kipling s image of the native craftsman.

Over the last 50 years in particular chronic excess has led to a world of big business globalisation overpopulation and all the destructive attributes these create. He took part in the launch of the magazine shirakaba in 1910 and actively worked as a central member of the shirakaba literary school. Soetsu yanagi known as first advocator of the mingei movement was born in tokyo in 1889. Then he began to take a deep interest in arts and the philosophy of religion.

His son sori yanagi is a renowned industrial designer. Yanagi was born in 1889 to a wealthy tokyo family. Yanagi sōetsu espoused anonymity functionality and simplicity as a corrective to the industrialism and self aggrandizement characteristic of the age. From a teapot to a cup these are singular objects to cherish.

Yanagi soetsu and bernard leach both look at shoji hamada s hands as they make contact with the clay form. Non egotistic art was his concern there he spoke to the west as an. In 1916 yanagi made his first trip to korea 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 1894 1978 and kawai kanjirō 1890. The ceramic works of leach and hamada are as different as were the men themselves.

Yanagi s buddhist aesthetic is deeply concerned with that aspect of truth and beauty described by such words as nakedness humility and holy poverty in the sense of st. Soetsu yanagi was a philosopher buddhist aesthetician and critic and the central thinker of the mingei movement. In hamada we find action and warmth in the very human and necessary activity of pot making.