Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory: Cultural Nationalism and Oriental Orientalism

RECTO RUNNING HEAD Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory Conceptualised in 1920s Japan by Yanagi Sóetsu, the Minge...

Author: Yuko Kikuchi

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RECTO RUNNING HEAD

Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory

Conceptualised in 1920s Japan by Yanagi Sóetsu, the Mingei movement has spread world-wide since the 1950s, creating phenomena as diverse as mingei museums, mingei connoisseurs and collectors, mingei shops and mingei restaurants. The theory, at its core and in the form of its adaptation by Bernard Leach, has long been an inﬂuential ‘Oriental’ aesthetic for studio craft artists in the West. But why did mingei become so particularly inﬂuential to a Western audience? And could the ‘Orientalness’ perceived in Mingei theory be nothing more than a myth? Tracing the chronological development of Mingei theory from its beginnings in the 1910s to the end of the twentieth century, Kikuchi deconstructs the Oriental ‘myth’ of mingei by highlighting and analysing the complicit relationship between Japanese cultural nationalism and modern Western Orientalism. She replaces the myth with an alternative perspective that focuses on the hybrid nature of the movement, from the formation of the theory on the basis of ‘hybrid’ modern ideas to its establishment in national, colonial and international discourses. This richly illustrated work offers controversial new evidence through its cross-cultural examination of a wide range of materials in Japanese, English, Korean and Chinese, bringing about startling new conclusions concerning Japanese modernisation and cultural authenticity. This new interpretation of the Mingei movement will appeal to scholars of Japanese art history as well as those with interests in cultural identity in non-Western cultures. Yuko Kikuchi is a Senior Research Fellow in Art and Design History at the London Institute, Chelsea College of Art and Design.

Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory Cultural nationalism and Oriental Orientalism

Yuko Kikuchi

First published 2004 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2004 Yuko Kikuchi All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Kikuchi, Yuko. Japanese modernisation and Mingei Theory : cultural nationalism and oriental orientalism / Yuko Kikuchi. p. cm. Inclues bibliographical references and index. 1. Folk art–Japan–History–20th century. 2. Yanagi, Muneyoshi, 1889–1961–Criticism and interpretation. 3. Culture–Japan–History–20th century. 4. Identity (Psychology)–Japan. I. Title. NK1071.K536 2003 745´,0952–dc21 2003010290 ISBN 0-203-64419-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-67515-0 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–29790–7 (Hardcover)

Contents

List of ﬁgures Acknowledgements Author’s note Introduction

1

Orientalism: the foundation of Mingei theory

vii xi xiii xv

1

Yanagi’s claims to originality 1 The Oriental-Occidental hybrid of philosophy and religion 4 Utopian colonism, primitivism and Orientalism 9 ‘Art of the people’ and medievalism: Ruskin, Morris and Japanese peasant art movements 23 Japanese tea masters 40

2

Appropriation of Orientalism The formation of Mingei theory 43 Mingei theory: the classiﬁcation and standardisation of beauty 49 Mingei projects: repositioned in a modern context 62 Modernity and Japanese cultural and national identity 76 Arts and Crafts in modern Japan: export craft industry and modern craft movements 80 Cultural nationalism in art: invention of ‘Japaneseness’ and ‘Japanese style’ 88 Nationalist discourse by Modernist Orientalist designers 95 Yanagi’s nationalist discourse on ‘quintessential Japaneseness’ and Japan’s North-East (Tóhoku) 109

43

vi

3

Contents

‘Oriental Orientalism’

123

The creation of ‘Others’ and Oriental Orientalism 123 Korea: the beauty of sadness 124 The Okinawans and the Ainu: archetypal beauty of Japan in the peripheral border with the Orient 140 Taiwan and North-East China/Manchuria: the beauty of the Orient and Greater East Asia 163 Yanagi’s Oriental Orientalism 193

4

Reverse Orientalism: the development of Mingei theory into national and international Modernism

197

Mystiﬁcation of mingei in Zen Buddhist aesthetics 198 Mingei as modern visual representation of tea aesthetics 202 Mingei theory for studio crafts: the predicament of the Mingei-style artist-craftsmen 205 Mingei for national design: the Mingei-style for ‘Japanese Modern’ design and Kurafuto 218 The foundation and deconstruction of the ‘Leach Tradition’ for British studio craft philosophy 233 Art or craft 238 Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

243 247 273 299

Contents

vii

Figures

1.1 Shirakaba magazine 1.2 Bernard Leach, a cedar table and chairs, c.1919 1.3 Tomimoto Kenkichi, ‘A Musician’s Cottage’, watercolour on paper, 1909 1.4 Tomimoto Kenkichi, a table cloth with Turkish mosque design, c.1912–16 1.5 Tomimoto Kenkichi, a jar with cover, ‘quatrefoil design’, overglazed enamels, 1955 1.6 Tomimoto Kenkichi and Bernard Leach, chairs designed by Tomimoto, wall hangings with stencil design by Leach, 1911 1.7 Yamamoto Kanae and the students of the Japan Peasant Art Institute, Koppa Ningyó (wooden dolls), painted wood, n.d. 1.8 Yamamoto Kanae and the students of the Japan Peasant Art Institute, Shirakaba-maki (white birch box), white birch bark, wood, bamboo and paper, n.d. 2.1 Mokujiki Shónin, ‘Old Woman Beggar’, nineteenth century 2.2 Yanagi’s classiﬁcation of crafts 2.3 Contrasting ‘over-decoration’ and ‘simple decoration’ 2.4 Mashiko sansui dobin (teapot with landscape pattern) decorated by Minagawa Masu, stoneware, c. 1915–35 2.5 Inside the Mikunisó, dining room, a dining set of a lacquer table and chairs by Kuroda Tatsuaki, 1928 2.6 Aota Goró, rug, pongee, 1929; ﬂoor cushion, pongee, late 1920s 2.7 Kamigamo Mingei Kyódan (Kamigamo Folkcrafts Communion) and Yanagi Sóetsu, Mikunisó modiﬁed from the Folkcrafts Pavilion exhibited at the exhibition in Ueno, 1928, 23 March–24 April 2.8 Hamada Shóji, a ﬁreplace and surrounding tiles, c.1928 2.9 Sitting room designed by Bernard Leach, 1934 2.10 Model Rooms designed by Yanagi, Hamada and Kawai for Nihon Mingei Shinseikatsu Tenrankai (An Exhibition of Japanese Folkcrafts for New Lifestyles) at Hankyú department store in Osaka in 1938 2.11 The Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Mingeikan), exterior, Tokyo 2.12 Kógei (Crafts), vol. 1 (including twelve issues), 1931 2.13 Tottori Mingei-style furniture, Tatsumi Mokkó

10 16 18 19 20 21 33 34 45 50 51 54 64 65

66 67 69

69 71 73 75

viii

Figures

2.14 Takamura Toyochika, a vase, ‘Sóka no tameno Kósei’ (Construction for Flower Arrangement), 1926 2.15 Itó Chúta, a chart of ‘evolution theory of architecture’ 2.16 The Katsura Detached Palace (Katsura Rikyú) 2.17 The Ise Shrine (Ise Jingú), Main Sanctuary of Kótai Jingú Goshóden 2.18 Mizoguchi Ryúbundó, a kettle 2.19 Paris Exposition Internationale 2.20 Charlotte Perriand’s Exhibition, ‘Selection, Tradition, Creation’ at Takashimaya department store in Tokyo and Osaka in 1941: dining/lounge, ﬂoor of Óya stone, red carpet, Sendai stone black-lacquered dining table, small table with wooden legs and lacquered top, folding chaise longue with cushion with design of Shósóin textile, Taiwanese chairs, aluminium book shelves and a children’s painting enlarged on linen 2.21 A sake pot from Okinawa, tea and coffee cups made by Kyoto Manjudó 2.22 A tea set: bamboo tray made by Nishigata, lacquer bowls for sugar and sweets, tea cup made by Kyoto Manjudó, arranged by Charlotte Perriand 2.23 A straw rain cape made by peasants in Shinshó town, Yamagata Prefecture, Tóhoku region. Cover for the chaise longue designed by Charlotte Perriand 2.24 Various cushions designed by Charlotte Perriand, woven straw, woven Japanese cypress bark (made at Tatsumura Textile Institute), white linen with green hems 2.25 A bamboo chaise longue designed by Charlotte Perriand. A bamboo version of the steel pipe chaise longue designed by Perriand, Le Corbusier and Jeanneret 2.26 A bamboo table with bamboo legs and woven bamboo tray on top, designed by Charlotte Perriand 2.27 A sliced wooden table designed by Charlotte Perriand 2.28 ‘Kera’ rain cape made in the Aomori (Tsugaru) region, upper layer is seaweed and lower layer is straw 2.29 Poster of the ﬁrst ‘Exhibition of Household Products for the Nation’ (Kokumin Seikatsu Yóhin Tenrankai) at Takashimaya department store in Tokyo (9–18 October)/Osaka (12–19 November), 1941 2.30 Exhibited products which won prizes (including bamboo bucket) 2.31 The Panel of ‘Kanso no Bi’ (The Beauty of Simplicity), water bottle used by the Navy showing ‘functional beauty of mass production’; eating utensils used by Zen monks at Sójiji temple 2.32 Reference section exhibited by the Japan Folkcrafts (Mingei) Association: bamboo ﬁsh basket from Aomori Hachinohe, backpack basket made of grape vine from Iwate, wooden ladle from Akita, wooden spoon for scooping rice from Mie 2.33 Eating utensils used by the contemporary Navy enamelled ware (hóró) and utensils which form a neat pack for twelve people, and cloth water bucket

87 94 96 97 98 99

101 102 102 103 104 105 106 108 111

117 118 119

120 121

Figures 2.34 Lunch box set, which contains fan-shaped lunch boxes for twenty-ﬁve people used by the Edo samurai warriors, symbolising ‘rational functional beauty’ 3.1 A faceted jar, white porcelain, underglazed blue with ‘autumn grass style’ (Akikusade) design, Chosön period (1392–1910) 3.2 Kwanghwamun in the 1920s 3.3 Korean Folk-Arts Gallery, in Kyongbok-kung Palace, Seoul, c.1924 3.4 A wine ewer, celadon-glazed stoneware, double gourd shape with inlaid ‘willow and ducks’ design on one side and a pair of cranes in a bamboo grove on the other, twelfth century, Koryö period 3.5 A Maebyong vase, celadon-glazed porcelain, inlaid ‘ﬂying cranes and clouds’ design, twelfth century, Koryö period 3.6 A jar, white porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue and copper-red-painted lotus design, eighteenth century, Chosön period 3.7 A jar, white porcelain, seventeenth century, Chosön period 3.8 A map of Japan 3.9 Okinawan roof gargoyle, shísá 3.10 Shuri castle 3.11 The scene of Okinawan women with nanban jar on their heads 3.12 Okinawan bingata, stencil-dyed cotton, child robe, late nineteenth century 3.13 Okinawan kasuri robe, banana ﬁbre (bashó), late nineteenth–midtwentieth century 3.14 Okinawan Akae, teapot (chúka), transparent glaze over green glaze on white slip, stoneware with overglazed enamel painting, design of wild pink, nineteenth century 3.15 Ainu weaving tools beater (oripera) 3.16 Ainu ceremonial robe atsushi or attush, elm bark ﬁbre (ohyó) with cotton cloth appliqué and cotton thread embroidery 3.17 Ainu spatula (shitopera), wood 3.18 The Ainu in Karafuto (Southern half of Sakhalin) exhibited in the Colonial Exhibition held at Tokyo Ueno, 1 October– 29 November 1912, ‘civilised’ audience watching the Ainu 3.19 Yamamoto Kanae, a design drawing of a wood carving of the poisonous ‘hundred steps’ (baibu) snakes for a top lid of a cigarette/cigar box 3.20 Yamamoto Kanae, a design drawing of a betel nut bag for a lady’s handbag 3.21 A ceremonial skirt, entwined weave, ramie, cotton and wool, by Paiwan tribe 3.22 A Taiwanese bamboo stool (yiqiao) 3.23 A bamboo lamp designed by Bruno Taut, 1934 3.24 Umbrella handles designed by Bruno Taut, bamboo, 1934 3.25 Bamboo furniture designed by Kawai Kanjiró, 1941 3.26 Minzoku Taiwan, 4(3), 1944 3.27 Xielan (bamboo basket)

ix

122 127 128 130

132 133 134 136 141 145 146 147 149 154 155 158 159 161 162 166 167 169 170 171 172 174 177 178

x

Figures

3.28 Huang Tu-shan, a Japanese-style woven bamboo Kóri basket made for the Japanese military, 1940s 3.29 Inge(?), plate with nangoku (southern country) landscape with palm tree 3.30 ‘Hórainuri’ (penglaitu), plates of a Taiwanese island shape with design of aboriginal people 3.31 Bamboo furniture designed by Yan Shui-long 3.32 A lotus stalk bag, woollen tie, rush table mat, design for tie, belt buckle designed by Yan Shui-long 4.1 A tea ceremony at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in 1955 4.2 Munakata Shikó, ‘John, James, Thomas and Bartholomew’ from ‘Yaso Júni Shito Hanga Saku’ (Christ’s twelve disciples), wood prints, 1953 4.3 Tomimoto Kenkichi, octagonal coffee set, white porcelain, 1921 4.4 Tomimoto Kenkichi, porcelain brooches and obidome (sash clasps), overglazed enamel decoration, 1946–50 4.5 Kawai Kanjiró, a vase, celadon, ﬂower and dragon design, 1922 4.6 Kawai Kanjiró, a vase, yellow glaze with slip decoration of ‘birds’ design, 1953 4.7 An iron ashtray designed by Yoshitake Mosuke, 1955, manufactured by Yamashó Casting Company 4.8 A cane lounge chair designed by Kenmochi Isamu, 1960 4.9 A bamboo basket chair designed by Sakakura Junzó, bamboo and wood, 1948 4.10 A bamboo easy chair designed by Isamu Noguchi in co-operation with Kenmochi Isamu, bamboo and iron legs, 1950 4.11 Modern Bamboo Products Exhibition in London, 1950 4.12 Modern Bamboo Products Exhibition: bamboo tea table, designed by IAI; sandwich tray designed by Gunma Craft Institute 4.13 ‘Household Things From Japan 1’ 4.14 ‘Household Things From Japan 2’ 4.15 An ashtray, Sasaki’s Glassware (English Sales Catalogue), No. 44, 1962 4.16 A jar and a goblet, manufactured by Sasaki Glass 4.17 A set of teapot and cup, Seyei Ceramic 4.18 A set of teapot and cups designed by Tomimoto Kenkichi and manufactured by Yasaka Crafts, 1957

186 186 187 188 189 203 210 213 214 215 216 219 221 221 222 224 225 227 227 229 230 231

232

List of ﬁgures

xi

Acknowledgements

This book was developed from my PhD thesis originally submitted to the London Institute in 1998 and could not have been written without assistance and guidance of numerous people. I am extremely grateful to my main supervisor and colleague, Toshio Watanabe for his continuous encouragement and insightful criticisms, and also to my external examiner Rupert Faulkner for his detailed valuable comments. I should also like to record my special gratitude to Utsumi Teiko and Mimura Kyoko for assisting my research at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Yamamoto Shigeo for invaluable information on Tomimoto Kenkichi, Edmund de Waal for sharing crosscultural interests in the Mingei movement, Kim Hyejeong for drawing out my interest in Korean culture and for the translation of articles from Korean to Japanese, Richard Siddle for making me aware of various issues on the Ainu and Okinawan cultures, Maezawa Tomomi for my access to special collections at Yamamoto Kanae Memorial Museum and Nakahara Michiko for arranging my access to the archive at Waseda University. For the research in Okinawa, I am indebted to the following experts who provided me with valuable information: Kubura Nagiko, Nagamoto Masahiro, Matsushima Chógi, Takara Kurayoshi and Tonaki Akira. During my research visits and the three-month stay at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan over the last ﬁve years, I received assistance from various sources. I would like to express special thanks to Ueng Shyu-Der and Huang Li-shu for their generous support for my stay as well as my access to research collections at the National Taiwan Craft Research Institute. I am also extremely grateful to the following scholars and practitioners who have given me enormous help at different stages of my research (in alphabetical order): Taiwan: Chang Hui-ju, Chiang Shao-ying, Chou Wan-yao, Chuang Po-ho, Allen Chun, Con Ken-chao, Fang Marvin Minto, Hong Wen-chen, Hsu Wen-chin, Hu Chia-yu, Huang Shu-chen, Hung Min-hua, Hwang Shyh-huei, Jien Ling-liang, Lai Kou-shan, Lai Tzough-ming, Liao Hsintien, Lin Patricia Y. W., Lin Chien-hung, Lin Pin-chang, Lin Qi-sheng, Lin Yang, Lo Ching, Nien Pi-hua, Shaih Lifa, Shi Jin-zi, Shiu Tan Margaret, Sung Wen-hsun, Tung Yen-ying, Wang Ming-shean, Wang Xing-gong, Wu Chin-sheng, Wu Mi-cha, Wu Sean Shih-hung, Yang Jing, Yang Lin, Yang Meng-zhe, Yeh Ting-yu, Yen Chuan-ying. I owe a great deal to many other

xii

Acknowledgements

people for their help during my long research in preparation of this book in Japan, Korea, Sweden, Taiwan and the UK, however, regrettably they are too numerous to list here. In the preparation of my original thesis, I am grateful to my close friends, Mavis Pilbeam, Susan-Marie Best and specially Sue Preston who assisted me by giving their insightful suggestions after reading parts of my draft manuscripts over many years. I also would like to acknowledge the Kaó Foundation for the Arts and Science, the Japan Foundation Endowment Committee, the Daiwa AngloJapanese Foundation, the London Institute, Shefﬁeld University, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and the British Academy for their ﬁnancial support of my research at different stages. Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to my parents for their tireless encouragement, and specially to my husband Bryan Solomon, who has patiently and conscientiously read through and copy-edited all my manuscripts, has given countless suggestions and much-needed moral support. This book is dedicated to my family.

List of ﬁgures

xiii

Author’s note

Japanese words are rendered in the Hepburn romanisation system. Chinese names are spelled in pinyin except where there is speciﬁc spelling preferred in Taiwan or by the persons themselves. In the latter case, the pinyin spelling in [ ] will follow to avoid confusion. Chinese, Japanese and Korean names are given in their customary order, surname ﬁrst followed by given name, except in the citations to authors’ works published in the English language, where they appear in English order. Unless otherwise stated, all translations from Japanese to English are by Kikuchi. In the ﬁgure captions ‘H’ stands for height, ‘L’ for length, ‘W’ for width and ‘D’ for diameter or depth. Measurements are given in centimetres.

xiv

List of ﬁgures

List of ﬁgures

xv

Introduction

Yanagi Sóetsu (1889–1961)1 was born in Tokyo into a noble and wealthy family with a father as veteran Navy rear admiral and a member of the House of Peers, and his mother also from a Navy ofﬁcials family. His father was known for his expertise on hydrographic mapping and surveying as well as his wide knowledge in poetry, botany, folklore and culinary studies, but his father died before Yanagi reached the age of two years. Yanagi was brought up in Tokyo, the metropolitan centre of politics, economy and culture of Japan, and underwent a most elitist education through the Gakushúin Kótóka Peers’ school and the Imperial University of Tokyo. An encounter with a particular type of ‘ordinary functional crafts’,2 which he later named mingei at around the age of thirty-ﬁve, determined the direction of Yanagi’s career for the rest of his life. He established himself as a creator of Mingei theory and a leader of the Mingei (Folkcrafts) movement. Mingei theory is arguably the ﬁrst most inﬂuential modern craft/design theory in Japan and the movement evolved in the 1920s, and launching a nation-wide campaign for the recognition and creation of folkcrafts. Mingei (folkcrafts) theory presented his absolute ‘criterion of beauty’ (bi no hyójun), and highlights the supreme beauty of hand-made folkcrafts for ordinary use made by unknown craftsmen. In the later years, Yanagi went on to develop Mingei theory into a theory permeated by and moulded by Buddhist aesthetics by giving explanations in spiritual and religious terms. Both in Japan and Euramerica,3 his aesthetic ideas have been widely acknowledged and have led to the creation of an inﬂuential modern craft philosophy. This book is a critical study of Mingei theory. It has a vertical structure which investigates the chronological development of Mingei theory and a horizontal structure which carries out theoretical analysis in terms of four main concepts: ‘Orientalism’, ‘Appropriation of Orientalism’, ‘Oriental Orientalism’ and ‘Reverse Orientalism’. It begins by questioning the myth of the ‘originality’ of Mingei theory which the author considers to be rooted in the complex problem of cultural politics but to have long escaped critical assessment. It attempts to deconstruct this myth of Mingei theory, through critical cross-examination against the background of Japanese modern history and international design history. Mingei theory is contextualised

xvi

Introduction

and re-examined through every stage of its formation and development from the 1910s to the present in relation to Japanese cultural nationalism and imperialism, to Japanese institutionalisation of art and crafts, to modern European aesthetic ideas and to the current debate on ‘studio crafts’ in Britain. In Chapter 1, various sources of philosophical, spiritual and aesthetic ideas which formed the foundation of Mingei theory will be examined. Particular reference is made to the English Arts and Crafts movement, as well as to their ideas which the Japanese appropriated (i.e. the ‘art of the people’, peasant art movements). In Chapter 2, Mingei theory itself and its major projects are discussed in relation to the issue of cultural identity and nationalism. In Chapter 3, the politicisation of Mingei theory in relation to Japanese imperialism is examined, with particular reference to the Japanese colonies: Korea and Taiwan as well as the Okinawans and the Ainu as the colonised people within Japan. In Chapter 4, discussions are extended to the current debate on the identity of ‘craft’. It investigates how Mingei theory provided the foundation for the modern philosophy of studio crafts and design after the Second World War both in Japan and Britain. The book will end with discussions of the so-called ‘Leach Tradition’, by analysing how it greatly mystiﬁed and Orientalised the ‘studio craft’ theory in Britain and how it has recently been challenged and deconstructed. The theoretical argument in this book is constructed ﬁrstly on the framework of ‘Orientalism’. This theory, developed by Edward Said in 1978, deals with the cultural system of representation which proliferated in the Occident mainly from the eighteenth century onwards, and constructed a politico-cultural entity known as the Orient. It is argued that this system is integrated into European imperialism over non-European colonies. By taking and extending Said’s approach, this book provides a case study of Orientalism which, as a mechanism, works not only to Orientalise the Middle East but also to Orientalise the Far East. In Japan, it became a driving force in the formation of Japanese modern culture including Japanese art and design history – an issue which is the main concern of this book. Second, this book adopts the post-Saidian theories, after numerous criticisms of Said’s framework showed it to be lacking in analysis of the more complex picture of colonial modernity of the Orient, in respect of the aspects of resistance and cross-fertilisation. Three theoretical approaches are particularly relevant to the discussions in this book regarding these bilateral aspects: Homi Bhabha’s notion of ‘hybridity’ which developed Said’s analysis of a binary system into a further complex ‘third space’ stressing interactions,4 Sakai Naoki’s analysis of the ‘complicity relation’ between ‘Occidental narcissism’ and ‘Oriental cultural essentialism’5 as well as Xiaomei Chen’s study of ‘Occidentalism’ constructed for the expediency of Chinese counter-discourse, which also stresses the interdependent relation in the creation of modern cultural national identities.6 Saidian and the post-Saidian approaches inform my study of how views of the Orient, in

Introduction

xvii

particular of Japan, represented by the Occident affect the formation of Yanagi’s Mingei theory, how Yanagi absorbed Orientalism from modern Occidental aesthetic ideas, and how Yanagi eventually negotiates a ‘hybrid’ product by means of a process invoking mediations between the two discursive cultural entities and appropriation from one to the other. Third, Stefan Tanaka’s application of Said’s notion of ‘Orientalism’ on to his analysis of Japanese construction of a cultural discourse of tóyó (Orient), in the context of Japan and Asia, is also particularly useful. It provides a framework within which Yanagi’s own appropriated variant of ‘Orientalism’ can be examined through his application of the ‘criterion of beauty’ projected on to Japan’s peripheries and colonies during the course of expansion of Japanese imperialism.7 This variant ‘Orientalism’ which I have termed ‘Oriental Orientalism’ suggests the recurring and transferable nature of the system of Orientalism. My last theoretical argument, for which I have coined the term ‘Reverse Orientalism’, is also developed from the post-Saidian discussions and suggests the voluntary reaction of the Orientalised culture to reinforce the Orientalism by haunting and overpowering the originator of Orientalism. It considers how Mingei theory, once it was established, was later exported back to the Occident and acclaimed as an ‘authentic’ Oriental philosophy. The process, which Brian Moeran hinted at in his research on the relation between Yanagi’s Mingei theory and the ideas of William Morris and Bernard Leach, can be seen as the phenomenon of ‘inverse Orientalism’,8 and involved cultural politics asserting the superiority of the Orient over the Occident in spiritualism. Yanagi problematised the Japanese ‘modernity’ as standing on the ideas of the cultural hegemonies in between the Orient and the Occident. What is the Japanese ‘modernity’ and whether there is a history of a Japanese ‘modernity’ separate from the Occidental model of ‘modernity’ are still issues which are of much concern in present-day global society. Although Yanagi tried to present an alternative discourse beyond the ﬁctive dichotomy of cultural representations, he was trapped by the dichotomy within the Occidental framework of Modernism and so ended in Japanese cultural essentialism which ultimately invokes the binary system that he wished to destroy. The central claim of this book is that Mingei theory is not a ‘traditional’, ‘authentically’ ‘Oriental’ theory as it has been deemed in Japan and Euramerica, but is a hybrid and modern product created in the complex cultural politics of Orientalism. As examined from a post-colonial perspective, this book attempts to deconstruct Yanagi’s Mingei theory. The author hopes that this study will contribute to the creation of the alternative model of non-Euramerican plural history of modernities and modern arts.

RECTO RUNNING HEAD

1

Orientalism The foundation of Mingei theory

Yanagi’s claims to originality One of the signiﬁcant problems which has existed in the academic study of Mingei theory is the lack of comparative studies and historical contextualisation. Mingei theory has escaped critical assessment, which has been largely due to Yanagi’s claim to the originality of Mingei theory and his description of its formation. Neither the question of the originality nor the formation of Mingei theory have been adequately examined or subjected to critical assessment. Yanagi Sóetsu, a great self-publicist, strongly emphasised the originality of his Mingei theory in his many writings. He repeatedly claimed the value of his chance discoveries, his originality and the independence of his theory from any precedents, including the practices of the Japanese tea masters, the English Arts and Crafts ideas pioneered by John Ruskin and William Morris, and European Modernists’ ideas which include ideas in common with Mingei theory. In Kógei no Michi (The Way of Crafts): ‘Kógei Biron no Senkusha ni tsuite’ (About the Predecessors of Crafts Aesthetics) published in 1927, for example, Yanagi acknowledged Ókuma’s book, published in the same year, as having given him information about Ruskin and Morris, but claimed that his ideas were original and owed nothing at all to Ruskin and Morris: I am extremely isolated in my ideas on the beauty of crafts. Fortunately or unfortunately I owe hardly anything to those who came before me. The incredible crafts themselves taught me . . . Looking back over the history of aesthetics on the beauty of crafts, I reached the conclusion that there were two types of predecessors,1 though I had never directly connected myself with any of those people when I constructed my own theory . . . Until very recently I knew very little about Ruskin and Morris. I would like to express my appreciation to Mr Ókuma Nobuyuki for the recent publication of his book titled Shakai Shisóka toshiteno Rasukin to Morisu (Ruskin and Morris as Social Theorists), which increased my knowledge of Ruskin and Morris.2

2

Orientalism: the foundation of Mingei theory

In the preface to a later text, Kógei Bunka (Craft Culture) in 1942, Yanagi repeated his claim that Japanese ideas on the Mingei movement were original and independent of Western ideas. Our activities in the ﬁeld of craft have been known as the ‘Mingei movement’ and what we are most proud of is the fact that it was conceived in Japan, not initiated by foreign ideas. We took note of existing attitudes in the West toward crafts, but we did not ﬁnd anything useful. So, our ideas are totally original and contain no trace of imitation. It is very signiﬁcant that we create our own original path, even if it is premature, given that at present the ﬁelds of current thoughts and crafts are slavishly following after the West. We Japanese have to bear the torchlight now to lead, one step ahead of them.3 In another article titled ‘Mingei Undó wa Nani o Kiyoshitaka’ (What the Mingei Movement Contributed) published in 1946, he emphasised the casual nature of Ruskin’s and Morris’s approach and the lack of sophistication of their ﬁndings: Currently our activities are considered as a movement, but in the beginning we did not have any clear intention of bringing the matter up in this way. We established neither an ‘ism’ nor did we criticise beauty using an ‘ism’. Instead we started incredibly simply. In fact, we did not have any theory at ﬁrst. We just looked directly at the crafts themselves, and were dazzled by them. That was the start. With hindsight, I feel this start, whereby we looked at the thing itself, was fortunate for us.4 It is generally understood, from Yanagi’s writings, that his interest in mingei dated from his ﬁrst trip to Korea in 1916 with a sudden interest in Korean crafts, which extended to mokujikibutsu (wooden statues of Buddha carved by Mokujiki Shónin).5 This trip led not only to the establishment of the Korean Folk-arts Gallery in 1924 but interest in Korean crafts led to the coining of the term mingei by Yanagi, Kawai and Hamada in 1925 when they were travelling to see mokujikibutsu.6 By 1927, Yanagi’s interest in and his aesthetic theory relating to getemono (common household handicrafts) had gradually developed and eventually contributed to the Mingei movement: When I travelled to Korea in 1916 in order to visit my sister there, I met Asakawa Yoshitaka and Takumi who helped to build my interest in and empathy for Korean artefacts. From then on, I was attracted by artefacts of the Yi period and visited Korea several times to purchase various things from my limited budget . . . 7 In New Year 1924, I went to Kófu with Asakawa Takumi to visit Mr Komiyama Seizó, just to see

Orientalism: the foundation of Mingei theory

3

artefacts of the Yi period. There I unexpectedly came across mokujikibutsu which was a form of art I had never thought of. . . . Because of this incident, I started to study Mokujiki Shónin and travelled all over Japan, tracing the route Mokujiki Shónin travelled. . . . Then while I was travelling, I became aware of the local handicrafts of this period.8 This trip gave me a chance to see the situation of the handicrafts of Japan.9 Statements of this kind have underpinned the belief that in the formation of Yanagi’s Mingei theory the ﬁrst impetus was Korea, and that he had neither interactions with the social and historical climate of the period nor inspirations from the ideas of Ruskin and Morris. Critics such as Mizuo Hiroshi, Tonomura Kichinosuke, Jugaku Bunshó and Yamamoto Shózó took Yanagi’s statement at face value and strongly supported his claim that Mingei theory was an original Japanese aesthetic theory. Their views are well represented by the two articles ‘Yanagi Sóetsu to Wiriamu Morisu’ (Yanagi Sóetsu and William Morris) by Tonomura10 and ‘Futatsu no Kógeiron: Morisu to Yanagi Sóetsu’ (Two Craft Theories: Morris and Yanagi) by Jugaku.11 Tonomura defended Yanagi by writing that although there appeared to be similarities in Yanagi’s and Morris’s work, this was not the case and he pointed out the superiority of Yanagi’s spiritual quality compared with Morris’s superﬁciality. Jugaku took Yanagi’s originality for granted, not questioning Yanagi’s own words. He admired what he saw as Yanagi’s more profound, correct and acute ideas and considered them superior to those of Morris whom he considered to be an ‘unfortunate craftsman’, ‘aesthetic romanticist’ and ‘dreamer of dreams’. These strongly nationalistic opinions encouraged many more uncritical admirers to promote the idea in Japan and elsewhere that Yanagi was a pioneer of this kind of crafts movement. The problem here is that these critics did not contextualise Mingei theory. Up to now, this uncritical appraisal by the so-called Mingei-ha (Mingei School Faction) has been in the mainstream and Yanagi’s claims have not been seriously questioned. However after 1976 when Tsurumi Shunsuke’s biography of Yanagi Sóetsu was published,12 probably the ﬁrst critical study by an ‘outsider’, some critical research began to appear. This includes Okamura Kichiemon’s studies13 on the early Mingei movement, Idekawa Naoki’s analysis of Mingei theory,14 Takasaki Sóji’s cross-cultural examination regarding Yanagi’s involvement in Korea,15 Brian Moeran’s anthropological studies on a pottery village and comparative studies with English Arts and Crafts ideas,16 Ajioka Chiaki’s PhD thesis17 contextualising Mingei theory in the modern Japanese design movements, and Lisbeth Brandt’s PhD thesis on the Mingei movement in relation to Japanese modern culture and national identity.18 To develop further the critical assessment of Yanagi’s achievements these few critical studies have pioneered a deeper examination of Mingei theory

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in the context of Japanese history and culture. An examination of a crosscultural milieu of modern ideas and visual objects is required in order to avoid any hint of making dogmatic assertions outside of context. I shall therefore begin by examining Yanagi’s biographical and educational background to trace his early interests during the period 1907 to 1910, when he was at high school.

The Oriental-Occidental hybrid of philosophy and religion Yanagi’s interest in pseudo-science and new Buddhism Yanagi went to the high school, Gakushúin Kótóka, Peers’ school, where he met his lifelong friends of the Shirakaba (White Birch) group.19 They were liberal idealistic young intellectuals who opposed militarism and aristocratic feudalism, taking Tolstoyan idealism and individualism as their guiding principle. Because of this, they did not get along with Gakushúin authorities, particularly General Nogi who was both the principal of Gakushúin at that time and a general in the Japanese Army. However at this school Yanagi encountered three teachers who inﬂuenced him greatly. Hattori Tanosuke, who was ‘personally the most inﬂuential teacher’,20 was one of them. Hattori was a Christian and a botanist, specialising in insectivorous plants. He not only taught him the English language but also religion and ethics through such authors as Beecher Stowe, John Milton, John Bunyan, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Shiga and Yanagi were frequent visitors to Hattori’s house and most of these authors were read there. They also walked often together to Mount Akagi to experience the virgin wilderness. Thoreau’s Walden, which, next to the Bible was Hattori’s favourite book, deeply inﬂuenced them on these occasions. Yanagi’s interest in the laws and philosophy of nature was also inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck, a Belgian poet and playwright to whose work he was also introduced by Hattori. Hattori satisﬁed Yanagi’s intellectual curiosity regarding questions about body and soul, life and death, and psychic phenomena such as supernaturalism. No satisfactory answers were provided for these questions by the ofﬁcial education in Gakushúin, which emphasised ‘dry’21 science and social science. Yanagi’s youthful intellectual quest resulted in his ﬁrst book titled Kagaku to Jinsei (Science and Life) published in 1911 at the age of twentytwo. This book is an account of four ‘scientiﬁc’ books which impressed him. It consists of two parts; Part One, titled Atarashiki Kagaku (The New Science) which had already been published in 1910 in Shirakaba and Part Two, titled Mechinikofu no Kagakuteki Jinseikan (The Scientiﬁc Life of Metchnikoff). Part One mainly introduces two books, After Death–What? by Cesare Lombroso and The Survival of Man by Sir Oliver Lodge, who were both members of the British Society for Psychical Research. Yanagi wrote about the supernatural phenomena which had been recorded and subjected to scientiﬁc

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experiments in the Occident, and which included such things as the transposition of the senses, telepathy, clairvoyance, premonition and automatic writing in trance. Yanagi’s intentions were both to emphasise that human spirituality was as signiﬁcant as physicality, and to introduce a ‘new science’ which took a scientiﬁc and optimistic approach to the psyche of human beings. It seems clear that Yanagi was searching for a spiritual alternative to ‘dry’ science and it was this ‘new science’ which paved the way to Yanagi’s solution to the relationship between body and soul. What Yanagi called ‘new science’ at that time appears to be what is now called occultism. Occultism saw a phenomenal boom in Europe from the late nineteenth century. Reﬂecting the cul-de-sac situation of the historical ideology of ‘rationalism’, various pseudo-scientiﬁc occult movements were led by such people as E. P. Blavatsky who founded Theosophy and Rudolf Steiner who founded Anthroposophy.22 Interestingly, Roger Fry whose Modernist aesthetic became an inﬂuence on Yanagi later, was also an enthusiast of psychic phenomena. Virginia Woolf wrote about Fry’s attendance at the Psychical Research Society and his letter to his mother reported the heated discussions on Mrs Piper’s revelations as well as his own experiments in haunted houses to search for the ‘spirits’ in ‘luminiferous aether’.23 In Japan, too, Yanagi was not alone in this interest in occultism. Tsurumi examined the sudden frenzied popular belief in occultism and supernaturalism which reﬂected the frustration and uncertainty of the people on whom reparations had been imposed even after the victory of the Russo-Japanese War.24 In 1910, the same year as Yanagi’s publication of Kagaku to Jinsei, the newspapers were also enthusiastically featuring people with supposed supernatural powers, like Mifune Chizuko who claimed to have senrigan (clairvoyance). It has sometimes been postulated that Yanagi diverted his feeling of loneliness caused by thinking about his dead father into an interest in psychic phenomena. Whatever the truth of that claim, Yanagi’s interest nevertheless clearly reﬂected the contemporary popularity of occultism. Part Two of Yanagi’s book introduces The Nature of Man and The Prolongation of Life, both by Elie Metchnikoff. The books deal, in an ‘optimistic’ way, with scientiﬁc studies of the human body and life in comparison with the study of other living things. Metchnikoff claimed that there were inharmonious and unnecessary organs in the human body as a result of our evolution from other animals and that these organs cause sickness and problems in the body and lead to unnatural deaths. Metchnikoff believed that science could remove all the obstacles and problems caused by these inharmonious organs, and by so doing, enable human beings to lead ‘orthobiosis’25 or a natural and healthy life thereby prolonging the life span until the coming of a ‘natural death’. ‘Natural death’ would cause no fear, just a pleasant feeling like falling asleep. Yanagi seems to have been completely convinced by Metchnikoff ’s ‘optimistic’ scientiﬁc theory about human life. In this book, he came to the tentative conclusion that there was

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a promising future for a ‘scientiﬁc philosopher’26 who could bring harmony and a state of co-operation into ‘dry’ science and the mind of human beings. Although Kagaku to Jinsei cannot be considered to be academic research by a professional scientist, it is important in that it reveals Yanagi’s concerns with supernaturalism, death and his quest for spiritual and scientiﬁc solutions which occupied his life at that time. His ideas also reﬂect the social mood of the period. Yanagi’s research on psychic phenomena and death did not last long, but his lingering interest in spiritualism and mysticism continued through his later work on Walt Whitman, William Blake, folkcrafts and Buddhist aesthetics. Furthermore, when one looks at his interest in folkcrafts and Buddhism in later years, especially the way he collected data on the supernatural power of craftsmen and myókónin (Wondrous Good Men),27 which he used as a core of Mingei theory, one can see traces from his past belief in the scientiﬁc and optimistic approach of ‘new science’. Other important mentors for Yanagi and his friends at this time were Suzuki Daisetz28 and Nishida Kitaró, two eminent Japanese philosophers, known world-wide for their modern interpretation of Buddhism and as representatives of the so-called Nishida Tetsugaku (Nishida philosophy) and Suzuki Zen. Although Suzuki directed Yanagi to study various religious books, it seems that he and Nishida were less inﬂuential on the young Yanagi than was Hattori. However, Yanagi thanked both of them for defending him when he came into conﬂict with the school’s authorities. Nishida defended Yanagi when Yanagi was severely reprimanded by General Nogi over Yanagi’s article on paciﬁsm in the School’s Newsletter.29 Suzuki defended Yanagi when the committee of editors of the Newsletter ﬁercely opposed another of his articles, titled ‘Shosensei ni Nozomu’ (Request to the Teachers), which was considered by the committee to have a rebellious tone.30 Although Yanagi did not write much more about Nishida and Suzuki, his later development of Mingei theory into Buddhist aesthetics could not have been made without the ideas of these two philosophers. They gave the most innovative modern interpretations of Buddhism which were inﬂuential both in and outside of Japan, and in particular, underwent a revival with the rise of Nationalism from the late 1880s.31 Yanagi’s deﬁnition of the beauty of crafts in the context of morality and his application of Buddhist concepts and terms to the aesthetics of crafts appear to be greatly inspired by Nishida and Suzuki. The Kantian deﬁnition of the sense of beauty as pleasure detached from the ego was paraphrased by the Buddhist term muga (no-self) in Nishida’s article in 1900, ‘Bi no Setsumei’ (An Explanation of Beauty). Nishida further developed this Buddhist deﬁnition of beauty in his seminal work, Zen no Kenkyú (Study on Virtue) published in 1911. This book established him as the ﬁrst original and ideological philosopher in Japan since the Meiji period. The focus of this book is on junsui keiken (pure experience) on which truth, virtue and beauty are based.

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Junsui keiken is a direct and intuitive experience which happens instantaneously before the notion of subject and object or emotion and logic are clearly divided. Buddhism, Zen Buddhism in particular, is an example of this tendency to avoid dualism. Nishida then wrote ‘Geijutsu to Dótoku’ (Art and Morality) in 1923 in which he suggested that truth, goodness and beauty lie in the highest state of mind muga which is the meeting point for art and morality.32 Yanagi’s ‘Buddhist aesthetics’ owes as much to Suzuki as to Nishida, but probably a more direct inﬂuence can be seen from Suzuki. By the time Yanagi had developed ‘Buddhist aesthetics’ after the Second World War, Suzuki had already written a thesis titled ‘Jiriki to Tariki’ (Self Power and Other Power) as his ﬁrst work on the Pure Land School in 1911 and the books about myókónin: Shúkyó Keiken no Jijitsu (The Fact of Religious Experience) in 1943, Nihonteki Reisei (Japanese Spirituality) in 1944 and Myókónin in 1948. Yanagi’s further integration of Buddhism into Mingei theory was no doubt impossible without Suzuki’s ideas and interpretations. Yanagi’s ‘Buddhist aesthetics’ appropriated Suzuki’s and Nishida’s ideas into the world of crafts and developed them by using the key Buddhist terms, such as chokkan (direct insight),33 soku (the relationship in which the particular implies and equates with Unity34), funi (non duality), bishú mibun (liberated from the duality of the beauty and ugliness), jirikidó (‘Way of Self Power’: self-reliance) and tarikidó (‘Way of Other Power’: reliance on an external power or grace’35 on which all three placed importance. I will discuss these in more detail in Chapter 3. Validation of Oriental religious philosophy by Occidental philosophy During 1910–13 when he was a student at the Imperial University of Tokyo, Yanagi vigorously studied Occidental philosophy and thoroughly absorbed ‘rational’ and ‘scientiﬁc’ disciplines. However his inclination to spiritualism led him beyond what he called ‘dry’36 science. Among Occidental philosophers, Henri Bergson and William James were most inﬂuential on Yanagi. In their modern revisionistic philosophy, he found anti-rational ideas antithetical to Occidental progressivism and positivism, which seemingly even suggested non-Occidental alternative values. Bergson’s ideas of ‘duration’, ‘intuition’, ‘nothingness’, and James’s ideas of ‘novelty’ were particularly prominent in Yanagi’s writings. Bergson’s writings, translated by people such as Nishida Kitaró since around 1910, were much talked about by Japanese intellectuals at that time. As a young student of philosophy, Yanagi owned a copy of Bergson’s Creative Evolution, now in the archive at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, and it retains the meticulous notes Yanagi himself made. For example, his notes such as ‘Instinct is therefore innate knowledge of a thing’37 and ‘Intuition is life itself ’,38 or his underlining of the sentence, ‘intuition may enable us to grasp what it is that intelligence fails to give us, and indicate the means of supplementing it’,39 indicate how inﬂuential Bergsonian ideas of ‘intuition’ were on

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Yanagi’s ideas of ‘intuition’ later developed in Mingei theory. Bergson was also very important in Europe during the early period of this century particularly in his theoretical inﬂuence on art. As Rachel Gotlieb pointed out, Bergson’s idea of ‘vitality’, which was very close to the idea of the ‘unconscious’ in Zen Buddhism, was assimilated into Modernist aesthetics by such writers as Roger Fry, Herbert Read and the members of Vorticism, and created an aesthetic theory particularly with respect to studio pottery.40 The connection between Yanagi’s philosophical interest in Bergson, which later developed into craft theory, and the Bergsonian Modernist aesthetic should be noted. Yanagi made further discoveries of these anti-rational ideas in Occidental Christian mysticism during the next ten years after graduating from the university. Through the study of Blake, Yanagi conﬁrmed his own belief in anti-rational ideas, saying that ‘as modern philosophy has made clear, it is by intuition and not by intellect that we know Reality. Truth is grasped by intuitive experiences.’41 He highly praised Johannes Scotus Erigena (810– 77) and Meister Johann Eckhart (1260–1328), because of their ideas of ‘nothing’ and the ‘negative way’ or the ‘via negativa’42 as ways of perceiving Reality and God through negation of self and rational thinking – ideas which are common in Occidental Christian mysticism as well as in Oriental philosophy and mysticism. Studies on Occidental mysticism subsequently expanded into Oriental mysticism, including Zen and Suﬁsm. He eventually built up his own systematic structure of philosophy based on mysticism and created an original hybrid of ideas from Occidental Christian mysticism, Zen Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism and Suﬁsm. In this process of the hybridisation of antirational ideas from both Oriental and Occidental religious philosophy, he also found a sense of Oriental cultural identity. When Yanagi turned away from Occidental ideas and made connections between Occidental and Oriental mysticism around 1915, he wrote of his discovery of his true roots, expressing deep satisfaction in Oriental ideas, ‘I feel I have returned to my spiritual homeland.’43 Yanagi’s cultural identity was formed with a sense of equality with the Occident in spiritualism. Yanagi used contemporary Occidental philosophers and mystics from the past to validate and modernise some Oriental ideas. Yanagi used these ideas, articulated, hybridised them from the rhetoric of both the Orient and the Occident, and he even claimed superiority of the Orient over the Occident. His claim for the superiority of Oriental ideas over Occidental ones can be seen in the following aspects: ﬁrst, in philosophising the negative or anti-rational ways of perceiving Reality and God;44 second, in the concepts of ‘intuition’, ‘direct insight’ (chokkan,45 jikige) and ‘implicitness’ (sokunyo).46 He came to deﬁne these concepts as crucial for knowing Reality and for perceiving true beauty, as he considered that a glimpse of Reality is grasped by artists and mystics and symbolically and implicitly expressed in art works and in visionary writings, poems and miracles. In his ‘criterion of beauty’ in Mingei

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theory, he argues that absolute beauty is perceived by intuition and not by intellect, saying ‘in understanding beauty, intuition is more of the essence than intellectual perception. . . . Thus the basis of aesthetics must not be intellectual concept.’47 Third, he considered Oriental ideas superior with regard to the concepts of ‘nothingness’(mu), ‘void’(kú), ‘inﬁnite’(mugen) and ‘unknown’(mumei). These terms were used to express impossibility by mystics both in the Orient and the Occident, who wrestled to identify ‘Reality’ and ‘God’ but Yanagi stressed the remarkably theoretical development of these ideas in Zen Buddhism. In Mingei theory, he creatively adopted ideas of Zen, such as ‘unknown’(mumei) and ‘no-thought’(mushin), ‘non-duality’ (funi) and ‘Other Power’(tariki) to deﬁne his concept whereby ‘true beauty exists in the realm where there is no distinction between the beautiful and the ugly’.48 Yanagi created a narrative of Oriental spiritual identity, superior to that of the Occident, through the use of his own hybrid rhetoric. Oriental culture is essentialised in spiritual terms antithetical to rational intellectualism and positivism associated with contemporary Occidental science. Though there may be doubt as to Yanagi’s claim not to have been inﬂuenced in the creation of Mingei theory by any one, nonetheless his creativity and originality can be seen clearly in the way he hybridised ideas, evolving his own unique rhetoric to create his theory.

Utopian colonism, primitivism and Orientalism Yanagi made a thorough study of Occidental art and its modern theories and voraciously absorbed them. He was the main editor of Shirakaba (White Birch),49 a leading magazine which aimed at introducing new ideas and works of ﬁne art in the Occident published between 1910 and 1923 (Figure 1.1). The magazine featured mysticism and introduced Maeterlinck, Tolstoy, Emerson, Whitman, Blake, Bergson, Eucken and Strindberg. Its coverage of Occidental ﬁne art was broad, starting with Egyptian and Greek art and ranging from Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Tintoretto, Van Eyck, Dürer, El Greco, Rubens, Poussin, Rembrandt, Blake, Courbet, Millet, Delacroix, Goya, Rodin, Beardsley, Puvis de Chavannes, Klinger, Vogeler to Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin and Matisse. Heinrich Vogeler Among their broad interest, some ideas seem particularly important for Yanagi’s later development of the Mingei movement. One of them is the Shirakaba circle’s connection with Heinrich Vogeler (1872–1942). Vogeler is a Jugendstil artist who led the Worpswede group, a utopian artist community established in the 1890s in Germany. This group was greatly inspired by the English Arts and Crafts movement and interested in the ‘discovery’ of the German folk and peasant art. Yanagi wrote to his future wife Kaneko in 1911 that he came to like Vogeler because of Kaneko and

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Figure 1.1 Shirakaba magazine. Left: 4–7, 1913, front cover designed by Bernard Leach. Right: 3–12, 1912 by Heinrich Vogeler.

bought his original etching works entitled ‘Liebe’ and ‘Frühling’ for the sweet memories of the times they were together.50 Yanagi was in love with Kaneko at that time and Vogeler’s art seemed to capture his romantic mood. Yanagi seems to have written Vogeler a letter of admiration around that time. Vogeler replied and the correspondence between them continues during 1911–1913 describing a series of exciting art exchanges between them.51 The Shirakaba group organised two exhibitions: a European Etchings exhibition in 1911 and the Fourth Shirakaba art exhibition in 1912 to exhibit and sell Vogeler’s etching works. According to the correspondence, Vogeler sent seventy-seven etchings and a photo of him, and in exchange the Shirakaba group sent Vogeler a book on Japanese gardens as requested by him, as well as chiyogami (hand-printed patterned Japanese paper).52 Then Yanagi asked Vogeler to design a logo for the Shirakaba group in exchange for Japanese Ukiyoe prints.53 With the arrival of Vogeler’s original drawing of the Shirakaba logo, it adorned the Shirakaba magazines from October in 1912 for the next two years or more54 (Figure 1.1). Shirakaba magazine also featured Vogeler,55 and Yanagi in his articles described Vogeler’s art as ‘static’ and ‘sweet romantic art’56 and depicting ‘mystery of nature’.57 These Shirakaba projects created the ﬁrst occasion that Vogeler was introduced to Japan.58 This exchange reveals that Vogeler is an Orientalist calling himself a ‘great admirer of the Japanese art’.59 Not only did he request a book on

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Japanese gardens, but also he collected Japanese Ukiyoe prints by Hokusai, Utamaro and Hiroshige.60 Yanagi also recognised this Orientalist aspect by describing Vogeler’s style as having afﬁnity to those of Beardsley and Japanese painting.61 The Shirakaba group’s voluntary choice of Ukiyoe prints as exchange gifts also suggest their knowledge of European Orientalists’ interest. Vogeler shows a great respect to the young Japanese strangers, not even forgetting to complement Yanagi’s German writing as almost like the writing style of German poets.62 There is an equal balance in their strong desire of wanting to know each other’s art. In addition to this European Orientalist’s modern art, the ideal that captured the interest of Yanagi and the Shirakaba group was the idea of artist colony. Vogeler gave them an ideal image of living in countryside close to nature, living in a house where the whole interior is artistically designed and decorated in total co-ordination. Yanagi’s move to Abiko, outside of Tokyo, in 1914, which was followed by the move of his Shirakaba circle friends Mushanokóji Saneatsu and Shiga Naoya and joined by Bernard Leach, created a similar artist colony. Their idea of the utopian artist colony can be seen in line with the Worpswede colony and the various artist colony projects within the wider Arts and Crafts movement. Post-Impressionists The work of the Post-Impressionists also made clear impressions on the Shirakaba group. Many articles and books written by the Shirakaba group on this subject had a strong impact on the intellectuals of the time. Their ideas were largely informed by English canonisation of the ‘Post-Impressionists’ and English taste for avant-garde Modernist art.63 The English construction of the Post-Impressionists are characterised by the idea of ‘geniusness’ in their painterly expressions of ‘primitiveness’ and ‘childlike purity’. Yanagi was extremely excited by C. Lewis Hind’s The PostImpressionists,64 published in 1911, and he and his friends continued to discuss it ‘every night throughout the week’.65 This is a book Yanagi introduced as ‘a most substantial book on the Post-Impressionists in English’.66 Hind’s proclamation of ‘the true art’ as an expression of individual character supported a strong sense of modern individuality which the Shirakaba group generated through their publications.67 In 1912, Yanagi published an article, ‘Revolution in Art’ which advocates ‘expressions of personality’ expressing a ‘beauty united with nature’ which is intuitionally attained beyond ‘rational’ mind.68 The title of this article directly replicates Frank Rutter’s book published in 1910, which Yanagi evaluated as ‘although a small pamphlet, it offers the best criticism in English’.69 However the content is a synthesis of several books added by Yanagi’s adaptation and interpretation. As Tanaka Jun noted, the major part consists of a digest and selective translation from Hind’s book while also retaining a similar structure.70 I have also found that sections about

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each of the artists Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse are taken from Rutter’s book and Julius Meier-Graefe’s book. Indeed, some parts are taken from Hind, Rutter and Meier-Graefe and they often overlap each other.71 This is due to the status of the 1908 English translation of Julius Meier-Graefe’s Modern Art which came out (originally published in German in 1904) as the ‘authority’72 and which became the main source book for the English critics of the Post-Impressionists. In his book, Rutter acknowledged Meier-Graefe saying ‘I am indebted in this penetrating critic for many of the foregoing biographical details’ and quoted many parts from his book.73 As a result, Yanagi adapted Hind and Rutter who adapted Meier-Graefe, and so it was German-inspired English views on the Post-Impressionists that were introduced into Japan. Hind and Rutter were among the most important ‘triumvirate’ critics of the time in England and their books were key texts of English views of the PostImpressionists at that time.74 At the same time in Japan their works were widely read as a Bible of the new art movement through translations and adaptations not only by Yanagi and the Shirakaba group, but also by other people. In 1913, Yanagi went on to translate a part of the abovementioned book of Frank Rutter as well as Roger Fry’s75 introductory essay ‘The Post-Impressionists’ in the catalogue of the monumental exhibition, ‘Manet and the Post-Impressionists’ held at the Grafton Galleries in 1910.76 As the ﬁrst declaration of Modernist art in England, this legendary exhibition was dominated by the works of Manet, Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gaugin, who had the largest number, and also included works by living artists such as Matisse and Picasso. These artists were more strongly represented in the ‘Second Post-Impressionists Exhibition’ in 1912 which was also organised by Roger Fry. The signiﬁcance of these two exhibitions on the world art scene cannot be underestimated and Fry’s introductory essay aptly captures something of the momentous occasion. Fry constructed Cézanne as ‘a father of modern art’ who succeeded Manet, Gauguin as a ‘great barbarian’ who rejected western civilisation and values, and Van Gogh as a ‘raving lunatic’. Yanagi and his friend fellow Shirakaba members adopted these revolutionary aesthetics of ‘romantic primitivism’ from these English Post-Impressionists critics. Bernard Leach’s role An English potter called Bernard Leach (1887–1979) played an extremely signiﬁcant role in the foundation of Mingei theory through his close relationship with Yanagi. Leach was born in Hong Kong into a wealthy family headed by his father who was a colonial barrister. Due to his mother’s death in childbirth, he was raised by his maternal grandparents who were missionaries in Japan until Leach reached the age of three. Then at the age of ten, he was sent to a Catholic public school, Beaumont College, followed by his brief study at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks. Faced with

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the death of his father in 1906, Leach joined the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, a career his father had planned for him, although his commitment was somewhat half-hearted, spending time as he did mingling with artists at Henry Lamb’s studio. Within nine months he had resigned from the bank, its environment proving too alien to his art-world inclinations and, determined to pursue the career of artist, found his way to the London School of Art where he could rejoin his old friend Reginald Turvey as well as meet inspirational artists such as Frank Brangwyn. After two years at the art school, he became engaged to his cousin Muriel Hoyle and travelled around Italy. During this time, his desire to go to Japan also grew through his reading of Lafcadio Hearn’s stories and through his friendship with Takamura Kótaró77 whom Leach had met at the London School of Art. He came to Japan in 1909 and stayed until 1920. Yanagi and Leach became acquainted around 1909 or 1910. Yanagi remembers his ﬁrst meeting with Leach as being on the occasion of attending Leach’s private etching class one day in September 1909 with other Shirakaba members.78 Leach however recalls that he met Yanagi for the ﬁrst time in the spring of 1910 at a Tokyo exhibition arranged by the Shirakaba group.79 Leach became deeply involved in the activities of the Shirakaba circle. Leach wrote an article, translated by Yanagi, about etching in November 1911, exhibited his works in exhibitions arranged by the Shirakaba group in 1911 and designed a front page for all the 1913 issues of Shirakaba (Figure 1.1). The bonding between Yanagi and Leach seemed to become stronger after the experience at Mount Akagi in 1913 as recounted in Yanagi’s favourite reminiscence.80 Leach also met another important person, Tomimoto Kenkichi, whom he met through Reginald Turvey. When Turvey came to Japan to visit Leach in June 1910, Tomimoto, who was returning to Japan after nineteen months’ stay in Britain, was on the same ship. Turvey introduced Tomimoto to Leach in July, a month after their arrival in Japan. After Turvey left, Leach’s relationship with Tomimoto developed further, as Leach considered Tomimoto to be ‘a legacy from Reggie’,81 and Leach and Tomimoto became soulmates who shared a similar artistic ideal cultivated in Britain and Japan. The following year they also discovered a common interest in pottery and began an apprenticeship under Kenzan the Sixth. During his stay in Japan, Leach developed his career as a potter and became an inﬂuential ﬁgure in the Japanese art world. He also made a number of contacts and friendships which would have a strong signiﬁcance for the shaping of the crafts world of the twentieth century. One such friendship was formed when he met potter Hamada Shóji, who became a lifelong friend, in 1918 at Leach’s exhibition at Ruitsusó. Leach came back to Britain with Hamada in the next year and set up a pottery with Hamada’s help in St Ives, Cornwall which was to later be called the Leach Pottery. Through his teaching and writings, he established himself as the father of British studio pottery which I discuss further on pages 233–235. His powerful preaching of the aesthetic standard of Oriental pottery, in his seminal book, A Potter’s Book (1940) had

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profound inﬂuence on modern studio pottery, while at the same time his contribution to the development of the Mingei movement after the Second World War in the international arena is legendary. So ambiguous is Leach’s involvement in the formative years of the Mingei movement that Brian Moeran was frustrated with the lack of reference to the matter by Yanagi or Leach himself.82 However Leach’s role is unmistakably important in liaising between Yanagi and English modern ideas. First, Leach can be seen as implanting the English views of ‘Orientalim’ and ‘primitivism’ in Yanagi. During his student years at the London School of Art, Leach was captivated by the stories of Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904) which depicted a fantasy world of old Japan painted by mythic folk tales.83 As Edmund de Waal has pointed out, Leach’s Orientalism, which had mediated images of Japan as ‘child-like’, ‘mystical’ and ‘spiritual’, is largely constructed from the fantasy world of Lafcadio Hearn.84 During his stay in Japan, Leach also shared with Tomimoto a fascination with the beauty of the ‘primitive savage art’ of Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria and that of the Ainu, exhibited at the colonial exhibition in 191285 which can also be seen as his extension of his ‘romantic primitivism’. Leach also played a role in giving Yanagi insight into the Post-Impressionists, in particular, the English views of it. As Yanagi’s letter shows that it was Leach who gave Yanagi his highly esteemed view of an English translation of Julius Meier-Graefe’s Modern Art, and he sent Yanagi a copy of Frank Rutter’s Revolution in Art which, as discussed earlier, became the key texts by which Yanagi learned of the PostImpressionists.86 It is also possible that Roger Fry and the information about the Grafton Galleries exhibitions came to Yanagi through Leach. As Kawada Tokiko pointed out, Leach had been familiar with the Bloomsbury group through his membership in the Friday Club that had been established by Vanessa Stephen (Bell) in 1905 for the purpose of providing a forum for painters’ gathering and for organising exhibitions.87 Leach’s ‘romantic primitivism’ derived from Hearn and the English views of the PostImpressionists must have been deeply absorbed by Yanagi. Leach can also be seen as giving Yanagi ﬁrst-hand knowledge of the English Arts and Crafts ideas notably, those of John Ruskin and William Morris. Leach had been familiar with Ruskin for a long time. At Beaumont College, he read John Ruskin’s Modern Painters avidly – in his recollection, ‘without prompting from any masters, or anything except my own heart. I allocated the whole of it.’88 In a lecture he gave in Japan in 1921 Leach also stated, I thought of John Ruskin as my father at that time.89 I thought he was beautiful and I still like him very much. When I entered an art school, I started to hate him, then I like him now again. He was a very serious man.90 As is also apparent from his education at art school, Leach had become familiar with Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement as well by being in

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an environment which was under the direct inﬂuence of that movement. Speciﬁcally he was taught at the London School of Art by Frank Brangwyn who had worked for Morris. Thus when Leach went to Japan in 1909, he was fully armed with knowledge of the aesthetics of Ruskin, Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement and was able to share this knowledge with his Japanese friends: I am always thinking of a plan for the combined necessary making of a living and the pursuit of art. My present idea is the formation of a group somewhat on William Morris lines by Takamura, Tomi[moto], self and a few others. Painting, sculpture, porcelain, lacquer, etc., to be exhibited in our own gallery.91 This passage, from 1911, shows Leach’s involvement with his Japanese friends and conﬁrms that they shared Morris’s aesthetic ideal. For instance, Leach’s furniture designed in Japan around that time was presumably a part of his Morrisian project. He probably created Occidental-style furniture for his house out of his own necessity but it was also received by Japanese artist-craftsmen with enthusiasm. His three-legged chairs, epitomising modern arts and crafts ideals and ‘Orientalism’, and made of Japanese cedar in a peculiar Anglo-Japanese ‘hybrid’ style,92 with the chair upholstered in material inspired by Japanese ﬁremen’s quilted coats, had a great impact on artist-craftsman like Hamada, who described them as ‘very close to life, to living, and very exotic and unusual’93 (Figure 1.2). Chairs were important objects for the modern ‘culture life’ (bunka seikatsu) at that time, symbolising the culture of the Occident, modern and ‘rational’ living and, above all, represented an exciting project for new artist-craftsmen as part of a new ﬁeld called ‘interior design’. As part of their artistic expression, many Japanese designers experimented in designing chairs in a peculiar hybrid style and integrated them into modern Japanese living. Leach’s Morrisian ideal, which coincided with Japanese ideas of ‘modern’, had a profound impact on the Japanese people, including Yanagi and his circle of friends. Leach recollected Yanagi’s keen interest in Morris during his time with Yanagi in Abiko around 1916–19: Living beside a kiln deepened this attraction and caused him (Yanagi) to consider the issues of craftsmanship in our time, especially the transitions attendant upon the change from local folkcrafts to individual, or artist craftsmanship. Naturally the English movement under William Morris was the subject of much discussion, and I clearly recollect how he questioned me about an equivalent term for peasant or folk art, in Japanese. No word existed, and he ﬁnally composed the word mingei, which means ‘art of the people’ and has now become part of the Japanese language.94

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Figure 1.2 Bernard Leach, a cedar table and chairs, table H51.5ǂD54.5, chairs H91.0, c.1919, David Leach/Crafts Study Centre. These were made during the Abiko period and exhibited at the Ruitsusó exhibition. The design of the rug on the ﬂoor was inspired by a ﬁreman’s coat. From Ryúzaburó Shikiba, Bánádo Ríchi (Bernard Leach), Tokyo: Kensetsusha, 1932.

The passage is important in terms of Yanagi’s claim to genuine originality with regards to his Mingei theory. It has been widely claimed that the coining of the term mingei by Yanagi, Kawai and Hamada occurred in 1925 during their trip to see mokujikibutsu, in accordance with Yanagi’s record. However Leach’s record shows that Yanagi had started thinking about the term much earlier than that and had tried to translate the English terms ‘peasant’ and ‘folk art’ into Japanese. It seems clear that Leach was the catalyst for Yanagi and his friends to absorb the English Arts and Crafts ideas.

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Tomimoto Kenkichi’s role95 Tomimoto Kenkichi (1886–1963) also played an important role, as indeed had Leach, in the early stage of the Mingei movement, particularly during 1912–14 when Tomimoto was noticeably active in propagating the English Arts and Crafts ideas. Tomimoto was born into a wealthy family who were well known as landowners for generations in Nara. He grew up in an environment in which he became immersed in his family’s cultivated taste for Chinese poetry and its connoisseurship of calligraphy and pottery. After studying at the local primary school and high school, he went to Tokyo School of Art from 1904 to 1908. Tomimoto studied architecture and interior design at this top academy where his teachers included Ósawa Sannosuke, who ﬁrst introduced Ebenezer Howard’s ideas of the Garden City movement to Japan in the 1910s, and Iwamura Tóru, Ruskinian, Morrisian and pioneer art historian in modern Japan. Greatly inﬂuenced by English aesthetic ideas learned through these teachers, Britain came to occupy a special place throughout Tomimoto’s life. When Ósawa Sannosuke and his best friend painter Minami Kunzó went to London to study, he immediately followed them, arranging the early submission of his ﬁnal architectural design project, ‘a musician’s cottage’ with tall chimneys in the English Arts and Crafts style in line with Richard Norman Shaw and Philip Webb (Figure 1.3). He came to London in 1908 to further his study of Morris and Whistler and learned stained glass for three months in an evening course at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. However, he spent most of the time sketching in the countryside, visiting the Red House and studying by himself at the South Kensington Museum (now Victoria and Albert Museum)96 where he sketched several hundred objects including the ﬂower patterns of a Persian carpet, ﬂower patterns of a Turkish embroidery and geometric patterns of an Indian window screen.97 The end of 1909 brought Tomimoto the unique opportunity to work as assistant to Niinomi Takamasa, an architect commissioned by the government to undertake research on Islamic and Indian architecture in order to design pavilions and hotels for a planned international exhibition in Tokyo. They travelled in Egypt and India for about three months. Like Morris and other Arts and Crafts designers, Tomimoto was fascinated by Islamic and Indian designs. Later, Islamic mosques appeared in the shapes of his pots and in the embroidered pattern of his textiles (Figure 1.4), and Islamic geometric designs and Indian textile designs were appropriated into his quatrefoil and fern patterns (Figure 1.5). What Tomimoto had absorbed from the English Arts and Crafts ideal, in particular, the ideas of the ‘art of the people,’ the moral aesthetic of country and nature, and even Orientalism, eventually formed the base of his design principle and ﬂowered on his return to Japan. Returning to Japan in 1910, Tomimoto met Leach, and as discussed earlier they formed a strong friendship learning the craft of pottery while sharing Arts and Crafts ideas together. Tomimoto’s unpub-

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Figure 1.3 Tomimoto Kenkichi, ‘A Musician’s Cottage’, watercolour on paper, L61.0ǂW91.0, 1909, the ﬁnal architectural design project at Tokyo Fine Arts School. Piece held in the collection of the Art Museum of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.

lished letters in broken English to Leach reveal both his ambitions and new ideas of design, as well as his loneliness among the people who did not yet understand his craft ideal and design works. Between 1912 and 1914 Tomimoto published a series of important essays, extensively publicising his concept of the ‘art of the people’.98 ‘Wiriamu Morisu no Hanashi’ (The Story of William Morris) constitutes the ﬁrst short biography of Morris in Japanese. It also includes a detailed description of the Red House and a description of works in the South Kensington Museum which Tomimoto saw during his stay in England. Although since the 1890s Morris had been introduced to Japan as a socialist, the introduction of Morris as designer and polemicist of the ‘art of the people’ is due to Tomimoto. Tomimoto praised Morris’s sincerity and originality in creating the ‘lesser arts’, concluding that the ‘ “originality of an artist” and “eternal beauty” should not only be recognised in paintings and sculptures but also in textiles, metal works and all the crafts’.99 ‘Hyakushóya no Hanashi’ (The Story of Peasant Houses) describes the simple and functional beauty found in peasant houses in Ando village in Nara where he was born and grew up. In this article, he coined the term minkan geijutsu (folk art) to deﬁne peasant houses which clearly articulates

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Figure 1.4 Tomimoto Kenkichi, a table cloth with Turkish mosque design, embroidery, linen, L264.0ǂW77.0, c.1912–16. Piece held in the collection of the Tomimoto Kenkichi Memorial Museum.

the English Arts and Crafts ideal. He wrote to Leach in 1911: ‘I expect I can build nearly same cottage to English peasant house [sic]’100 and after his sensational marriage in 1915 to Otake Kazue, a so-called ‘new woman’ artist and a member of Seitósha (Blue Stocking),101 he built his own peasant house, equivalent to the ‘Red House’ and proudly sent its plan to Leach. Ando village for Tomimoto signiﬁed a sacred place in a modern life, ﬁlled with intellectual discussions with a ‘new woman’. The surrounding nature and purity was a source of creative inspiration, and far from the polluted and ailing city of Tokyo. ‘Kógeihin ni kansuru Shiki yori’ (A

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Figure 1.5 Tomimoto Kenkichi, a jar with cover, ‘quatrefoil design’, overglazed enamels, H17.5ǂD22.1, 1955. Piece held in the collection of the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art, Kanazawa. Source of photograph: Tomimoto Kenkichi Exhibition Catalogue, To kyo : Natio nal Museum o f Mo dern Art, 1991, (p. 60, Fig. 126).

Personal Opinion on Crafts) and ‘Isu no Hanashi’ (The Story of Chairs) show his cultivated views on international crafts and the modern perspectives through which craft could be seen as art.102 His views are also strongly coloured by the English Orientalism which he discovered and absorbed particularly through the way South Kensington Museum collected and taxonomised the Oriental crafts. Tomimoto was made aware of the aesthetic quality of crafts as an independent entity of art, and was also drawn to the Museum’s Oriental crafts including Japanese textiles, Indian textiles, Persian pottery and carpets collected for the merits of aesthetic excellence.103 ‘Takushoku Hakurankai no Ichinichi’ (One Day at the Colonial Exhibition) summarises Tomimto’s application of this Orientalism and Primitivism nurtured by the Arts and Crafts aesthetic ideas. This reveals Tomimoto’s and Leach’s excitement at seeing ‘savage’ art – crafts made by the Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan who live mainly in Hokkaidó, and crafts made

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by the indigenous mountain peoples of Taiwan, at the Takushoku Colonial Exposition. It is apparent that Tomimoto’s interest in folk art, evident in this series of essays, preceded Yanagi’s interest in mingei. Tomimoto also actively exhibited his works of the ‘art of the people’. For the Bijutsu Shinpó exhibition at Gorakuden in Tokyo in 1911, Leach and Tomimoto designed interiors and Tomimoto made Morrisian rush chairs104 (Figure 1.6). This was followed by a series of exhibitions in Tokyo, particularly until around 1914, in which he exhibited a wide range of design and craft works including pottery, woodcut prints, carved wooden toys, furniture, dyed textiles, rugs, embroidery and design drawings. 1914 also saw the launch of Tomimoto Kenkichi Zuan Jimusho, a design ofﬁce in the style of Morris. Like Morris & Co., it offered various services such as the design or creation of wallpaper, furniture, interior design, pottery, textiles, embroidery, metalwork, woodwork, lacquer ware, the design of stage sets, and book and advertisement design. Although this ofﬁce appears not to have survived more than a few months,105 it is signiﬁcant for what it reveals about how profoundly he absorbed the ideas of Morris. Tomimoto was then involved in Yanagi’s circle as a Morrisian studio potter, an architect and versatile designer. Yanagi and Tomimoto presumably met through Tomimoto’s best school friend Minami Kunzó and Leach. Minami was involved in the Shirakaba group and had an exhibition in July

Figure 1.6 Tomimoto Kenkichi and Bernard Leach, chairs designed by Tomimoto, wall hangings with stencil design by Leach, at the Bijutsu Shinpó Exhibition of ‘Small Works by Young Artists’ at Gorakuden, Tokyo, 1 May 1911. From Bijutsu Shinpó (Art News), 10(7), 1911 (p. 208).

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1910 arranged by them. Tomimoto must have come up to Tokyo from his home in Nara for this exhibition. So Tomimoto met Yanagi and Leach at almost the same period in the summer of 1910. They became friends but Tomimoto’s friendship with Yanagi was uneven. For some reason, during the period of 1910–15 Tomimoto was intentionally neglected in Shirakaba. Shirakaba reported on the exhibition in 1912 arranged by Bijutsu Shinpó (Art News), the centre of the art scene at that time, but did not refer to Tomimoto even though he had been given a whole room to exhibit the design drawings he had created in London and other progressive works which numbered more than 150 items in total.106 When the Venus Club Gallery opened in 1913, there were three major opening exhibitions. The ﬁrst exhibition was of works by Umehara Ryúzaburó, the second of works by Kishida Ryúsei, Takamura Kótaró and two others, and the third of works by Tomimoto. Shirakaba reported only the ﬁrst and the second.107 Then in 1914, when the Mikasa Gallery opened, again there were three opening exhibitions, Arishima’s works in the ﬁrst, Tomimoto’s in the second and Kishida’s in the third and again Shirakaba only reported the ﬁrst108 and the third.109 This seems incomprehensible but Shirakaba and, in particular, Yanagi who wrote most of these reviews, didn’t seem to want to give any publicity to Tomimoto: an action which might be taken as smacking of rivalry. The real reasons are not yet known but speculations point to Tomimoto’s harsh criticism of Rodin,110 whom Yanagi and the Shirakaba group admired enormously, and the fact that Tomimoto valued Maillol higher than Rodin. Shirakaba published a special issue featuring Rodin for the anniversary of his seventieth birthday in August 1910 and another issue in February 1912 featuring Rodin’s letter to Shirakaba and his gift of three sculptures in return for thirty nishikie prints which had been presented to him by the Shirakaba group. The friendship between Tomimoto and Yanagi progressed fairly smoothly after 1916, which was when Leach built his workshop on Yanagi’s property in Abiko. Yanagi’s discovery of Korean crafts led to his sharing this interest with Tomimoto in Korean pottery through mutual friends such as the Asakawa brothers, experts in Korean pottery living in Korea. Yanagi and Tomimoto also shared an interest in the ideas of ‘art of the people’, which subsequently developed into the Mingei movement. After Leach left Japan in 1920, Yanagi and Tomimoto’s friendship continued until around 1928 through mutual friends, Leach and Hamada, who kept corresponding and passing information among themselves. In 1921, Yanagi wrote an article about Tomimoto’s Pottery111 and in 1922 Tomimoto wrote an article about pottery of the Korean Yi-Dynasty,112 both of which were published in Shirakaba. Yanagi used highly elevated terms of praise with regard to Tomimoto’s pots and his style in this ﬁrst writing about Tomimoto was digniﬁed, while Tomimoto’s article, dedicated to Yanagi, echoed with the romantic and poetical tones Yanagi usually used. There was no ice in their relationship at this point. During this period Tomimoto was, for Yanagi, a replacement for Leach and Hamada after they

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had left Japan. Then Hamada returned in 1923 and Yanagi formed a new circle, with Hamada and Kawai, and together they travelled all over Japan collecting crafts. Tomimoto’s last co-operative involvement with Yanagi was in 1926 when he signed his name to Nihon Mingei Bijutsukan Setsuritsu Shuisho (Prospectus for the establishment of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum).113 Towards the late 1920s, Tomimoto began expressing his opinions that were opposed to Yanagi and his Mingei movement, which I discuss further on pages 211–214. The more general friendship between Yanagi, Leach and Tomimoto lasted until 1946 when Tomimoto completely separated himself from the Mingei group. It appears that it is because of this complex relationship that Tomimoto’s contribution to the formation of Mingei theory has never been properly acknowledged. Excessive highlighting of Tomimoto’s attack and subsequent separation from the Mingei movement tends to cast a shadow over his early ground-breaking activities. However, as I discussed, the ideas Tomimoto put forward in his early publications and design works cannot be ignored as an inﬂuential precedent for the development of the Mingei movement. His series of essays on the ‘art of the people’ appeared much earlier than any of the peasant art and folkcrafts movements that ﬂowered in the 1920s including the Mingei movement. Tomimoto’s term minkan geijutsu also preceded Yanagi’s coining of mingei by more than ten years.114 Yanagi, as a vigorous reader, must surely have read Tomimoto’s articles and observed his wide-ranging innovative activities in crafts and design but he has left no comments about them. Nor have the Mingei critics ever paid any attention to Tomimoto’s activity before 1915. It is as though Yanagi did not know Tomimoto before that time. It is perhaps because of Yanagi’s jealousy toward Tomimoto because of the latter’s direct experience of the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain, his being equipped with a substantial knowledge of modern crafts aesthetic and the fact that he enjoyed a closer relationship with Leach. Whatever the reason may be, it is now appropriate that Tomimoto’s signiﬁcant role should be reviewed and critically assessed as an important part of the development of the Mingei movement.

‘Art of the people’ and medievalism: Ruskin, Morris and Japanese peasant art movements The ‘art of the people’ as a Japanese modern vision The years from 1910 through to the late 1920s, which include the Taishó period (1912–26), are one of the most signiﬁcant periods in modern Japanese intellectual history. Mass communication developed radically and numerous translations ensured that Occidental ideas were simultaneously transplanted and disseminated throughout Japanese culture. This period is also important in that it saw the beginning of the continuing debate on ‘overcoming modernity’ (kindai no chókoku) which questioned Occidental-

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style modernisation and searched for an alternative indigenous approach.115 It was during this time that criticism of modern industrial capitalism by Ruskin, Morris and Tolstoy became very popular and triggered Japanese social criticism which in turn led to the development of various social movements.116 Japanese intellectuals questioned modernisation both in its international and Japanese contexts. Encouraged by revisionist Occidental ideas, they searched for an alternative Japanese-style modernisation with its own national cultural identity. As in England, Germany, Sweden, Russia and India, ‘art of the people’, ‘art and beauty of life’ and ‘peasant art’ were among the most important concepts of Japanese modernisation. This new concept gave a vision for modern democratic Japan. It also created an opportunity to construct a Japanese tradition by successfully combining Occidental anti-historical, anti-modern, socialist ideas and the Japanese vernacular ‘agrarian myth’.117 Many works expressing this modern vision were published: Minshú Geijutsuron (Art of the People) by Kató Kazuo (1919), ‘Minshú Geijutsu no Igi to Kachi’ (The Signiﬁcance and Value of Art of the People, 1916) and Seikatsu no Geijutsuka (The Beautiﬁcation of Life) by Honma Hisao (1925). In 1917 Ósugi Sakae translated Romain Rolland’s People’s Theatre as Minshú Geijutsuron (Art of the People), and a number of related journals such as Seikatsu to Geijutsu (Life and Art, 1913), Minzoku Geijutsu (Art of the People, 1928) and Kógei (Crafts, 1931) appeared. There were also journals of peasant art such as Nómin Bijutsu (Peasant Art, 1924), while other art journals such as Mizue (Watercolour), Geijutsu Jiyú Kyóiku (Free Art Education) and Kógei Jidai (The Age of Crafts) produced special issues on peasant art in the 1920s.118 It is in this environment that various peasant art movements developed, which I discuss later. John Ruskin and William Morris in Japan The Japanese modern ideal of the ‘art of the people’ was formed from different sources but the reception of the ideas of John Ruskin and William Morris in Japan is crucially important. The works of Ruskin and Morris in the context of English literature, socialism, art and other ﬁelds were introduced into Japan from the late 1880s (the middle of the Meiji period) when Yanagi had just been born. Ruskin was introduced as early as 1888 in a popular magazine Kokumin no Tomo (Friends of the Nation) by Tokutomi Sohó, an eminent writer and journalist. Shimazaki Tóson, a well-known romantic poet, who later became a novelist of the Naturalist school during the years 1896 to 1900, translated part of Ruskin’s Modern Painters and investigated clouds in the Komoro region where he lived, following Ruskin’s classiﬁcation of clouds. Murai Tomoyoshi introduced Ruskin and Morris as socialists for the ﬁrst time in Shakai Shugi (Socialism) in 1899. Under the inﬂuence of Ruskin’s aesthetics of nature, Kojima Usui established the Japan Alpine Club in 1905 and introduced mountaineering as a recrea-

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tional activity in Japan. Iwamura Tóru, a leading art critic wrote the ﬁrst and most extensive biographical article on Ruskin titled ‘John Ruskin’ in Bijutsu Hyóron (Art Criticism) in 1900. Iwamura translated Ruskin’s Oxford lectures in 1902, and Natsume Sóseki also analysed Ruskin and his Christian aesthetics in Bungakuron (Literary Criticism) in 1907. Between 1900 and 1908, Myójó (Morning Star), a magazine central to Japanese Romanticism, also carried several articles on Ruskin in connection with the PreRaphaelites and Whistler. Kawakami Hajime, one of the most important economic and social theorists of the Taishó and Shówa periods, introduced Ruskin’s economic and social theory from 1917. From the late 1910s to the 1920s many translations of Ruskin’s works were published. Christian socialists Kagawa Toyohiko and Mikimoto Ryúzó became leading Ruskinians, publishing numerous translations, articles and books on Ruskin from the 1920s on, and became actively involved in the labour movement. Mikimoto established the Tokyo Ruskin Society in 1931 with Tókyó Rasukin Kyókai Zasshi (Tokyo Ruskin Society Magazine). According to my research, by 1927, when Yanagi published Kógei no Michi, at least 102 items on Ruskin, including journal articles, monographs and translations, had been published.119 Morris was ﬁrst introduced in Eikoku Bungakushi (History of English Literature) by Shibue Tamotsu in 1891. As noted above, Murai Tomoyoshi introduced Morris with Ruskin as socialists in Shakai Shugi in 1899. A translation of News from Nowhere by Sakai Toshihiko appeared in Heimin Shinbun (People’s News), a socialist paper, in 1904, fourteen years after its publication. Tomimoto Kenkichi wrote the ﬁrst extensive biographical article in Japanese on Morris, ‘Wiriamu Morisu no Hanashi’ (A Story of William Morris) in 1912 in Bijutsu Shinpó (Art News), a central art magazine of this period. Iwamura Tóru also wrote an extensive biographical article, ‘Wiriamu Morisu to Shumiteki Shakaishugi’ (William Morris and Aesthetic Socialism120) in Bijutsu to Shakai (Art and Society) in 1915. Many publications about Morris in connection with guild socialism and design existed and by 1927, at least 139 items on Morris had been published.121 Among this huge number of publications on Ruskin and Morris, there are three particularly important books. These are Murobuse Kóshin’s books titled Girudo Shakaishugi (Guild Socialism) published in 1920, Bunmei no Botsuraku (The Decline of Civilisation) in 1923 and Tsuchi ni Kaeru (Back to the Land) in 1924. They lasted for a long time on the best-seller list during the 1920s and they are remarkable for their representation of the intellectual climate of the period. The author was a journalist, who was quick to catch the most up-to-date information from the Occident, and the books provide a digest of the theories of popular philosophers and theorists in the Occident such as Marx, Tolstoy, Ruskin, Morris and Spengler. Murobuse made frequent reference to Ruskin and Morris. In Girudo Shakaishugi, he devoted one chapter to the discussion of William Morris and his relationship with Ruskin, and asserted that ‘[Robert] Owen and Morris are the Adam and Eve of Guild Socialism’.122 In Bunmei no Botsuraku, he quoted

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from The Stones of Venice and Unto This Last, conveying Ruskin’s appreciation of Gothic Art, and his claim that the signiﬁcance of religion and art as an essence of culture had been degraded by a civilisation whose essence was politics and economy.123 It was said that this book was so popular that young people who wanted to be seen as intellectuals would carry this book with them.124 The ideas of Ruskin and Morris also spread widely through numerous publications and through high-school English textbooks, and their popularity seems to have reached a peak in the 1920s and 1930s, when Yanagi was active in formulating his Mingei theory. At the beginning of this chapter, I quoted Yanagi’s claim that he did not know much about Ruskin and Morris before he read Shakai Kaikakusha toshiteno Rasukin to Morisu (Ruskin and Morris as Social Reformers) by Ókuma Nobuyuki, published in 1927. However in view of the historical context in which Ruskin and Morris were avidly read, it is difﬁcult to believe that Yanagi, being a member of the Shirakaba circle and a vigorous book reader, would not have known about Ruskin and Morris before 1927. There is also other evidence of Yanagi’s reading and interest in Ruskin and Morris. The Japan Folk Crafts Museum currently possesses the Yanagi archive which includes Yanagi’s voluminous private collection.125 Some of the books, such as William Morris Prose Selections and Post-Industrialism, have Yanagi’s meticulous reading notes, from which his reading and thinking can be traced. Jugaku Bunshó also recollected Yanagi’s enthusiasm on reading Mackail’s biography of Morris before Yanagi began the Mingei movement.126 It is also documented that Yanagi possessed ﬁve books by Ruskin and Morris published by Kelmscott Press and exhibited these in the William Morris centenary exhibition at Maruzen bookstore, Tokyo in 1934. Therefore, in view of this contextual evidence, it is natural to deduce that Yanagi’s Mingei theory was cultivated in a contemporary cultural environment in which the ideas of Ruskin and Morris were extremely popular. Ruskin’s ‘art of the people’ and Guild of St George The ideas of the ‘art of the people’ by Ruskin and Morris are strongly coloured by medievalism and a romantic primitivism which idealised peasant life. Ruskin and Morris called for the revival of the ‘art of the people’ which had ﬂowered in medieval times but which had gradually disappeared. It was deﬁned as an expression of ‘pleasure in labour’ when life was wholesome and meaningful in the context of a healthy and moral society. Ruskin lamented the degradation of labour and its grinding joylessness in modern times, saying: Degradation of the operative into a machine, which, more than any other evil of the times, is leading the mass of the nations everywhere into vain, incoherent, destructive struggling for a freedom of which they cannot explain the nature to themselves. . . . It is not that men are

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ill fed, but that they have no pleasure in the work by which they make their bread, and therefore look to wealth as the only means of pleasure.127 Ruskin believed that ‘good labour’ was a precious education for the wellrounded personality, and, most signiﬁcantly, that it created a moral basis for human beings and for society. Ruskin’s belief was inherited by his disciple, Morris, who emphasised ‘pleasure in labour’128 and ‘good work’ which has three qualities, namely ‘hope of rest’, ‘hope of product’ and ‘hope of pleasure’.129 Ruskin published Fors Clavigera, monthly ‘Letters to The Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain’ during 1871–8 and 1880–4, which were instrumental in disseminating his ideas for the projects of the Guild of St George. In these ninety-six letters he describes his ideal of man within a utopian society and the topics range from the economy, education, natural science and religion to art and music. It was in the simple and moral life of peasants that Ruskin saw a model for the ‘art and beauty of life’. He particularly idealised the peasants who lived in the hill country of Italy and Switzerland, and edited Francesca Alexander’s illustrated essays of peasant life, The Story of Ida (1883), Christ’s Folk in the Apennine (1887, 1889), her illustrated collection of peasant songs, Roadside Songs of Tuscany (1885), and Jeremias Gotthelf ’s story, Ulric the Farm Servant (1886–8). Ruskin also put his ideas into practice by the creation of the medievalistic guild with a modern nostalgic phantasm of ‘old England’. Ruskin established the foundation for the Guild of St George in 1871. It was ofﬁcially registered in 1878 and by 1885 it had ﬁfty-seven members. It was an utopian experimental project aimed at combating social injustices and putting into practice his ideals of human social organisation. A variety of schemes were developed and although Ruskin’s quixotic vision was never fully realised, the Guild still survives to the present day. It sprang from the necessity in modern England of reviving the trust of past times in conscience, rather than in competition, for the production of good work; and in common feeling, rather than in common interests; for the preservation of national happiness and the reﬁnement of national manners. The promise to be honest, industrious, and helpful (that is to say, in the broadest sense charitable) is therefore required from all persons entering the Guild.130 The Guild was made up of Ruskin as Master and two distinct groups of members, one comprising his followers from the upper classes as Companions/Friends, and the other, working-class labourers. It had grand schemes including the acquisition and cultivation of land, industrial enterprises, the education of labourers, the establishment of museums and schools, the preservation of rural crafts, and programmes of communal manual labour by the gentry. Ruskin actually managed to realise the

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following projects: road sweeping at St Giles in London in 1872 by four workmen whom he employed, a tea shop in Paddington opened in 1874 to sell commodities to the poor in as small a measure as practically possible with the least proﬁt to the shop; and road repairs on the Hinksey road near Oxford in 1874, with ‘Hinksey diggers’ consisting of Oxford undergraduate students. He also established St George’s Farm in Totley, Shefﬁeld in 1877, St George’s Museum in Walkley, Shefﬁeld, in 1885, projects for the homespinning of wool at Laxey, Isle of Man, and Longdale home-spun linen at Coniston and Keswick in the Lake District, a co-operative textile ﬁrm in Huddersﬁeld and property management of worker housing in Marylebone, London, and St George’s Cottage in Barmouth, Wales. Among all these, Ruskin’s projects in Shefﬁeld are important in terms of his total idea of ‘life as art’, combining agricultural experiments and educational programmes. They were intended to show ‘how much foodproducing-land might be recovered by well-applied labour from the barren or neglected districts of normally cultivated countries’ and ‘what tone and degree of reﬁned education could be given to persons maintaining themselves by agricultural labour’.131 He chose Shefﬁeld because it was the centre of iron and metal work and had highly skilled artisans, saying I acknowledge Iron work as an art always necessary and useful to man, and English work in iron as masterful of its kind . . . Not for this reason only, however, but because Shefﬁeld is in Yorkshire, and Yorkshire yet, in the main temper of its inhabitants, old English, and capable therefore of the ideas of Honesty and Piety by which old England lived.132 An area of 13 acres was bought in 1877 for Totley farm, off Mickley Lane, located at what is now the border of the city of Shefﬁeld and the Peak District. It was rented out free to labourers to use in their spare time for the cultivation of fruits suitable for the climate of Northern England, and some exotic plants. But because of severe weather, poor soil, a lack of mechanisation, and the labourers’ lack of agricultural experience, the project failed within the year. It was maintained by the people appointed by Ruskin until 1938 when it was sold into private hands, but it still exists as St George’s Farm. St George’s Museum was also founded in upper Walkley, now a dense residential area about 15 minutes’ bus ride from the town centre, but at that time it stood in the midst of the ‘picturesque’ nature of the Rivelin Valley, part of the Peak District, standing on a hill from which it overlooked one enduring cloud of smoke, and a pale-faced teeming population, and tall chimneys and ash heaps covered with squalid children picking them over, and dirty alleys, and courts and houses half rooﬂess, and a river running black through the midst of them.133

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This location emphasising the unique contrast of Nature and industry was ‘chosen not to keep the collection out of smoke, but expressly to beguile the artisans out of it’.134 The purpose of the museum was the ‘liberal education of the artisan’.135 Ruskin intended to give a ‘moral and intellectual education by a museum in which objects of Art and Natural History are chosen for their beauty and goodness, arranged in visually illustrative order, and intelligently and completely explained’.136 The museum had a gallery, library and study room and its collections included paintings, photographs, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, casts in plaster, works on natural science, and minerals.137 Ruskinian peasant art movements in Japan Ruskinian ideas of guild and social reformation triggered the questions of moral conscience to the Japanese intellectuals of a privileged class. The Shirakaba group was a typical example of those who seriously appropriated Ruskinian ideas in their social activities. The Shirakaba group, after reading Tolstoy whose ideas were also greatly inspired by Ruskin, came to believe in idealistic humanism, equality and freedom among individuals and struggled to come to terms with their nobility and privilege. When faced with the reality of the contradiction that they belonged to a privileged class which oppressed others, they felt obliged to ﬁll the enormous gap that existed between modern idealism and the Japanese reality which still retained a residue from the traditional feudalistic system. Each Shirakaba member tried to resolve the problem in a different way. Shiga Naoya withdrew into his shell in order to afﬁrm his own humanity and avoid facing reality. Arishima Takeo carried out a Kyósei Nóen (Co-operative Farm) project, Mushanokóji Saneatsu initiated an Atarashiki Mura (New Village) project, and Yanagi developed the guild of folkcrafts as part of the Mingei movement, which I discuss later. Ruskinian ideas of moral social justice also became seeds of many other peasant art movements spread in Japan in the 1920s. I will discuss three typical movements by Mushanokóji Saneatsu, Yamamoto Kanae and Miyazawa Kenji to compare with the Mingei movement which developed in parallel. Mushanokóji Saneatsu and ‘the New Village’ Mushanokóji Saneatsu (1885–1976), born of a distinguished aristocratic family, was a prominent writer of the Shirakaba school. Under his uncle’s inﬂuence, he became an enthusiastic reader of Leo Tolstoy in his teenage years and came to believe in idealistic humanism, individual freedom and equality. Mushanokóji and his friends Shiga Naoya and Yanagi Sóetsu created an artists’ colony in Abiko, Chiba prefecture. There, they expressed their ideas of ‘humanism’ in novels and by means of critical writings, primarily on Western art and literature, in the magazine Shirakaba which

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attracted many young people. Mushanokóji’s Tolstoyan ideological thinking developed into a concrete project while living in Abiko from 1916 to 1918. Mushanokóji embarked on his Atarashiki Mura (New Village) project in 1918. He and his followers bought land in Kijó village in Miyazaki prefecture in Kyúshú and founded a self-sustaining communal village, which was later called ‘the ﬁrst Western village’. Tolstoy’s communal farm in Yasnaya Polyana became the model for Atarashiki Mura. His strong belief in communal village life with equality among people stemmed initially from his own sense of guilt at his aristocratic background, ‘taking advantage of social injustice’, which made him think that ‘the society had to become more rational than it is now, in order to even to get rid of my feeling of guilt’.138 This guilt was generally shared by his friends such as Arishima Takeo, in the Shirakaba group. Mushanokóji’s ‘New Village’ is often compared to Arishima’s ‘Kyósei Nóen (Co-operative Farm)’ project. Greatly inﬂuenced by the Russian anarchist Kropotkin, Arishima gave his familyowned farm, Kaributo Nóen in Hokkaidó to the local peasants for free, leaving it to them in 1922. Mushanokóji’s ideal for the village was that everyone becomes peasants. Each member has a duty to share in the communal labour which is ‘necessary for human beings to live a humane life’,139 and because they fulﬁl this duty everybody is provided with ‘the clothing, food and housing that are necessary for a healthy life’.140 It was a revolutionary project, though without violence, and would take ‘ten to twenty years’ to complete. Mushanokóji describes the various stages as follows: [The members must] work to their best capacity, develop the self and save money . . . collect taxes . . . buy land when enough money is saved, build houses and cultivate the land . . . buy machines . . . also ask patrons for support . . . do communal labour for not more than six hours a day . . . regard having rice ﬁeld, a farm and housing as a priority, but if there is more money, build . . . a library, an art gallery, a theatre, a meeting place, a concert hall and a school as well as a hospital . . . which are free for the villagers but also open to outsiders for a fee.141 He also had a grand dream for a clothing factory, a mine, a steel factory and a power station142 and eventually to expand his communal society in other countries.143 The village would also be ﬂexible, preserving ‘harmony’ and balancing the communal and private, and the village and outside society, over such issues as land ownership which, while fundamentally public, would make allowances also for private ownership. Decision-making would be through democratic discussions followed by a majority vote but room would still be left for minority views. The rules of society at large concerning national taxes and military service had to be obeyed.144 Accord-

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ing to his master plan, Atarashiki Mura functioned smoothly for about eight years with about ﬁfty people joining the village from all over Japan. They worked together to cultivate the land and produce rice, fruit, tea and to run a chicken farm as well as to educate each other through such creative activities as writing, painting, pottery-making, acting, or playing music in their spare time. They also had as many as about 1,000 external members and patrons, and published magazines such as Atarashiki Mura (1918–23), Seichósuru Hoshi no Gun (Constellation of Growing Stars) (1921–23), Ningen Seikatsu (Human Life) (1924), and Daichówa (Great Harmony) (1927). Mushanokóji himself was productive during his life in the Western ‘New Village’. He published his major works, Kófukumono (The Happy One) (1919), Yújó (Friendship) (1919), Aru Otoko (A Man) (1923), Daisan no Inja no Unmei (The Fate of the Third Hermit) (1921), Ningen Banzai (Hurrah for Humans) (1923). Yanagi gave great endorsement and trust to Mushanokóji, as one who believed ‘in creating a society united with love and believing in peace as absolute truth in the world’ as against the frightening stream of inhuman egoism in the modern world,145 and praised his project as one which exhibited ‘righteous human ideals’.146 All went smoothly until the announcement of the local government’s plan in 1936 to build a water dam on a site which partially included Atarashiki Mura. Search for another piece of land began. Soon the second, or Eastern ‘New Village’, in Moroyama town in Saitama prefecture was established and some villagers moved there from the Western village in 1939. During the Second World War, the ‘New Villages’ became almost extinct with only one family staying in each village, but the Eastern village gradually re-emerged after the War and still exists with about ﬁfty villagers who are self-sufﬁcient, producing rice, vegetables, fruit, mushrooms and chickens. The village has about 700 external members and patrons. It has an art gallery, an art studio, a communal hall, a kindergarten, a pottery and shops which sell vegetables to non-villagers. It has been agreed that the source of Mushanokóji’s ideas came mainly from Tolstoy, but Tolstoy’s Ruskinian English socialism can also be discerned in Mushanokóji’s ideas. For example, his pursuit of a humanistic wholesome life and his emphasis on ‘manual labour’ for everybody echoes Ruskin’s ideas. When questioning ‘true education’, he quoted from Ruskin, saying one must ask ‘can they plough, can they sow, can they plant at the right time, or build with a steady hand? Is it the effort of their lives to be chaste, knightly, faithful, holy in thought, lovely in word and deed?’147 One of the villagers, Naitó Toyoo, translated Ruskin’s ideas on Divine creation that explain that ‘all true happiness and nobleness’ is found by seeing ‘Him at His work’ – for example, ‘to watch the corn grow, and the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over ploughshare or spade; to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray’.148 He also translated Ruskin’s deﬁnition of true human labour which should be like creation by a poet ‘who puts things together, not as a watchmaker steel, or a shoemaker leather, but who puts life into

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them’.149 Another villager and writer, Kimura Sóta translated part of PreRaphaelitism150 and wrote an article on Unto This Last, saying ‘I fully agree with Ruskin’s criticism of egoistic economics’. 151 The ideas of Edward Carpenter, a follower of Ruskin and an English Christian social reformer, were also important for Atarashiki Mura. Just as Ruskin ran experimental projects in Shefﬁeld, Carpenter, an advocate of the ‘simple life’ and ‘manual labour,’ also moved from Cambridge to Millthorpe, near Shefﬁeld, to put his ideals into practice by market gardening and sandal-making. As is evident in the partial translation of Angels’ Wings and England’s Ideal by Nagashima Naoki, a villager and English literature scholar, Carpenter’s ideas on the ‘art of life’ appealed to the villagers of Atarashiki Mura. They pursued the humanistic life as ‘an expression of one’s Self ’ and the genuine work which is attained not ‘from Fear but from Love – not from slavish compulsion but from a real live interest in the creation of his hands’.152 Translations from ‘The Enchanted Thicket’, ‘Simpliﬁcation of Life’, ‘Desirable Mansions’, ‘England’s Ideal’ in England’s Ideal153 also appeared in Atarashiki Mura and Carpenter’s admonition against the over-consumption and materialism of the Victorian middle and upper classes seems to have been taken seriously by the villagers and put into practice. Yamamoto Kanae Yamamoto Kanae (1882–1946) was a western-style painter, pioneer printmaker of sósaku hanga (self-carved, self-printed prints),154 and a leader and educationalist in the children’s ‘free drawing’ movement and the ‘peasant art’ movement. He underwent an artisan’s training as a traditional woodblock engraver but also studied Fine Art at the Tokyo School of Art. At the age of twenty-two, he created a print entitled ‘A Fisherman’ in Myójó, which is now considered to be the ﬁrst sósaku hanga in Japan. In 1907, with his friends Ishii Hakutei and Morita Tsunetomo, he started the journal Hósun, which was the mouthpiece of the sósaku hanga movement. He went to Europe to study painting, mainly in Paris, from 1912 to 1916. However it was in Russia, where he stayed about ﬁve months in 1916 on the way back to Japan from Europe, that the real seeds of his life’s work were sown. His visit to Kustar (peasant art) museums, a peasant music concert, an exhibition of children’s creative paintings and Tolstoy’s house in Yasnaya Polyana, decided him on ‘two missions . . . one is the encouragement of “free drawing” for children, and the other is the creation of “peasant art” ’.155 On his return to Japan, he pursued these two missions with unfailing energy. Yamamoto lectured on the subject of ‘the Encouragement of Children’s Free Drawing’ (Jidó Jiyúga no Shórei) in 1918, and this lecture and the ﬁrst exhibition of ‘Children’s Free Drawings’, which quickly followed at Kangawa Primary School near Ueda city in Nagano prefecture, were welcomed by the public with such enthusiasm that Yamamoto’s methods

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were quickly propagated in schools nationwide. In 1919 he wrote Nihon Nómin Bijutsu Kengyó no Shuisho (A Proposal for a Project of Peasant Art in Japan), advocating ‘the creation of “Peasant art in Japan”, equivalent to “Peasant art in Russia”, in order to represent the life and times of the Japanese as an ethnic race and by doing so, to contribute to the artistic taste and wealth of the nation’.156 In the same year, he and his friends also began a four-month course of ‘peasant art’ which ran during the agricultural off-season from December to March at Kangawa Primary School. They had seven students in the men’s department, who mainly worked with wood, and sixteen students in the women’s department, most of whom were doing embroidery. As many as 1,153 items of their work made during this period were exhibited and almost completely sold out at the Mitsukoshi department store in Tokyo the next year. Exhibits include koppa ningyó (carved wooden ﬁgures of working people) (Figure 1.7), shirakabamaki (round containers wrapped with white birch bark), (Figure 1.8) wooden boxes, bowls, trays, paper-knives, cushions, table cloths, rug, tote bags and haneri (collars for kimono). Of these koppa ningyó and

Figure 1.7 Yamamoto Kanae and the students of the Japan Peasant Art Institute, Koppa Ningyó (wooden dolls), painted wood, n.d., 7.0ǂ3.0ǂ3.5; 9.5ǂ 4.5ǂ4.5; 6.2ǂ3.2ǂ3.5; 9.2ǂ5.5ǂ6.0/8.0ǂ3.0ǂ3.4/7.2ǂ2.8ǂ4.2. Pieces held in the collection of the Yamamoto Kanae Memorial Museum. Source of photograph: Yuko Kikuchi and Toshio Watanabe, Ruskin in Japan 1890–1940: Nature for Art, Art for Life, Tokyo: Cogito in conjunction with Kóriyama City Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 1997 (p. 50, Fig. 247).

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Figure 1.8 Yamamoto Kanae and the students of the Japan Peasant Art Institute, Shirakaba-maki (white birch box), white birch bark, wood, bamboo and paper, n.d., D3.8ǂH10.4, D6.4ǂH7.3. Pieces held in the collection of the Yamamoto Kanae Memorial Museum. Source of photograph: Yuko Kikuchi and Toshio Watanabe, Ruskin in Japan 1890–1940: Nature for Art, Art for Life, Tokyo: Cogito in conjunction with Kóriyama City Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 1997 (p. 249, Fig. 248).

shirakabamaki 157 became trademark products of ‘peasant art’ and the latter even acquired a patent. The great success of the exhibition drew more supporters from members of the public and local government, and Yamamoto’s ‘peasant art’ project progressed to the establishment of the Japan Peasant Art Institute (Nihon Nómin Bijutsu Kenkyújo) in 1923. The stated aims of the institute were: ﬁrst, the improvement of the ﬁnancial situation of peasants during the agricultural off-season; second, the cultivation of the peasants’ daily life through ﬁnancial and artistic improvement to their environment and through the use of their own decorative sense and skills to make them more self-sufﬁcient; and third,

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the improvement of crafts education in primary and middle schools from the view point of ‘self-sufﬁcient crafts’ (jiyó kógei). There was no tuition fee, the only charge being for materials. Applicants aged from ﬁfteen to forty were admitted. There were four courses including textiles and dyeing, crafts in wood, embroidery and lacquer. In every course, emphasis was put on design and ornamentation based on motifs from nature and excellence of craft technique to make the products marketable.158 The ‘peasant art’ project became even more successful with the subsidy of an ofﬁcial annual grant from the Ministry of Agriculture and Trade from 1925. Regular travelling courses in different areas of Japan led to the creation of ‘guildlike’ agricultural co-operatives for organising ‘peasant art’ which mushroomed ﬁrst in the Nagano prefecture, quickly spreading throughout the country to the extent that Japan had forty of these guilds in 1931. However with the economic depression and the decrease of the annual government grant from the early 1930s, the Japan Peasant Art Institute closed in 1935 leaving a large debt. Still, some of the co-operatives remain today – for example in Ueda city where city-dwellers continue to practise ‘peasant art’ as a hobby. Although for cost-effectiveness and competitive marketability Yamamoto had to make various compromises in manufacturing methods and product design towards the 1930s, at the beginning he had had high hopes for the principle of ‘peasant art’. His ideal is stated in 1923 in his deﬁnition of ‘peasant art’ as, crafts created by hand by peasants; crafts with characteristics of ethnic originality and vernacular design, simple and durable. Peasants’ taste and craft skills are used in this ‘home industry’ to help them earn a living, as well as to produce objects to be used by themselves thus increasing their own self-sufﬁciency.159 Although Yamamoto’s direct model was Swedish and Russian practice, these projects were themselves largely based on the theoretical ideals of Ruskin and Morris.160 Yamamoto was impressed by ‘kustar art’ (peasant art) such as wood-carving, ceramics, weaving and embroidery created in the self-supporting agricultural community and workshop of Talashkino, established by Princess M. K. Tenisheva on her estate in the province of Smolensk. Princess Tenisheva, a famous patron and leader of the kustar art revival in Russia at the turn of the century, followed Ruskin’s and Morris’s ideal of ‘art of the people’. Their ideas were successfully put into practice, combining the Russian interest in the construction of a national cultural identity through the revival of national style and tradition.161 Ruskin’s and Morris’s ideas were transferred through the Russian project to Yamamoto, in particular, contributing to his theories on social welfare and pleasure in life and labour. He wrote that ‘peasant art’ has two major aims: one is ‘to improve the private income of peasants’ and the other is ‘to bring pleasure

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in everyday life’.162 He also wrote, ‘Every human being is gifted with a delight in beauty and the creativity to express it’,163 and he observed the lively behaviour of the students who came to the newly opened course for ‘peasant art’ in 1919, saying ‘the whole place was ﬁlled with a joyous, free and harmonious rhythm which can only be found in pleasurable labour’.164 Yamamoto’s ideas were given further vitality by two of his colleagues, also admirers of Ruskin and Morris. One was Adachi Genichiró, who worked in the research section of the Institute. He wrote in his report on his research into ‘peasant art’ in Europe, ‘the Arts and Crafts and “art of life” movement was created by Ruskin and propagated by William Morris’ and underwent remarkable developments in the ‘peasant art’ movement in Scandinavia, in particular, Sweden, as in the case of the Skansen Nordiska Museet established by Artur Hazelius in 1891.165 The other colleague was Takizawa Mayumi, an architect who designed the building for the Japan Peasant Art Institute. It was in the style of a German farmhouse with Russian kustar workshops. Takizawa was an enthusiast for the revival of medieval Gothic culture and the guild system where the ‘art of the people’ could ﬂourish. He advocated the creation of ‘a true rural culture’, which would be quite unlike what he called the ‘dangerous culture’ of modern Japan centred in Tokyo.166 Miyazawa Kenji Miyazawa Kenji (1896–1933) was a poet, writer of children’s stories, garden designer, socialist, devotee of the Nichiren Buddhist cult, collector of ukiyoe woodblock prints, agricultural engineer, adviser and teacher. He was born and worked in Iwate, the north-eastern part of mainland Japan, at that time one of the country’s most deprived and barren agricultural areas, which he named ‘Ihatov’, an imaginary dreamland. He devoted his life to the local peasants and their environment, working towards the renaissance of a peasant culture. Although it was not until after his death that his life and activities became widely known, the last decade has seen a ‘Miyazawa Kenji boom’ in Japan. He has been described as a ‘creator of marginal art’ (genkai geijutsu no sakka)167 by Tsurumi Shunsuke. This concept of ‘marginal art’ suggests a wider category of art which embraces creativity on the very margins of art and life, transcending the solid deﬁnitions which were historically created in the Occident, of ‘pure art’ and ‘popular art’.168 In his contribution to the ideas of ‘art of the people’ and ‘art and beauty of life’, his particular point of reference is ‘art of peasant life’. His ideas are crystallised in three manuscripts related to ‘peasant art’ written in 1926: Nómin Geijutsu Gairon (Survey of Peasant Art), Nómin Geijutsu Gairon Kóyó (An Outline Survey of Peasant Art) and Nómin Geijutsu no Kóryú (The Revival of Peasant Art),169 and in his experimental educational project, Rasu Chijin Kyókai (Rasu

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Association for the Sons of the Soil). These works are particularly important in terms of John Ruskin’s and William Morris’s inﬂuence. Miyazawa refers to Morris three times in Nómin Geijutsu no Kóryú. Although he does not actually mention Ruskin, there are clear theoretical connections between Miyazawa and Ruskin through Morris as well as evidence from the reminiscence of a member of Rasu Chijin Kyókai that Miyazawa talked about Ruskin.170 Several critics, such as Onda Itsuo, who proposed that the ‘Rasu’ of Rasu Chijin Kyókai was a derivation from Ruskin,171 Kawabata Yasuo,172 Ishida Kiyoshi,173 Saitó Bunichi174 and Tada Yukimasa,175 also discussed the similarities of Miyazawa’s ideas with Ruskin’s and Morris’s, in particular, with reference to ‘life,’ ‘labour’ and ‘art of the people’. The three manuscripts mentioned above are considered to be a synopsis and preparation for his lecture series entitled Nómin Geijutsu Gairon (Survey of Peasant Art) given at Iwate Kokumin Kótó Gakkó (Iwate People’s Vocational College) and the Rasu Chijin Kyókai. The lectures are divided into ten sections: (1) Preface: What will we be discussing here?, (2) The revival of peasant art: why must our art arise anew?, (3) The essence of peasant art: what will create the core of our art?, (4) The ﬁelds of peasant art: how can they be classiﬁed?, (5) The various doctrines of peasant art: what kind of assertions are possible within these doctrines?, (6) The creation of peasant art: how shall we commence? how shall we advance?, (7) Creators of peasant art: what does the word ‘artist’ mean to us?, (8) The criticism of peasant art, (9) The synthesis of peasant art, (10) Conclusion. These manuscripts illustrate Miyazawa’s unique vision of peasant art and his spiritual encouragement of peasants, with their vast potential for creating an art of life. In Nómin Geijutsu no Kóryú, Miyazawa draws attention to the degradation of labour in modern times and tries to re-evaluate labour, not as slavish toil for daily bread, but as a wholesome creative experience. Miyazawa quotes from Morris’s writings, ﬁrst ‘all labour is good in itself ’,176 second, ‘art is man’s expression of his joy in labour’177 and third, he gives a summary list of Morris’s ‘proposals’ which, according to my research,178 appear to be taken from the following section of Morris’s writings: ‘labour . . . must be directed towards some obviously useful end’,179 ‘the rest . . . must be long enough to allow us to enjoy it’;180 ‘the hope of product . . . that we do really produce something, and not nothing’,181 ‘the day’s work will be short’,182 ‘not only his own thoughts, but the thoughts of the men of past ages guide his hands’183 or ‘an active mind in sympathy with the past, the present, and the future’,184 ‘variety of work’,185 ‘the development of individual capacities would be of all things chieﬂy aimed at by education’,186 ‘pleasant surroundings’187 and ‘my home is where I meet people with whom I sympathise, whom I love’.188 Following Morris, Miyazawa stresses ‘good work’ and ‘pleasure in labour’. He objects to dehumanisation, degradation and the division of labour in the modern period, writing,

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Orientalism: the foundation of Mingei theory Our ancestors, though poor, lived quite happily They possessed both Art and religion. Today we have only work and existence. . . . Those we now call people of religion and Art monopolise and sell Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. We must now walk a true, new path and create our own Beauty! Burn away grey labour with Art!189

For Miyazawa, ‘good work,’ as a total life experience, creates art. Life itself, a reservoir of wealth, becomes art and that is the very ‘art of the people’. He says, ‘professional artists will one day cease to exist . . . We are, each of us, artists at one time or another’.190 But, in particular, he believes that ‘art of the people’ created by peasants is important as ‘the foundation of a burgeoning culture’.191 He stresses that the life and work of peasants are themselves art, saying ‘peasant art always afﬁrms actual life and deepens and heightens it and guides us in making human life and Nature into an unending art photograph and an enduring poem, and in the intuitive reception of Beauty as a vast theatrical dance’.192 He exhorts the peasants themselves to live strongly, rightly and naturally, saying ‘Go with the wind! Take energy from the clouds!’193 Following Ruskin’s saying, ‘there is no wealth but life’, so, ‘life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration’,194 Miyazawa concludes that life, then, is everything, the source of every creation. Miyazawa’s concept of ‘peasant art’ indeed is ‘marginal art’. It naturally includes all the accepted ‘arts,’ but embraces also housekeeping, needlework, labour of all kinds, land management, scholarship, even ‘sermons’ and gymnastics. To express this idea of ‘life as art’, Miyazawa uses his own unique concept of ‘four-dimensional art’ which is described in terms of ‘an imperishable four-dimensional art’195 and the ‘grand fourth dimension of art’.196 This concept is based on Miyazawa’s own vision of the cosmic world and human existence – a mingling of the scientiﬁc and mystic world of nature. He explains these somewhat abstract ideas in terms of each human being having ‘the galactic system within oneself ’197 with the ‘ardour, great strength, and a transparent will which enfolds the galaxy’.198 He sees peasant art as being created in the intersection of cosmic space and time as the ‘concrete manifestation of a cosmic spirit that interpenetrates Earth, Man, and Individuality’.199 His idea of ‘peasant art’ was put into practice in his project, Rasu Chijin Kyókai, which was established in 1926 and lasted for two years. Miyazawa left his full-time job as a teacher at the Hanamaki Agricultural School and decided to live among peasants. His project was idealistically very close to Ruskin’s Guild of St George, in particular, in its educational and agricultural aspects. He devoted his time to voluntarily giving advice on fertilisers and rice-growing, and to giving lectures and organising various cultural activities. The subjects of these lectures include agricultural science, soil physics, biology, fertiliser science, Esperanto and a survey of peasant art,

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while his cultural activities include a peasant chamber orchestra, record concerts of western classical music and various winter activities, such as making and mending clothes, preserving food, working with wood, even making xylophones – all activities which were pleasurable while contributing to the peasants’ self-sufﬁciency. This wide variety of scientiﬁc and cultural programmes aimed to provide a rounded education with a balance of science and art, mind and body. His emphasis on the scientiﬁc study of nature has a parallel with Ruskin. As Ruskin made numerous drawings of natural objects with scientiﬁc realism and collected specimens of minerals for educational purposes. Miyazawa also made educational materials, such as charts of plants, chemistry diagrams and specimens of minerals. Miyazawa loved minerals for their scientiﬁc interest as well as for their poetic inspiration and he was given the nickname of ‘Ishikko Kensan’ (Stone-child Ken).200 Similarities between Rasu Chijin Kyókai and the London Working Men’s College founded by a Christian socialist, Frederick Maurice, in 1854 have also been pointed out.201 Ruskin taught drawing at the London Working Men’s College, and it is there that he came to believe that manual labour is physically and mentally an important part of education for everybody. Miyazawa sometimes called his Rasu Chijin Kyókai, Rónó Geijutsu Gakkó (Art College for Workmen and Peasants), and because of the similarity of this title and its ideas with that of the London model, we can perhaps speculate that Miyazawa learned from the London model. Similarities between Miyazawa’s ideal of production co-operatives expressed in his poem, ‘Sangyó Kumiai Seinenkai’ (Young Men’s Co-operative) in Haru to Shura (Spring and Asura) Vol. 2 and the Rochdale Co-operative Society have also been pointed out.202 Indeed, there is much evidence of Miyazawa’s love and appreciation of all things English. For example, he named the western part of the bank of the River Kitakami, Igirisu Kaigan (English Coast) because of its geological similarities with Dover beach. He talked to his friend about the scenery of Koiwai Farm: ‘It was like the River Thames, rich in purples, blues, reds and yellows.’203 And ﬁnally, as a garden designer, he regularly imported seeds from the Suttons Seeds Company. It may not come as a surprise then to learn that he also appreciated Turner’s paintings and in one of his poems, ‘Futon Yokukai’ (No Desire, Forbid Desire), describing a rice-ﬁeld he wrote ‘the colour of salad which even Turner would want’.204 These three typical peasant art movements do not have obvious interactions or connections to Yanagi’s Mingei movement. Except for Mushanokóji, Yanagi does not write about Yamamoto or Miyazawa or their projects. Each of the peasant art movements adopts different styles of practice in their projects. Local geographical elements are also integrated in different ways and in general appearance they seem disconnected with each other. However, their ideas basically grew out of common seeds, sharing Ruskinian, Morrisian and Tolstoyan ideals for a humanistic life and for the creation of ‘art of the people.’ I believe that Yanagi’s Mingei theory has to be seen as

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also one of the ‘ﬂowers’ that was cultivated by these shared intellectual concerns of the time. The social trends of the time cannot be ignored when charting the course of Mingei theory. In the next section, I will discuss another important concern of the time: the Japanese tea aesthetic.

Japanese tea masters The ideas of Ruskin and Morris had a profound impact on Japan, triggering numerous social and cultural movements, and had formed an intellectual climate which Yanagi also shared. Although Yanagi denies the direct connection with his formation of Mingei theory,205 he pays his tributes to Ruskin and Morris in the article ‘Kógei Biron no Senkusha ni tsuite’ (On the Predecessors of Craft Aesthetic Theorists) in 1927 as his predecessors.206 In the same article Yanagi also acknowledges Japanese tea masters including the father of chanoyu (tea ceremony) Murata Jukó (1423–1502), Takeno Jóó (1502–55) and Sen no Rikyú (1522–91) who accomplished chanoyu (tea ceremony), as another of his important predecessors.207 From the very early publication on mingei in the 1920s until ﬁnal contributions in the post-war period, he repeatedly praises tea masters’ discovery of extraordinary beauty. He states: I have inexhaustible respect to them [tea masters] . . . their discovery of beauty in folkcrafts, their recognition of exceptional and even supreme beauty in the normal world, their creation of law and philosophy in its beauty, and their complete devotion to beautifying life. All these things are the reasons why I call the early tea masters the great predecessors regarding the beauty of crafts.208 Yanagi’s interest in tea masters reﬂects the social trend of the times. Just as Ruskin and Morris were highly fashionable among Japanese intellectuals during the late nineteenth century to the 1920s, interest in the tradition of chanoyu was also revived during the same time. As Christine Guth has observed, chanoyu was revived in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century after a short decline in the mid nineteenth century, by business elites which she calls quite appropriately ‘New Daimyó’ as the modern equivalent of ‘Daimyó’ (feudal lords) of the old times. For example, Masuda Takashi, the director of Mitsui Trading Company which formed the Mitsui conglomerate, became one of the eminent art collectors. He became the patron of a vast amount of treasures of old daimyó’s tea utensils and art collections purchased at auctions during the economic boom in the early twentieth century. The ‘New Daimyó’ like Masuda led the exclusively lavish tea ceremony to display its social prestige, to socialise with other powerful business elites and politicians, as well as to become more cultivated. This modern chanoyu by wealthy industrialists not only demonstrated nouveau riche extravagance, but also nurtured the nationalistic ideological sentiment

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of the time. Their act of collection was backed by their patriotic mission and social responsibility to preserve Japanese art and ensure it was protected from foreign collectors. Artistic nationalism was strongly expressed through the revival of chanoyu.209 Although Yanagi was not an industrialist and indeed was severely critical about the nouveau riche aspect of stylised chanoyu,210 he nevertheless shared with the contemporary revivalists fascination with the tea masters as well as their nationalistic sentiment. Two articles ‘ “Kizaemon Ido” o Miru’ (Viewing Kizaemon Ido Bowl, 1931) and ‘Chadó o Omou’ (Thoughts on The Way of Tea, 1936) represent Yanagi’s homage to tea masters in his early writings.211 The central idea they express is the tea masters’ seeing ability or chokkan (direct insight, intuition) for discovering ordinary crafts. An example of this is the case of the tea bowl nicknamed Kizaemon Ido. Ido was originally an ordinary Korean rice bowl for poor people, but early tea masters found extraordinary beauty in it, used this bowl as a tea utensil and ennobled it as ó-meibutsu (great masterpiece). It can be seen that the tea masters have invented a new application and originated their use by means of through their chokkan, and it is their ‘creation’ or ‘creative eyes’ which Yanagi greatly praises.212 Chokkan is an important concept on which Yanagi has already been contemplating for a long time through different channels. As already discussed, during his university years, he has been drawn into anti-rational ideas of ‘intuition’ by Henri Bergson and gave thought to various strands of mysticism in his search for a modern universal value to bridge the Oriental and Occidental philosophy. Yanagi boasts with national pride that chokkan is a special perception which is an exclusive property to the Japanese but not Koreans.213 The chokkan of the Japanese tea masters certainly gives much credit to Oriental and, in particular, Japanese philosophy and this viewpoint offered a strong support for Yanagi’s Mingei theory, and indeed, this nationalist sentiment. Yanagi also points to tea masters’ creation of a new aesthetic. The tea masters’ discovery generated a new law of beauty which was deﬁned as the beauty of shibui (astringent, austere, subdued). Shibui, in Yanagi’s words, can be demonstrated by tea utensils ‘with their simplicity of shape, tranquillity of surface, mellow soberness of colouring, chaste beauty of ﬁgure’,214 or in the speciﬁc example of the Kizaemon Ido bowl, ‘robust’ and ‘healthy’ quality implicit in its function, ‘the ﬁne netting of crackle’ on the surface, ‘the glaze skipped in ﬁring’, ‘the pattern of mended cracks’, ‘free, rough turning’, ‘cutting of a foot-ring’, ‘natural runs and drips of congealed glaze’, ‘internal volume and curves of bowls’ in which ‘green tea settles’ with ‘gentle deformity’.215 Shibui stresses the beauty of simplicity, roughness, imperfect irregularity and austerity. This particular aesthetic of shibui had penetrated throughout Japanese culture through many generations and had become ‘the canon for beauty for all Japanese people’ before becoming ‘the criterion for the highest beauty’.216 This criterion has much in common with Yanagi’s ‘criterion of beauty’ for Mingei theory which I discuss

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later on pages 49–59. The aesthetic philosophy of tea masters became an important source for Yanagi to develop Mingei theory toward the national aesthetic theory to be validated by the ‘tradition’ of the Japanese tea aesthetic. As I have demonstrated, the foundation of Mingei theory is deeply rooted in the framework of modern Occidental ideas including philosophy and religion, primitivism, medievalism and the ideas of the ‘art of the people’. Yanagi’s views were nurtured by the trend of these ideas and acquired the new aesthetic vocabularies as well as fresh perspectives to look at Japanese art and the aesthetics of tea. Orientalism, which involves the Occidental construction of the Orient, was integrated into the modern aesthetic discourse, particularly evident in primitivism, medievalism and what the modern constructs as the ‘pre-modern’. In the modern aesthetic discourse, the Orient is a modern critique of the modern Occident and is idealised as an organic entity suggesting an alternative value to the Occident. At the beginning of this chapter, I pointed to the lack of critical assessment of the ‘originality’ of Yanagi’s Mingei theory and postulated the need for its contextualisation. Yanagi’s originality is recognised in the hybridisation and appropriation of Occidental ideas into the Japanese context and, in particular, the way Yanagi absorbed and appropriated Orientalism to ﬁnd his aesthetic discourse of modernity in Japan. This hybridity at the foundation stage of Mingei theory does not devalue Mingei theory itself and its associated movement. Originality exists, not in the ideas forming Mingei theory, but in the way that Yanagi created his hybrid and applied it to Japanese art.

Chapter Title

2

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Appropriation of Orientalism

In this chapter I will further examine how Yanagi appropriated and hybridised key ideas from Occidental sources into both Mingei theory and its related major activities. During this stage, Yanagi began research on Japanese art objects, starting with his research on mokujikibutsu, wooden Buddhist statues believed to have been carved by the travelling Buddhist monk Mokujiki Shónin (1718–1810), then going on to his major work on Japanese folkcrafts (mingei). He privately collected Japanese folkcrafts, taxonomised them and exhibited them in the Japan Folk Crafts Museum which he established in 1936 in Tokyo. He created Mingei theory around a core idea of the ‘criterion of beauty’ disseminating his ideas in numerous publications, he encouraged the creation of medievalistic craft guilds and he was also involved in developing craft trade and commercialising folkcrafts, displaying them in model houses so that they could be integrated into modern living. During the course of the formation of Mingei theory, he creatively appropriated various narratives embedded in the discourse of ‘Orientalism’ and reinforced them through his hybrid Mingei theory and the Mingei movement. I will also examine Yanagi’s creation of Mingei theory in relation to cultural nationalism in modern Japanese history. Within this historical context, which saw the rise of modern cultural nationalism in Japan, Yanagi’s appropriation of ‘Orientalism’ will be analysed as the process of his construction of a Japanese cultural national identity which conformed to the image ‘Orientalism’ projected. Investigations will have a particular focus on the politicisation of Mingei theory and the Mingei movement during the Second World War.

The formation of Mingei theory Mokujikibutsu: medieval religious art in Japan In 1922 Yanagi wrote to Leach saying ‘Gothic arts fascinated me immensely at present [sic]’.1 As already described in Chapter 1, Yanagi absorbed the

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aesthetic theory of ‘Gothic art’ and ‘medievalism’ through the English Arts and Crafts ideas represented by John Ruskin and William Morris, as well as from other important sources such as Religious Art in France: The Thirteenth Century (1898) by Emile Mâle and Social Theories of the Middle Ages 1200– 1500 by O.P. Bede Jarrett (1926). The medieval aesthetic united his research into philosophy and religion with art and gave him the theoretical rhetoric to deﬁne aesthetic qualities such as ‘moral beauty’, the beauty of the ‘grotesque’ and ‘irregularity’ as represented in Gothic art.2 He further developed this theory which united philosophy, religion and art and re-evaluated Oriental art with his acquired Occidentally trained ‘new eyes’,3 creating a hybrid idea of Occidental and Oriental religious art. Yanagi applied this medieval aesthetic to Japanese religious art. In 1919, in an article on Japanese Buddhist art from the sixth to the eighth centuries, which was in fact Shirakaba’s ﬁrst feature on Oriental art, he validated Japanese Buddhist art by equating it with Romanesque and Gothic sculptures. Then in 1923, he discovered mokujikibutsu, wooden Buddhist statues believed to have been carved by the travelling Buddhist monk Mokujiki Shónin4 (Figue 2.1). Mokujiki Shónin is thought to have been born in 1718 in Kai (present-day Yamanashi prefecture) and after working in a variety of jobs in Edo (present-day Tokyo) entered into Buddhist monk training in the Shingon school at the age of twenty-two. He became a disciple of Mokujiki Kankai Shónin and was ordained as a monk named Mokujiki Gyódó at the age of forty-ﬁve, when he began a nation-wide pilgrimage tour until his death at the age of ninety-two in 1810. During the tour, he carried out a variety of voluntary charitable activities including reading mantra to people, repairing roads, counselling people and healing illness, and he made and left mokujikibutsu in every rural village he visited. The number of mokujikibutsu he created is considered to be as large as 1,300, which triggered Yanagi’s interest. Yanagi organised a research group and retraced Mokujiki Shónin’s route to ﬁnd the works left in village temples. With help from his research group and friends, Yanagi discovered about 500 mokujikibutsu, Mokujiki Shónin’s autobiography, his poems and other writings. He catalogued and taxonomised them, and also created an aesthetic theory on mokujikibutsu by applying his newly acquired ‘medieval rules’.5 His research eventually culminated in Mokujiki Gogyó Shónin no Kenkyú, a seminal research report published as a monograph in 1925 which constitutes the ﬁrst original research on Mokujiki Shónin more than a hundred years after his death. The beauty of mokujikibutsu was ﬁrstly described as ‘simple’, ‘natural’ and having ‘no-mindness’: [Mokujiki] does not show any single unnecessary complicated skill like those which were commonly used for the sculptural works in the Tokugawa period. Only a few soft lines and a subtle round volume create the Buddha’s image.6

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Figure 2.1 Mokujiki Shónin, ‘Old Woman Beggar’, nineteenth century, H59.6. Piece held in the collection of the Tókóji Temple, Hyógo Prefecture. Source of photograph: Asahi Shinbunsha Bunka Kikakukyoku Osaka Kikakubu ed., Mokujiki no Bishó Botoke Catalogue, Osaka: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1997, (p. 146, Fig. 62).

Faith makes our life simple. Belief does not make things complicated. Belief is in the state of no-mindedness. Too much knowledge does not bring profound relief. Belief is in oneness. Complex cynicism pushes religion away. The deep simplicity is the world of believers. Simplicity is not roughness and no-mindedness is not ignorance. Thus, religious art always expresses the simple beauty. Artiﬁcial ideas do not create art. The art of the Suiko period is pure. The ugliness of the work produced

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Appropriation of Orientalism in the later periods is due to disillusioned complexity. But we are reminded how signiﬁcantly exceptional [his] works are, having with their simple beauty, among the ugly works in such period. There are no unnecessary intentions. They are simple and natural.7

Yanagi also emphasised the religious and moral beauty of mokujikibutsu which manifested the profound religious faith of the creator Mokujiki Shónin: Long ago, the Buddhist monks and sculptors who carved statues of Buddhas were one and the same people. It is the shame of the modern period that sculptors carve statues of Buddha without faith. Faith and skills have been separated. Buddhist monks and sculptors have been divided. Faith is discussed without beauty and beauty is expressed without faith. In this later modern world when we suffer from division of works, we ﬁnd Mokujiki Shónin who is a Buddhist monk and a sculptor as well . . . We know that astonishingly marvellous religious art existed in the Suiko and medieval periods. The same great rule guarantees the works left by Mokujiki Shónin are outstanding.8 Yanagi notes ‘healthy’ and ‘honest’ beauty in the bold simple design of mokujikibutsu which he equates with Romanesque sculptures.9 Yanagi also shows, echoing Ruskin, that this special quality of beauty is revealed particularly in the design being ‘deformed’, and having ‘imperfection’, ‘clumsiness’ and ‘coarseness’:10 [Mokujiki’s works] are imperfect from an ordinary point of view. He did not work in a skilled ﬁne manner . . . sometimes materials remained as they are . . . They are deformed and imperfect . . . He was just given materials and carved honestly and naturally.11 ... At one glance, [Mokujiki’s works] look clumsy and coarse and far from the perfect beauty, but this clumsiness and coarseness is vividly alive. In view of this, the beauty is not necessarily found in skilfulness, or in reworking coarse work into skilled ﬁne work. The truth told in ‘The Way of Thusness’ in Buddhism is proved in these real objects.12 How he arrived at this position perhaps can, in part, be traced through the article Yanagi published entitled ‘Chúseiki no Geijutsu’ (Art in the Middle Ages) in 1921 which is a digest translation from the ‘Introduction’ and ‘Conclusion’ of Mâle’s book.13 As Ajioka pointed out, Yanagi’s emphasis on Mâle’s view on medieval art as the work of collective spirits reﬂecting ‘the corporate Christian consciousness’ of the time14 is particularly important. Yanagi translated the following part from Mâle:

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The art of the Middle Ages is like its literature; it owes less to conscious talent than to diffused genius. The personality of the individual artist does not always emerge, but innumerable generations of men speak through him. The individual, even when he is mediocre, is lifted high by the genius of these Christian centuries. From the Renaissance on, artists broke away from the old traditions at their own risk and peril. When they were not superior, they found it hard to escape triviality and platitude in their religious works; and when they were great, they were not greater than the submissive old masters who naïvely expressed the thought of the Middle Ages. To the Christ cursing the damned, created by Michelangelo outside all tradition, it is quite possible to prefer the Christ displaying his wounds of the French cathedrals. By simply reproducing a consecrated model, the simple medieval artist created a profoundly moving work.15 Yanagi’s translation of the above passages from Mâle clearly presages Yanagi’s later development of Mingei theory, into such key ideas as the sublime beauty in the works created by unknown craftsmen being superior to the works by individual talented artists, art of the people and national art reﬂecting collective thoughts of the time. Social Theories of the Middle Ages 1200–1500 by O.P. Bede Jarrett, which is now in the Japan Folk Crafts Museum archive collection, also shows particular aspects of the medieval aesthetic theories which Yanagi absorbed.16 Yanagi’s interest and thinking can be traced through the phrases in the section on ‘Art in the Middle Ages’ which Yanagi underlined. The ideas which emphasise the nexus between purpose/function and art and the idea of ‘art of the people’ are seemingly very appealing to Yanagi. Yanagi wrote a margin note ‘no purpose no art’,17 ‘art must be purposeful and pleasant’18 and underlined the following passages: . . . artist had to begin his work with a purpose – that is, with an idea – and had to impress this idea on his material. He was performing, therefore, an intelligent action, for he was making something for a deﬁnite purpose, and this purpose, they argued, lifted his work up from a material standard to a human level.19 ... ‘Artist’ was then the common name given to the worker who made any artistic thing . . . Every artist . . . was an artisan, and every artisan was an artist.20 ... . . . in the beginnings of medieval art . . . the ﬁne arts were arts, like the work of the smith or the weaver, only there was an additional labour included. The things made were to be pleasing as well as useful, they were to be beautiful.21 ...

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Appropriation of Orientalism As the effect of art, the thing must have fulﬁlled some useful purpose: as the effect of a ﬁne art, it must also please.22 ... Utility should not be injured by beauty, nor beauty spoiled by utility. A ﬁne art is precisely the virtue in man which effects this union.23

In Mingei theory with regard to materials, the important ideas of ‘truth to material’ and ‘following nature’ can also be traced in his underlining of such passages as: the artist was the master of his material. The paradox could be maintained both that the material governed the artist and that the artist governed the material. For art is always the triumph of mind over matter, though it is always also the triumph of matter over mind.24 ... ‘Art’s manner of working is founded upon Nature’s manner of working, and Nature’s manner upon creation’ (Summa Theologica, 1.45, 8) . . . ‘Art imitates Nature in her working’ (ibid., I.117, I). Art however, does not copy but carries on the work of creation.25 Artists were also spiritual beings and faithful to God. So Yanagi also focused on the nexus between religion and art: The artist was the priest of natural religion, its preacher, the expounder of the hidden beauty of God. Mysteries were in his keeping. He was the dispenser of these mysteries of God. But to accomplish his destiny that artist needed asceticism.26 Yanagi also began articulating ethnic characteristics. He grasped ideas from Mâle and Jarrett about the nexus between ‘religion’, ‘local’, ‘national’ and ‘universal’ art as he later developed Mingei theory connecting ethical values with Japanese local folkcrafts, with the idea of national and ethnic art as well as with the idea of universal modern art. One can perhaps see the signiﬁcance that this connection had for him when one looks at what he chose to translate. The following passage from Mâle on the relation between religion and ethnic art, is an example: We have a national art born of the collective thought and will . . . In the thirteenth century, rich and poor enjoyed the same art. The people were not on one side, and a class of so-called connoisseurs on the other. The church was everyone’s house; art translated the thoughts of all.27 Yanagi also wrote a margin note ‘locality and universality of art’ and underlined the following passage on Jarrett:

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Art needs to be localized in order to cross the world, to be individualized to appeal to all, to be nationalized to move all nations. Nor is the cause of this difﬁcult to discover. Art, we began by saying, was to the schoolmen that quality whereby right reason governed men in the making of things.28 ... . . . the ﬁne arts share a double life – local and universal – are of time and of eternity.29 He drew these ideas together when he declared that Mokujiki, was ‘an honour to Japan (nihon no eiyo/meiyo)’30 and that Mokujiki’s works epitomised the ultimate ‘innate and original (koyú)’ beauty of Japan:31 Your name [i.e. that of Mokujiki Shónin] should not be limited to be known in one country. The time is approaching when we remember you as ‘an honour to Japan (nihon no eiyo/meiyo)’ on the earth. I know that many people will be astonished by your works . . . We have long been waiting for the moment that we can say ‘Look, here is the great Japanese Buddhist sculptor.’ The moment has come that our desire is to be fulﬁlled by you. I believe that your name will be recognised by the people in the world outside Japan who have mind to understand.32 In my belief, Mokujiki Shónin is the only ‘innate and original (koyú)’ Buddhist sculptor in Japanese Buddhist world. We recollect Japan as the country of Buddhist art. But no national treasures and masterpieces surpassed Chinese and Korean works. We wondered where we could ﬁnd the ‘innate and original (koyú)’ Japaneseness and how we could surpass their arts by Japanese Buddhist art. However things have radically changed with the discovery of Mokujiki Shónin. Japan can now say to any country that ‘there is a Japanese Buddhist sculptor’. His works are truly original and ethnic Japanese.33 Yanagi’s appropriation of the medieval aesthetic from European sources and his hybrid theory which was created out of Occidental and Oriental ideas and applied to mokujikibutsu enabled him to evaluate Japanese religious art represented by mokujikibutsu in Occidental values and rhetoric and, furthermore, to highlight the ‘innate and original’ Japaneseness and the ethnic cultural identity in Japanese Buddhist art.

Mingei theory: the classiﬁcation and standardisation of beauty Classiﬁcation of crafts and getemono and lesser arts Yanagi now moved on to his major project on Japanese folkcrafts and the Mingei movement, in which he remained engaged until his death in 1961.

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Mingei came to be theorised by Yanagi as works of art which have supreme beauty. Mingei was also deﬁned by Yanagi as representing the most ‘innate and original Japan’ (koyúna nihon, dokujino nihon).34 In 1926, Yanagi wrote that common household objects handmade by unknown craftsmen (getemono) reﬂect a purely Japanese world. Getemono clearly reveal the identity of our race with their beauty rising from nature and the blood of our homeland, not following foreign technique or imitating foreign countries. Probably these works show the most remarkable originality of Japan.35 This essential beauty of mingei is crystallised in his idea of the ‘criterion of beauty in Japan’ (nihon ni okeru bi no hyójun)36 developed and published in 1927–8 as Kógei no Michi (The Way of Crafts), the Bible of Mingei theory. Bernard Leach adapted this as ‘The Way of Craftsmanship’ in the book The Unknown Craftsman. Yanagi standardised beauty with this criterion using and hybridising the ideas from the Occident and Orient from philosophy and art. Besides Kógei no Michi, Yanagi also endeavoured to make his ideas visible in a series of articles. He undertook the ‘mission’(shimei) to teach the Occident the ‘beauty of the East’ and lectured on ‘the criterion of beauty in Japan’37 at Harvard University between 1929 and 1930. After returning from Harvard, he published Bi no Hyójun (The Criterion of Beauty)38 in 1931 (Figure 2.3). In this article he contrasted two sets of photographs, one set of ‘beautiful’ and the other set of ‘not beautiful’ objects in terms of the aesthetic concepts of ‘simplicity vs. over-decoration’, ‘natural vs. unnatural’, ‘folk vs. aristocratic’ and so on, to illustrate clearly his ‘criterion of beauty’. It implies knowledge of the technique the Gothic revivalist, A.W. Pugin, used in Contrasts, 1836, contrasting ugly Victorian architecture with beautiful Gothic architecture. Yanagi’s ideas were refreshingly new in the 1920s in Japan, because little value had been attached to folkcrafts or getemono at that time, and his theorisation of their beauty was avant-garde and a historical landmark. Yanagi also deﬁned the essential identity of mingei or getemono by creating the following classiﬁcation of crafts,39

Folkcrafts Craft

Guild crafts Industrial crafts Aristocratic crafts

Artist crafts Figure 2.2 Yanagi’s classiﬁcation of crafts.

Individual crafts

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Figure 2.3 Contrasting ‘over-decoration’ and ‘simple decoration’. Source of photograph: Yanagi Sóetsu, Bi no Hyójun (The Criterion of Beauty), Kógei, 3, 1931.

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Folkcrafts – guild crafts (Minshúteki Kógei – Kyódanteki Kógei) These crafts are ‘unself-consciously handmade and unsigned for the people by the people, cheaply and in quantity, as for example, the Gothic crafts, the best work being done under the Medieval guild system’.40 They are also called getemono as opposed to jótemono. Ge of getemono means ‘low’, ‘ordinary’ and ‘common’, and te means ‘by nature’, thus getemono has a derogatory tone.41 While getemono means common household objects, jótemono means artistic and reﬁned objects with a higher nature, including ‘individual/artist crafts and aristocratic crafts’ in Yanagi’s classiﬁcation. Folkcrafts – industrial crafts (Minshúteki Kógei – Shihonteki Kógei) These crafts are represented by [products] ‘such as aluminium saucepans, etc., made under the industrial system by mechanical means’.42 Artist crafts – aristocratic crafts (Bijutsuteki Kógei – Kizokuteki Kógei) These crafts include such examples as ‘Nabeshima ware in Japan under the patronage of a feudal lord, or Stanley Gibbons in England’43 (makie in Yanagi’s original in Japanese).44 Artist crafts – individual or artist crafts (Bijutsuteki Kógei – Kojinteki Kógei) These crafts are ‘made by a few, for a few, at a high price. [They are] consciously made and signed. Examples [include] Mokubei or Staite Murray’45 (Wedgwood in Yanagi’s original in Japanese).46 Yanagi’s theory was formed on the ﬁrst category. He prized getemono, common household objects handmade by unknown craftsmen. This categorisation has great similarities with that of William Morris who prized ‘lesser arts’ in contrast with the ‘great arts’ such as architecture, sculpture and painting. He stressed the importance of ‘lesser arts’ which are ‘the crafts of house-building, painting, joinery and carpentry, smith’s work, pottery and glass-making, weaving, and many others, a body of art most important to the public in general, but still more so to us handicraftsmen’.47 Morris also advocated ‘popular art’, such as ‘the handiwork of an ignorant, superstitious Berkshire peasant of the fourteenth century . . . of a wandering Kurdish shepherd, or of a skin-and-bone oppressed Indian ryot’.48 Apart from slight differences in their deﬁnitions of ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘decorative art’, the ideas of Yanagi and Morris are almost identical, prizing handcrafts by unknown ordinary people. These differences reﬂect their differing historical and cultural context. The clear deﬁnition of ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘decorative art’ and its division were originally a Western classiﬁcation, and not known in Japan until the late nineteenth century. Traditionally, Japanese classiﬁcation was not by media but by the consumer’s social class

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and this classiﬁcation is reﬂected in Yanagi’s distinction between getemono pottery and jótemono pottery. Getemono pottery was for the people of the lower class and Jótemono pottery is for the people of the upper class. In contrast, under Morris’s classiﬁcation all pottery fell into the same category of ‘lesser arts’. Mingei theory: the criterion of beauty Yanagi’s ‘criterion of beauty’ can be summarised under the following twelve headings: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

‘beauty of handcrafts’ (Shukógei no Bi) ‘beauty of intimacy’ (Shitashisa no Bi) ‘beauty of use/function’ (Yó/Kinó no Bi) ‘beauty of health’ (Kenkó no Bi) ‘beauty of naturalness’ (Shizen no Bi) ‘beauty of simplicity’ (Tanjun no Bi) ‘beauty of tradition’ (Dentó no Bi) ‘beauty of irregularity’ (Kisú no Bi) ‘beauty of inexpensiveness’ (Ren no Bi) ‘beauty of plurality’ (Ta no Bi) ‘beauty of sincerity and honest toil’ (Seijitsu na Ródó no Bi) ‘beauty of selﬂessness and anonymity’ (Mushin/Mumei no Bi)

A sansui dobin (tea/soup pot with landscape patterns) from Mashiko is described as ‘a typical example of folk crafts for daily use’49 and embodies ‘innate Japaneseness’.50 Yanagi specially praised this object, created by an illiterate, poor artisan called Minagawa Masu who, for more than sixty years had been decorating 500–1,000 sansui dobin a day with quick repetitive traditional patterns, as having ‘extraordinary beauty’.51 These pots are unsigned, inexpensive, ordinary kitchen items without any intentional marking of individuality. (Figure 2.4) Yanagi’s criteria are also constructed as a set of antithetical concepts, such as health vs. disease, tradition vs. individual creativity, simplicity vs. complexity, multiplicity vs. singularity and so on, and they also associate an ontological image of the Orient vs. Occident and a temporal image of a past vs. a present Occident. For example, the Orient and the past Occident are characterised as retaining healthy tradition, whereas the present Occident is characterised as having a disease of over-selfconscious individualism. Using modern Occidental theories Yanagi validated his discourse which nostalgically posits that ideal aesthetic qualities exist in the Orient and did in the past exist in the Occident. Yanagi aimed his hybridisation at extracting ‘innate and original Japaneseness’(koyúna nihon, dokujino nihon)52 from modern Occidental aesthetic ideas. Yanagi’s Mingei theory is a hybrid of Occidental and Oriental ideas, namely of English Arts and Crafts aesthetic ideas in the early stage, and at

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Figure 2.4 Mashiko sansui dobin (teapot with landscape pattern) decorated by Minagawa Masu, stoneware, H15.0ǂD20.5, Mashiko pottery, c.1915– 35. Piece held in the collection of Jeffrey Montgomery. Source of photograph: Edmund de Waal, Rupert Faulkner et al., Timeless Beauty, Milano: Skira Editore, 2002 (Fig. 197, p. 225).

a later stage after the Second World War, of Buddhist ideas from Zen Buddhism and tea aesthetics to which I will refer in more detail in Chapter 4. I will examine here the early theoretical formation, in particular, the parallels between Yanagi’s ‘criterion of beauty’ and the ideas of John Ruskin and William Morris, which interestingly expose the hybrid nature of Mingei theory. Beauty of handcrafts Yanagi is generally negative about machines. He wrote that a machine cannot create the equivalent beauty of handcrafts, though he does allow for limited use under control: Although there can be a kind of beauty in things made mechanically, yet nothing so made has surpassed the beauties of the age of handwork . . . However intricate the mechanics of the machine, they are nothing to those of the hand.53 ...

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Machines are not bad in themselves, but a completely mechanised age would be a disaster. So long as man does not become enslaved to machines he may use them freely . . . The wisest planning would be in the direction of using power in the preparatory stages of work, and the hand in the ﬁnishing stages.54 In contrast, John Ruskin expressed a real hatred of machines. He only allowed machines operated by water or wind power. He highly valued the imperfection of one-off handicrafts, full of humanity and invention. William Morris, though, unlike Ruskin, had no emotional hatred of machines, identiﬁed what he saw as the limitation of machines saying ‘machines can do everything, except make works of art’.55 All three, Yanagi, Ruskin and Morris considered machine-made works to be the antithesis of hand-made ones. Beauty of intimacy Yanagi’s choice of the term ‘intimacy’ as part of the ‘criterion’ is somewhat peculiar, although the concepts of ‘popular art’ and ‘objects in daily life’, which are essential ideas in Ruskin and Morris, share the similar ideology. Yanagi wrote that the beauty exists in the quality of commonness and familiarity: a beauty of intimacy . . . .Since the articles are to be lived with every day, this quality of intimacy is a natural requirement.56 Beauty of use/function (functional in form and design) Yanagi wrote that beauty and use inevitably coincide and create one total quality: Beauty that is identiﬁed with use. It is beauty born of use. Apart from use there is no beauty of craft.57 This overlaps with Morris’s idea: Nothing can be a work of art which is not useful; that is to say which does not minister to the body when well under command of the mind, or which does not amuse, soothe, or elevate the mind in a healthy state.58 Beauty of health Yanagi used the term ‘health’ metaphorically, in order to suggest the opposite to ‘disease’, for the representation of beauty of objects in which the moral nature of the maker is combined with the physical nature of the object:

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Ruskin used the term ‘healthy’ in a similar way, as can be seen in his reference to ‘healthy love of change’60 in relation to Gothic architecture. He also wrote: The variety of the Gothic schools is the more healthy and beautiful, because in many cases it is entirely unstudied, and results, not from mere love of change, but from practical necessities.61 Morris also stressed the connection between the healthy mind of the maker and the art of handcrafts: The brain that guides the hand must be healthy and hopeful, must be keenly alive to the surroundings of our own days.62 Beauty of naturalness (made with natural materials) Yanagi wrote that beautiful crafts were made of natural materials usually locally found and made in accordance with its natural characteristics: First, nature must be freely at work in the mind when anything is well made. Though painstaking efforts may have their contribution to make in carrying out a work, more astonishing is the effect that ‘nomindedness’ has upon it. Secondly, procedures must be natural. Nature’s simplicity hides a greater complexity than man’s. Beauty requires neither indirectness nor intricacy. Try to add or contrive, and life vanishes. Great detail and high ﬁnish have to do with technique but have nothing to do directly with beauty. In fact, they interfere with it. Lovely things are almost always simply made. Thirdly, the material provided by nature is nearly always best. Nothing is more precious than the unspoiled character of raw material . . . One aspect of the beauty of crafts lies in the beauty of the materials. May we not accept crafts as generally being local? Crafts are born where the necessary raw materials are found. The closer we are to nature the safer we are; the further away, the more dangerous.63

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Ruskin stressed the idea about ‘truth to Nature’ and Morris also talked about beauty in alliance with Nature: Everything made by man’s hands has a form, which must be either beautiful or ugly; beautiful if it is in accord with Nature, and helps her; ugly if it is discordant with Nature, and thwarts her. 64 Beauty of simplicity (form and design) Yanagi also shared the idea of simplicity with Morris: [beautiful folkcrafts have] no excessive colour, no over-decoration, a simple form, two or three patterns in primitive method.65 Morris gave practical suggestions for textile design regarding simplicity: Simplicity of life, begetting simplicity of taste, that is, a love for sweet and lofty things, is of all matters most necessary for the birth of the new and better art we crave for. 66 The meaningless stripes and spots and other tormentings of the simple twill of the web, which are so common in the woven ornament of the eighteenth century and in our times should be carefully avoided: all these things are the last resource of a jaded invention and a contempt of the simple and fresh beauty that comes of a sympathetic suggestion of natural forms.67 Beauty of tradition (method and design) Yanagi wrote that the beauty of tradition is ‘grace given by Heaven’, claiming that its highest beauty can hardly be surpassed by the original beauty created by individuals: Submissive reliance on tradition, that the beauty of their accomplishment was promised.68 Sung potters had relied entirely upon grace given by Heaven. This grace was tradition, surroundings and their materials. Each beyond the power of the individual. The beauty of their goods is gained and assured by accepting these blessings. Most ordinary artisans, and poor men and women without any education, or sometimes even old people and young children, produced wonderful works merely because they readily accepted these blessings obediently.69 Morris, though without using the term ‘tradition’, also stressed learning from ‘ancient art’ and the ‘careful and laborious practices of it, and a determination to do nothing but what is known to be good in workmanship and design’.70

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Beauty of irregularity Yanagi highly prized the beauty of the ‘grotesque’, saying ‘grotesque . . . is such a signiﬁcant term to explain the nature of beauty’.71 ‘Beauty of irregularity’ which Yanagi elaborated is the clear adoption of Ruskin’s medievalism which aestheticises the beauty of ‘grotesque’. Ruskin included ‘changefulness’ and ‘grotesqueness’ as characteristic and moral elements of Gothic art72 and admired ‘greater irregularity and richer variation’73 as well as ‘imperfection’, saying ‘No architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.’74 However, Yanagi’s original interpretation of ‘grotesque’ was added through the use of Japanese aesthetic terms such as shibui (austere, subdued, restrained),75 wabi (sober, plain), and sabi (tranquil, archaic). Yanagi made a connection between this aesthetic of ‘grotesque’ and the tea masters’ aesthetic ideas which theorised the ‘irregular’, ‘asymmetrical’, ‘rough’ beauty: All true art has, somewhere, an element of the grotesque . . . The beauty I call ‘irregular’, the Tea masters describe as ‘rough’. I would call attention to the quite extraordinary perspicacity of those old Tea masters in grasping this quality so ﬁrmly. A certain love of roughness is involved, behind which lurks a hidden beauty, to which we refer in our peculiar adjectives shibui, wabi, and sabi.76 Beauty of inexpensiveness, and Beauty of plurality (objects which could be copied and repeatedly produced in large quantities) These ideas have a loose association with the idea of ‘art of the people’ as advanced by Ruskin and Morris, however they are largely Yanagi’s reinterpretation of it in economic terms as availability to everybody. Yanagi wrote that the beauty exists in inexpensive handmade objects in large quantities: They are never made for [anything] other than use; they are inexpensive; they are made in quantity sufﬁcient to serve masses of people daily. Their quantity production means repeated practice in their technique, thereby freeing them from ailments arising from artfulness. They are made without obsessive consciousness of beauty.77 Beauty of sincerity and honest sweat (by unknown craftsmen, not made for money greed), and Beauty of selﬂessness and unknown (made by egoless unknown, unlearned and poor craftsmen) Yanagi was concerned about the relation between art and society. He wrote about the disease of industrial capitalism which caused the degradation of human morality and the decline of folkcrafts:

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History clearly indicates that as industrial capitalism ﬂourished, handcrafts declined in the East and the West alike. As we look backwards, suddenly in Japan about the year 1887 there was a sharp loss of beauty in all the crafts . . . In the Western world, with the spread of industry, the last of the glory attached to the Middle Ages and its craftsmanship came to an end.78 ... [under industrial capitalism] The quality, beauty, and health of an object are all secondary considerations. Greed for proﬁt is destructive of both use and beauty. In addition, under capitalism, craftsmanship leans away from human hands toward machinery.79 Yanagi contrasted art by unknown and known makers and claimed that superior beauty was created by honest, selﬂess, unknown makers in the Medieval period: Michelangelo is a great sculptor but Romanesque sculptures in the 11th, 12th century are superior in depth. Raphael is called the greatest artist in the world but there are many more beautiful pictures existed before him, such as mosaic paintings in the Medieval age and paintings in the Romanesque period. The same thing can be said in Japan. Unkei and Tankei are great genius but their works are superﬁcial and trivial compared with Kudara Kannon in Hóryúji temple or Miroku Bosatsu in Chúgúji temple. I do not think that famous Beethoven is superior as sacred music than unsigned Gregorian Chant .80 This nexus between morality and art is greatly shared in Ruskin’s and Morris’s ideas. Ruskin wrote about cultural values and morality reﬂecting on art. He idealised medieval society and Gothic architecture as reﬂections of good Christian humanity. The values he associated with the Gothic castigate the immorality of contemporary society. As discussed on pages 26–29, Ruskin raised questions on the political economy, on the deﬁnition of wealth, labour and various other value systems in capitalist society, which led him to his later activities for various social reform projects under the name of the Guild of St George. Morris, following Ruskin, also wrote about the relation between art and society, the degraded quality of labour and morality as a result of industrial capitalism. Morris, too, later became involved in political activities in order to revolutionalise society. Differences between Yanagi, Ruskin and Morris There are many ideas which are common to Yanagi, Ruskin and Morris, but there are, in general, two important differences. Yanagi, Ruskin and Morris all prized craftsmanship and handcrafts with distinctive beauty. They also idealised the medieval society which they believed was founded on an ideal

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situation: the unity of art and morality. But Yanagi did not talk about ‘pleasure in labour’81 or freedom in creativity as Ruskin and Morris had done. According to Yanagi, creativity is not recognised by most unknown craftsmen. It is, rather, the divine power which he called ‘grace given by heaven’,82 expressed through craftsmen’s labour but not recognised by craftsmen themselves at the human level. A Japanese critic, Idekawa Naoki described Yanagi’s theory on craftsman as a theory of the ‘human machine’. Craftsmen are destined for labour-intensive repetitive work and they unconsciously create beautiful things with the help of nature, tradition and the divine power which work beyond the human level. This is crucially different from Morris who expressed a great hope for the ‘new art of conscious intelligence’83 while praising the ‘art of unconscious intelligence’.84 Yanagi explains the power of unconscious creation by using Buddhist ideas. Conscious artistic sense is a disease which prevents makers from creating supreme beauty. ‘No-mindedness’85 is the key factor that frees craftsmen from this disease: They are made without obsessive consciousness of beauty; thus we catch a glimpse of what is meant by ‘no-mindedness’ whereby all things become simpliﬁed, natural and without contrivance. These are the qualities that provide a permeance of strength throughout the social and aesthetic ediﬁce. There are so few evidences of disease in the arts of the people (getemono).86 In order to attain this ‘no-mindedness’, Yanagi emphasised the power of ‘discipline’, relying on nature and surrendering to ‘the Other Power’ (tariki – the reliance on the grace of Buddha, against the concept of jiriki – Self Power, attaining Enlightenment through self-effort): [A Craftsman] may be unlettered, uneducated and lacking any particular force of personality, but it is not from these causes that beauty is produced. He rests in the protecting hand of nature. The beauty of folkcraft is the kind that comes from dependence on the Other Power (tariki). Natural material, natural process, and an accepting heart – these are the ingredients necessary at the birth of folkcrafts.87 Yanagi believed that relying on ‘the Other Power’ actually meant following tradition, traditional methods, traditional natural materials and traditional forms and designs. Yanagi’s application of Buddhist rhetoric on craft aesthetic philosophy was original, which resulted in emphasising esoteric and mysterious Orientalness. Intuition/direct perception Another esoteric and Oriental aspect of Yanagi’s Mingei theory, which is not shared by Ruskin and Morris, is his ideas about ‘intuition’ or ‘direct

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perception’. The ‘criterion of beauty’, which Yanagi elaborated, is only perceived by viewer’s ‘intuition’ or ‘direct perception’: In understanding beauty, intuition is more of the essence than intellectual perception . . . Beauty is a kind of mystery, which is why it cannot be grasped adequately through the intellect . . . One cannot replace the function of seeing by the function of knowing. One may be able to turn intuition into knowledge, but one cannot produce intuition out of knowledge. Thus the basis of aesthetics must not be intellectual concepts.88 ... First, put aside the desire to judge immediately; acquire the habit of just looking. Second, do not treat the object as an object for the intellect. Third, just be ready to receive, passively, without interposing yourself. If you can void your mind of all intellectualization, like a clear mirror that simply reﬂects, all the better. This nonconceptualization, the Zen state of mushin (‘no-mindedness’) – may seem to represent a negative attitude, but from it springs the true ability to contact things directly and positively.89 As I discussed earlier, Yanagi also brings the example of tea masters whose sharp ‘intuition’ and ‘direct perception’ (chokkan) enable them to appreciate the supreme beauty of folkcrafts or getemono: [Their greatness is] in the freedom of their creative intuition: by their ability to see and seize upon the astonishing beauty lying latent and awaiting them in the world of miscellaneous articles that nobody particularly noticed. No one ever had as sharp eyes as they had to see the aesthetic value of folkcraft. They chose nothing but getemono for their Tea. Those o-meibutsu, or great masterpieces, were no more than common getemono costing but a few pennies. Tea-rooms they may be called, but in fact they were based upon simple peasant cottages.90 Yanagi admired the ‘creative eyes’ of tea masters and he theorised their aesthetics, though the tea masters themselves did not theorise their aesthetics as crafts philosophy as Yanagi did. Yanagi claimed that these ideas of ‘intuition’ or ‘direct perception’ is a key to perceiving the supreme beauty of mingei. The way Yanagi interpreted and applied these ideas derived from the Zen Buddhist-tea aesthetic to Mingei theory is original. However, because these ideas entirely reject intellectual scrutiny, they create problems which I will discuss later. His hybrid Mingei theory which profoundly imbibed the ideas of English Arts and Crafts movement is also partially dressed up by an esoteric Oriental outﬁt. This made Mingei theory compatible with both European and modern Japanese values. It also created a context in which mingei were seen as objects embodying

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modernity at the same time as embracing Japanese national identity. After the formation of the theoretical structure of Mingei theory, Yanagi’s intensive activities of collecting mingei began. They were exhibited and traded through various modern systems of cultural and commercial institutions including museums, department stores and craft shops. Yanagi also disseminated his ‘criterion of beauty’ to a wider audience through numerous other projects launched as a result of the maturation of the Mingei movement. These projects will be discussed further in the following section.

Mingei projects: repositioned in a modern context Yanagi utilised modern western theories to great effect in developing the Mingei movement. By adopting a practice-based framework involving projects through which his theory was projected, he addressed a growing need for modernity as was sought by modern urban mass consumers in their daily life. These projects included: the creation of crafts guilds and exhibitions of ‘model rooms’; the establishment of museums and an association to promote folkcrafts; dissemination through publications of journals; and trading through the opening of retail shops. Medieval guild system: Kamigamo Mingei Kyódan (Kamigamo Folkcrafts Communion91) and the Folkcrafts Pavilion Yanagi stressed the need for a guild system for makers to resuscitate living craftsmanship. It is possible to identify at least two sources – one Japanese, the other English – for Yanagi’s ideas of guild. The Japanese guild, which Yanagi seems to have pictured as a model, seems to be the ‘Kóetsu village’ colony by Honami Kóetsu (1558–1637) in Takagamine, Kyoto.92 Kóetsu was a master of calligraphy, tea bowls, lacquer work, book design, as well as being a connoisseur of swords and tea. He enjoyed the patronage of Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and was given the land of Takagamine where he set up a Buddhist and craft artist colony in 1615. Yanagi wrote an article on Kóetsu, evaluating him as a versatile artist with an exceptional talent, but was critical of the individualism which had hindered him from creating the supreme beauty of unknown craftsmen’s work. Nevertheless, he idealised the Kóetsu village colony, describing it as a ‘guild’ and a ‘crafts communion’ (kógei no kyódan) which had realised Kóetsu’s ‘modest’ and ethically ‘correct’ lifestyle.93 The English source is strongly evident in Yanagi’s romantic notion of a medieval guild. As I discussed already, he was greatly inspired by the English Arts and Crafts ideas led by Ruskin and Morris. Two books, Mutual Aid by Pyotr Alekseevich Kropotkin (1842–1921), a Russian anarchist theorist, and Restoration of Guild System by Arthur J. Penty (1875–1937), a British guild socialist and architect, were equally inﬂuential on Yanagi in establishing his belief that the guild system would help to simulate the ideal medieval environment in contemporary society.94 Yanagi writes:

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It would be most difﬁcult without a change in the social system. Under present conditions folkcrafts are dying, bad factory products are increasing, and the artist-craftsman works for the collector . . . In my opinion, now that capitalism has killed handcrafts, the only way is through the guild system. The ﬁnest crafts of the past were produced under it . . . Beautiful crafts were the outcome of the co-operation between craftsmen . . . Associations for mutual help and preserving order. Order involves basic morality. The morality guaranteed the quality of the products. It gave the work its character, guaranteed its craftsmanship, and refused to allow bad work to be sold.95 Folkcrafts, especially things made by a community of craftsmen, for that is where you ﬁnd the purest form of craft. The reason for this is artist-craftsmanship places utility second and tends to pursue beauty for its own sake, thereby breaking the laws of craftsmanship.96 Encouraged by Yanagi’s ideas, in 1927, a neo-medieval craft guild called Kamigamo Mingei Kyódan (Kamigamo Folkcrafts Communion) was established in Kyoto by four craftsmen, Kuroda Tatsuaki, Aota Goró, Aota Shichiró and Suzuki Minoru in 1927. In an environment of communal living in which they experienced extreme hardship and poverty they worked at their crafts, including woodwork (mainly furniture), metalwork, textiles and interior design. Their major works such as Kuroda’s dining table set (Figure 2.5) and Aota’s rug (Figure 2.6) were exhibited in the Folkcrafts Pavilion at the Imperial Exposition for the Promotion of Domestic Industry in Ueno in 1928. The pavilion itself (Figure 2.7) was designed by Yanagi as being in the mixed style of tea house and town house in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries imbued with a hint of half-timber English Tudor as well as Japanese farmhouse. Based on the concept of ‘total co-ordination of the house building and furniture’,97 the inside is decorated with Yanagi’s collection of folkcrafts from all over Japan and Korea alongside furniture and other crafts created by the Kamigamo Mingei Kyódan and his artist friends, including Kawai Kanjiró and Hamada Shóji. (Figure 2.5) Kawai contributed to the project through the design of the furniture and by creating pots. Hamada’s role in this project of total design was particularly signiﬁcant in the way he brought together English and Japanese traditions. He contributed pots, designed a ﬁreplace and made surrounding tiles98 (Figure 2.8), emphasising his experience in England and of the English ethical ideal of modern rural living, particularly absorbed through the lifestyles of Eric Gill and Ethel Mairet in Ditchling.99 As with the early interior design works of Leach and Tomimoto, Hamada was enthusiastically involved in furniture design and modern interior design. Prior to his design project for the Mingei pavilion, in 1923 Hamada had created a dining table and benches in keyaki (zelkova) wood which are an example of his early design

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Figure 2.5 Inside the Mikunisó, dining room, a dining set of a lacquer table and chairs by Kuroda Tatsuaki, table W73.0ǂL185.0ǂH125.0, chairs H102.0ǂW45.0ǂD46.0, 1928. Pieces held in the collection of the Asahi Beer Óyamazaki Villa Museum of Art.

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Figure 2.6 Aota Goró, rug, pongee, 1929, L256.0ǂW135.0; ﬂoor cushion, pongee, late 1920s, L37.0ǂW37.0. Pieces held in the collection of the Asahi Beer Óyamazaki Villa Museum of Art.

works. The table and benches represent Hamada’s furniture designs which are a hybrid of English medieval style and Japanese wood and ﬁnish. When the Folkcrafts pavilion was bought by Yamamoto Tamesaburó, a chairman of Asahi Beer and renamed Mikunisó (Three Country Villa) Hamada seems to have been responsible for re-organising and re-designing the Pavilion as Yamamoto’s private guest-house. He made several design drawings, arranging the English medieval pots, the Windsor-chairs, the heavy darkcoloured wooden tables and desk, and the Korean pots. He also designed the English ﬁreplace probably inspired by Morris’s Red House,100 the

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Figure 2.7 Kamigamo Mingei Kyódan (Kamigamo Folkcrafts Communion) and Yanagi Sóetsu, Mikunisó modiﬁed from the Folkcrafts Pavilion exhibited at the exhibition in Ueno, 1928, 23 March–24 April. Photograph held in the collection of the Asahi Beer Óyamazaki Villa Museum of Art.

stained glass, the glass windows of Chinese patterns, the lattice pane windows (with a pattern associating English medieval windows and Kóetsustyle bamboo gate fence), the bay windows (a synthesis of a raised tokonoma or Japanese alcove and bay windows) and a Korean-style wooden ﬂoor. The overall impression is a hybrid of English cottage and Japanese farmhouse101 but with a mixture of East Asian materials and craft objects. This hybrid style, which can be called ‘Mingei-style’, was effectively demonstrated in this ‘model room’ project for designing modern living. The idea of the crafts guild was infectious within the Mingei movement. Like Yanagi, Hamada also had an idea of organising a handcraft guild in the village of Mashiko. Hamada gathered such local craftsmen as indigo dyer Higeta Hiroshi, ironsmith Kumashiro Shigenobu, bamboo basket maker Kakizawa Moriichi, furniture maker Hirose and horse saddle maker Nagakura. This guild project had to be cancelled because of the war, but since his visit to Ditchling in 1921 and 1923, Hamada’s vision continued throughout the 1930s right up until the 1960s.102 In Tottori, Yoshida Shóya, an active local leader of the Mingei movement, founded the Tottori Mingei Kyódan (Tottori Folkcrafts Communion) in 1931 with a group of craftsmen of different media including bamboo, wood, stone, lacquer, pottery, metal

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Figure 2.8 Hamada Shóji, a ﬁreplace and surrounding tiles, c.1928. Source of photograph: Kógei (Crafts), 6, 1935.

and textiles. This crafts guild has been so successful in creating solidarity among local craftsmen and promoting their work in the commercial market that it still exists today.103 Given their great similarity of ideas and actual practices, the crafts guild projects initiated by Yanagi and other leaders of the Mingei movement are most properly interpreted in line with Ruskin’s Guild of St George, Morris & Co., and with crafts guilds established by followers of Morris, such as A. H. Mackmurdo, W. R. Lethaby and C. R. Ashbee in the English Arts and Crafts movement. They also share the theoretical ideas of English Guild Socialism, notably led by Arthur J. Penty (1875–1937). As already noted, Yanagi idealised the medieval environment as one in which makers could create objects of supreme beauty. Thus, in order to recreate a pseudomedieval environment in modern society, Yanagi had experimentally established a guild to revive craftsmanship. The ‘model room’ project, which the guild worked for, showed Yanagi’s skilful directorship in the integration of modern Occidental aesthetic ideas into the modern age of Japan in the 1920 and 1930s at the time when ‘bunka seikatsu’ (culture life) symbolising western culture, modernity and ‘rational’ living, was being promoted. By doing so, Yanagi also successfully repositioned Japanese

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crafts, identiﬁed as embodying ‘innate and original’ Japanese beauty, in the setting of a totally co-ordinated space for modern ‘hybrid’ living. ‘Model room’ projects After the success of the Folkcrafts Pavilion and Mikunisó, the Mingei movement continued to demonstrate to the public how to integrate mingei into modern living. This was done by offering examples of idealised modern lifestyles through the display of ‘model rooms’ which were co-ordinated in the Oriental and Occidental Mingei hybrid style. As Kanatani Miwa pointed out, with the emergence of a mass consumer society around urban cities such as Tokyo and Osaka in the Taishó period in the 1920s, the Mingei movement made folkcrafts into ‘objects of desire’ through recontextualising them into a modern living environment, by exhibiting them at national exhibitions and department stores.104 For example, they exhibited a study/sitting room, dining room and kitchen designed respectively by Bernard Leach, Hamada Shóji and Kawai Kanjiró for Gendai Nihon Mingei Tenrankai (An Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese Folkcrafts) at Takashimaya department store in Tokyo and Osaka during 1934–5. The sitting room designed by Leach has a peculiar mixture of western-style teatable and chairs, and Japanese-style dining table in a raised tokonoma (Japanese alcove) (Figure 2.9). The reviewer of Kógei Nyúsu (Industrial Art News [sic]) reported the overall impression of progressiveness and sophistication in taste.105 In 1938 they exhibited a sitting room, dining room and kitchen designed by Yanagi, Hamada and Kawai for Nihon Mingei Shinseikatsu Tenrankai (An Exhibition of Japanese Folkcrafts for New Lifestyles) at Hankyú department store in Osaka. A wooden-ﬂoored westernstyle sitting room has a dining table and chairs in Morrisian Sussex chair style with a Japanese-style hearth instead of a ﬁreplace, and the sitting room is adjacent to the raised Japanese tatami room with a Korean-style table (Figure 2.10) They also created a model room inside the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in 1942 which had dining tables with Windsor chairs in the centre. The model rooms also appear in the form of an entertaining inter-active restaurant space which Yoshida Shóya calls ‘Living Museum’ (Seikatsu teki Bijutsukan)106 where the model captures the total interior design and the atmosphere of a restaurant complete with waitresses in kimono. During the war, the restaurant Chikuha Tei which specialised in sushi and eel in Kóbe was opened at the suggestion of Kawai Kanjiró. This restaurant has left a vivid memory on Yoshida Shóya with furniture designed by Kawai and maids wearing Kihachijó kimono.107 Another restaurant, Suehiro, which specialised in beefsteak, was opened in Osaka by Miyake Chúichi who later founded the Nihon Kógeikan (Japan Craft Museum) and Nihon Kógei Kyódan (Japan Crafts Society).108 After the war, similar restaurants mushroomed including Zakuro specialising in Kóbe beef, Suzuya specialising in

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Figure 2.9 Sitting room designed by Bernard Leach, 1934. Photograph held in the collection of the David Leach/Crafts Study Centre at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design.

Figure 2.10 Model Rooms designed by Yanagi, Hamada and Kawai for Nihon Mingei Shinseikatsu Tenrankai (An Exhibition of Japanese Folkcrafts for New Lifestyles) at Hankyú department store in Osaka in 1938, Kógei, 92, 1938.

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Tonkatsu Chazuke (pork cutlet and rice in tea) in Tokyo, Hakuun Kaku and Yakumo specialising in Japanese traditional cuisine in Nagoya, and Takumi Kappó Ten specialising in Beijing-style beef shabushabu (beef version of shuan yangrou in Chinese) opened by Yoshida Shóya in Tottori.109 Through these various model rooms, the Mingei movement created a distinctive style which can be called ‘Mingei-style.’ It presented an attractive hybrid mix and match of things Oriental and Occidental things to suit the modern taste. The ‘model room’ project with its new commercial approach to exhibition succeeded in adding a modern value to mingei. The Japan Folk Crafts Museum From his early days, Yanagi was enthusiastic about his museum projects. The first museum plan to establish the Shirakaba Art Gallery was announced in 1917 by Yanagi and his friends in the Shirakaba group with the announcement of ‘Bijutsukan o tsukuru Keikaku ni tsuite’ (The Plan for the Establishment of the Art Gallery).110 The Shirakaba Art Gallery aimed to show western art, and the works collected for the gallery included three sculptures given by Auguste Rodin, drawings by Augustus John and Henry Lamb donated by Leach, many reproductions of masterpieces in the West and other works such as ‘Landscape’, ‘Bathers’, ‘Self-Portrait’ by Cézanne, ‘Sunﬂowers’ by Van Gogh and etchings by Dürer which were a loan from entrepreneurs who bought them on behalf of the gallery. With these collections, they organised as many as eighteen art exhibitions between 1910 and 1922 including the one held under the name of the Shirakaba Art Gallery in 1921. They carried out fundraising for the establishment of the gallery and continued purchasing works of art although they were not able to accomplish their plan. The second museum planned and established by Yanagi was the Korean Folk-arts Gallery111 in 1924, which I will discuss later on pages 126–130. Yanagi’s grand plan to establish a Japanese folkcrafts museum was nurtured through these museum projects of the Shirakaba Art Gallery and the Korean Folk-arts Gallery. It was also the Scandinavian folkcrafts movement, in particular, the Nordiska Museet which gave Yanagi the great impetus to initiate his largest museum project, the Japan Folk Crafts Museum. Yanagi visited Sweden with Hamada Shóji and Shikiba Ryúzaburó in 1929 on the way to Boston, USA to lecture at Harvard University for a year, and they visited the Nordiska Museet in Skansen, Stockholm founded by Artur Hazelius (1833–1901) in 1873. Artur Hazelius was the leader of the Swedish folkcrafts movement in the late nineteenth century and he played an important role in propagating cultural nationalism through his activities of collecting, preserving and reviving vernacular folk traditions in an open-air living museum in Skansen. Yanagi was extremely excited and made a ﬁrm decision with Hamada to establish their own equivalent of the Nordiska Museet in Japan.112 Yanagi wrote to Leach that the Nordiska

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Museet is ‘the most marvellous . . . the biggest museum of peasant arts in the world . . . an ideal Museum of peasant arts’.113 Eventually, in 1936, he established the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo which became the permanent home of mingei as well as the deﬁnitive set of model rooms (Figure 2.11) The museum was privately funded by him, friends and patrons and categorised as a zaidan hójin (foundation). The establishment of the museum owed a great deal to Óhara Magosaburó, an entrepreneur in the textile industry, a philanthropist in social projects and an enthusiastic patron of the Mingei movement, who endowed it with a generous donation. Through its exhibitions of a particular kind of folkcrafts collected by Yanagi from all over Japan and Japan’s colonies the museum became the central institution of the Mingei movement, which made visible his ideals of beauty and revealed their ‘authenticity’. Yanagi wrote, ‘the mission of the museum is to present the “criterion of beauty”’114 which he theorised as representing not only a Japanese value but also a modern, absolute and universal value. Further museum projects were undertaken by his friends and followers in the Mingei movement and at least ﬁfteen museums appeared all over Japan after the Second World War and remain to the present. Notable among them are the Kurashiki Mingeikan (Kurashiki Folk Crafts Museum) established by Tonomura Kichinosuke in 1949, the Tottori Mingeikan (Tottori Folk Crafts Museum) by Yoshida Shóya in 1949 and the Mashiko Sankókan (Mashiko Reference Collection) by Hamada Shóji in 1974.

Figure 2.11 The Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Mingeikan), exterior, Tokyo. Photograph: Yuko Kikuchi.

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Nihon Mingei Kyókai (Japan Folk Crafts Association) Yanagi founded the Japan Folk Crafts Association in 1934. He stated in its proposal: The mission of the Association is to make an intimate link between life and beauty. In order to achieve this mission we have to promote and popularise mingei. We would like to work systematically by way of both written works and objects. The Association consists of ﬁve sections: administration, research, planning, publication and public relations. We would like to appoint heads of each section and carry out our work steadily.115 The Japan Folk Crafts Association became the core institution for the development of the New Mingei (Shin Mingei) movement which aimed at reviving mingei by the creation of new mingei, and at revitalising a depressed rural industry. New mingei are produced often with modiﬁed designs to suit the modern lifestyle and with a view towards the urban consumer market. The movement spread throughout Japan and created local leaders such as Yoshida Shóya, Tonomura Kichinosuke and Funaki Michitada. The association created an extensive communication network with centralised power in its headquarters in Tokyo inside the Japan Folk Crafts Museum. After the Second World War the association further expanded its network, increasing membership throughout Japan (3,123 members in 1998) and promoted the production of new mingei and research activities. It has established local ofﬁces (currently numbering around thirty) and local folkcrafts museums, it organises exhibitions of old and new mingei as well as training workshops, lectures and summer schools, and it also publishes books and journals. Publication and dissemination (Kógei, Mingei) Yanagi also published a magazine, Kógei (Crafts) (Figure 2.12) ﬁrst through a publisher called Jugakusha and later single-handedly by Yanagi with his friends’ support. This monthly magazine which included essays and illustrations of crafts became the ﬁrst instrument to disseminate Mingei theory and his ‘criterion of beauty’ of folkcrafts. Each issue richly illustrated a different type of mingei as well as new mingei objects created by contemporary craftsmen, and works by artist-craftsmen in Mingei-style. Mizuo Hiroshi pointed out that the magazine almost functioned as an imaginary ‘museum in publication’ before the establishment of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in 1936.116 The magazine itself is a work of art, too. It was published in a limited edition from 1931 to 1951, printed on exclusively selected Japanese hand-made paper with covers of hand-made paper occasionally decorated with lacquer or hand-dyed and woven cloth. It is

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Figure 2.12 Kógei (Crafts), vol. 1 (including twelve issues), 1931. Pieces held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura. Source of photograph: Yuko Kikuchi and Toshio Watanabe, Ruskin in Japan 1890–1940: Nature for Art, Art for Life, Tokyo: Cogito in conjunction with Kóriyama City Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 1997 (p. 52, Fig. 297).

one of the most luxuriously made and beautiful book designs in Japanese book history. Yanagi and friends such as Itó Chózó, Jugaku Bunshó and Serizawa Keisuke further developed their interests in book design and printing, inspired by Morris, Cobden-Sanderson117 and the ﬁfteenthcentury book-binder Jean Grolier. After 1939, as the war with China raged on, publication of this magazine became irregular due to the effect of economic difﬁculties on its high cost, and the shortage of materials. Sub-

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sequently Gekkan Mingei (The Folkcrafts Monthly) was published in 1939. It was more accessible to the public and became instrumental for the Japan Folk Crafts Association in expanding its communication network with the craftsmen of the New Mingei movement which was spread all over Japan. It ceased publication in 1946, but after being taken over by Nihon Mingei (Japanese Folkcrafts), was re-issued from 1948. Later the title changed to Mingei, under which name it is still published. Craft trade As the New Mingei movement grew, it became clear that retail shops for the new mingei works were needed. A successful model of the new mingei trade was set by Yoshida Shóya. Yoshida, an ear, nose and throat specialist active in Tottori prefecture, was one of Yanagi’s most devoted supporters. Yoshida calls himself a ‘producer of new mingei’118 and a pragmatist of the ‘experimental mingei studies’ in contrast with Yanagi whom he regarded as a theorist of ‘theoretical mingei studies’.119 He created a craft guild in 1931, as noted above, before opening a retail shop called Takumi (craftsmanship) in 1932 in Tottori to sell its products, then went on to establish the Tottori Mingeikan (Tottori Folk Crafts Museum) in 1949. In collaboration with other mingei leaders, he gave new designs to craftsmen in Tottori, organised exhibitions and fairs, and gave general assistance to the marketing and sales of the products. Some successful examples of his ideas include Ushinoto pottery which was revived with a new set of western-style table wares, while he transformed woodcraft into a thriving business by making Tottori Mingei-style furniture120 (Figure 2.13). Mukóguniyasu village was also revived by the new production of niniguri homespun ties with the design inspired by Yanagi’s collection of English homespun ties introduced by his friend Robertson Scott.121 After the success of the retail shop Takumi in Tottori, a Tokyo branch of this shop was opened in 1933. Although trade shops such as Yamanaka Shókai and Minatoya, which often dealt with old mingei objects, already existed in Tokyo, Takumi was the ﬁrst trade shop opened under the direct management of one of the members of the Mingei movement. In the opening announcement signed by seven leaders of the Mingei movement, Yanagi wrote, ‘the aim of this shop is to collect and sell only newly produced true folkcrafts’.122 He also wrote about his aims and the hopes for Takumi in other writings: [newly produced] ‘correct and healthy’ folkcrafts from all over Japan will be collected and organised by Takumi . . . ‘Takumi’ is the third stage [of the New Mingei movement] in the retailing of crafts, after the ﬁrst stage which is to ﬁnd good individual craftsmen and the second stage of reviving folkcrafts in local districts.123

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Figure 2.13 Tottori Mingei-style furniture, Tatsumi Mokkó. Photograph: Tottori Mingei Kyókai.

Takumi was a Morrisian project, following the model of Morris & Co. Yanagi sympathetically wrote: I once questioned why Morris had to start a secular business with a shop. But now, I have come to understand that what he did was an organic part of his whole works and it was a natural development.124 Takumi, having a social ethical element, also created strong links with Morris’s business project. The policy and rationale of Takumi is described as ‘social work’ rather than ‘business’. Yanagi wrote: . . . not to set standards by the things that sold well, but to collect only articles of the ‘true’ beauty under the ﬁrm belief that only things of the

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This echoes Morris’s belief in a meeting point between ideal arts and crafts works and commerce as: Beauty is a marketable quality, and . . . the better the work is all round, both as a work of art and in its technique, the more likely it is to ﬁnd favour with the public.126 Following the model of Morris, Yanagi and his friends promoted the mingei business in the modern system of industrial capitalism and directed its system to make newly created mingei for the urban mass to consume. Mingei objects and Mingei theory were disseminated through various projects such as guilds, ‘model rooms’, exhibitions, museums, an association, publications and trade. Mingei was constructed as authentic ‘tradition’, and at the same time it was also repositioned in the modern context to generate new aesthetic values. It is, as James Clifford, who analysed the system of culture collecting, puts it, the ‘process of cultural reinvention’ and ‘future-oriented appropriations of tradition’.127 Yanagi, as a cultural inventor, authenticated mingei through the cultural mechanism which Clifford calls ‘the Art-Culture System: a machine for making authenticity’.128 Through this cultural mechanism mingei developed a new aesthetic value. Yanagi not only made mingei into tradition but in fashioning art objects from non-art objects. Mingei came to signify art where it used to imply non-art – it negotiated and crossed the boundaries between art and non-art. Accordingly, mingei also acquired commercial value and became the ‘objects of desire’ in a comodiﬁed mass culture through his ‘model room’ projects and trade. Yanagi’s project of cultural reinvention was achieved in accordance with modern aesthetic changes and subsumed by a mass consumer culture.

Modernity and Japanese cultural and national identity The birth of the modern nation, Westernisation and the rise of cultural nationalism The social and intellectual climate (late 1880s–1926) The Taishó period (1912–26), when Mingei theory gradually formed, is often known by the term ‘Taishó Democracy’ as the ﬁrst optimistic ﬂowering period of the Meiji modernisation policy which sought to catch up with the Occidental model of industrialisation. However, if the ﬁrst half of Meiji can be categorised as a period of simply promoting modernisation, which was considered synonymous with Westernisation, the latter half of the Meiji and all of the Taishó periods were more complex. Various ideological and philosophical problems emerged in the later stages of

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modernisation. From the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the government pushed along modernisation and industrialisation with the slogans; shokusan kógyó (increase products and promote industry) and fukoku kyóhei (enrich the country and strengthen its arms). The promulgation of the Constitution in 1889 and the opening of the Diet (Parliament) in 1890 conﬁrmed Japan as a ‘modern’ civilised nation among other European superpowers. In its determination to follow the Occident the Japanese government employed numerous oyatoi gaikokujin (hired foreigners)129 and also sent Japanese students abroad to absorb knowledge from the Occident. The technical aspects of science and technology were rapidly absorbed during the ﬁrst half of the Meiji period. However the minds of the people were not easily changed and this problem endured through the last half of the Meiji period. Wakon yósai (Japanese mind with Occidental knowledge) was a slogan which symbolised the government’s ideology that modernisation and pure Japanese thought could be easily synthesised. The reality was that coining slogans was easier than the realisation of such a synthesis. For instance, Kósaka Masaaki contends that during the course of the deeper integration of Christianity into Japan from around the late 1880s, such concepts as individualism and humanitarian socialism forced a complex inner reformation, because those concepts, which were part of Occidental thinking, were completely foreign to Japanese or Orientals.130 All sorts of new ideas without contexts in or connection with Japanese indigenous ideas were introduced from the Occident in a short time. During this period academics and intellectuals voraciously read Occidental books in their original language, alongside the many translations and digests which were also published at this time. The ambivalent feelings the Japanese had about the clash between their own indigenous ideas and those of the Occident, arising as a reaction to the radical Westernisation in the early half of the Meiji period, slowly developed into cultural and politico-economic nationalism. The main concern of the intellectuals was to deﬁne the originality and identity of the Japanese, and actual realisation of wakon yósai (Japanese mind with Occidental knowledge). They struggled to retain traditional virtues while not denying the need for Westernisation. The Shirakaba, to which I have already referred, was a typical example reﬂecting intellectuals’ concerns in this period. Initially the magazine led young intellectuals’ interest in Occidental art, but later it made a slight shift of interest away from Occidental art to Oriental art – in particular towards Japanese and Korean art. Some articles on and photographs of Japanese and Korean artefacts appeared between 1919 and 1923 in the last issues of the magazine. These articles dealt with early Japanese Buddhist art,131 Korean sculptures,132 early Japanese Buddhist sculptures,133 Korean YiDynasty (Chosön) pottery134 and Japanese Buddhist paintings.135 This shift, which occurred after 1919 and coincided with Yanagi’s interest in Korean folkcrafts sparked by his ﬁrst trip to Korea in 1916, may hint at a symbolic

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shift away from total subservience to Occidental art and reﬂect the Shirakaba group’s spiritual search for national identity and dignity. The emergence of a new national sentiment during this period is also indicated by other signiﬁcant publications. Those include Seikyósha’s magazine, Nihonjin (The Japanese, 1888), Shiga Shigetaka’s Nihon Fúkeiron (The Japanese Landscape, 1894), Okakura Tenshin’s series of books including The Ideal of the East (1903), The Awakening of Japan (1904), The Book of Tea (1906), Suzuki Daisetz’s Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism (1907), Natsume Sóseki’s writings Sanshiró (‘Sanshiró’ a protagonist’s name, 1909), Sorekara (And Then, 1910), Nishida Kitaró’s Zen no Kenkyú (Study on Virtue, 1911) and Yanagita Kunio’s Kyódo Kenkyú (Folklore Study, 1913). These works epitomise intellectuals’ struggles in their search for a Japanese identity, Japanese originality and a case for superiority over the Occident. The following are extracts from the works of Natsume Sóseki, a novelist and one of the most prominent ﬁgures of this period, who succeeded in analysing and representing the ambivalent feeling which existed, in particular, among the intellectuals: We are the young people who cannot stand the oppression of old Japan, but at the same time, we cannot stand the oppression of the new Occident. We have to shout out loud to the public that we are living under these two oppressions. The oppression of the new Occident is as torturous for our generation as the oppression of old Japan. We are scholars of Occidental literature and art and this is just study. It is totally free from any idea that we surrender to them. We do not study Occidental literature and art to be captured by them. We study them so that we can release ourselves from them.136 The reason why I do not do anything is not because of myself, but because of the world. If I exaggerate further, I do not work because the relationship between Japan and the Occident is bad . . . Japan is a country which cannot survive without loans from the Occident, yet it pretends to be a ﬁrst class nation. To present a grand façade to the world and show itself equal to other ﬁrst class countries, Japan squandered the country’s resources, creating wretchedness behind the imposing front. It would have been better for Japan had it failed to create this front. It is like the competition of the ox and the bull-frog. The frog’s belly will soon burst. These things affect our people. Look at the Japanese people who are being oppressed by the Occident. They do not have time to think carefully so they cannot do quality work. Their education was cut down to the essential minimum, they are used without rest, and then eventually all will have nervous breakdowns. Once you talk to them, you will ﬁnd most of them empty-headed. They can only think about themselves and what they are doing right now. You cannot blame them though, because they are too exhausted to

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think. Physical exhaustion unfortunately correlates with mental exhaustion and along with it comes moral corruption. There is not even an inch square place shining in Japan now. It is dark everywhere. Nobody cares what I say or do now in this situation.137 As a leading Japanese scholar of English literature, Sóseki138 had this complex feeling of being sandwiched between the old Japanese world and the new Occident and his stance was one of pessimism and a feeling of being totally paralysed between the two. Yanagi’s view on the Occident and its people, whilst not dissimilar in some respects, offers a different tone: It is deplorable that the world should think that there is such a complete difference between East and West. It is usually said that selfdenial, asceticism, sacriﬁce, negation are opposed to self-afﬁrmation, individualism, self-realisation; but I do not believe in such a gap. I wish to destroy the idea of a gap. It is an idea which was obtained analytically. The meeting of East and West will not be upon a bridge over a gap, but upon the destruction of the idea of a gap . . . The weakest point in the Japanese character is the lack of the power of questioning. We are repressed by our educational system. And so many things came here at one time that caused confusion. What is often thought to be a lack of originality in us is a state resulting from an immense importation of foreign ideas. They have been overpowering. Many of us have no clear ideas on life, society, sex and so on, and you will ﬁnd it difﬁcult to get satisfactory answers to many questions which you will want to ask.139 Yanagi clearly did not want to believe in a gap between the East and the West. He thought the idea of this gap was based on false premises and believed rather in a happy marriage between the East and the West. There was of course the problem of being overpowered by Occidental knowledge which was taken for granted without critical questioning and without leaving space for creating originality, but this could be overcome by individual efforts. Yanagi’s tone here is more optimistic than Sóseki’s. Yanagi was objective enough to admit the weak points of the Japanese but at the same time he also showed his unyielding determination to ﬁght Westernisation for the sake of cultural nationalism. Nevertheless, despite the analytical and calm statement quoted above, Yanagi sometimes showed his honest and strongly emotional admiration for the Occident, and revealed his humility towards the Occident. On receiving letters from Max Klinger and Auguste Rodin thanking the group for introducing them in Japan, the Shirakaba group was overwhelmed with the extreme happiness of being recognised by Westerners.140 The joy of Yanagi and other members was expressed in an essay titled ‘Kuringeru no Ehagaki Shirakaba Dójin Yonmei o Kyóki Seshimuru Koto’ (Klinger’s postcard made four Shirakaba

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members madly happy).141 Yanagi was also deeply grateful to Lafcadio Hearn and Bernard Leach for considering themselves to be equal to the Japanese and for understanding Japan better than the Japanese themselves.142 Although he started from a position of admiration and humility towards the Occident, Yanagi struggled to make himself equal to Westerners. He worked hard at this in his relationship with Leach and gradually gained conﬁdence in his own abilities. Yanagi had a favourite episode involving Leach which he proudly recounted.143 This memorable experience with Leach took place in autumn 1913 when Yanagi and Leach went up to Mount Akagi and spent several days together. One night they had an argument over art in which they argued furiously. Leach ﬁnally apologised to Yanagi for having been too emotional and Yanagi apologised to Leach for his use of vulgar English, and they went peacefully to bed and woke up quite happily the next morning. Leach commented that it was a brilliant discussion that they had the previous evening. Yet, even though Yanagi told this story elsewhere, Leach did not mention it at all in his writing or in his meticulous diary. It seems that this episode was only important to Yanagi. It can be Leach’s arrogance, but it can also be perceived that Yanagi’s preoccupation with the signiﬁcance of this incident as proof of his inferiority complex toward the Occident. There can be little doubt that the existence of ambivalent feelings towards the Occident and the struggle in search of cultural nationalism among the intellectuals of this period affected Yanagi and the formation of Mingei theory in his appropriation of the Occidental ideas into Japanese context.

Arts and Crafts in modern Japan: export craft industry and modern craft movements Appropriation of Bijutsu (ﬁne art) and Kógei (craft) Yanagi’s Mingei theory began by challenging the hierarchical classiﬁcation of ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘craft’ and the hierarchical sub-classiﬁcation within ‘craft’ as I have already discussed on pages 49–53. He wrote ‘attaching too much importance on ﬁne art and showing contempt for crafts and creating hierarchy . . . is a fundamental mistake in the modern aesthetic’.144 He stressed this assumed hierarchy which Morris and the leaders of the English Arts and Crafts movement had problematised, as if the situation in Japan at that time were almost the same as the European situation. However Yanagi’s simpliﬁcation is rather misleading. His statement needs to be re-examined in view of the fact that Japan had a different, more complex historical context than that of Europe. According to Sató Dóshin, in Japan, there existed a hierarchy in art which had traditionally involved much broader concepts, depending on the patrons’ or consumers’ social status, and the art in particular, was cate-

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gorised as ‘Buddhist art’, ‘court art’, ‘art for military clans’ or art for ordinary people including items such as netsuke ornament and ukiyoe prints. This pre-modern Japanese concept of ‘art’ reﬂecting social classes formed the base for the transplantation of the new concept of ‘art’, which comprised ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘applied art’/‘craft’, from Europe. However there was no exact equivalent of the Occidental modern concepts of ‘ﬁne’ and ‘applied’, nor did a hierarchy exist among them based on the notions of ‘genre’, media and social classes.145 The terms which were often used by Yanagi such as jótemono, which means expensive, luxury, elaborate and reﬁned objects, and getemono, which means inexpensive, common household objects, discussed above, reﬂect the pre-modern Japanese concept of ‘art’, but they are both objects which are mostly categorised as ‘applied art’ under the Occidental classiﬁcation. As much recent scholarly research, including Kitazawa Noriaki’s seminal work, has made clear, Japanese terms bijutsu (ﬁne art) and kógei (craft) were translated from European terms in response to modernisation and industrialisation, and were appropriated into a Japanese context.146 The previously used term gigei (technical art) embracing both concepts of ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘craft’ was virtually replaced by bijutsu and kógei. Because most of gigei were ‘crafts’ according to the Occidental notion, when the totally alien concept of bijutsu was applied to gigei, it caused enormous confusion. The term bijutsu was ofﬁcially used in 1873 when Japan exhibited at the Vienna International Exhibition, with a broad concept including arts in general, music, painting, sculpture and poetry. To make the matter more complicated, as Kinoshita Naoyuki pointed out, the popular concept of bijutsu as misemono (entertainment shows), which was some way short of the modern concept of ‘ﬁne art’, also prevailed.147 However the deﬁnitions of the terms bijutsu and kógei were gradually consolidated and developed in a Japanese way through the establishment of modern institutional systems including museums, exhibitions, art schools and art journalism. Bijutsu was ofﬁcially recognised as a discipline with the establishment of Kóbu Bijutsu Gakkó (Technical Art School attached to Imperial College of Engineering) in 1876, the ﬁrst institution to teach Western ‘ﬁne art’ including painting, sculpture and architecture/decoration. The ﬁrst Naikoku Kangyó Hakurankai (Exposition for the Promotion of Domestic Industry) also set up the third category of bijutsu in 1877, however it still shows confusion surrounding the concept of bijutsu exempliﬁed in its inclusion of sculpture, calligraphy, painting, prints, photography, architectural design/decoration, ceramics, glass, inlaid and wooden mosaic works. The deﬁnition of bijutsu became clearer in the 1880s, particularly after the establishment of the Imperial Museum in 1886 with its sections of history, bijutsu (ﬁne art), bijutsu kógei (art craft), kógei/ kógyó (craft/industrial products), and the establishment of the national art academy, the Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkó (Tokyo School of Art) in 1889, which taught painting (Japanese-style), sculpture, architecture, and zuan (proto concept of design) which later changed to bijutsu kógei (art crafts).

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While the term kógei (craft) was used as early as the 1860s, it encompassed a broad concept ranging from technology, science, engineering, manufacturing and actually meant commercially and economically oriented ‘industrial machine products’ and ‘product design’. 148 However due to the underdevelopment of industry and machinery in Japan until the 1880s and 1890s, kógei included various hand-made products. From then on kógei was split into sub-classiﬁcations and terms such as bijutsu kógei (art crafts) and futsú kógei (common crafts) used from the late 1880s, and the terms sangyó kógei (industrial crafts), mingei, shin kógei (new crafts or studio crafts) began to be used from the 1920s. The establishment of the Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkó (Tokyo School of Art) in 1889 marked the emergence of the term bijutsu kógei and it has been widely used since then for a type of exquisite craft work by a master craftsman, as well as for the studio craft by artist craftsman since the studio craft movements developed during the 1910 to 1930 period, which will be discussed further below. Until around the 1920s, the term kógei in general meant ‘product design’ in contemporary terminology and was used in close association with ofﬁcial schemes for export. Crafts for the national export industry In contrast to the situation in Victorian England, social attitudes towards crafts in Japan were rather favourable. Since the beginning of the Meiji period, largely owing to the reputation of Japan as a nation of ‘crafts’, as propagated through international exhibitions, ‘craft’ became the national economic project for the promotion of international trade. After the great success of the ﬁrst ofﬁcial Japanese attendance at the Paris International Exhibition in 1867, the government sponsored an extensive exhibit at the Vienna International Exhibition in 1873.149 This participation, carefully planned by the Japanese government exhibition ofﬁce under the supervision of Gottfried Wagener, a hired foreign chemical engineer, was a tremendous success and showed the great popularity of Japanese traditional handicrafts in the Occident. Under his guidance, Japanese traditional handicrafts were created with some advanced scientiﬁc techniques in the Occident to match the taste of the people in the Occident. For the next twenty years, with the boom of Japonisme in the Occident, Japan succeeded in exporting traditional handicrafts through companies such as Kanazawa Dókó Kaisha and Kiritsu Kóshó Kaisha which had also branch ofﬁces in New York and Paris.150 These traditional handicrafts were signiﬁcant for the government as they recorded one tenth of the total amount of export during the late 1870s to 1880s.151 For Japan, whose technological level was far behind the West, the signiﬁcance of handicrafts lay in the fact that they were considered to be original export products which did not need to compete with Western products. On the occasion of the Vienna International Exhibition, the Japanese government sent government ofﬁcials to do market research on

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Japanese handicrafts and twenty-four engineers to learn Western technology. Nótomi Kaijiró (1844–1918), who later came to be known as the father of the Japanese design movement, was one of them.152 After he had attended the exhibition and studied ceramic techniques in France, he tried to mechanise the production of Japanese crafts for export, using new Western technology and Japanese designs which made possible mass production in order to promote craft trade. He also created the word zuan, the proto concept of ‘design’, and the term ‘design’ began to be used after the Second World War. He also developed a ﬂow system whereby the government instructed painters to create design drawings to be passed on to the craftsmen who used them to create objects. Thus systematisation in the ﬁeld of crafts started in 1876. Curiously enough Yanagi had an identical idea in his concept of the relationship of himself, the ‘artistcraftsman’ and the craftsman: Yanagi would instruct and educate the ‘artistcraftsman’ with his Mingei theory, the ‘artist-craftsman’ would design a prototype, then ordinary craftsmen would produce the articles in quantity. Though it is not known whether Yanagi knew Nótomi and his work, Yanagi’s system, with its similarity to that of Nótomi, is positioned in line with early Meiji government policy. The government’s initiative to promote the export of crafts also reﬂects on the establishment of educational institutions for research and development of technology for craft production. Many kógyó and kógei schools were established all over Japan from the 1880s, and some of which were directly set up with Nótomi’s initiative. They include Tokyo Shokkó Gakkó153 in 1881, Kanazawa Kógyó Gakkó (Kanazawa School of Technology) in 1887 (later Ishikawa-ken Kógyó Gakkó or Ishikawa Prefectural School of Technology),154 Toyama-ken Kógei Gakkó (Toyama Prefectural School of Technology) in 1894, Takaoka Kógei Gakkó (Takaoka School of Crafts) in 1894, Osaka Kógyó Gakkó (Osaka School of Technology) in 1896, Kagawaken Kógei Gakkó (Kagawa Prefectural School of Technology) in 1898, Sagaken Kógyó Gakkó (Saga Prefectural School of Technology) in 1901, Kyoto Kótó Kógei Gakkó (Kyoto Higher School of Crafts) in 1902, Saga Kenritsu Arita Kógyó Gakkó (Saga Prefectural Arita School of Technology) in1903 and Tokyo Furitsu Kógei Gakkó (Tokyo Metropolitan School of Crafts) in 1907.155 The aim of these schools was to teach advanced science and technology from the Occident and apply this to the quantity production of quality crafts.156 At a national level, effort was put into developing zuan (a prototypical concept for ‘design’) for the purposes of creating more attractive artefacts for the export trade. Around the turn of the century in the Occident, the popularity in ‘heavy’ Japanese export crafts declined with the change of people’s taste from luxurious, elaborately decorated Japanese ornaments to the new ‘lighter’ designs.157 Thus, alongside the schools of crafts, zuan-ka or departments of design were also created. Three zuan-ka were newly established in the Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkó (Tokyo School of Art) in 1896, Tokyo Kótó Kógyó Gakkó (Tokyo Higher School of Technology) in

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1899, and Kyoto Kótó Kógei Gakkó (Kyoto Higher School of Crafts) in 1902. In 1911, at the beginning of the Taishó period, Kógei no Shinkó ni Kansuru Kengisho (Proposal to Promote the Exports of Japanese Crafts and their Design) was presented by Tejima Seiichi158 and Matsuoka Hisashi159 to Makino Nobuaki, the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, in response to Makino’s request for a consultation paper. This proposal made several recommendations: the creation of an ofﬁcial bureau of crafts in the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce; the establishment of a Craft Council; craft exhibitions and prize awards for excellent designs which would then be used for the actual production of new export lines; participation in exhibitions; the appointment of crafts’ marketing ofﬁcers in the countries to which Japan was exporting; and the collection of new and old crafts in a craft museum which would display exhibits from Japan and the rest of the world. As a result of this proposal, Nó Shómushó Bijutsu Kógei Tenrankai (Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce Exhibitions), commonly known as Nóten, was formed in 1913 in order to improve and vitalise export ‘craft’ design.160 This exhibition also provided exciting opportunities for newly educated craftsmen as well as artists to show their craft work and zuan. The government support promoted the early development of design. During the Sino-Japanese War in 1894–5 and the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–5, Japan developed mechanisation and heavy machine industries which made mass production by machine possible. Accordingly, kógyó and kógei, which hitherto had had no distinctive deﬁnitions, began to acquire separate deﬁnitions: kógyó indicated machine production and kógei implied handicrafts though they both continued to be commercially oriented. In the case of Tokyo Kótó Kógei Gakkó (Tokyo Higher School of Arts and Technology) established in 1921, its aim was clearly shifted to the advancement of bijutsu kógei (art crafts). This institution also became an incubator of design in the contemporary sense as the faculty of this institution pioneered modern interior design and Western-style furniture design.161 The burgeoning of design can also be seen in the activity of Teikoku Kógeikai (the Imperial Craft Society) which was established in 1927 modelled after the Deutsche Werkbund. Accompanied by a magazine Teikoku Kógei, Teikoku Kógeikai also promoted export crafts by incorporating industry, artist and craftsmen. However, the biggest project was centred in the Kógei Shidósho (the Industrial Arts Research Institute – IARI), established by the government in 1928, to improve the design of products for export at the time of the depression. With help from German Modernist architect, Bruno Taut, Kógei Shidósho took the ofﬁcial initiative in the development of research into export craft and design as well as through publication of magazines such as Kógei Shidó (Instructions on Crafts) and Kógei Nyúsu (Industrial Art News) from 1932, discussed more fully on pages 95–100. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century up until the ﬁrst half of the twentieth century, the government supported

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crafts as one of the most marketable products to increase revenue in international trade and continued to support ‘industrial design’ which replaced crafts after the Second World War. Bijutsu Kógei and the studio craft movement Exquisitely made craft objects intended for export called bijutsu kógei (art craft) were accorded the highest status among modern crafts, giving them sense of national importance. The government set up a system whereby they awarded the title, master craftsmen of bijutsu kógei, the highest honour in the craft world, for excellence in crafts. The ﬁrst appointment system was set up in 1890 and was called Teishitsu Gigeiin (Imperial Court Artists), a title appointed by Imperial Household. It was followed by several systems: in 1919 the title was changed to the appointment to Teikoku Bijutsuin/Geijutsuin Kaiin (Members of the Imperial Academy of Arts). This in turn was replaced after the Second World War by the title Nihon Geijutsuin Kaiin (Members of the Japan Academy of Arts) by the Ministry of Education, followed by, in 1955, the title Jyúyó Mukei Bunkazai (Important Intangible Cultural Property), which was commonly called Ningen Kokuhó (Living National Treasures), also introduced by the Ministry of Education. Bijutsu kógei also developed into another direction. The 1920s saw the birth of studio craft movements which signalled beginning of the so-called ‘golden period’ of the modern crafts movement.162 In 1926 Nihon Kógei Bijutsu Kai (the Japan Craft Art Association) was established and the ﬁrst exhibition of Nihon Kógei Bijutsu Tenrankai (the Japan Craft Art Exhibition) was held. Nihon Kógei Bijutsu Kai began lobbying for the establishment of the ‘Craft Art’ section in the Teikoku Bijutsu Tenrankai (abbreviated to Teiten or the Imperial Arts Exhibition) which only had three sections: Japanese-style painting, Western-style painting, and sculpture. Teikoku Bijutsu Tenrankai itself began in 1919 as an exhibition which succeeded the Monbushó Bijutsu Tenrankai (Bunten abbreviated to ‘Ministry of Education Art Exhibition’) that dated from 1907, modelled after the French Salon. The establishment of the ‘Craft Art’ section in Teikoku Bijutsu Tenrankai was achieved in 1928 and this is generally regarded as the landmark in the history of modern crafts from which the Japanese modern studio craft movement began. Many crafts magazines were published during this period such as Kógei Tsúshin (Craft Communication) in 1922, Kógei Jidai (The Age of Craft) in 1926, Mukei (Formless) in 1927 and Kógei (Crafts) in 1931. Kógei Jidai (The Age of Craft), for example, announced the arrival of the ‘age of craft’ and ‘the Renaissance of Japanese craft art’ which was inspired by the international modern design movements reﬂected such as reﬂected in the First All-Russian Exhibition of Architecture and Kustar Industry in Moscow in 1923 and Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in 1925.163

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Tomimoto Kenkichi and Bernard Leach were the pioneer artist craftsmen of these studio crafts movements which created crafts as a means of art for self-expression. They were followed by many avant-garde artist craftsmen. The Mukei (Formless) group was one of the leading avant-garde groups, founded in 1926 with core members who were metal artist craftsmen. They were against the tradition of attaching high value to technique as opposed to creativity, and their ideal was to create objects from the imagination. Its manifesto says: Mukei means no form, has no form, without form. Everybody freely creates variety of forms . . . Nostalgia, decadent, withering, relax, death, vanity, silence, conservatism, the principle of ‘peace-at-anyprice’ – are the things Mukei most rejects. Freshness, vividness, vitality, positivism, energy, fulﬁlling, destruction of the present, future, excitement – towards these brighter future Mukei waves the ﬂag.164 A vase titled ‘Construction for Flower’ by Takamura Toyochika exempliﬁes their works with its geometric forms with cones, cylinders and spheres (Figure 2.14). Their styles were inspired by European modern design movements, such as Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Russian Constructivism and Bauhaus design, which had been introduced in Japan. Mukei became anarchical and, in fact, was dissolved in 1933, although a number of exMukei members including Takamura formed the Jitsuzai Kógei Bijutsukai (Existing Crafts Art Society). Reﬂecting this transitional period within the modern movement, Takamura’s ideas moved back and forth between the concepts of bijutsu and kógei. Around 1922, during the time he was involved in the magazine, Kógei Tsúshin (Craft Communication), he stressed the link between art and daily life, saying ‘you need to create beauty in ordinary daily objects such as plates and tea cups’ in order to ‘raise the standard of beauty in the society’. Later, during his involvement with the Mukei, he stressed the independence of bijutsu kógei (art craft) which has a primary purpose of originality and creativity as opposed to sangyó kógei (industrial craft) which has primary purpose of ‘function’.165 But again during his involvement in the Jitsuzai Kógei Bijutsukai, he swung back to his original position stressing again that functional beauty matches with modern life.166 Jitsuzai Kógei Bijutsukai proclaimed ‘Yó soku Bi’ (Function equals Beauty). This coincidentally resonates with the Mingei aesthetics of the beauty of functionality and can actually be read as a paraphrase of Yanagi’s words, ‘Yó ni sokusuru koto to Bi ni sokusuru koto wa Kógei ni oite wa dóji dearu’ (the functional and the beautiful coincide in terms of crafts).167 Yanagi wrote this in 1927; the Mukei group was established in 1926; the Jitsuzai Kógei Bijutsukai was established in 1933 and the Japan Folk Crafts Museum was built in 1936. There seem to be numerous interactions between the leading modern craft movements during this period, and the similarities between the Mukei and the Mingei movement, evident in ideas such as ‘art of life’ and ‘function equals beauty’, cannot be mere coincidence.

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Figure 2.14 Takamura Toyochika, a vase, ‘Sóka no tameno Kósei’ (Construction for Flower Arrangement), H29.2ǂ12.2ǂ16.8, 1926. Piece held in a Private collection. Source of photograph: Hokkaidóritsu Kindai Bijutsukan and Takamatsu shi Bijutsukan et al. eds 1996. Nihon Kógei no Seishunki 1920s–1945 (Craft Movements in Japan 1920s–1945), Tokyo: Cogito Inc. (p. 47, Fig. 30).

The Mingei movement as part of the modern craft movements A design historian Izuhara Eiichi analyses three major developments which he described as the period of the ‘triangular’ movements.168 They are ﬁrst, the movement led by the government initiative the main concern of which

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is export crafts; second, the Mukei (Formless) group and the Jitsuzai Kógei Bijutsukai (Existing Crafts Art Society) as a new studio craft movement; and third, the various peasant and folkcrafts movements led by such people as Yamamoto Kanae and the Mingei group. The Mingei movement developed in a context whereby the national commercial interest was consistently imposed on crafts. The Mingei movement was also a product of the modern craft movements which had newly emerged and were in the process of early development in the 1920s by mutually nurturing each other. The situation of Japanese crafts in the modern period is favourable overall in terms of preservation as well as new developments. Despite the initial confusion at the time of restructuring the system of Japanese visual culture with newly imported concepts of bijutsu (ﬁne art) and kógei (craft), a wide range of crafts were continuously supported by the government and the new art system was implemented for both trade and cultural purposes. When Yanagi wrote his theory of crafts in 1927, he gave the impression that there had been a long history of distinction between ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘craft’ in Japan but in fact only a few decades had passed since the clear distinction between the two had been recognised in Japan.169 Moreover, he did not emphasise that the rich and vast area of crafts traditionally existed and was still strongly recognised, even after the systematic distinction of ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘craft’ was implemented. Yanagi’s interest was on getemono in contrast to jótemono in the old Japanese classiﬁcation. He made an assumption that there was an equivalent hierarchy between getemono and jótemono as that between ‘craft’ and ‘ﬁne art’ by invoking modern concepts of ‘individuality’ and ‘originality’. Using the Japanese terminologies, Yanagi applied such concepts, ‘lesser arts’ in contrast to ‘great arts’, in the way William Morris had posited. He not only made a conceptual assumption, but also simpliﬁed the situation of Japanese arts and crafts within the framework of modern Occidental terms that did not capture the complex reality. The assumption made by Yanagi is misleading and is seemingly based on conceptual ideas rather than the reality.

Cultural nationalism in art: invention of ‘Japaneseness’ and ‘Japanese style’ The political context of Japanese art and craft The appropriation process of bijutsu and kógei involves political complexity and manipulation. This process reﬂected two factors: Orientalism and Japanese cultural nationalism. On the occasions when it attended various international exhibitions, Japan had to follow the classiﬁcation of exhibits as required in the Occident and so adjusted its classiﬁcation and instructions for production to suit this convention. The Occident was deemed to have the authority to deﬁne and exhibit ‘Japanese art’. The criteria that the Occident demanded for Japanese art changed from the late nineteenth

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century to the beginning of the twentieth century. From High Victorian Japonisme to continental European Japonisme during the period from the 1860s to the 1880s, the criteria were ﬁrst based on the prevailing assumption that Japan had no ﬁne art but was a country of crafts. Sir Rutherford Alcock, the British Minister to Japan who selected Japanese objects to exhibit in the International Exhibition in London in 1862 wrote: In all the mechanical arts the Japanese have unquestionably achieved great excellence. In their porcelain, their bronze, their silk fabrics, their lacquer, and their metallurgy generally, including works of exquisite art in design and execution, I have no hesitation in saying they not only rival the best products of Europe, but can produce in each of these departments works we can imitate.170 Alcock admired Japanese art, holding supreme ‘decorative art’ as the highest art form with function. However, he also notes: As Mr Ruskin assumes, that there are only two Fine Arts possible to the human race – sculpture and painting – the Japanese can put forward no valid claim to be considered artists.171 In full agreement with Ruskin’s statement, he declared that the Japanese do not have ‘ﬁne art’. Even if Japan has supreme art, it is only to be classiﬁed ‘within narrower limits, on a lower plane’172 in the art-world order. Thus the deﬁnition and framework of ‘Japanese art’ was created by the Occident, according to their concept of ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘decorative art’ and was reinforced through international exhibitions. Therefore the collection of Japanese art in the Occident has also reﬂected this categorisation. Collectors collect speciﬁc kinds of Japanese artefacts such as ukiyoe prints, netsuke and various folkcrafts, which are different from Chinese artefacts, but they do not collect from an exhaustive range, leaving out Chinese-style paintings, calligraphy etc. The manipulation on the Japanese side has also been pointed out. The highly skilled intricately decorative one-off objects sold after international exhibitions such as the ones collected by Alcock were already inﬂuenced by the Western models and were produced for Western markets to match their taste.173 In this political mechanism, the Japanese appropriated the terms to their own context, creating a national identity through this modern invention of ‘Japanese Art’ at the same time. Recent research has focused on cultural nationalism and the modern systematisation of ‘Japanese Art’ in particular, with the ‘invention’ of the genre called nihonga (Japanese-style painting) that was promulgated from around 1880s by such people as Kuki Ryúichi, Okakura Tenshin (Kakuzó) who were aligned with Ernest F. Fenollosa.174 These cultural nationalists created arguments over the issue of ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘craft’ and appropriated these Western-oriented classiﬁcations

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into the Japanese context in order to create their own modern framework of Japanese art. Ernest F. Fenollosa, who was invited by the Japanese government as a oyatoi gaikokujin (hired foreigners) to teach philosophy at the Imperial University of Tokyo, was an ideologist who promoted cultural nationalism. He proclaimed the superiority of Japanese-style painting, in particular that of the Kanó school, over Western-style paintings through his well-known speech ‘Bijutsu Shinsetsu’ (True Theory of Japanese Art) and through his practical activities strongly advocating the preservation, appreciation and revival of Japanese-style painting. Kuki Ryúici the ViceMinister of Education and later the director of the Tokyo Imperial Museum, after returning from the Paris International Exhibition where he saw the success of Japanese artefacts, was convinced of the need to promote the Japanese artistic tradition rather than to promote Western art in order to create national pride and international prestige. In 1879 he helped to establish the Ryúchi Kai (later Nihon Bijutsu Kyókai or the Japan Art Association), a group of intellectuals and ofﬁcials headed by Sano Tsunetami as President and himself as Vice-President, to study, preserve and develop Japanese art and propagate its uniqueness abroad. In 1882 Okakura, the ﬁrst president of Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkó (Tokyo School of Art), had a famous debate over the classiﬁcation and merit of calligraphy as ‘ﬁne art’ with Koyama Shótaró, a leading Western-style painter.175 Koyama argued that calligraphy was not ‘ﬁne art’ in the Western sense of ‘ﬁne art’. Okakura rebutted, arguing that ‘Oriental civilisation is extremely different from Occidental civilisation, therefore there was no doubt that there are such differences in art, as art reﬂects the taste of the people’176 and he argued calligraphy was part of ‘ﬁne art’ that is unique to Japanese art. Okakura was one of the leaders of those who were of the opinion that the Occidental classiﬁcation of ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘craft’ was both inapplicable to and unsuited to Japanese art: There are quite a few differences in character between art in Japan and in the Occident. For example, in our art there are no such artiﬁcial distinctions as Pure Art or High Art and Industrial Art (including Decorative Art or Applied Art). In reality, Art can not be divided into Pure and Applied and this truth has recently been recognised also by the leading people in Europe. For the past several hundred years, there has been a strange distinction between these two throughout the history of these ﬁelds of work in Europe. While in Japan, there haven’t been any such distinctions and metal smiths are equal to wood sculptors. It is the unique character of our art that paintings have been used for decorations.177 Although, on the surface, Okakura seems to be rejecting the Occidental concepts themselves, in reality rather than rejecting these concepts he was making a shrewd appropriation. If one studies the curriculum exclusively

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devoted to traditional Japanese art used by the Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkó (Tokyo School of Art), the ﬁrst national art academy which is an embodiment of Fenollosa’s and Okakura’s ideas, its principles were based on the Occidental deﬁnition of ‘ﬁne art’. Okakura wanted to create a concept of Japanese ‘ﬁne art’ which reﬂected ‘Japaneseness’. Okakura was a nationalist but also a moderniser in the sense that he accepted the concept of ‘ﬁne art’ and tried to reposition the concept in a Japanese way. However in order to overcome the politico-cultural dominance of the Occident over the Orient on the deﬁnition of Japanese art as ‘craft’ by the Occident, he claimed that Japanese art also had the category of ‘ﬁne art’ which contains both ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘craft’ intermingled. He stressed that the state of Japanese art which contains a wider concept than the classiﬁcations in the Occident was more modern as well as uniquely Japanese. Yanagi was also in line with these cultural nationalists. When Yanagi created his hybrid theory of the ‘criterion of beauty’ by appropriating the modern ideas of anti-Occident and medieval Occident, Yanagi created an ‘innate and original’ Japaneseness of folkcrafts. Yanagi, as did other cultural nationalists, constructed a discourse of Japanese ethnic identity in art as projected by Orientalism. The difference between Okakura and Yanagi was that while Okakura stressed ‘ﬁne art’ to universalise ‘Japanese art’ in Occidental terms, Yanagi both stressed ‘crafts’ to conform with Orientalism, and appropriated ‘Orientalism’ to create his hybrid. Construction of Tóyó Japanese cultural and national identity is a construct deﬁned not only in relative relation with the Occident (Seiyó) but also with the Other Orient (Tóyó). During the surges of cultural nationalism in Japan, one of the most heated debates on Japanese ethnic identity was developing in the ﬁeld of anthropology, and centred on the foundation of the Tokyo Anthropology Society in 1886 after the model of Western scholarship. Once Japan, as a modern nation, had geographically deﬁned its national territorial boundaries as ranging from the Kurile Islands in the north in 1875, out to the Ogasawara Islands in the east in 1876 and down to Okinawa in the south in 1879, it instituted research into people in the peripheries, which included, for example, the Okinawans and the Ainu. As in modern Europe, Japanese anthropology, which also became a part of colonial studies to justify colonisation of primitive people by the civilised, also adopted the perspective of Social Darwinism. This new ﬁeld of anthropology tended to cast ‘Japanocentric’ views on ‘primitive’ others, and these ‘Japanocentric’ views can be seen in the research on the people in Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria and the Paciﬁc islands which also went ahead during the course of Japanese colonisation from 1895 until 1945. In addition to anthropology, another newly developed academic discipline, Oriental history (tóyóshi), was also instrumental for cultural nation-

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alists. Oriental history (tóyóshi), institutionalised around the 1890s,178 had Japanese ethnic identity as its central debate. For Japanese historians who, for the ﬁrst time in the 1880s, had learned Eurocentric Western progressive historiography by historians such as François Guizot and Henry Thomas Buckle from Western teachers, it was ironic to discover that the Orient, including Japan, had no history and no history of civilisation.179 Therefore, as Stefan Tanaka’s insightful analysis reveals, Japan constructed ‘the Orient’ and modelled Oriental historiography on Occidental historiography.180 Oriental history (tóyóshi) was developed by the generation who had been the students of the Imperial University of Tokyo and were taught by Ludwig Riess, a disciple of Leopold von Ranke. It became an academic discipline formally taught at middle schools and in higher education, independent of Occidental history (seiyóshi). It created a new spatial and temporal entity called tóyó (Orient), a counterpart of seiyó (Occident). In contrast to the Occidental notion of ‘Orient’, the core areas of tóyó are Japan, China and Korea but there are also tenuous connections with India and South-East Asia. Unilinear historiography based on enlightenment theory and progress was predominantly discussed in tóyóshi and a ‘Japanocentric’ hierarchy within tóyó, based on Social Darwinism evolved. As Tanaka says: Tóyó played a dual role: like the Western Orient, it was the respected antiquity, but for Japan it was also one that was older than the beginning of Europe. In this way Japan was able to place itself on the same level as the Occident and incorporate the ﬁgurative future – the West – into its world. However, contemporary shina (China) was a disorderly place – not a nation – from which Japan could both separate itself and express its paternal compassion and guidance181 The intellectual project of constructing tóyó was initiated by enlightenment historians, such as Fukuzawa Yukichi, Taguchi Ukichi, Miyake Yonekichi and Naka Michiyo, then developed by tóyóshi historians led by Shiratori Kurakichi.182 For example, Fukuzawa, a leading thinker, historian and educationalist, translated the discourse of ‘civilization’ from historians in the Occident and appropriated this discourse into Oriental history. In his infamous ‘Datsu-A Ron’ (Dissociation from Asia) – he constructed a Japanese national identity as a ‘civilised’ country separated from the inferior ‘uncivilised’ Asia or tóyó.183 Tóyó was also constructed in art history. Through the publication of a series of books relating to tóyó , Tóyó no Kakusei (The Awakening of Tóyó) in 1901–2, Tóyó no Risó (The Ideals of the East) in 1903 and Nihon no Kakusei (The Awakening of Japan) in 1904, Okakura Tenshin also created ideas of tóyó with major sub-groups of China, India and Arab-Persia with his wellknown slogan, ‘Asia is one’:184

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For if Asia be one, it is also true that the Asiatic races form a single mighty web . . . Arab chivalry, Persian poetry, Chinese ethics, and Indian thought all speak of a single ancient Asiatic peace, in which there grew up a common life, bearing in different regions different characteristic blossoms, but nowhere capable of a hard and fast dividing-line.185 He also created a nationalistic romanticism in the idea of oneness of Asia in an antithetical image of the Occident: Does not every Asiatic heart bleed in the untold agony of their oppression? Does not every skin smart under the scourge of their scornful eyes? The very threats of Europe are whipping Asia into a conscious unity. She was ever slow to move her massive frame. But tomorrow the sleeping elephant may be roused to a terrible stampede. And if 830 millions shall be arrayed in mighty wrath, the earth shall quake with each footstep, the Alps themselves shall tremble to their bases, the Rhine and the Thames shall recoil in fear.186 Dynastic upheavals were seen as having destroyed many things in the Asian continent but Japan was regarded as having preserved many things intact: It is in Japan alone that the historic wealth of Asiatic culture can be consecutively studied through its treasured specimens. Japan is a museum of Asiatic civilisation; and yet more than a museum, because the singular genius of the race leads it to dwell on all phases of the ideals of the past, in that spirit of living Advaitism which welcomes the new without losing the old.187 Kuki Ryúichi also created ideas of tóyó with major sub-groups of China and India and proclaimed the Japanese as the leaders: [Oriental Art History] is not expected to be compiled by the Chinese and Indian people. This project is only to be well carried out by the people in Japan, ‘a treasure house of tóyó’.188 For Okakura, Japan was ‘a museum of Asiatic civilisation’ and for Kuki ‘a treasure house of tóyó’ which had the ideal collection of the essence of the Orient, therefore it was only Japan that could manage tóyó. Itó Chúta, an architect and historian created tóyó (Orient) with subgroups of India, Islamic nations and China in his seminal work, so called ‘Evolution theory of Architecture’,189 which he lectured about in 1908 and published in 1909 (Figure 2.15). He created his theory by applying Social Darwinism to architecture and modelled it after James Fergusson’s

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architectural theory on the development in world architecture. However he challenged Fergusson’s views which look down on Japanese architecture.190 He wrote about the progress and development in material and style from the ancient world including Egypt, Assyria, Persia and Phoenicia up to the two branched, Western and Eastern worlds with Islamic countries, India, China and Japan belonging to the Eastern world. According to him, evolution occurred in the Western world progressively from Greek/Roman classic, to Byzantine/Romanesque, to Gothic, to Renaissance and ﬁnally to the most recent evolution which was to be seen in Art Nouveau and the American style. However in the Eastern world, no evolutions occurred in Islamic countries, India or China for two thousand years because of their ‘uncivilised’ cultures. Only Japan was on the verge of progressing out of the Chinese cultural zone, leaving behind the ‘infantile’ and ‘primitive’ rest of the Orient191 to evolve a new ‘Japanese style’ with the best essence of the Oriental styles. As is the case with other architects and architectural historians of that time, Itó’s main concern was to create ‘Japaneseness’ and a ‘Japanese style’ in architecture. He created tóyó as separate cultural entity

Itô Chûta ‘Evolution Theory of Architecture’ 1908

Figure 2.15 Itó Chúta, a chart of ‘evolution theory of architecture’ (translated into English by Kikuchi). Source of illustration: Itó Chúta, ‘Kenchiku Shinka no Gensoku yori Mitaru Wagakuni Kenchiku no Zento’ (A Future of our Architecture in Terms of the Evolution Theory of Architecture), Kenchiku Zasshi (Journal of Architecture) 265, 1909.

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from seiyó but having the same roots in the ancient world. He created theoretical connections between Greek architecture and Japanese architecture through his analysis of Hóryúji temple.192 Inoue Shóichi has pointed out the views on Japanese art by Westerners such as Christopher Dresser and Ernest F. Fenollosa which are extremely inﬂuential in creating nationalist discourse by providing a basis for the theories about Japan as the museum/treasure house, as well as for the view on the Japan–Occident connection.193 Although there are differences in the details of their ideas, these cultural nationalists in art, Okakura, Kuki and Itó sought a Japanese ethnic identity in art and architecture in order to establish a distinctive ‘Japaneseness’ and a ‘Japanese style’. This distinctive Japanese character is located at the top of the hierarchy of characters of the others who form the Orient. Yanagi formed his Mingei theory in a climate where ‘crafts’ were of national interest, reﬂecting Orientalism, and in a period when there was a surge of cultural nationalism directed towards the creation of a Japanese national identity. Yanagi also constructed his own tóyó and, using Occidental disciplines, created narratives of essential Japaneseness and Orientalness. The idea of tóyó was increasingly politicised and inevitably led to the construction of a Japanese ethnic identity, thence to ultra-nationalism, imperialism, and also to the justiﬁcation of colonisation. Along with other cultural nationalists, Yanagi developed his politico-cultural idea of tóyó through his activities which involved the crafts of Japan’s peripheries and colonies.

Nationalist discourse by Modernist Orientalist designers Modernist Orientalist designers Bruno Taut and Charlotte Perriand are also important for Yanagi’s nationalist ideas. Taut, Perriand and Yanagi shared a mutually nourishing relationship. While Taut and Perriand were educated and inspired by Yanagi’s ideas on mingei, Yanagi gained a strong support for his nationalist ideas from the Modernist authority with their nationalist discourse of the ‘Orient’ and ‘quintessential Japaneseness’ in craft design. Bruno Taut Bruno Taut, an eminent architect who had a long experience working for the Deutsche Werkbund to promote German modern industrial design, came to Japan to escape Nazi Germany and stayed from 1933 to 1936. During his stay in Japan, he was employed as an advisor for the Industrial Arts Research Institute (IARI, Kógei Shidósho) for four months and collaborated with designers and craftsmen in Takasaki, Gunma prefecture, to promote industrial craft. As an architect by training, he is most wellknown as a person who ‘discovered’ the Japanese essential beauty in

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architecture, in particular, the Katsura Detached Palace (Katsura Rikyú) (Figure 2.16) and the Ise Shrine (Ise Jingú) (Figure 2.17). He championed them as ‘the supreme architectural creation by the Japanese spirit’ which holds the highest Japanese quintessential value while at the same time being of universal value.194 The elements he regards as demonstrating the ‘quintessentially Japanese quality’ in this architecture are ‘simplicity’, ‘clarity of line’, ‘faithfulness to the material’, ‘beauty of proportion’195 and the fact that they are ‘full of functionalism’.196 He argues that these qualities fully accord with the principle of Modernism. He equates the ‘quintessentially Japanese’ quality with International Modernism, whereby the ‘quintessentially Japanese’ quality becomes the means to speak for the Modernist ideal. He praises the singular linear development of the architectural style which he traces from the Ise Shrine in the seventh century (rebuilt every twenty years up to the present), through farm houses and tea houses in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, leading to the Katsura Detached Palace, as ‘authentic’. In contrast, the other linear development of the style in Buddhist temple architecture starting from the seventh century leading to the Nikkó Tóshógú Temple (seventeenth century) is regarded as ‘kitsch’.197 Taut authenticates the style of ‘simplicity’ among many other traditional

Figure 2.16 The Katsura Detached Palace (Katsura Rikyú). Property of the Imperial Household. Photograph: Tabata Minao. Source of photograph: Nihon Kenchiku Yóshiki Shi (The Concise History of Japanese Architecture), Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1999 (p. 120, Fig. 7–18).

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Figure 2.17 The Ise Shrine (Ise Jingú), Main Sanctuary of Kótai Jingú Goshóden. Photograph: Jingú Shichó.

styles of Japanese architecture as the ‘quintessentially Japanese’ quality as well as ‘modern’. Nevertheless this must be seen as Taut’s selective representation which is informed by his background as a European Modernist. Taut also ﬁnds that Japanese ‘crafts’ traditionally retain a high ‘quality standard’. Taut discovered the fact that ‘crafts’ form an integral part of Japanese architecture and declared that crafts gave him ‘the strongest impressions in Japan’.198 Rationalisation of the craft industry and the promotion of ‘Japanese Modern’ became the biggest task for Taut in Japan. He made as many as ten proposals to the IARI during the period 1933–4. His role at the Institute was to design and create ‘Modern Japanese Crafts’. The core ideas of his proposals are summarised as follows. (1) Make use of traditionally used Japanese materials; (2) Make use of traditional technique and form; (3) Make use of modern technology combined with (2); (4) Make master prototype models; (5) Collect ‘quality’ craft products within Japan and world-wide and in order to research the function of products in modern Euramerican and Japanese lifestyle; and (6) Disseminate and educate on ‘quality’.199 The key concept in his ideas is ‘quality’ following the model of the Deutsche Werkbund, and his recipe for creating ‘Japanese Modern’ is the marriage of the best of Japanese tradition with European technology. Taut listed four principles to attain ‘quality’: ‘correct choice of material’; ‘correct use of materials’; ‘correct treatment of materials’; and ‘function’.200

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The idea is something like creating Peter Behrens’ brass kettle by transforming the Mizoguchi Ryúbundó’s traditional cast-iron kettle which Taut admires as having ‘accomplished technique and function’201 (Figure 2.18). Taut detests the idea of ‘crafts for export’ as an ‘impure concept’202 and ‘the biggest obstacle’ for the creation of quality crafts which may lead to the ‘suicide of culture’.203 He severely criticises it because it often reinforces vulgar stereotyping of Japanese images such as ‘geisha’ and cherry blossom, as opposed to ‘quality’ (Figure 2.19).204 It carries the tone of Taut’s utopian ideal for radical anti-capitalism and ethical revulsion against the spirit of modern economic life which led to factional disputes within the Deutsche Werkbund.205 This was given as a warning to the IARI on their endorsement of the idea of ‘crafts for export’ which would allow ‘kitsch’ objects to ﬂood the market. Taut states the ‘quintessentially Japanese’ quality is not something new but is within easy reach:

Figure 2.18 Mizoguchi Ryúbundó, a kettle. Source of photograph: Bruno Taut, translated by Hideo Shinoda, Tauto Zenshú: Bijutsu to Kógei (The Complete Works of Taut: Art and Craft), vol. 3, Tokyo: Ikuseisha Kódókaku, 1943 (Fig. 47).

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The taste for purity and simplicity in Japanese culture is exactly the same as our modern concepts . . . Japan has beautiful techniques and beautiful materials such as bamboo, metal, wood, lacquer, textile, pottery . . . It is not so difﬁcult to create things both modern as well as quintessentially Japanese.206 Taut’s message is that ‘Japaneseness’ and universal ‘modern’ are compatible. This was extremely encouraging for the nation which had been trying to catch up with the West. Taut further visualised this idea clearly through his prototype design for crafts. He demonstrated this most effectively through his works by using one of the traditional materials, bamboo, to create various modern bamboo crafts. Bamboo becomes the most inﬂuential visual tool to deliver Taut’s ideas of authentic ‘quintessentially Japanese’ quality, a point which is

Figure 2.19 Paris Exposition Internationale. Source of photograph: Kógei Nyúsu, 6(3), 1937.

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discussed further on pages 169–174. One of the major sources of Taut’s ideas about ‘quality’ craft using traditional material and technique is mingei. In bridging from his German-fed Modernist ideas to the Japanese modern idea Taut was guided and supported by Yanagi Sóetsu and Bernard Leach, and by their collection. From Taut’s letter to Yanagi207 and the essays which mentioned Leach, it is apparent that Taut, Yanagi and Leach formed a friendship through which they shared their ideas. Despite slight concerns about the urban ‘sentimental Romanticism’ of country folkcrafts triggered by the Mingei movement as a form of regression for art creation,208 Taut felt ‘deep respect’ to Yanagi and described his enterprise as ‘correct work’.209 Yanagi acknowledged Taut’s contribution to modern Japan as equivalent to that of Lafcadio Hearn in the Meiji Period.210 The most notable thing is the similarity of their use of language. As noted above, Yanagi’s language is clearly the reminiscence of the English Arts and Crafts and Modernist and Taut’s language is, of course, Modernist language. A few years before Taut’s arrival Yanagi had already created a ‘hybrid’ theory on mingei explained through Modernist language but Taut’s approval validated it with an authoritative voice. The mutual cross-fertilisation is also recognised in the way Yanagi selectively translated European modernisers and Modernist languages for his national project and Taut reciprocated by selectively validating the Japanese crafts for the Modernist project. What makes Taut different from the nineteenth-century Japonists is his well-informed knowledge and unprejudiced views which see the Japanese culture not only as particular but also as universal. Japanese culture was interpreted not an eccentric peculiarity in the clear binary system of Orient and Occident, but rather as universality in the international arena. Nevertheless, from the post-modern point of view, his ideas are strongly conﬁned to Modernist ideology and belief in a singular universal principle as exempliﬁed in his rhetoric of authentic vs. kitsch. Therefore that which he picked up as authentic and his discourse of ‘quintessentially Japanese’ are in fact Modernists’ selective projection. Charlotte Perriand Charlotte Perriand, another prominent Modernist designer, once in partnership with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, is also important to Yanagi. She was invited to Japan by the Japanese Ministry of Commerce and Industry to give advice for the promotion of industrial crafts during 1940–1. In 1941 after about seven months of intensive travelling and observation of the condition of the Japanese craft industry, she organised a seminal exhibition called ‘Selection, Tradition, Creation’ at Takashimaya department store in Tokyo and Osaka (Figure 2.20). This exhibition presented her suggestions by displaying three types of crafts to be developed for modern life and export. The ﬁrst group comprised traditional crafts which need no modiﬁcation. For example, her suggestions include the

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Figure 2.20 Charlotte Perriand’s Exhibition, ‘Selection, Tradition, Creation’ at Takashimaya department store in Tokyo and Osaka in 1941: dining/ lounge, ﬂoor of Óya stone, red carpet, Sendai stone black-lacquered dining table, small table with wooden legs and lacquered top, folding chaise longue with cushion with design of Shósóin textile, Taiwanese chairs, aluminium book shelves and a children’s painting enlarged on linen. Source of photograph: Charlotte Perriand, translated by Junzó Sakakura, Selection, Tradition, Creation, Tokyo: Koyama Shoten, 1941.

creation of a tea set which combines an Okinawan liquor ewer for tea pot, lacquer bowls for stewed vegetables or for sugar and sweet, and tea cup on a bamboo tray (Figures 2.21 and 2.22). The second group was characterised by making use of existing traditional crafts which are modiﬁed for a different function. For example, her suggestions include using the traditional woven cedar bark and woven mino straw peasant raincoat modiﬁed to provide upholstery for chairs (Figures 2.23 amd 2.24). Finally in the third group one ﬁnds newly designed crafts using traditional materials and techniques. For example, she created a chaise longue, a bamboo version of her Modernist masterpiece that was originally made of steel tubes and leather (Figure 2.25), alongside a coffee table made up of a bamboo tray with a newly added bamboo legs (Figure 2.26). Perriand’s message follows Bruno Taut: ‘Tradition’ is the key for modern crafts. The juxtaposed photos of the Katsura Detached Palace and a villa

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Figure 2.21 A sake pot from Okinawa, tea and coffee cups made by Kyoto Manjudó. Source of photographs: Charlotte Perriand, translated by Junzó Sakakura, Selection, Tradition, Creation, Tokyo: Koyama Shoten, 1941.

Figure 2.22 A tea set: bamboo tray made by Nishigata, lacquer bowls for sugar and sweets, tea cup made by Kyoto Manjudó, arranged by Charlotte Perriand. Source of photograph: Charlotte Perriand, translated by Junzó Sakakura, Selection, Tradition, Creation, Tokyo: Koyama Shoten, 1941.

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Figure 2.23 A straw rain cape made by peasants in Shinshó town, Yamagata Prefecture, Tóhoku region. Cover for the chaise longue designed by Charlotte Perriand. Source of photogaphs: Charlotte Perriand, translated by Junzó Sakakura, Selection, Tradition, Creation, Tokyo: Koyama Shoten, 1941.

designed by Le Corbusier and Jeanneret in Paris at the entrance of the exhibition clearly delivers her message that ‘Japanese traditional art is absolutely modern’.211 The ‘organic unity’, ‘great simplicity’ and the concept of modularisation as seen in architectural proportion and tatami mats match exactly with modern rationality.212 The rule articulated by Taut that ‘quintessentially Japanese’ and universally modern are compatible is therefore validated further by another European Modernist, Perriand. Like Taut, Perriand also detests the idea of ‘craft for export’ which for her means the shoddy imitation of Western objects. She reafﬁrms that there is no need for such special production called ‘craft for export’ by saying ‘the

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Figure 2.24 Various cushions designed by Charlotte Perriand, woven straw, woven Japanese cypress bark (made at Tatsumura Textile Institute), white linen with green hems. Source of photographs: Charlotte Perriand, translated by Junzó Sakakura, Selection, Tradition, Creation, Tokyo: Koyama Shoten, 1941.

production for your own [Japanese people] modern life should be precisely for the production for export’.213 As in the case of Taut, the major source for her ideas about Japanese tradition of craft also comes from a ‘simplicity’ school of traditional architecture represented by the Katsura Detached Palace and mingei championed by Yanagi Sóetsu. Perriand was greatly inspired by Yanagi’s collection at his Japan Folk Crafts Museum,214 and deeply in debt to Yanagi’s discovery of ‘excellent quality’ in mingei in terms of ‘organic and economic’ value, and ‘standardised’ and ‘total beauty’.215 For her above-mentioned exhibition, she chose mingei from Yanagi’s collection and the works of the so-called

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Figure 2.25 A bamboo chaise longue designed by Charlotte Perriand. A bamboo version of the steel pipe chaise longue designed by Perriand, Le Corbusier and Jeanneret. Photograph: Pernette Perriand. Source of photograph: postcard/catalogue produced for ‘Charlotte Perriand: Modernist Pioneer’ exhibition at Design Museum in 1996.

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Figure 2.26 A bamboo table with bamboo legs and woven bamboo tray on top, designed by Charlotte Perriand. Bamboo tray is made in Sakata. Top and legs can be separated. Source of photograph: Charlotte Perriand, translated by Junzó Sakakura, Selection, Tradition, Creation, Tokyo: Koyama Shoten, 1941.

Mingei school artists including Kawai Kanjiró and Hamada Shóji who were the core promoters of the Mingei movement with Yanagi. Yanagi’s son, Yanagi Sóri who became one of the leading designers of the so-called ‘Modern Japanese-style Design’ (Kindai Nihonchó Dezain) in the post-war period, was also closely involved with her work as her guide and assistant. According to Charlotte Benton, Perriand had already developed strong afﬁnity to vernacular handcrafts before she came to Japan. By the mid-

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1930s, Perriand had shifted her interest from urban Modernism to the rural folk vernacular, which had integrated traditional materials with handcraft and semi-mechanised techniques. This style became the hallmark of Perriand’s later work.216 As Taut developed the German experiment on light ﬁttings for product design, Perriand developed her experiment on folkcrafts for product design. Therefore the relationship between Perriand and the Mingei movement formed an excellent match. While Perriand was able to enhance her creative language through mingei, Yanagi and the Mingei school artists acquired a strong constituency for their nationalistic movement. However, on this very point, Perriand was met with severe criticism by young Japanese designers. The criticism was directed at Perriand’s works but also indirectly addressed to the Mingei movement. After her exhibition, the Industrial Arts Research Institute (IARI) organised a round-table talk inviting Perriand to discuss her exhibition with up-and-coming designerresearchers of IARI including the Bauhaus-educated architect Yamawaki Iwao, Taut’s disciple and designer Kenmochi Isamu, designer Nishikawa Tomotake and pioneer design theorist Katsumi Masaru. The main issue of the criticism is focused on her excessive attention to folkcrafts. Yamawaki criticises her anachronism and her sensibility which is too far detached from the majority of ordinary urban Japanese people. He showed his frustration to her ignorance and the fact that she offered no suggestions for the modiﬁcation of the most easily available modern products sold in the department stores, rather ﬁnding the solution in the rare ‘primitive vernacular folkcrafts’ by showing ‘slightly undigested work with a chain of spontaneous ideas’. Similarly Katsumi bitterly criticises her on the pretext that her idea is ‘foreigner’s Orientalism and exoticism’. Taking the example of her design of a sliced wood table, he said that her ideas on nature which are ‘intentionally trying to expose nature in civilised life . . . is morbid, in a Rousseauian way’ and that ‘[we] healthy cultured people are greatly annoyed by the fact that foreigners encourage the people indulging in nostalgia’217 (Figure 2.27). In response, Perriand accepted that she may not have seen certain items, or that she had not given much consideration to certain matters, in particular, the variety of craft media. However, she defends her overall position pointing out that the exhibition was not intended to be exhaustive but rather reﬂected a few possible suggestions, and that she couldn’t do the experiments as she wanted given the seven months she was allowed for preparation.218 She also pointed to the limited scope of what she had seen due to the restricted number of places to which she had been taken by the Japanese ofﬁcials. In view of her short stay in Japan and given the fact that she had only seven months for preparation of the exhibition, her explanation appears to be legitimate. Nevertheless, she responded to Yamawaki that she simply chose what she considered to be ‘the purest and authentic’ and ﬁrmly refuted Katsumi’s criticism of her idea of nature. She offered a rebuttal arguing that there is nothing morbid about the way

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Figure 2.27 A sliced wooden table designed by Charlotte Perriand. Source of photograph: Charlotte Perriand, translated by Junzó Sakakura, Selection, Tradition, Creation, Tokyo: Koyama Shoten, 1941.

nature is adopted in the example of the Katsura Detached Palace or the way a woodcutter sits on a tree stump. In response to that, Katsumi argued that the excellence of the Katsura Detached Palace lies in modern rationality rather than its adoption of raw nature. He also argued that there is a difference between country and city people in their way of loving nature, and for the city dweller’s life, it is natural for nature to be treated rationally by the hand of man and unnatural to adopt untouched nature, such as exempliﬁed by her sliced wood table. In turn, Perriand rejected the idea of difference between country and city people in their way of loving nature. What we see in this clash of opinion appears to be the difference in sensibilities in different cultural contexts. What Perriand ﬁnds new is apparently not new enough for the young Japanese designers at that time. The idea of ‘tradition’ which Perriand derives from mingei and the Katsura Detached Palace and her idea of Japanese Modern as the direct extension of it is felt by them to be the anachronistic European Orientalist’s gaze and no longer seems to be challenging to them either. Her preference for presenting plain untreated natural materials rather than crafting them was taken as a European bias for interpreting the culture of the non-European Other as primitive. Criticism of the Mingei movement is also implied by Katsumi’s expression that ‘foreigners encourage the people indulging in

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nostalgia’. It suggests that the Mingei movement took a dominating role which gave rise to mannerism and began obstructing the young designer’s creativity for new product design. They felt that her suggestions were disconnected and irrelevant to the reality of ordinary middle-class life in the 1940s. In comparison with Taut’s time, it can be seen that the reception given to Perriand’s ideas is quite different. Taut and Perriand are in the same camp, but Taut did not meet such criticism. Taut’s idea was extremely inﬂuential and his idea of ‘Japanese Modern’ inspired both ofﬁcials and young designers. However by 1941, Taut’s ‘Japanese Modern’ seems to be consumed and saturated. Their idea about ‘quintessentially Japanese’ quality became no longer ‘cutting-edge’ for some young designers. Nevertheless, this nationalistic discourse is validated by the two European Modernist designers and remains the dominant ofﬁcial discourse. Perriand also learned from her Japanese experiences which provided an occasion to expand her vocabulary of creativity as a designer. Bruno Taut and Charlotte Perriand made a signiﬁcant contribution to the discourse of ‘quintessentially Japanese’ in pre-war Japan which provided a solid environment for the development of Yanagi’s nationalistic discourse.

Yanagi’s nationalist discourse on ‘quintessential Japaneseness’ and Japan’s North-East (Tóhoku) Against this politico-cultural context, Yanagi articulated ‘Japaneseness’ and ‘Japanese-style’. Yanagi argues that mingei represents the most ‘innate (koyúna) and original’ (dokujino) Japan. This is because mingei is the ultimate beauty expressed by the collective nation, reﬂecting ‘the nature and climate of Japan, and the temperament and intelligence of the Japanese people’219 and it is ‘produced by the nation of Japan for the life of the nation and used by the nation’.220 He also claimed that its ‘quintessential Japaneseness’ is encapsulated in his ‘criterion of beauty’ (bi no hyójun) stated in the elements of supreme beauty summarised in the twelve points which have been discussed on pages 53–59. The terms ‘innate (koyúna) and original (dokujino)’ Japan occasionally appear in his writings as early as the ﬁrst period of his theoretical formulation in the 1920s.221 During the late 1930s until 1945 when Japan went into the war they are frequently used to stress the foremost signiﬁcant quality of mingei with overtones of nationalism. During this time, he was actively engaged in the research, collection and exhibition of the folkcrafts of the Tóhoku (northeast region including six prefectures), the Japanese peripheral cultures of the Okinawan and the Ainu, and the Japanese colonies. This politicised discourse of the ‘Japaneseness’ of mingei is most clearly articulated in his writings on the two regions, Tóhoku and Okinawa, which he regards as the essential heart of the nation retaining the ‘innate and original Japan’.222 Yanagi’s involvement in Okinawa will be discussed in the next chapter, but we will look at his views on Tóhoku in this section.

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According to Yanagi, the folkcrafts of the Tóhoku region still maintain the tradition which had been lost during the process of excessive Westernisation and urbanisation in large cities. His enthusiasm for Tóhoku is apparent from the large space he devotes to the crafts of Tóhoku in his book Teshigoto no Nihon (Japan – A Nation of Handicrafts), a comprehensive guidebook for handicrafts by region in Japan, written in 1943 and published after the war. Among the folkcrafts of Tóhoku, for example, he greatly praises mino,223 particularly those made in the Aomori prefecture, as the best of their kind in Japan224 and kabazaiku.225 ‘Quintessential Japaneseness’ is found in the ‘healthy and strong beauty’ of the shape, colour and patterns of Mino which are rooted in ‘profound tradition and rich locality’226 (Figure 2.28). Mino was also much praised by Perriand who selected mino for her legendary exhibition and redesigned it to modern upholstery for chairs as discussed in the previous section. Kabazaiku produced in Kakunodate, Yamagata prefecture, form another important folkcraft which Yanagi enthusiastically promoted. According to Yanagi, kabazaiku holds a special value in ‘quintessential Japaneseness’ because it ‘cannot be found anywhere in the world other than in Japan, being produced with Japanese materials and Japanese technique’.227 The material is the bark of the cherry tree – a tree symbolises Yamato Gokoro (Japanese Spirit) and kabazaiku embodies the ultimate revelation of nature and its beauty in exquisite plum purple colour, lacquer like the gloss and strength of bark.228 Yanagi organised a series of exhibitions of the folkcrafts of Tóhoku. ‘Tóhoku no Minorui Ten’ (An Exhibition of Various Types of Mino of the North-East) and ‘Tóhoku Mingei Ten’ (An Exhibition of Folkcrafts of the North-East) in 1939 at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, ‘Dai Ikkai Tóhoku Mingei Ten’ (The First Exhibition of Folkcrafts of the North-East) in 1940 and ‘Dai Nikai Tóhoku Mingei Ten’ (The Second Exhibition of Folkcrafts of the North-East) in 1941 at Mitsukoshi department store in Tokyo. He also created numerous occasions for educational exchanges and business initiatives. Yanagi was invited to give lectures on ‘The Outline of Handicrafts’ and ‘Folkcraft Theory’ in 1942 for the winter school in Kakunodate organised by Hoppó Bunka Renmei (the Northern Cultural Union). Out of the concern over degeneration of these ‘quintessentially Japanese’ crafts in the midst of urbanisation, he also initiated a scheme of new production. Yanagi’s role was to lead the conceptual development of kabazaiku and the folkcrafts in general and he gave ideas for the new production of kabazaiku for their use in modern life. One of these ideas was to promote production of affordable small to middle-size objects of simple design and high quality rather than cheap consumables or super-luxury large-scale furniture.229 As Lisbeth Brandt has discussed, new folkcrafts products were much in demand by tourists attracted by the exoticised countryside and urban mass consumers of the 1930s.230 Skilled craftsmen of kabazaiku were invited from Akita and kabazaiku workshops which were organised at the Japan

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Figure 2.28 ‘Kera’ rain cape made in the Aomori (Tsugaru) region, upper layer is seaweed and lower layer is straw, L123.0. Yanagi described this as ‘the most elegant and exquisite work of this kind’ in Yanagi 1981, 11: 503, 518. Piece held in the collection of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum.

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Folk Crafts Museum in 1942 and 1943 for the creation of new crafts. Given the intensive exchange of conceptual ideas and knowledge of materials and techniques, a number of objects designed for modern living were experimentally made from these workshops, including various boxes and containers, dressing tables, sash clasps, buttons and tea caddies.231 Yanagi reported the ‘unexpected success’ of the workshop project and his future plan to expand it to include different local crafts and to develop ‘quintessential Japanese’ modern crafts.232 A similar workshop was organised in Akita jointly with Serizawa Keisuke in Kakunodate in 1942. It was not only outsiders like Yanagi who were excited about the idea of reviving traditional folkcrafts. During the 1940s, Tóhoku itself experienced an unusually stimulating period. According to Kitagawa Kenzó, it was the time of the ‘renaissance’ of vernacular life: art, literature, theatre and music blossomed and various cultural movements were encouraged centrally by Taisei Yokusan Kai Bunka Bu (the Cultural Division of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association), the chief institution for the promotion of the New Order movement. These movements also received local support from notable regional cultural associations such as Hoppó Bunka Renmei (the Northern Cultural Union), a large inﬂuential organisation to promote local culture involving liberal intellectuals, entrepreneurs and local government. One of the main items on the agenda of Hoppó Bunka Renmei was the revitalisation of folkcrafts, an aim which it also shared with the Mingei movement. Yanagi’s kabazaiku project developed in successful collaboration with the local revitalisation movement led by Hoppó Bunka Renmei.233 This movement involved romantic nostalgia for ‘inaka’ (countryside) or ‘furusato’(native-place) which is often represented by Tóhoku. As Jennifer Robertson analysed, ‘furusato’ is an imagined and discursive space where modernity of the nation is pronounced in its own reﬂexive act of identitymaking, between old and new Japan, and Japan and the other world.234 Marilyn Ivy calls this phenomenon ‘the discourse of the vanishing’, a disguised form of modern cultural nationalism. It has a recurring rhetoric pattern which develops from the discovery of the marginalised, a nostalgia for ‘vanishing’, fetishisation and rehabilitation.235 Yanagi rhetorically aroused nostalgia for primordial Japanese lifestyle of the village and issued an emotional plea for the rescue of the ‘vanishing’ locality of Tóhoku. He also fetishised the folkcrafts of ‘healthy’, ‘simple’, and ‘quintessentially Japanese’ quality and made efforts to rehabilitate them by adapting new design and increasing marketability. The cause of marginalisation is usually attributed to Westernisation and modernisation, but the anxiety of ‘loss’ and nostalgia are contradictingly a typical sentiment of Modernist thought. The renaissance of Tóhoku is achieved by this strong Modernist sentiment. Tóhoku was not simply an ideal cradle of beautiful folkcrafts. Japan had been suffering from a rural crisis and the North-East region, stricken with poverty, was the most problematic rural area. The depression came to form life as early as the 1920s with the post First World War effect of industrial

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retrenchment, and by the 1930s the rural crisis had become serious. In the early 1930s, the Tóhoku region had a series of natural disasters which included spells of cold weather, ﬂoods and tsunami seismic waves, all of which combined to produce a succession of very poor harvests. Newspapers reported the famine, the poverty, the appalling hygienic and medical conditions. They also described the more sensational social effects such as the villages where there were no daughters because they had been sold to brothels in exchange for food, and that there existed neither wild grass nor grasshoppers as the severity of famine was such that both had been consumed.236 In order to solve the problem and revitalise the region, the government encouraged emigration to Manchuria from this area237 and implemented various economic aid schemes. Especially with the outbreak of the China Incident in 1937 plunging Japan into a national emergency, the government felt the need to increase productivity in food production and in industry associated with establishment of the ‘Highly Defensive National System’ (Kódo Kokubó Kokka Taisei) at war, and rehabilitation programmes were implemented with agrarian nationalist propaganda.238 Under these circumstances, craft was also regarded as important for economic revitalisation to increase self-sufﬁciency in the region. The Industrial Arts Research Institute (IARI) expressed concerns for the problem of ‘impoverished rural villages’ and the result of these concerns was a salvation strategy in 1935. The solution proposed by the IARI to generate additional income for peasants was for them to develop a side business during the agricultural off-season of the snowy winter. They encouraged the systematic development of the already existing local craft industry including wood, bamboo, lacquer and metal crafts by investing in work facilities and the partial mechanisation of craft processing, promoting research on materials, techniques and design, undertaking marketing and sales as well as organising exhibitions. 239 As the war situation became increasingly critical towards 1945, the research on the crafts of Tóhoku was regarded as useful for solving the economic problems of the emigrants’ community in Manchuria which also suffered from a severe cold climate, and was also a useful reference for the wartime standardisation of the nation’s household products.240 Kabazaiku, in which Yanagi was deeply involved, was one of these ofﬁcially targeted local crafts for the economic revitalisation programme. From the late 1930s, local government invested in the facilities and training of kabazaiku craftsmen by organising a cooperative union and establishing the Institute of Kabazaiku as ‘the only organisation of special crafts in Japan’.241 Yanagi’s enthusiasm for the crafts of Tóhoku and in particular kabazaiku was indeed a timely reﬂection of the national interest. The ‘revitalisation of locality’ (Chihó no Shinkó) was at the top of the political agenda for the ‘New Order’ (Shin Taisei) movement proclaimed by the Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro in 1938 for mobilisation for the war.242 ‘Local community’ was regarded as an important unit that was a key

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structural component of the Japanese nation which functioned like a large family headed by the emperor, therefore programmes that strengthened the economic and cultural power of the local regions were undertaken to mobilise the nation from the bottom up for the war. The ﬁrst proposal entitled ‘Chihó Bunka Shin Kensetsu no Konpon Rinen oyobi Tómen no Hósaku’ (the Fundamental Principle and Plan for the Rebuilding of Local Cultures) by Taisei Yokusan Kai Bunka Bu (the Imperial Rule Assistance Association Cultural Division) was published as a small pamphlet and distributed in 1941.243 It stresses an ‘awareness of tradition’ (dentó no jikaku) and the ‘rebuilding of local cultures’ (chihó bunka shin kensetsu) by claiming that: The right tradition of Japanese culture currently exists in local cultures rather than in the metropolitan culture developed under inﬂuence of foreign cultures, therefore it is impossible to set the landmark of a new national culture without sound development of local cultures. 244 It proposed six plans including the establishment of various central and local cultural organisations to facilitate this national ideal, the training and cultivation of leaders, promotion of a co-operative lifestyle and cultural activities in communities, the preservation and promotion of local traditional arts and heritage and the dissemination of propaganda. ‘The preservation of mingei and the guidance of its sound development’ is also included on the agenda. Yanagi actively responded to the national need by also stressing the cultural value of the locality, saying ‘locality is an important unit maintaining and developing Japaneseness’.245 We know that the Mingei movement became very active because he wrote to his friend, ‘the Mingei activities have been increasingly busy due to the New Order’.246 The Japan Folk Crafts Association headed by Yanagi and the government organisations worked closely together on various occasions. In 1941, the Japan Folkcrafts Association attended the ﬁrst meeting of Tóhoku Local Culture Council organised by Taisei Yokusan Kai Bunka Bu. In the previous year, Yanagi, in conjunction with the Economic Research Institute of Rural Villages in the Snowbound Regions under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, organised a symposium to discuss the promotion of rural crafts at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum. In October 1940 a special issue of Mingei magazine featuring the New Order and mingei had a lengthy report about this symposium. At this symposium attended by representatives of the related ministries (the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry), the prefectures and cultural organisations, Yanagi enthusiastically called for the implementation of the governmentsponsored systematic scheme to promote (1) ‘healthy crafts of the quintessentially Japanese characteristics’ for the rural areas, and (2) the revitalisation of their economy by producing and marketing these crafts with new design/modiﬁcation to suit the modern lifestyle and appeal to the urban

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residents.247 The idea of revitalising the rural economy by the incomegenerating production of ‘new crafts’ appears to be in strong accordance with Perriand’s proposals to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry through her exhibition which incidentally occurred in the same year as this symposium. Tóhoku was the central area of focus drawing national and foreign attention. Yanagi’s shrewd political manoeuvre and his rhetoric that combined the Orientalist Modernists’ views with the nationalists’ passion are evident. At this symposium Yanagi and the Japan Folk Crafts Association also submitted a ‘Proposal for the Organisation of Crafts Culture under the New Order’ (Shin Taisei no Kógei Bunka Soshiki ni taisuru Teian) to the ofﬁcial representatives to promise their full support. It proposes the establishment of a ‘Local Handicrafts Promotion Association’ backed by the ministries and the strengthening the organisation of the Japan Folk Crafts Association by a more positive contribution from the member craftsmen to actively create useful crafts for the envisaged life under the New Order that demonstrates ‘national and healthy beauty’.248 Mobilisation of the nation for the war by raising the awareness of the ‘quintessentially Japanese’ tradition, revitalisation of the local economies and the culture and creation of new mingei (shin mingei) were the focal agenda on which both government and the Japan Folk Crafts Association worked together. The 1940 October issue of Mingei magazine also features Yanagi’s most political article ‘Shin Taisei to Kógei Bi no Mondai’ (The New Order and Problems of the Beauty of Crafts).249 Yanagi states that the ‘New Order’ gives the Mingei movement its best chance to contribute to its requirements by ‘building a Japanese nation with proper beauty’. ‘The proper beauty’ required by the ‘New Order’ fully accords with his ‘criterion of beauty’ and he concludes: The time to express the proper beauty, healthy beauty and functional quality beauty has now come. If we miss this chance we will regret it for a thousand years. To all the artists and craftsmen, let’s get together and demonstrate to the world that ‘the beauty of Japan is here’.250 This is the pivotal moment of the Mingei movement. Yanagi became the closest he ever got to the authorities and he fully revealed his unambiguous nationalist ambition. His book Kógei became a Ministry of Education recommended book while the ‘criterion of beauty’ became almost synonymous with the wartime propaganda.251 In addition to the ‘revitalisation of locality’ for the sake of the nation, substitute products (daiyóhin) and controlled standardised products (tósei kikakuhin) were further items on the national agenda during the war. As Kitagawa pointed out, kabazaiku caught the attentions of the authorities because of its suitability as a substitute product for leather and metal containers as well as for the military industry producing items such as kabazaiku scabbard for swords.252 The Industrial Arts Research Institute

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(IARI) organised a series of exhibitions of substitute products, through which, in accordance with national policy, it appealed to the public by means of household items which had a ‘simple’ and ‘healthy’ quality. In 1941, the IARI organised a competition which it opened to the public, called the ﬁrst ‘Exhibition of Household Products for the Nation’ (Kokumin Seikatsu Yóhin Tenrankai) at the Takashimaya department store in Tokyo (Figure 2.29). It indulged in propaganda by displaying the products which are regarded as appropriate for a standard lifestyle for the nation in war (Figure 2.30). The products exhibited demonstrated the four essential qualities which in effect constituted the selection criteria: (1) to be functional and simple; (2) to be strongly and rationally made; (3) the appropriate use of materials; (4) to be affordable.253 It also successfully promoted the modern ‘quintessential Japaneseness’ by its setting in a modern framework of ‘history’ by contrasting ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ Japaneseness, not in an oppositional sense, but in the sense of continuity as if to suggest the four essential qualities have existed for a long time in Japanese tradition up to the present. Yanagi and the Japan Folk Crafts Association also played a major role in this exhibition. In the reference section entitled ‘Beauty of Simplicity’ (kanso no bi) products including mingei collected by the Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Figures 2.31 and 2.32), crafts and utensils used by the contemporary navy (Figure 2.33), samurai warriors in pre-modern period collected by the Imperial Museum (Figure 2.34), and furniture and utensils from Zen temples are exhibited. The strong discursive and visual presentation of the ‘national style’ set in the context of a historical narrative and modern design was made in this politically charged exhibition. This exhibition provided the opportunity of successfully realising Yanagi’s nationalistic passion through tangible and concrete mingei objects: Existence of a nation has signiﬁcance in its original identity . . . What the Japanese mind is and where Japaneseness lies have been discussed by many people from a variety of different perspectives but most of them described these in abstract and conceptual terms . . . however we must show Japan in more concrete areas . . . ‘A Japanese spiritual movement in terms of objects (common household things for daily life and architecture)’ is the very thing which keeps the ﬂag high.254 Mingei objects eloquently spoke for the spiritual movement promoted by Taisei Yokusan kai (the Imperial Rule Assistance Association). A smooth and harmonious relationship was created between the Mingei movement and the regime. There is no doubt that this relationship gave Yanagi the best opportunity of being active in ﬁeld work, and he travelled all over Japan and its colonies to organise numerous exhibitions and publications during a period of extremely tight control by the regime, particularly during the Second World War. Yanagi’s active involvement in the Tóhoku region as well as in the Japanese peripheries and colonies (which I will

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Figure 2.29 Poster of the ﬁrst ‘Exhibition of Household Products for the Nation’ (Kokumin Seikatsu Yóhin Tenrankai) at Takashimaya department store in Tokyo (9–18 October)/Osaka (12–19 November), 1941. Source of photograph: Kógei Nyúsu, 10(10).

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Figure 2.30 Exhibited products which won prizes (including bamboo bucket). Source of photograph: Kógei Nyúsu, 10(10).

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Figure 2.31 The Panel of ‘Kanso no Bi’ (The Beauty of Simplicity), water bottle used by the Navy showing ‘functional beauty of mass production’; eating utensils used by Zen monks at Sójiji temple. Source of photograph: Kógei Nyúsu, 10(11), 1941.

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Figure 2.32 Reference section exhibited by the Japan Folkcrafts (Mingei) Association: bamboo ﬁsh basket from Aomori Hachinohe, backpack basket made of grape vine from Iwate, wooden ladle from Akita, wooden spoon for scooping rice from Mie. Source of photograph: Kógei Nyúsu, 10(11), 1941.

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Figure 2.33 Eating utensils used by the contemporary Navy: enamelled ware (hóró) and utensils which form a neat pack for twelve people, and cloth water bucket. Source of photograph: Kógei Nyúsu, 11(1), 1942.

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Figure 2.34 Lunch box set, which contains fan-shaped lunch boxes for twenty-ﬁve people used by the Edo samurai warriors, symbolising ‘rational functional beauty’. Source of photograph: Kógei Nyúsu, 11(1), 1942.

discuss in the next chapter) during the war shows the full extent of Yanagi’s nationalist Modernist characteristics. He and the Japan Folk Crafts Association successfully took many opportunities to advance their activities and deliver their messages. His increasingly nationalistic preaching on the ‘quintessential Japaneseness’ of ‘healthy’ folkcrafts received the authoritative backing of the central and local government. There was also a successful marriage between Yanagi’s intention and the local interest in the revitalisation of the rural Tóhoku economy and culture. Yanagi’s trajectory, which marked a seamless transformation from apolitical activist to political propagandist, is similar to the case studied by Stephen Vlastos, in which socialist utopian agrarianists made a smooth transformation into right-wing nationalists in the 1930s.255 In this conspicuously politically charged arena of ‘countryside’, Yanagi swam in the forward ﬂow of the current united with national and local authorities. The ﬂourishing of the Mingei movement during this period is inextricably tied with wartime political conditions.

Chapter Title

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The creation of ‘Others’ and Oriental Orientalism Yanagi’s formation of Mingei theory is inextricably linked with his absorption and appropriation of Orientalism. It was the process by which Yanagi constructed the self-identity of Japanese culture in the image of Japan as Other cast on Japan by Orientalism. The cultural difference was enunciated by essentialising the cultures of the Orient and the Occident within the dichotomic framework of the Occident and the Orient. The Orient was orientalised and the Occident was occidentalised. It worked as a complementary relationship to strengthen further this problematic ﬁctitious dichotomy. Sakai Naoki observed that this cultural framework, which affected Japanese modernism, is ﬁrmly backed by the ‘complicity relation’ between ‘Occidental narcissism’ and ‘Oriental cultural essentialism’ and created an identity for the modern nation.1 Like his Japanese predecessors, such as Okakura Tenshin and Itó Chúta, Yanagi also created another Other in Asia by articulating cultural differences between Japan as ‘Self ’ and Asia as ‘Other’. Even within Japan, ﬁner cultural differentiation is articulated between the centre and the peripheries. Essentialisation and racialisation of cultures was repeated. Mingei theory developed as the way to strengthen the Self identity of Japanese culture by making an Oriental cultural map centred on Japan with ﬁne contours of cultural differences within Japan and in Asia. In Orientalism, the Orient including Japan was an epistemological object which had to be observed, studied, collected, taxonomised and preserved. Japan also repeated this cultural politicisation within the Orient, by projecting Japanese-style Orientalism translated and appropriated from Orientalism. I have called this Oriental Orientalism. It took the form of a grand interdisciplinary project in which knowledge in the social sciences and culture was accumulated in the modern nation of Japan, with the involvement of politicians, academics and ordinary travellers/emigrants. This collective cultural project was a continuation of the Japanocentric universal temporal and spatial framework of tóyó and it was conducted by a Japan which took a stance that dissociated itself from Asia by differentiating and Orientalising cultures in Asia.

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This Oriental Orientalism also has a more complex aspect. It not only has exclusiveness but also inclusiveness toward the ‘other’ Asia. The inclusiveness is expressed in the form of multiculturalism that embraces the cultural diversity within the Orient as opposed to the Occident. The idea of cultural diversity assumes the shared common cultural roots in the Orient, but it also assumes the core culture of the Orient that is Japan. The cultural diversity was shepherded and contained by Japan. This Japanocentric multiculturalism is typically expressed in the notion of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere propagated under Japanese imperialism in Asia in the years up until 1945. Oguma Eiji astutely analysed this complexity and ambivalence of Japanese identity constructed in between the Occident and the Orient. He identiﬁed separate motives in Japanese colonial policies for internal (i.e. the Ainu and the Okinawan) and external colonialism (i.e. Korea, Taiwan), that are the ‘difference’ enunciated in the ideal of ‘dissociating from Asia’ by adopting the paternalistic Euramerican model of colonialism, and the ‘similarity’ enunciated in the ideal of ‘co-operating with Asia’ against the West. 2 This double-edged phenomenon is also described by Tessa Morris-Suzuki who argues that ‘assimilation and discrimination, Japanisation and exoticisation, were different sides of the same colonial coin’, in her studies on the ambiguity and complexity in the ‘unmade’ identity of settlers in Karafuto.3 Yanagi, regarded as a liberal multiculturalist, can be seen as an interesting example epitomising the complexity of these double-edged characteristics of Japanese colonisation. In this chapter, I will discuss Yanagi’s involvement in Japanese peripheral cultures represented by the Okinawan and the Ainu as well as in the Japanese colonies, taking the examples of Korea, Taiwan and North-East China/Manchuria. The focus of the discussion is ﬁrst, the politicisation of Mingei theory; second, the process of the racialisation and enunciation of cultural differences and similarities in relation to ‘Japaneseness’; and third, the development of the discourse of multiculturalism within the notion of Japanese cultural diversity in the empire.

Korea: the beauty of sadness Historical context Korea had been Japan’s major strategic territory of anxiety from around the 1870s, since Japan’s security was constantly threatened by China and Russia’s inﬂuence and presence in the Korean Peninsula. Japan’s victory over China in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–5) gave the opportunity for Japan to expel China’s inﬂuence over Korea and make an advance into Korea by taking a larger economic stake. Then with another victory, this time over Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), brought about when Russia advanced into Korea through Manchuria, Japan acquired new

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territories: the long-term lease of the Liaodong Peninsula (renamed the Guandong Leased Territory); the southern half of Sakhalins (Karafuto); and all Russian rights and privileges in South Manchuria. Japan also expelled Russian inﬂuence in Korea when it established a protectorate in 1905 after the international recognition of Japan’s supremacy over Korea, before its status as colony was ofﬁcially asserted in 1910. Japanese colonisation in Korea is painted with the ambivalence created by the colonial discourses with a typical characteristic of double edges: ‘difference’ and ‘sameness’. On the one hand, Euramerican-style modernisation and civilisation projects are implemented. Colonisation was justiﬁed by paternalistic discourse that a superior and civilised Japan has the responsibility to take proper leadership and protect the interests of the uncivilised colonial people. Journalism, various travellers’ accounts, academic research by historians and anthropologists, and statements by politicians collectively constructed a colonial discourse and propagated the degenerated image of the contemporary Koreans that they were ﬁlthy, lazy, immoral, backward, uncivilised and passive and incapable of governing themselves, therefore historically susceptible to invasion by neighbouring countries and oppression by their own feudal tyrants. On the other hand, colonisation was justiﬁed on the ground of sameness, in that Japan and Korea shared Asian cultural and racial roots, while emphasising that Japanese culture lies at the core. The justiﬁcation was supported by the dominant discourse of ‘Japanese and Koreans’ descent from the same ancestors’ (Nissen Dóso Ron) which tells of ancestral and cultural inter-relations between the two peoples, and describes the constant subordination of Korea to Japanese rules since the ancient times of mythology. This discourse was convincingly argued by Japanese historians and ﬁxed Korea’s position as hierarchically inferior to, and permanently dependent on, Japan.4 Accordingly, a policy of assimilation (dóka) and imperialisation (kóminka) to transform Koreans into Japanese imperial subjects was implemented in Korea just as it was in other Japanese colonies.5 The image of Korea as degenerate but sharing its cultural roots with Japan, is also reﬂected in the art and architectural world. For example, as Kuraya Mika noted, Japanese modern painters such as Fujishima Takeji overlap the image of the ﬁgure of ancient woman in Korean dress of the Nara and Tenpyó periods in the eighth century in Japan with present-day Korea. The present Korea is depicted as a ‘stagnant state of Japan’s past’6 which duly degenerates, but because of its ephemeral fate, it creates beauty.7 A leading historian of East Asian art and architecture at the time, Sekino Tadashi, also praised the ancient glory of Korean architecture which was transferred to Japan, but argued that the degeneration of Korean architectural culture since the seventeenth century brought about inferior quality. He supports this negative view by pointing out a lack of originality, a lack of cultivated ideas in their preservation of historical architecture/ antiques, a lack of reﬁnement in aristocrats’ mansions and palaces painted

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with the superﬁcial polychromatic gaudiness, ordinary people’s houses which look like ‘pig houses’, and even pointed to laziness which he dogmatically ascribed to the traditional ﬂoor-heating system.8 Yanagi’s activities Against this backdrop of highly charged interest in Japan’s second colony Korea, Yanagi became interested in Korean crafts. In the development of the Mingei movement Yanagi’s involvement with Korea is extremely signiﬁcant, because his interest in Korean crafts preceded his interest in Japanese folkcrafts and predated his creation of the ‘criterion of beauty’. Initially the seeds of his interest were planted by the Asakawa brothers and his ﬁrst trip to Korea in 1916. The Asakawa brothers were often overshadowed by Yanagi’s fame but it is very important that their role be recognised. Asakawa Noritaka, who had lived in Korea since 1913, conducted some of the ﬁrst research on Korean ceramics – particularly Chosön ceramics – and he was to excavate 700 pottery sites between 1922 and 1946. Chosön ceramics, in particular, rice bowls, were ‘discovered’ by Japanese tea masters such as Sen no Rikyú in the sixteenth century for their use in the tea ceremony. Since then these rustic daily table wares were valorised by Japanese connoisseurs and collectors as supreme aesthetic objects, and the ﬁnest bowls called Ido9 are preserved as national treasures, acquiring poetic nicknames such as Kizaemon, Yamabushi and Totoya. As an enthusiastic reader of the magazine Shirakaba, Asakawa ﬁrst visited Yanagi in 1914 at Abiko, a suburb of Tokyo, to see the sculptures by Rodin sent to the Shirakaba group as gifts. On that occasion Asakawa gave Yanagi a gift of a Chosön faceted jar of white porcelain decorated in underglaze blue in the ‘autumn grass style’,10 a design which sparked Yanagi’s interest in Korean ceramics (Figure 3.1). When Yanagi travelled to Korea for the ﬁrst time in 1916, he stayed with Noritaka’s younger brother, Asakawa Takumi, himself a pioneer researcher into Korean ceramics and folkcrafts. Yanagi beneﬁted enormously from the brothers’ ﬁrst-hand knowledge of Korean ceramics and their ﬂuency in the Korean language. Yanagi’s involvement in Korea was a mixture of art and politics. In 1919 he published his ﬁrst article on Korea ‘Chósenjin o Omou’ (Sympathy Toward the Koreans)11 on the occasion of the March First movement, the ﬁrst major protest against Japanese rule since Korea’s annexation by Japan in 1910. In his 1920 article, ‘Chósen no Tomo ni Okuru Sho’(A Letter to My Korean Friends), he expressed his empathy and affection for Koreans and Korean art. In the same year Yanagi, accompanied by Bernard Leach and Yanagi’s wife Kaneko, a professional alto singer whose repertoire included German Lieder and operatic arias, went to Korea where Yanagi gave four lectures while Kaneko performed seven recitals dedicated to the ‘suffering’ Koreans. It is said that they were enthusiastically welcomed by

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Figure 3.1 A faceted jar, white porcelain, underglazed blue with ‘autumn grass style’ (Akikusade) design, H13.0, Chosön period (1392–1910). Piece held in the collection of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum.

the public. After the success of this trip, Yanagi and the Asakawa brothers developed a plan for a Korean Folk-arts Gallery.12 In 1921 Yanagi circulated a pamphlet on the establishment of the gallery, ‘Chósen Minzoku Bijutsukan no Setsuritsu ni tsuite’ (On the Establishment of the Korean Folk-arts Gallery) and advertised in Shirakaba for funds for the gallery. He made three trips to Korea that year for the preparation of the gallery. In January he negotiated with Governor-General Saitó Makoto for rent-free use of the Kwanp’ung-ru13 building to use as the gallery, then a year later he received permission for the use of a larger building for the gallery. In June he visited with his wife and Yanagi gave ﬁve fund-raising lectures and Kaneko held eight concerts, and in July the death of his younger sister, Chieko, who was married to Imamura Takeshi – a senior civil servant working for the colonial government in Seoul – caused him to make his third trip to Korea. Preparations for the Korean Folk-arts Gallery progressed steadily. He organised the ﬁrst exhibition of Chosön crafts in Japan in May of that year and he, Asakawa Takumi, and other friends bought approximately 600 items for the planned gallery collection. In Korea he and his wife Kaneko constantly played the role of interpreting Western art in order to bring enlightenment to the Korean people. In December, he organised an exhibition, ‘Reproduction of the Masterpieces of Western Art’, in Seoul. In January 1922, he gave lectures and organised exhibitions on William Blake, introducing Occidental art to Koreans in order to raise their

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awareness of their identity as Asians, through the appreciation of Occidental art, while Kaneko also introduced Western classical music including arias from Italian, German and French operas and German Lieder.14 Yanagi’s ongoing interest in Korean ceramics took shape in 1921 in the form of his ﬁrst book on crafts, entitled Tójiki no Bi (Beauty of Ceramics). The ideas in this book contain the essence of his aesthetics, which later became the basis for Mingei theory. In 1922 he summarised his views on Korean art in ‘Chósen no Bijutsu’ (The Art of Korea), and in the same period published several political articles. In July 1922, in response to the announcement of the proposed demolition of the Chosön-period Kwanghwamun, the front gate of the Kyongbok-kun Palace (Figure 3.2), and the construction in its place of a new Occidental-style building as the colonial government ofﬁce, Yanagi published ‘Ushinawarentosuru Ichi Chósen Kenchiku no tameni’ (For a Korean Architecture on the Verge of Demolition). This article is in the style of a lyrical poem personalising Kwanghwamun by calling it ‘my dear’ (omae) and likening its destruction to the murder of a human being. Partly as a result of Yanagi’s passionate protest, Kwanghwamun was eventually saved. Also in 1922 he published Chósen to sono Geijutsu (Korea and Her Art), a compilation of his nine previous articles on Korea with royalties going to the Korean Folk-arts

Figure 3.2 Kwanghwamun in the 1920s. The front gate of the Kyongbok-kung Palace in Seoul was saved from the Japanese colonial government partly by Yanagi’s protest. This gate was destroyed during the Korean War but is restored now. Photograph held in the collection of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum.

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Gallery. An issue of Shirakaba featured Chosön ceramics as part of Yanagi’s efforts to build the reputation of Chosön ceramics, which had largely been ignored up to that point. As the ﬁrst event under the name of the Korean Folk-arts Gallery, Yanagi, the Asakawa brothers and Tomimoto Kenkichi organised an exhibition in Seoul of Chosön ceramics, together with their academic research. As many as 1,200 people, two-thirds of them Korean, visited this exhibition, which featured more than 400 items. In the chaotic aftermath of the Great Kantó Earthquake in 1923, over six thousand Koreans were killed because there were rumours circulated that they were planning a massive uprising against the Japanese. Yanagi expressed his anger in a letter in English to Bernard Leach, saying: ‘Great massacre of Korean people happened together with the disaster was one of the most ignorant and biggest crimes we have done to them [sic]’.15 Yanagi gave fund-raising lectures in Seoul for humanitarian aid for the Koreans in Japan. Finally in 1924 the Korean Folk-arts Gallery was ofﬁcially opened at Chipkyong-dang in the Kyongbok-kun Palace (Figure 3.3). From then on until around the time of Asakawa Takumi’s death in 1931, regular activities were organised such as the two exhibitions a year which took place in spring and autumn.16 With the opening of the gallery, four concerts were again organised by Kaneko, and lecture and concert tours by the Yanagis continued to be organised almost every year including aid concerts in 1925 for Korean ﬂood disaster victims. The realisation of this museum must ultimately be regarded by as a joint venture of Yanagi and his wife Kaneko. During the years 1921 to 1924, besides the numerous concerts in Korea, Kaneko supported Yanagi by organising and performing more than twelve recitals in Japan. According to Matsuhashi Keiko, Kaneko raised a very substantial fund through her concerts and more than half of the collection of Korean folkcrafts which Yanagi bought for the Korean Folk-arts Gallery were funded by the proceeds of Kaneko’s recitals.17 Kaneko’s contribution to Yanagi’s project has been little mentioned by critics, but it is clear that it was a vital factor for its success. With the publication in 1927 of Kógei no Michi (The Way of Crafts), the ‘Bible’ of Mingei theory, Yanagi became more and more involved with Japanese folkcrafts, but still he visited Korea almost every year. 1932 saw the publication of a special issue of Kógei (Crafts) on Korean ceramics; and the exhibition and sale of several thousand items of contemporary Korean folkcrafts were organised in Tokyo and Kyoto. After the Second World War, and in particular from 1950 on, Yanagi published many articles on various Korean crafts other than pottery – ranging from sculpture, woodwork and metalwork to paintings etc. As he developed his ‘Buddhist aesthetics’, he began to apply these to Korean crafts too. By 1940, Yanagi had travelled to Korea twenty-one times. In that year he made his last trip with Hamada Shóji, Kawai Kanjiró and Shikiba Ryúzaburó, though he continued to organise exhibitions of Korean folkcrafts and to write about Chosön ceramics and other crafts until his death in 1961.

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Figure 3.3 Korean Folk-Arts Gallery, in Kyongbok-kung Palace, Seoul, c.1924. Photograph held in the collection of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum.

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Yanagi’s views on Korean crafts: ‘beauty of sadness’ Yanagi is often described in Japan as an important person who ‘rediscovered’ Chosön pottery four hundred years after Sen no Rikyú ‘discovered’ the beauty of Chosön rice bowls.18 Like the tea masters, Yanagi’s approach to artefacts was by ‘direct insight’ (chokkan)19 but also with a particular perception imbued with the historical views of his time. His approach was initially derived from the ‘new mystery’, about which he wrote in his 1914 letter, ‘Abiko kara: Tsúshin 1’: that is, the shape of a pot tells you more than just its shape. In his ﬁrst systematic article on crafts, ‘Tójiki no Bi’ in 1921, he reﬁned this insight into the idea that ‘through the beauty of the pot you can understand the mind of the people, the culture of the period, its natural background and the relationship between the people and beauty’.20 Yanagi used the term, ‘beauty of intimacy’ (shitashisa no bi) for the ﬁrst level of analysis of the nature of speciﬁc beauty. Later in Mingei theory, this beauty was deﬁned in such terms as ‘beauty of tradition, nature, functionality, simplicity, selﬂessness, plurality, inexpensiveness and health’ in his ‘criterion of beauty’ as I have already mentioned on pages 53–59. Yanagi applied this approach to Korean art and summarised his views in the term ‘beauty of sadness’ (hiai no bi). In Yanagi’s ﬁrst article on Korea, he wrote that the Koreans who had been ‘violated and bullied’ (shiitagerare ijimerareta) by the Japanese and Chinese invasions needed ‘sympathy’ (ninjó) and ‘love’ (ai), and this need reveals itself in the beauty of line, which is characteristic of Korean art, and also symbolises the heart starving for love of the Koreans . . . That beautiful long Korean line expresses exactly their starving hearts. Their grudges, their prayers, their wishes, their tears, all are felt in the ﬂowing line . . . The Koreans have expressed their ‘sad feeling’ (sabishii kimochi) and their starving for something in this beautiful, appealing, long and curved line.21 In this way through the appreciation of one Korean pot, he developed what has been considered to be empathy for the Korean people and their culture. The term ‘beauty of sadness’ (hiai no bi) appeared for the ﬁrst time in his article of 1920, ‘Chósen no Tomo ni Okuru Sho’: The long, harsh and painful history of Korea is expressed in the hidden loneliness and sadness of their art. It always has a sad beauty and loneliness that brings you to tears. When I look at it, I can not control the emotion that ﬁlls my heart. Where else can I ﬁnd such hiai no bi?22 In his 1922 article on Korean art, ‘Chósen no Bijutsu’ (The Art of Korea), Yanagi summarised his view of hiai no bi as the supreme beauty of Korean

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ceramics, and essentialised the Koreanness by comparison with Chineseness and Japaneseness: the strong shape of Chinese ceramics, created by ‘the practical and strong Chinese people’ (shina no jissaiteki na kyókona minzoku), the colourful ceramics of the Japanese created by ‘cheerful Japanese’ (tanoshii nihonjin) and the sad and lonely line of Korean ceramics created by ‘lonely Koreans’ (sabishii chósen minzoku). He observed this ‘Korean line’ everywhere in Korea, in architecture, sculpture, paintings, nature, crafts and particularly in ceramics: [A liquor bottle] has a long and narrow shape and is not secure in balance, but the desire to express the line is fully satisﬁed . . . [Bowls] have small feet and a serene line forms the side . . . Sometime the small foot is cut so that its balance is even less secure. They do not have the shape to sit ﬁrmly on the earth. This is the image of Korea, . . . reminding us of their suffering and sad experiences.23 Technique, ﬁring and design also reﬂect the sadness. The inlay method is ‘passive and quiet with hidden beauty’. The reducing ﬁre they use is a ‘smoky ﬁre which they prefer to the bright, strong oxidising ﬁre. They hide their face in the smoke and reveal their weeping souls.’24 Popular Koryö designs such as ‘willow and ducks’ (Figure 3.4) and ‘ﬂying cranes and clouds’ (Figure 3.5) are also sad:

Figure 3.4 A wine ewer, celadon-glazed stoneware, double gourd shape with inlaid ‘willow and ducks’ design on one side and a pair of cranes in a bamboo grove on the other, H35.5ǂD10.7, twelfth century, Koryö period. Piece held in the collection of the National Museum of Korea, Seoul.

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Figure 3.5 A Maebyong vase, celadon-glazed porcelain, inlaid ‘ﬂying cranes and clouds’ design, twelfth century, Koryö period, H42.0. Piece held in the collection of Kansong Museum, Seoul.

Surely there is nothing with such long, slender and beautiful lines as the willow . . . Of what do the ducks sporting under that sad willow speak? . . . The ﬂow of water which can never cease to ﬂow, the ﬂowing ducks which can never set foot on land. Are not these the symbol of the familiar experiences held in the heart of the people on that peninsula? Where else can you ﬁnd sadder and more beautiful designs . . . The same heart’s desire can also be discerned in the ‘ﬂying cranes and clouds’ design. One or two scattered lonely clouds in the vast sky and a couple of cranes bound nowhere . . . it reminds me of birds ﬂying away somewhere, their sad calls echoing once or twice in the high sky of sunset . . . They are slender cranes with long legs and thin feathers . . . I cannot help thinking about inevitable meanings hidden in those designs.25 In addition to ‘lines’ as a symbol of sadness, Yanagi pointed out the colour ‘white’. The white clothes worn by Koreans – whether male or female, old or young – are ‘mourning dresses. They are a symbol of their sad and humble minds. By wearing white clothes they are eternally in mourning.’26 Furthermore, he gave other examples such as the lack of variety in children’s toys, the scarcity of ﬂower vases, and ‘the sadness of the music

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with its series of long notes which seem to sink and die away’.27 He concluded that ‘Korean life generally lacks cheerfulness’.28 Yanagi had an extremely sentimental and dogmatic idea of hiai no bi in Korean art and this idea continued more or less throughout his writings on Korean crafts until the end. However, as discussed earlier, his dogmatic view is not totally unique. It also largely reﬂects the popular views of ‘degenerating Korea’ held by his contemporaries and in particular, the aesthetic sensibilities to appreciate its beauty of degenerating with much nostalgia held by the artists such as Fujishima Takeji. The ‘beauty of sadness’ was also expressed as feminine beauty. By looking at a porcelain jar with lotus design from the Chosön period (Figure 3.6), Yanagi writes: This jar reminds me of a human body. The beautiful skin is just like a warm human body and I cannot help touching it . . . It is such beautiful white skin. As is in many Korean porcelains, it is as though the white were covered by a pale blue veil. The mind of the people is revealed in this simple white colour. It is a hidden submissive colour, showing woman’s modesty. In the spring white mist is a bunch of lotus ﬂowers. One ﬂower sits quietly on top of a curved stalk and she silently opens

Figure 3.6 A jar, white porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue and copper-redpainted lotus design, eighteenth century, Chosön period, H44.6. Gift of Eiichi Ataka. Piece held in the collection of the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka.

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her petals of pink and yellow green. A soft bud unfurls on the right and long stalk and a leaf curves to the left. The lotus stands in the early morning dew and in the light mist. Everything is like in a dream. No sound, no motion, the lotus stands as though meditating. . . . What kind of potter made such an eternal work? He must be reﬂecting the Korean mind which has developed over the past several hundred years. As you look at it, you are puriﬁed and calmed and drawn into the world beyond. How serene it is. This is the Buddhist Pure Land where lotus ﬂowers bloom. Lonely, serene beauty impresses us. Anyone with a poetic mind could become an excellent poet in front of this pot, just as Keats wrote his eternal lines on a Grecian urn.29 The jar becomes an eroticised object of male desire. The metaphoric language of a woman’s beautiful body, complete with white skin and submissive modesty, is used in an extremely narcissistically romantic and erotic manner. The male gaze is projected by the Japanese coloniser on a colonised Korean woman whereby the woman is an unreal, static idealised image as represented by a Japanese male. As Kim Hyeshin noted, in as much as the colonial power relation is reﬂected in the feminisation of Korean objects by artists and art critics of the time, Yanagi’s view offers no exception.30 He shares the typical colonial rhetoric of an idealised female image and also captures the hour of Japan’s experience of modernity reﬂecting on the ancient glory of Oriental culture while projecting its reﬂexive moment on the present colonial object. The idea of hiai no bi later went through a gradual change in that it became less sentimental and embraced other perspectives. The ﬁrst noticeable change came in 1922 when Yanagi started to concentrate on re-evaluating and restoring the reputation of Chosön ceramics. In ‘Richó Tójiki no Tokushitsu’ (Characteristics of Chosön Ceramics) and ‘Richó Yómanroku’ (Essay on Chosön Ceramics) published in Shirakaba in 1922, he dealt speciﬁcally with the characteristics of Chosön ware and Koryö wares rather than the characteristics of Korean ceramics as a whole. His interest in comparing the two wares continued in ‘Kórai to Richó’ (Koryö and Chosön). He described Koryö ware as having ‘feminine beauty’ ( josei no bi) and Chosön ware as having ‘masculine beauty’ (dansei no bi).31 Reﬂecting the changes of social belief in Chosön society from Buddhism to Confucianism, the characteristics of the ceramics also changed from ‘beauty of delicacy’ (sensai na yúbi) to ‘beauty of will’ (ishi no bi) and from sensitive forms and lines to simple, strong and big shapes.32 But Yanagi also added that although Chosön ware has strength, it is not the same strength as can be found in Chinese ceramics. The typical Chosön white porcelain jar (Figue 3.7) has: a wide shoulder which cannot be seen in Koryö ware but when you look at the way it tapers to the bottom and its small foot . . . it is a ‘sad ﬁgure’ (sabishii sugata) . . . different from the strength and pride of Chinese ceramics . . . The white colour is also different from the white of Ming

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Figure 3.7 A jar, white porcelain, H53.0, W43.0. seventeenth century, Chosön period. Piece held in the collection of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum.

ware. [The Chosön whites] are always either pale blue-tinged white, powdery white or dull greyish white.33 He later concluded ‘such warm whites can not be seen anywhere else . . . and plain white is the ultimate state of beauty’.34 However, in these two articles, he no longer strongly emphasises hiai no bi. His emphasis has shifted, rather, to ‘unquestioning trust’ (mushin na shinrai) in nature or ‘the truth hidden between the mind of the craftsman and nature’35 and ‘naturalness without “intention” (sakui)’36 as the special character of Chosön ware. In the special issue of Kógei on Chosön ceramics in 1932, Yanagi’s aesthetic of beauty developed terms which he used for the appreciation of ordinary household crafts – moving from ‘naturalness’ (shizensa) to ‘anonymity’ (mumei), ‘functionality’ (jitsuyó) and ‘health’ (kenkó) to explain the essence of Chosön ceramics. These elements were summarised again more systematically in ‘Richó Tóji no Nanafushigi’ (Seven Wonders of Chosön Ceramics) published in 1959.37 The second change in his writings came after the Second World War, especially from the 1950s onwards in articles such as ‘Chósen Jawan’ (Korean Tea Bowls),38 ‘Richó Tóji no Bi to sono Seishitsu’ (Beauty and Characteristics of Chosön Ceramics)39 and ‘Richó Tóji no Nanafushigi’ (Seven Wonders of Chosön Ceramics). It was during this period that Yanagi

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developed his Buddhist aesthetics on crafts inspired by his friend and teacher, Suzuki Daisetz. The Chosön tea bowls, such as Ido, which I mentioned earlier, were considered to have ‘the truest beauty’,40 because they were made by unknown craftsman with ‘no intentional clever thought’ (mushin),41 relying on ‘the way of Other Power’ (tariki).42 The childlike innocence and purity of uneducated Korean craftsmen who produced the miraculous beauty of humble objects were greatly extolled.43 Finally, Yanagi concluded that the beauty of Chosön ceramics should be called ‘beauty of unity’ (funibi) in Buddhist terms.44 In these three articles Yanagi used ‘naturalness’ (shizensa) and ‘freedom’ (jiyúsa) to describe the image of Chosön ceramics; no longer did he use terms such as ‘sadness’ (hiai) or ‘loneliness’ (sabishisa). He even wrote that the use of white, which he had previously analysed as the colour of sadness, was a ‘reasonable solution to avoid complication of the design process for inexpensive ordinary folkcrafts’.45 Yanagi’s discourse on Korean crafts changed several times from Korean culturally speciﬁc terms to more universal terms. Initial discourse summarised in the term ‘beauty of sadness’ (hiai no bi) reveals Yanagi’s intention to deﬁne the ethnic quality of Korean crafts separate from Chinese and Japanese ones, and viewed especially from colonisers’ dominant viewpoint. It reﬂects the views of a degenerate and helplessly stagnant Korea which formed a widely promulgated perception of Korea that was shared by Yanagi’s contemporaries in Japan. The change to the terms ‘beauty of naturalness’ (shizensa no bi) and ‘beauty of unity’ (funibi), indicates the development of Yanagi’s Korean speciﬁc discourse into a discourse of more universal scope which he later applied to the supreme quality of all crafts. Critical evaluation of Yanagi’s views on Korean art There has been very little critical evaluation in Japan of Yanagi’s views of Korean folkcrafts, with Takasaki Sóji and Idekawa Naoki being the only two critics to analyse Yanagi’s work critically. The so-called apologists of the Mingei-ha (the Mingei faction), such as Mizuo Hiroshi, Shikiba Ryúzaburó, Tonomura Kichinosuke, Tanaka Toyotaró, were people who worked with and supported Yanagi in the promotion of the Mingei movement, writing numerous uncritical articles adulating Yanagi and helping to maintain his high reputation. They praised Yanagi’s criticism of the government as being, for that time, extremely brave, undaunted by the threat of censorship or the police who monitored his actions. They admired his humanism and the deep insight into Korea that sprang from his sharp ‘direct insight’ (chokkan). In 1961, the year Yanagi died, Ubukata Naokichi wrote the ﬁrst article in Japan which evaluated Yanagi’s view on Korea, rating favourably Yanagi’s objection to the assimilation policy and his humanism under the difﬁcult circumstances in Japan, and stating that Yanagi’s reputation was higher in Korea than at home.46 Tsurumi Shunsuke, a leading scholar of intellectual

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history, followed Ubukata’s opinion,47 and it was not until Takasaki Sóji’s article in 1979 that anyone criticised Yanagi’s work from a Korean perspective or pointed out the perception gap between the two countries.48 Idekawa Naoki’s work in 1988 analytically criticised Yanagi’s Mingei theory and his view of Korea, claiming that the ‘beauty of sadness’ (hiai no bi) was totally under-theorised.49 In Korea the situation is diametrically opposite. From 1961 until a peak in the 1970s, there were many articles on Yanagi, and of the sixteen major articles, eleven were found to be negative. The critical articles were rather emotional in tone, until Ch’oe Harim’s article in 1974 offered a critical approach which became inﬂuential.50 Yet back in 1922, Pak Chonghong had criticised Yanagi’s theory of the ‘beauty of sadness’ (hiai no bi) as a prejudiced view,51 and in 1931 Ko Yusop declared it to be ‘merely poetic’ and under-theorised.52 The articles which positively evaluated Yanagi’s involvement with Korea, by Kye, Kim and an anonymous writer, were published in 1961,53 the year Yanagi died, and there was another article supporting Yanagi seven years later.54 But these are exceptions to the mainstream view. In 1968 Kim Talsu, a Korean living in Japan, initiated the debate about Yanagi’s view of white as the colour of sadness. Kim used historical examples to show that from the Korean perspective, white was the ultimate colour showing humour and dynamism.55 This argument about the symbolism of colour was continued by Kim Yanggi56 and Lee Chinhui.57 Ch’oe Harim’s seminal work in 1974 established the concept of the ‘aesthetics of colonialism’. Although Ch’oe notes that Yanagi passionately impressed the Koreans in the 1920s, he criticised Yanagi’s view as being ‘a mixture of imperialism, backed by the “Cultural Policy” applied by the colonial government, and sentimental humanism’ and a ‘superﬁcial interpretation of Korean history’; he adds that the beauty of line is a general characteristic of Asia. He called on Koreans to re-examine Korean art history, free of the Japanese view of Korea during the period of Japanese rule (Ilje sidae).58 His criticism became a milestone for the critics who followed.59 Then in 1989, Cho Sonmi provided the model for an objective view, summarising the previous critical analyses of Yanagi’s work, while balancing his contributions and his weaknesses, in order to raise the more generalised central issue of how one can examine the art of another country.60 Ambiguity in Yanagi’s political stance As Takasaki Sóji indicated, there is an obvious perception gap between the two countries. But there is also difﬁculty in evaluating Yanagi’s work on Korea, given the unusual circumstances of the Japanese occupation. He certainly organised numerous concerts and lectures, both to show friendship and to raise funds for humanitarian aid, to pay for exhibitions of Korean folkcrafts and to build the Korean Folk-arts Gallery to preserve these works.

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These activities of his were acclaimed by the Koreans in 1920s. He was vehement too, in his denunciation of the immoral and inhuman behaviour of the Japanese towards the Koreans, and castigated the brutality of the Japanese government as ‘shame on shame’ (chijoku no chijoku) for Japan.61 Yanagi’s political opinions, however, can be clearly seen as ambivalent in his ﬁve political articles which appeared in the early 1920s.62 In these articles he denounced the Japanese government while advocating the abolition of Japanese militarism, the granting of absolute freedom of speech for the Koreans, the provision of higher education in Korea and the implementation of moral human discipline to attain peace. At the same time, he called on the Koreans to undertake self-reﬂection on their lack of ‘selfawareness’ (jikaku) and on the fact that they had not protected their own country, saying: ‘before dreaming of independence, dream of producing a great man of intellect, a great scientist and a great artist. Reduce the amount of time you complain and increase the time you study. Please do not abandon yourselves to despair.’63 Then he concluded that the best solution would be for both countries to compromise. Although he strongly denounced the Japanese government, in reality he was only arguing against military rule, not against liberal rule to ‘civilise’ the Koreans. His limitation is that he did not question the injustice of colonisation itself with its imposition of an assumed superior culture. The prejudice of the Japanese, including intellectuals, towards the Korean people, is revealed in the stereotyped view that Koreans were not capable of governing themselves. It also reﬂects mainstream opinion in the Occident as it was seen in Alexander Powell’s article,64 justifying power politics as inevitable for civilised nations to civilise the primitive ones in the competition for colonies. Although Yanagi had high morals, since he was a product of the period of modernisation in which Japanese intellectuals suffered from a massive sense of inferiority towards the Occident, he could not help but follow the Occidental model. His paternalistic stance also has parallels with Lafcadio Hearn and Bernard Leach, whom he idealised as sympathisers with Japan.65 Yanagi’s apologists told that Yanagi himself was in a difﬁcult position too. Some of his articles were censored when published, and he claimed he was closely followed and watched by the police as a ‘dangerous person’. Yet at the same time, he reveals the ambiguity of his position by defending the ofﬁcials of the colonial government, saying: I know Japanese greedy merchants and arrogant policemen have made the problem more difﬁcult, but the ofﬁcials in the colonial government do not want violence. There are many intellectuals among them and they are trying to govern justly.’66 As Takasaki Sóji hinted, further investigation is needed of Yanagi’s close association with the colonial government in Korea which made both his

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Korean Folk-arts Gallery and his extensive research trip to the Cholla province possible.67 It is indeed impossible to ignore the fact that Yanagi has strong personal and family connections. The Colonial GovernorGeneral Saitó Makoto was junior (kóhai) to Yanagi Narayoshi, Yanagi Sóetsu’s father, himself a Navy Rear Admiral and a mathematician; and Saitó also knew Yanagi Sóetsu’s older brother-in-law, Kató Motoshiró, ex-ConsulateGeneral at Inchon, during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. He also knew Yanagi’s younger brother-in-law, Imamura Takeshi, who was a senior civil servant in the colonial government. Therefore, whether he was aware of it or not, Yanagi’s activities went in harmony with Saitó’s ‘Cultural Policy’ (bunka seiji) from 1919 to 1931 which tried to bring about a general relaxation of controls over Korean people’s cultural and political life so as to change the negative image of the colonial government aggravated by the previous Governor-Generals’ harsh repressive rules. Yanagi’s involvement with Korea played a vital part in the development of the Mingei movement and its aesthetic theory, as it was through the process of theorising the beauty of Korean crafts that he acquired an articulate aesthetic language. However Yanagi’s central view on Korean crafts, as summarised in the term, ‘beauty of sadness’ (hiai no bi), has been clearly shown to be extremely sentimental and dogmatic in the light of the perception gap between Japan and Korea revealed in the subsequent evaluation of Yanagi’s views on Korean crafts. His views clearly reﬂected the contemporary Japanese colonial politics towards Korea of the times in which he lived. His view, in particular his initial narrative of the ‘beauty of sadness’(hiai no bi), was a Japanese variant of Orientalism creating an exotic Other from the Japanocentric view in the colonial power relation. This was articulated in the same manner as the Europeans who created exotic Others in Asia, the Near and the Middle East and in Africa. Yanagi’s genuine assistance to Koreans and Korean craft should still be regarded as praiseworthy and positive as ever. But at the same time, his aesthetic views on Korean crafts and his theory need further re-evaluation: on the Korean side, in the context of factual studies of Korean social and economic history, and on the Japanese side in the context of Japanese modernisation as Japan encountered the Occident. Even in Euramerica, major art books on Korean art such as that by Gompertz68 which reﬂect Yanagi’s and the Japanese views on Korea, need to be critically reassessed.

The Okinawans and the Ainu: archetypal beauty of Japan in the peripheral border with the Orient Okinawa History of Okinawa and Okinawan Studies Okinawa is an archipelago situated in the most southern part of Japan, consisting of one main island and a series of islands close to Taiwan (Figure

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3.8). It was a kingdom called Ryúkyú, semi-independent both from China and Japan from the ﬁfteenth century until 1609 when it was invaded by the mainland Japanese and indirectly governed by the Satsuma domain under the Edo Bakufu (the feudal government). In 1871, under the new Meiji national system, under which the han (domain) system was abolished, the modern local unit ken (prefecture) was set up. Ryúkyú was annexed to Japan after the government military invasion which became known as the ‘Ryúkyú Shobun’ (Ryúkyú Measures) and was named the Okinawa prefecture in 1879. After the defeat of Japan at the end of the Second World War in 1945, Okinawa was occupied by the USA and was not returned to Japan until 1972. Okinawa originally had its own culture but the process of assimilation and ‘Japanisation’ was enforced through education under the

Figure 3.8 A map of Japan.

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Meiji government and continuously through the late nineteenth century until the ﬁrst half of the twentieth century. Modern Okinawan studies were developed in conjunction with the development of the Occidental science of anthropology in Japan, marked by the foundation of the Tokyo Anthropology Society in 1886. A travel journal written by Basil Hall in 181869 and academic research done by Basil Hall’s grandson, B.H. Chamberlain preceded research by Japanese scholars such as Torii Ryúzó, Iha Fuyú, Yanagita Kunio, Orikuchi Shinobu, and Itó Chúta. As anthropology was developed as one of the colonial studies which deﬁned the identity of the motherland, so too was it developed in Japan as a study of peripheral cultures and as a colonial study of primitive and exotic people in relation to the Japanese national and ethnic identity. Excavations, ﬁeld work and taxonomy using modern technology were carried out. In the investigations, the Okinawans were described as hairy, primitive, uncivilised, uneducated, ﬁlthy barbarians, and so were inferior to mainland Japanese, but were categorised as Japanese who had only evolved half-way.70 Yanagi’s involvement in Okinawa According to Yanagi, his ﬁrst interest in Okinawan crafts was in bingata (stencil dyeing) when he was at the Gakushúin high school during the period 1908–10. At high school he had an Okinawan friend, Marquees Shó who was the descendant of the last royal family of the Ryúkyú Kingdom. Yanagi planned his ﬁrst research trip in 1921 or 1922 with the assistance of Marquees Shó. Unfortunately, due to Marquees Shó’s sudden death,71 this ﬁrst trip to Okinawa was postponed until 1938 when he travelled there with his friends, the potters, Hamada Shóji and Kawai Kanjiró, for about three weeks from December 1938 to January 1939. Hamada and Kawai who had already visited Okinawa in 1918 presumably provided Yanagi with information on Okinawa. The second trip made with craftsmen in different crafts media lasted about a month from March to April 1939 during which they carried out extensive research on Okinawan crafts. Then a third trip of about three weeks from December 1939 to January 1940 was made. This time there were twenty-six people altogether including craftsmen, photographers, publishers, people from commercial business and a ﬁlm crew. The fourth and the last trip lasting about a month was made from July to August 1940, after which Yanagi could make no further trips due to the outbreak of the Second World War. Though his research on Okinawa was concentrated into the short period between 1939 and 1940, the impact of Okinawan crafts on Yanagi was enormous. His enthusiasm is evident from his correspondence,72 and from the fact that he held three special exhibitions at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum and two special exhibitions at department stores in Tokyo, as well as two documentary ﬁlms. It is clear that he also wrote about Okinawan crafts with great energy. His writings during this

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period include one monograph, four special issues of craft magazines Kógei and Mingei that featured Okinawa, and nine other articles. This accounts for half of his published writings on Okinawa during the period 1935–55. In 1939–1940 Yanagi was involved in the famous political debate on the Okinawan language which will be referred to later. Yanagi’s views on Okinawan crafts: the application of the ‘criterion of beauty’ Yanagi called Okinawa a ‘heaven with miracles’,73 a ‘Pure Land of beauty’74 and a ‘kingdom of beauty’.75 He found his concept of ideal beauty realised in Okinawa which served as a model in which his ‘criterion of beauty’ could be perfectly applied. Yanagi was mesmerised by the beauty of a rich variety of folkcrafts: textiles including bingata (stencil dyeing); bashófu (cloth woven with Japanese banana ﬁbre); kasuri (Japanese ‘ikat’); pottery of Tsuboya such as nanban (water/liquor jar); jiishiigami (funerary urns); makai (tea bowl); chúka (sake ewer); dachibin (sake hip ﬂask); shísá‚ (plaster sculpture of lions on the roof) and roof tiles. Ironically, however, the Okinawan crafts Yanagi chose and admired as mingei were not necessarily ‘art of the people’. According to local experts Tonaki Akira and Matsushima Chógi, most crafts, with the exceptions of bashófu, kasuri and nanban, were made for the sole use of kings and aristocrats, therefore Yanagi’s Okinawan work must be regarded as ‘treatises on aristocratic culture’ rather than ‘treatises on folk culture’.76 Nevertheless, he uses his research into Okinawan crafts as a case study which consolidates his Mingei theory, claiming that he learned ‘the principle of beauty and its mystery just as I did from Korea’.77 Nostalgia for the medieval Yanagi was not only impressed by the crafts but also by the architecture of Okinawa. Yanagi overlapped his images of the architecture and landscape of Naha and Shuri in his writings, with the architectural images of Tódaiji Sangatsudó and Tóshódaiji in Nara. These date from the Tenpyó period (729–65) at a time which saw the ﬂowering of Buddhist art and architecture, inﬂuenced by Chinese culture, particularly of the Tang dynasty: The ancient capital of Tenpyó passed away. Only a little reminder remains in temples. However when you look down the towns of Naha and Shuri standing on the hill, you would be able to imagine the ancient capital of Tenpyó.78 Architecture, particularly the beauty of roofs, is the best in Japan. The ancient capital of Tenpyó must have been as beautiful as here [Okinawa].79 His nostalgia for the lost, beautiful, ancient past is evident in his rhetoric of Tenpyó. Images of the ancient past in Japan are described using the same

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tone as he used for images of the medieval past in the Occident. These roots were nurtured in Occidental aesthetic ideas and its rhetoric. However, Japanese terminology does not exactly overlap with that in the Occident. Japanese historians usually deﬁne the ancient times as the period from the third century BC to the twelfth century AD and medieval times as the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries, whereas in Occidental history, ancient times are deﬁned as the period from the ﬁfth century BC to the third century AD and medieval times as the ﬁfth to the ﬁfteenth centuries. It seems to me that Yanagi included both the Japanese ancient and the medieval periods under the category of the Occidental medieval period, because in his mind, the real period of Japanese ancient times predates the third century (i.e. going further back, to 3000 BC) in the history of tóyó (the Orient) which I will discuss later. His nostalgia for the medieval is further revealed in his description of the beauty of ‘grotesque’: Expression of true beauty inherently contains an element of the grotesque . . . In history only the periods which were able to produce the beauty of the grotesque had real power. The periods of the Han and the Six dynasties in China revealed their great power through such sculpture. Numerous sculptural works were produced, from the Romanesque to the Gothic period, in the Occident. Notre Dame is widely known for its gargoyles. When we look at contemporary Japan, we only see that the power of expression is weak and poor, particularly in sculpture. However it is extremely fortunate that we can see that power still retained in the isolated islands of Okinawa . . . We also marvel that these [shísá: plaster sculpture of lions on the roof] (Figure 3.9) were not made by famous artists but by unknown ordinary plaster artisans.80 The gargoyles in Notre Dame are well known throughout the world but the [three sculptures of ] monsters on Tamaudoun are no less excellent than that. They are the product of direct communication with the spirits.81 Yanagi’s analogy of the grotesque in the Occident and Okinawa reﬂects his contemporary knowledge of the Occidental aesthetic of Gothic and medieval art. He had already written an article ‘Medieval Art (Gothic Art)’ in 1921 in Shirakaba, based on Emile Mâle’s Religious Art in France in Thirteenth Century (1898). His knowledge was also gained through his close friends Bernard Leach and Tomimoto Kenkichi as I noted earlier. His ﬁrsthand experience of seeing medieval art in Europe in 1929 on the way to the USA to teach for one year at Harvard University must also have helped him to absorb his book-learned knowledge on this aesthetic theory. A welldigested application of this rhetoric can be clearly seen in his strong predilection for stone objects and his description of them. He prized relief

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Figure 3.9 Okinawan roof gargoyle, shísá.

work on the stone bridge rails82 and garden stone lanterns.83 His imagination travelled to medieval times when he saw the ruins of Shuri castle (Figure 3.10). The reason why ruins are beautiful is because they let the viewer have his imagination. Everybody’s imagination will time-travel to medieval times. In particular, stones tell of long years with their silent tongues; stone gates, stone stairs, stone roads, stone sculptures and stone bridges.84 The scenery he described, which overlapped with his image of the medieval environment, is not a typical Japanese medieval image since Japan’s use of stonemasonry was not as developed as in the Occident. Rather, his image ﬁts more comfortably into medieval times in the Occident, when medieval stonemasonry ﬂourished. In Yanagi’s nostalgia for the medieval periods two things can be recognised. First, it is a typical expression of modernity in which one can relativise the present self against the past. Yanagi recognised the present state as being ‘evils’ of civilisation, industrialisation, urbanisation, its complexity and pollution, and idealised a medieval past that seemed less civilised, less industrialised, less urbanised, simpler and purer. As Fred Davis analyses, nostalgia artiﬁcially reconstructs the past to serve the present, for the

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Figure 3.10 Shuri castle. Source of photograph: Kógei, 99, 1939.

reassurance of continuity amid threats of discontinuity.85 Here Yanagi’s nostalgia functions to reassure the continuity of essential Japanese identity amid threats of discontinuity caused by modernisation and Westernisation. Second, it shows his intellectual exercise of attempting to connect the medieval in Japan with that of the Occident. This attempt is clearly seen as a continuation of his early exercise, undertaken between 1913 and 1914, of connecting the ideas of the ‘negative way’86 in mysticism in the Occident, particularly in medieval times, with mysticism and religious philosophy in the Orient, and also of another exercise between 1919 and 1924 in which he attempted to connect the ideas of simple, natural and ego-less beauty in the Gothic religious art in the Occident with Buddhist art in Japan. By using the modern Occidental rhetoric which idealised the Gothic and the Medieval, Yanagi connected Japan with the Occident, and in particular with the idealised past of the Occident. Saying ‘generally speaking, there is power deep behind the race and the time when the beauty of the grotesque is fully expressed’,87 he implied Japanese national pride while showing that modern Japan still had such power, something which the modern Occident had lost. Exotic, artistic and classical Yanagi shows his exoticism in the description of the scene of the Tsuboya pottery (Figure 3.11):

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Figure 3.11 The scene of Okinawan women with nanban jar on their heads. Source of photograph: Kógei, 99, 1939.

The scene of women with these [nanban] jars on their heads made me think of scenes of southern Italy. Beautifully shaped jars, the way they put them on their heads, their kimono of kasuri pattern, deep green trees, red and white roof tiles, narrow alleys of stone fences covered with ivy, blue sky, strong sun light. It made you feel like painting, even if you were not a painter.88

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‘Oriental Orientalism’ Women have carried things on their heads since the time of ancient Greece and it is still the same in some countries in the Occident. In the Orient, particularly in Korea, they still keep this custom and most women in Okinawa do the same. On the Japanese mainland, this custom has mostly disappeared except for the women at Óhara, Kyoto who sell ﬂowers.89

Yanagi’s description of an exotic, primitive and beautiful semi-tropical paradise has resonance with the romantic primitivism of the Post-Impressionists such as Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse, who were the artists he and his friends in the Shirakaba group enthusiastically introduced to their readers through the Shirakaba magazine. When you read his descriptions, it is almost as though Yanagi is vicariously experiencing the same things as the Post-Impressionists. Another intellectual exercise to connect Japan and the Occident, just like his attempts at linking the two through medievalism, can also be recognised. This time he is not concerned with medievalism but with ancient Greece and Roman Italy, the source and the foundation of history in the Occident. Yanagi’s analogy of the classical in the Occident and Okinawa reﬂects new theories by his contemporary historians regarding the inﬂuence of Greek art on Japanese Buddhist sculptures and temples. By using Occidental rhetoric once again, Yanagi connected Japan with the idealised and respected past of the Occident which again helped to create Japanese national pride. Innate and original beauty of Japan Yanagi’s main reason for admiring Okinawan things is that through their nature they inherently retain a ‘purely Japanese’ (jun nihonteki) and ‘innate and original’ (koyúna, dokujino) quality of Japan: More purely Japanese things were preserved in these isolated islands than anywhere else . . . Pure Japan remains best in the North end and in Okinawa in the south end of Japan.90 We can ﬁnd no place other than Okinawa where the innate and original Japaneseness is well preserved. We can see the best archaic quality not only in the language and the custom but also in many things . . . It is a precious element to construct innate and original Japaneseness . . . Provinciality preserves the pure national character.91 He saw this ‘pure Japan’, in particular, Okinawan Noh drama and kimono in connection with the culture of Ashikaga period in the fourteen to sixteenth centuries when the Japanese Noh developed:92 [Noh drama] is traditional Japanese dance and drama which should be greatly admired . . . It is now a classic and it is very rare for us to make

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direct connection between it and present life . . . However fortunately, when you come to Okinawa, Noh drama is no longer just a classic of the Ashikaga period but alive in their present lives . . . The impressions people had from Noh drama in the Ashikaga period must be very close to the deep impression we had in Okinawa.93 He also comments on bingata dyeing (stencil dyeing) in its connection with yúzen dyeing, the most elaborate and reﬁned dyeing developed by Miyazaki Yúzen in the seventeenth century (Figure 3.12):

Figure 3.12 Okinawan bingata, stencil-dyed cotton, child robe, 85.3ǂ79.0, late nineteenth century. Piece held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Source of photograph: Anna Jackson, Japanese Country Textiles, London: V&A Publications, 1997 (Fig. 64, p. 95).

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‘Oriental Orientalism’ When you talk about Japanese dyeing, I am sure everybody will say yúzen dyeing is the best . . . However yúzen cannot occupy this place on its own because there is bingata (stencil dyeing) . . . This [bingata] is probably related to batik in the south seas and yúzen to the north . . . While yúzen is a dyeing but may additionally be hand-painted and occasionally embroidered, bingata does not make any such additions . . . Therefore bingata is much purer and advanced as a dyeing . . . We can be proud of it as the very dyeing of dyeing.94

Yanagi used the word ‘innate and original’ (koyú) beauty of Japan for the ﬁrst time in 1925 during his research on mokujikibutsu.95 That was the time when his rediscovery of Japan through its art began after his initial interest in the art of the Occident and his discovery of Korean art. His theory, which centred on principles of beauty in getemono and eventually crystallised into the criterion of beauty as the ideal, innate and original beauty, developed into Mingei theory on Japanese crafts. As previously mentioned, with the development of anthropological research on the Okinawans, it became a popular notion that the Okinawans were barbarians who were inferior to the mainland Japanese, but were categorised as having partly evolved sharing the same racial origin. Yanagi saw the innate and original Japaneseness, which had been lost in the mainland Japan, retained in Okinawa. He viewed Okinawa as a cultural archive of Japan’s past. This image of Okinawa strongly reﬂects the anthropological theories of his time. Yanagi together with anthropologists tried to construct a Japanese ethnic identity and Japaneseness, from fragments in Okinawan culture. Debate on the Okinawan language His argument that the Okinawan culture was a cultural archive is most evident in the so-called ‘debate on the Okinawan language’ (okinawa gengo ronsó). This debate ﬁrst began in April 1939 between Yanagi and his friends on one side and the prefectural administration ofﬁce of Okinawa on the other. This coincided with Yanagi’s second visit to Okinawa, while in 1940 it spread through mass media all over Japan, involving intellectuals and many ordinary people. During 1940, the Okinawan prefectural administration ofﬁce wrote articles in newspapers and magazines supporting education in the standard Japanese language, denouncing Yanagi and his friends’ statements,96 and Yanagi wrote articles in reply in newspapers and magazines supporting education in the Okinawan dialects. Yanagi argued four points. First, he stressed that regionalism is a key element in the structure of Japaneseness. Quoting Dante, whose Divine Comedy was written in an Italian dialect,97 he said that the disappearance of provinciality means the disappearance of Japaneseness and of Japanese national identity:

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If we extinguish the local dialect, where will you ﬁnd innate and original Japaneseness? Provinciality is signiﬁcant in creating the foundation of things Japanese . . . Nowadays the signiﬁcance of local dialects is acknowledged in many places in the world and the encouragement and preservation of them has been advocated, because they create an important foundation in the protection of national character.98 Second he said that the Okinawan dialect together with the Tóhoku (northeast region of Japan) dialect99 form an archive of classical and ‘pure Japanese’,100 therefore they needed to be preserved and studied by linguistic scholars: Classical Japanese words from the Kamakura (1185–1333) and Ashikaga periods remain in the Okinawan language. Scholars know that the meaning of words in the Manyóshú101 which were not clear for a long time has gradually been solved through research on Omorosóshi.102 Indeed, I must say that Okinawa is truly a precious treasure house for researchers of the Japanese language.103 Third, he recommended bilingual education in standard Japanese and the Okinawan language: It is a great happiness for every Japanese to have one common language. Therefore all local people should learn standard Japanese. There is no question but that we should encourage Japanese nationals to master standard Japanese . . . However we must not forget that both standard Japanese as an ofﬁcial language and the Okinawan language as a local dialect are important Japanese national languages.104 Finally, he expressed his concern about forcing the Okinawans to learn standard Japanese which would create complex feelings toward the mainland Japanese and reinforce internal colonisation within Japan: Why is this ofﬁcial encouragement of standard Japanese promoted only in Okinawa and not in other prefectures? This gives us the impression that Okinawa is being given special treatment. Doesn’t it bring a feeling of humiliation to the sensitive mind of the Okinawan people? Doesn’t it imply that the Okinawan language is a barbarian language? Aren’t they enforcing standard Japanese as having some kind of superiority? I am worried about this.105 However the Okinawa prefectural administration ofﬁce argued that the necessity of using any means to encourage the use of standard Japanese came from social and economic reality. For example the prejudice of the mainland Japanese people against Okinawans, who spoke the Okinawan

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language, made it hard for them to get jobs and integrate into life in mainland Japan. Unless Okinawan people could be integrated into the mainland, Okinawa would be left in poverty and underdeveloped. Therefore, they argued, this issue should not be treated from purely linguistic or ethnographic points of view. They also argued that Yanagi viewed the Okinawan culture just like ‘a house plant or a pet animal’ and treated language just like an antiquarian object which can be preserved, arguing that language changes as people and life change.106 This debate was fruitless because distinct viewpoints could not identify a single issue on which a constructive solution could be achieved through reasoned debate. Yanagi was talking about Okinawan cultural value as part of a Japanese national identity, while Okinawan ofﬁcials were talking about modernisation and so their views ran parallel and never intersected. There is a strong element of cultural pluralism in Yanagi’s statement but his views are ultimately paternalistic. Although he greatly admired the Okinawan culture, the value of Okinawan culture does not seem equal in status to the culture of mainland Japan for him. Yanagi is a viewer from a higher plain and Okinawa is ‘the viewed’ at a lower place. There is a hint of a patronising attitude when he says ‘we who are in what has been described as the cultural centre’107 in reference to Tokyo on mainland Japan, and he reveals himself as an elite intellectual who preaches the importance of Okinawan culture and history to the Okinawans. There is also a note of snobbery in his seeming encouragement of the Okinawans when he described an Okinawan woman’s ‘unsophistication in the way she wears Japanese mainland kimono’ in comparison with Tokyo women’s ‘sophistication in the way they wear Japanese mainland kimono’,108 or ‘the people in Iwate prefecture use their outrageous dialect and the people in Ibaraki prefecture blatantly use rising intonation’.109 Okinawa is a cultural archive but the manager is Yanagi who is the only one to know its true value. A hierarchical view of culture exists in that of Yanagi, and it shows the limit and problematic aspect of cultural pluralism. Social and economic reality argued by the Okinawan ofﬁcials were issues that Yanagi was not interested in. Only once did Yanagi mention that ‘preserving tradition is the way to rescue Okinawa from poverty’,110 but there are no concrete solutions suggested by this passage. His seemingly supportive advice for the Okinawans where he tells them to have ‘pride’, ‘self-conﬁdence’ and ‘self-awareness’ was in fact merely platitude and gesture to attempt to make them feel better. Indeed, his attitude towards the Okinawans is exactly the same as that towards the Koreans and the Ainu. This is clearly evident when one compares the series of articles titled ‘Letter’: ‘Letter to My Korean Friends’(1920), ‘Letter Appealing to the Okinawan People’ (1940) and ‘Letter to the Ainu’ (1942). They all strongly express Yanagi’s emotional empathy, but do not quite address the issue of local social problems in reality. His emotional empathy also appears to reﬂect his highly personal experience and nationalistic stance. He warns

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‘oppressed’ people not to become like ‘some Japanese who were attracted by the culture in the Occident during the Meiji and Taishó period and have an inferiority complex towards the Occident’.111 This may be overlapping with his own complex feelings towards the Occident which oppressed him and made him despise himself for a long time. Yanagi’s main concern certainly did not lie with reality but with innate and original Japaneseness for the sake of Japanese national identity: Ignorant people think of Okinawa as being part of the barbarians’ land. The Okinawan people have received this kind of humiliation for a long time. It is sad but this unfortunate situation has not changed yet . . . No one supports Okinawa with awe and respect. How happy you are when you have the chance to meet such a person . . . What the Okinawan people needs now is ‘pride.’ Under the present circumstances where both others and you despise yourself as poor, what will liberate Okinawa from this self-abnegation is self-conﬁdence towards Okinawa itself and self-awareness of its cultural value.112 Innate and original beauty of the Orient (tóyó113) Two expressions ‘innate and original Japaneseness’ and ‘innate and original Orientalness’ are frequently used in Yanagi’s writings. They often overlap each other in meaning and are sometimes interchangeable: [Noh drama] is the ultimate beauty of the Orient . . . [and] traditional Japanese dance and drama which should be greatly admired.114 ... The most marvellous textile in Okinawa is kasuri (Figure 3.13) . . . Kasuri is a technique which has not been developed at all in the Occident, therefore the time will doubtless come when the fame of kasuri will echo through the world as an innate and original textile of the Orient . . . and kasuri in Japan is particularly good and of the Japanese kasuri, that in Okinawa is the best.115 The history of kasuri does not exist in the Occident . . . Therefore kasuri is something of the Orient. Out of all the Orient, it was particularly developed in Japan. Therefore Japanese kasuri has no peer in the world . . . We would like to impress the world at least with the beauty of kasuri, our national pride . . . We have to be proud of the innate and original Japan in the world of beauty.116 In terms of the beauty of the Orient, out of all the other countries in the Orient, he laid particular emphasis on China of the Song dynasty (960– 1279) and Korea in connection with Okinawan crafts. He claimed that connections existed between pottery made in Tsuboya and Song China/

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Figure 3.13 Okinawan kasuri robe, banana ﬁbre (bashó), 116.2ǂ111.0, late nineteenth–mid-twentieth century. Piece held in the collection of Jeffrey Montgomery. Source of photograph: Edmund de Waal, Rupert Faulkner et al., Timeless Beauty, Milano: Skira Editore, 2002 (Fig. 304, p. 339).

Korea;117 Okinawan Akae and Song pottery;118 the derivation of words such as chúka (sake ewer) (Figure 3.14) and makai (tea bowl) from Korea;119 the pattern and technique of stone fences and red roofs, and those of Korea;120 and the use of Jibata (hand-loom) also found in China/Korea.121 Yanagi described Okinawan Noh drama as ‘the ultimate in beauty of the Orient’ and Okinawan kasuri as ‘innate and original’ both in the Orient and in Japan. He carried out another intellectual exercise in drawing connections between Japan, Okinawa and the Orient as he did in connecting Japan, Okinawa and the Occident. These exercises both have the same mission,

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Figure 3.14 Okinawan Akae, teapot (chúka), transparent glaze over green glaze on white slip, stoneware with overglazed enamel painting, design of wild pink, nineteenth century, H10.7ǂD11.5. Piece held in the collection of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum.

namely to construct a Japanese national identity by using Occidental rhetoric to draw analogies with the medieval, the exotic and the classical. But the former exercise used only rhetoric to consolidate his theory while the latter not only used rhetoric but also invented a new spatial and temporal entity tóyó (the Orient) which was equivalent to the entities constructed in the Occident as medieval Europe, classical Greece and Rome. Tóyó is the cultural archive of Japan while medieval Europe, classical Greece and Rome are the archives of the Occident. As already discussed, Yanagi was not alone in this idea of tóyó. Yanagi repeatedly mentioned connections between the Chinese pottery of the Song dynasty and Korean pottery. The Orient is the cultural archive of Japan and he stressed these connections with great pride. Nevertheless Yanagi’s intention of using such prestigious examples is also apparent. He consciously used Occidental rhetoric, because of all the other crafts, Oriental pottery, and particularly Song pottery with its inﬂuence on the pottery of the Koryö period (918–1392) had a high reputation in the Occident. Yanagi must have also been conscious of the Zen aesthetic related to tea bowls, particularly Korean ones, which had the highest status of all pottery in Japan. However there is cultural hierarchy in Yanagi’s map. As a believer of Social Darwinism, he gave Japan the highest status in the Orient, making it

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equivalent to the other countries in the Occident of the time. He acknowledged proud connections with Song China and Koryö/Chosön Korea, but he considered the Japanese colonies, such as present China (Manchukuo), Korea and Taiwan, to be different cultures from Okinawa and Japan, and not to be evolved at all: Because Okinawa is geographically closer to Fuzhou of China than to mainland Japan, people might imagine that Chinese inﬂuence would be great. However the opposite is true and almost everything including language, customs and architecture has the ﬂavour of Japan . . . You can ﬁnd no region other than Okinawa which preserves classical Japan. So do not ever stupidly think of Okinawa as continuation of the barbarian land of Taiwan.122 Ryúkyú is so close to Taiwan that it is often thought to be part of this barbarian land . . . [but] Ryúkyú is not a colony. It is different in type and quality from the history of such a country as Taiwan.123 According to Yanagi, Japan lies in between the Occident and the Orient, but the peripheries of Japan are on the very ambiguous border line between Japan and the rest of Asia within the Orient. A hierarchy is again apparent in his cultural evaluation. His hierarchical order from the top to the bottom starts with the Occident, the Japanese mainland, its peripheries like Okinawa, and then its colonies. This detailed classiﬁcation, based on Oriental Studies in Japan, was ordered in this way to make Japan’s national identity clear and its application can be seen in the ideas of Yanagi and his contemporaries in various academic ﬁelds.124 The Ainu History of the Ainu and Ainu Studies The Ainu are an indigenous people who lived on islands called Ezo125 (now Hokkaidó, Sakhalin, the Kurile Islands and Kamchatka) and on other neighbouring islands, situated in the most northern part of Japan. They had an independent community until 1669 when the mainland Japanese invaded. From then on the Ainu were governed by the Matsumae domain under the Edo Bakufu (the feudal government). From 1871 Japanese mainlanders immigrated to Hokkaidó with the encouragement of the Meiji government. In 1879, under the new Meiji national system whereby the han (ﬁef) system was abolished, Ezo became Hokkaidó and ofﬁcially became a part of Japan. The Ainu had their own culture but a policy of enforced assimilation and Japanisation was carried out under the government throughout the late nineteenth century and into the ﬁrst half of the twentieth century and especially after 1937 when the Ainu were granted Japanese nationality and were permitted to be ofﬁcially naturalised as Japanese.

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As with modern Okinawan studies, modern Ainu studies were also carried out using European methods with the purpose of deﬁning Japanese national and ethnic identity. Academic books and papers written by Europeans such as Heinrich Siebold, Basil Hall Chamberlain and John Batchelor in the 1880s to 1890s, which preceded ones by Japanese scholars such as Tsuboi Shógoró, Koganei Yoshikiyo, Torii Ryúzó, Kindaichi Kyósuke and Sugiyama Sueo, were inﬂuential and predetermined their study. Racialisation and Japan’s internal colonisation of the Ainu developed. Similar to the image presented of the Okinawans, the Ainu were described as a ‘dying race’ who are hairy, primitive, uncivilised, uneducated, ﬁlthy, superstitious, drunk barbarians and inferior to mainland Japanese, but unlike the Okinawans who were considered as ‘half-way evolved Japanese’, they were categorised as Japanese Neolithic people from which the present Japanese evolved, and so were distinguished from other barbarians in other countries.126 Yanagi’s views on the Ainu Yanagi only created two feature issues on Ainu crafts in a magazine Kógei which included two of his articles during 1941–2 which was the period right after his involvement with Okinawa. One special exhibition of Ainu crafts was held in 1941 and two exhibitions which included Taiwanese crafts were held in 1946 and 1957 at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum. His involvement with the Ainu was obviously not as active as was that with Okinawa. In fact he did not even travel to Hokkaidó until 1947 when he visited for a month. The objects he exhibited in 1941 and the crafts he featured in Kógei were mostly from the collection of Sugiyama Sueo who had already been known as a collector of and a researcher on Ainu crafts. Yanagi was most impressed by the beautiful patterns of the Ainu crafts which, he thought, revealed an ‘innate and original’ character: Let’s provide so-called civilised people with fabrics and threads. I wonder if they will be able to create more excellent patterns than those created by the Ainu . . . Who else could grasp a form or a pattern which could beat the Ainu crafts . . . Even well-known artists are not as free and creative as them.127 [A weaving tool oripera] (Figure 3.15) has carved patterns in the handle and the top. You can certainly recognise the innate and original Ainu taste.128 As Yanagi saw a medieval and Gothic beauty in Okinawan crafts, he also saw a religious and spiritual power and the beauty of the ‘grotesque’. Yanagi’s reliving of the experience of the Post-Impressionists’ discovery of exotic and artistic primitive works through his own discovery of them is also

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Figure 3.15 Ainu weaving tools beater (oripera): 121: W6.9ǂL34.0ǂD1.5, 122: W9.9ǂL65.0ǂD1.9. Piece held in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan

evident in his views of Ainu crafts as it was in the way he saw Okinawan crafts: Why do the Ainu have the power to create such beautiful things? . . . Their religion is the most appropriate source of that power . . . You can say that it is beauty created by religion.129 Most [Primitive art works of the Ainu] are grotesque and rather frightening. It should be called the ultimate beauty because it is not peaceful.130 [Linear patterns of the Ainu] have a symbolic character and I can feel the spiritual world behind them . . . I often see strong psychic stimulus in some works.131

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The Ainu culture is also seen as being a cultural archive of the Japanese mainland but not in the same sense as the Okinawan culture. The Ainu are seen as having kept old Japanese things but not as part of their culture. Therefore, Yanagi drew various connections between Ainu crafts and other world crafts such as with classical Japan, Russia, China, Mayan Mexico, the Incas, Egypt and Scandinavia: Since the Ainu had a long trade relation with the mainland Japan, they have kept our crafts . . . Research on the Ainu will surely contribute to the research on Japanese antiquities.132 Among Karafuto atsushi (a type of the Ainu kimono made of Ainu textiles woven with elm bark) (Figure 3.16), there are some which obviously appear to have been inﬂuenced by clothings in Russia.133

Figure 3.16 Ainu ceremonial robe atsushi or attush, elm bark ﬁbre (ohyó) with cotton cloth appliqué and cotton thread embroidery, W117.0ǂL130.5. Piece held in the collection of Jeffrey Montgomery. Source of photograph: Edmund de Waal, Rupert Faulkner et al., Timeless Beauty, Milano: Skira Editore, 2002 (Fig. 318, p. 353) .

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‘Oriental Orientalism’ [Patterns on the Ainu kimono] have a unique character but its roots probably lie somewhere far away. There may be relations with patterns on copper objects of the Chou (1256–1030 BC) and the Han (202 BC– AD 220) periods in China or Mayan art in Mexico.134 Emushikutsu textile band to hold swords . . . have patterns with free variations, no two bands are the same . . . It would not be strange even if we were to put them among the treasures of the Shósóin.135 They are no less excellent than the textiles of the Copts in Egypt or the Incas.136 When you look at recent photographs of the studios of French artists such as Picasso and Matisse, you would recognise sculpture carved by African barbarians in their ateliers and on the mantelpieces of their studies. Why are such artists who occupy the highest and most advanced position in the art world interested in works of the so-called most primitive people? Because they ﬁnd the essence of beauty in them even if the forms are not reﬁned.137 Is it correct to see this kind of spoon (Figure 3.17) shape as innate and original to the Ainu? I would not be surprised to ﬁnd that it had come to the East via Siberia long ago and I could even imagine having its roots in Scandinavia. This shape is totally different from the ones to be found in Korea, China and Japan . . . The shape is beautiful and the carving is marvellous. You would not be embarrassed to exhibit these things in the famous Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, though I even think they are more excellent than the ones by the Swedish and the Norwegian.138

Politicisation of Mingei theory Yanagi applied the ‘criterion of beauty’ appropriated from Occidental narratives to theorise the aesthetic quality of the Okinawan and the Ainu cultures. These two peripheral cultures were essentialised by his similar repetitive arguments on the medieval, grotesque, religious/spiritual, exotic and classic qualities. However Yanagi’s evaluation of the Ainu culture does not have the same intensity as his work on the Okinawan culture. One reason appears to be that because the collectors such as Sugiyama Sueo and Miyake Chúichi had already carried out extensive research on Ainu crafts and collected them, there was not much left on which Yanagi could carry out pioneering research. Even Yanagi’s close friends Tomimoto Kenkichi and Bernard Leach had discovered the beauty of the Ainu crafts about thirty years earlier in 1912 when they visited the Colonial Exhibition at Ueno Park139 (Figure 3.18). Another reason seems to be that the research on the Ainu was not as relevant as that on the Okinawan culture in terms of constructing a Japanese national identity by essentialising the innate and

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Figure 3.17 Ainu spatula (shitopera), wood. 67: W11.7ǂL52.0ǂD2.4, 68: W6.1ǂ L54.3ǂD0.9, 69: W8.0ǂL55.2ǂD1.7, 70: W6.7ǂL39.3ǂD1.5, 71: W9.8ǂL69.9ǂD1.8, 72: W8.3ǂL76.0ǂD1.9, 73:W7.2ǂL59.0ǂD1.1. Pieces held in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan.

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Figure 3.18 The Ainu in Karafuto (Southern half of Sakhalin) exhibited in the Colonial Exhibition held at Tokyo Ueno, 1 October–29 November 1912, ‘civilised’ audience watching the Ainu. Source of photograph: Kyósuke Kindaichi, Ainu no Kenkyú (Zuhan), 1925.

original Japaneseness. Yanagi’s categorisation of the Ainu appears to follow the same lines as that of the Ainu Studies scholars who, as noted above, had categorised them as the Japanese Neolithic people from which the present Japanese evolved. However the Ainu were considered to be an indigenous primitive people within Japan whose origins are still the subject of debate. In addition, the studies of the Ainu culture did not engage well with the discussions about tóyó. When the nation was preoccupied with the ‘Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere’ with its colonies and its expanding empire to the southern regions, the research on the Ainu was not particularly useful for the discourse of Japanese imperialism. Unlike his discussions in his evaluation of the Okinawan culture, Yanagi did not refer to the notion of tóyó in his evaluation of the Ainu culture, nor he did consider the Ainu culture to be a part of Japanese innate and original culture. The Okinawan culture was extremely crucial in the argument for Japaneseness and Orientalness but the Ainu culture can not be fully relevant to the argument because of the unclear racial and cultural origins of the Ainu. Yanagi’s curiosity about the source of Ainu culture wandered around the world from South America to Scandinavia but he was not able to speciﬁcally locate the Ainu culture within tóyó. Mingei theory was increasingly politicised particularly during Yanagi’s involvement in the culture of the Okinawans. His statements became

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extremely nationalistic and even echoed the ultra-nationalist propaganda. For example, in relation to the debate on the Okinawan language, he stated: Okinawan regional culture is the original Japanese culture . . . Make the Okinawan people aware of this fact about the location of the Okinawan culture and revitalise their Japanese spirit with their conﬁdence in and love of their vernacular culture, so that urgent communication from the centre to the regions including Okinawa and other regional prefectures become possible . . . The national spirit, in other words, the love of nation should come from the love of your home region.140 Yanagi’s imperialistic views appear in his discussions of the importance of the Okinawan cultural value in terms of the mobilisation of the Okinawans to war. When the US army landed on Okinawa and ﬁerce battle commenced in 1945, Yanagi made radio broadcasts to encourage the Okinawan people not to be defeated because Okinawa was important to Japan because of its culture.141 Okinawa became a cultural fortress for Yanagi. As he did for the craft promotion projects in Tóhoku, in great harmony with the authorities, he expressed his nationalist enthusiasm in his rhetoric of preserving ‘locality’ and an ‘innate and original’ national culture.

Taiwan and North-East China/Manchuria: the beauty of the Orient and Greater East Asia Taiwan Historical context and Taiwanese Studies Taiwan was Japan’s ﬁrst colony, which was ceded to Japan from Qing China under the Shimonoseki Treaty after the Chinese defeat in the SinoJapanese War in 1895 and remained under Japanese rule until the end of the Second World War in 1945. Japanese colonisation went through three stages. The ﬁrst two decades began with military rule followed by civilian governance including the notably efﬁcient rulership of the GovernorGeneral Kodama Gentaró with his chief civilian colonial administrator Gotó Shinpei. This period saw the establishment of administrative mechanisms alongside the military suppression of armed resistance by local Chinese and indigenous people, in which thousands of Taiwanese people were killed. The second two decades can be regarded as a period of consolidation in which various policies of cultural assimilation were implemented. The last decade saw the completion of Taiwan as a Japanese model colony for the expanding colonies in the South Seas. The achievement of Japanese colonisation, including various modernisation projects such as building technological and social infrastructures and development of agriculture, industry, forestry, mining and trade during the forty years, was proudly

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displayed at the Taiwan Exhibition in 1935 commemorating the fortieth anniversary of colonisation.142 It was also the period when Japan’s Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro proclaimed a vision of ‘New Order’ (shin taisei) in East Asia in 1938 and launched a comprehensive programme for the mobilisation of a holy war in the name of the Japanese emperor. The ideology of ‘New Order’ was reﬂected in Taiwan in the programme of imperialisation (kóminka) and sophisticated conciliatory cultural policy to assimilate Taiwanese into Japanese imperial subjects during the rule of the seventeenth GovernorGeneral Kobayashi Seizó (1936–40) and the eighteenth Governor-General Hasegawa Kiyoshi (1940–44). This ‘imperialisation’ ideology brought about coercively implemented reforms including national language reform (enforcement of the use of Japanese language and education in Japanese), religious reform (enforcement of Shintó practice), name reform (voluntary change to Japanese surnames), and the military recruitment system of volunteers.143 Yanagi’s trip to Taiwan, a journey he made only once, was during this last decade. The colonial government also conducted numerous scientiﬁc research projects including land survey, census data collection, tropical medicine and importantly anthropological studies especially on indigenous aboriginal tribes, language and culture. Anthropological and ethnographical studies which formed an important part of the colonial Taiwanese studies which began at the turn of the century, built up a substantial body of knowledge before Yanagi’s involvement in Taiwanese folkcrafts. At ﬁrst the research was focused on the culture of the aboriginal High Mountain People (gaoshanzu) rather than on that of the Chinese Taiwanese, because of the urgency to ﬁnd countermeasures against the guerrilla attacks by the aboriginal tribes and in order to ﬁnd ways to ‘civilise’ them. Probably the ﬁrst extensive research on Taiwanese aboriginal tribes is Taiwan Banjin Jijó (The Situations of the Taiwanese Savages) by Inó Kanori and Awano Dennojó in 1900, which was commissioned by the colonial government. Inó, as a pioneer in writing linear Taiwanese history, made great contributions in the early period of Taiwanese Studies, such as with Taiwan Banseishi (The History of Ruling Taiwanese Savages) in 1904 and he also contributed to folklore studies by writing numerous articles on the aboriginal cultures. Then a series of research projects into aboriginal customs was also carried out by ‘the Special Commission for Inquiry into the Old Custom of Taiwan’ (Rinji Taiwan Kanshú Chósa Kai), set up by the colonial government. When the Taihoku (Taipei) Imperial University was established in 1927, the Institute of Ethnology (Dozoku Jinshugaku Kyóshitsu) led by Utsushikawa Nenozó became the centre of research into aboriginal culture. The most important academic achievement, including academic journals entitled Nanpó Dozoku (The Local Customs in the Southern Regions) and Taiwan Takasagozoku Keitó Shozoku no Kenkyú (Studies on Genealogy of the Taiwanese Aboriginal Tribes) in 1935, came out of this institute.144

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Anthropological and ethnological interest in the material culture of the aboriginal people also developed aesthetic discourses on aboriginal crafts. When the Fifth Domestic Industrial Exhibition was held in 1903, the Taiwanese Pavilion was organised in consultation with Inó, and ‘savage textiles’, crafts and tools made by aboriginal people were displayed and portrayed in a way that showed high aesthetic appreciation. ‘Savage textiles’ by the Atayal tribe were described as ‘the most developed and elaborate’ work of all the tribes, and jackets made by the Pingpu tribe as having ‘the most original design of bird ﬁgures’.145 Various objects of the tribal cultures were collected and taxonomised by the Colonial Government Museum after its establishment in 1908146 and by the Institute of Ethnology at the Taihoku Imperial University in 1927.147 As many as 1,627 objects of the tribal cultures, presumably many of them from the collections of the Colonial Government Museum and the university, were exhibited in the Local Culture Pavilion (kyódokan) at the Taiwan Exhibition which commemorated the fortieth anniversary of colonisation in 1935. Regarding the individual scholastic research on folkcrafts, again Inó’s early attention to the aesthetic quality such as in the ‘complex design and exquisite technique’ of wood carvings by the Paiwan tribe in 1908, precedes others.148 During the 1920s and 1930s there are some further developments in the aesthetisation of aboriginal crafts. Sugiyama Sueo, an expert on ‘primitive crafts,’ propagated the modern art historical notion of ‘primitive art’. He conducted several ﬁeld research trips in Taiwan and published ‘Taiwan Banzoku no Dozoku Kógei o Tazunete’ (Visit to the Folk Crafts of the Taiwanese Savages) and Taiwan Banzoku Kógei Zuhan Kaisetsu (A Design Catalogue of Taiwan Savage Crafts) in 1929. He highlighted the aesthetic beauty and excellent craftsmanship of the tribal crafts, in particular those of the Paiwan tribe, suggesting the development of these crafts into an industry, and emphasised the importance of research into them in connection with the crafts of the Ainu and of the mainland Japanese.149 Miyagawa Jiró, an entrepreneur, collected 500 craft objects created by aboriginal tribes, in particular by the Paiwan tribe, and his studies of them led to his publication of Taiwan no Genshi Geijutsu (Primitive Art of Taiwan) in 1930. He too emphasised the aesthetic quality of ‘totally unexpected design’ and ‘healthy creation’150 of the tribal crafts, praising the crafts as ‘original and absolutely pure . . . which civilised people can never imitate’.151 Yamamoto Kanae, whom I have already mentioned on pages 32–36 as Yanagi’s contemporary and the pioneer of the ‘creative print’ (sósaku hanga) movement, as well as the leader of the peasant art (nómin bijutsu) movement and the children’s ‘free drawing’ (jiyúga) movement, is another important ﬁgure who saw the aesthetic value of Taiwanese original crafts for the local craft industry. He visited Taiwan in 1924 and advised the government on how to develop the craft industry.152 Among his numerous recommendations is his proposal for the development of ‘Aboriginal Industrial Crafts’ (Banchi Sangyó Kógei). He admires aboriginal crafts as ‘the world second

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best’153 after Scandinavian crafts and suggested that they should be used as the main source for the development of the Taiwanese crafts industry, with an emphasis on their distinctive ‘local colour’.154 His motive was to preserve aboriginal cultures as well as to develop industry to generate income for aboriginal people. Two strategies were proposed: ﬁrst, to copy the best examples of the aboriginal crafts and sell their reproductions as souvenirs,155 and second, to create new products with a ‘new function’,156 using aboriginal design as well as adding designs from the nearby South Asian countries which were suited to modern urban life. These export products would be aimed at the Japanese mainland and Euramerican lifestyle.157 Yamamoto’s coloured sketches of aboriginal crafts with his ideas of redesigning, now collected at the Yamamoto Kanae Memorial Museum in Ueda, Japan, clearly illustrate his innovative ideas. Examples of his craft design include (1) the use of a wood carving of the poisonous ‘hundred steps’ (baibu) snakes by the Paiwan tribe as a top lid of a cigarette/cigar box (Figure 3.19), (2) the use of a betel nut bag as a lady’s handbag (Figure 3.20) and (3) a wrap skirt by the Tsou tribe for a table centrepiece. These designs show the marketable ‘primitiveness’ and Taiwanese ‘local colour’ which attract modern urban consumers. Yamamoto promoted the aesthetic value of ‘primitive Taiwaneseness’ to enhance trade.

Figure 3.19 Yamamoto Kanae, a design drawing of a wood carving of the poisonous ‘hundred steps’ (baibu) snakes for a top lid of a cigarette/cigar box. Piece held in the collection of the Yamamoto Kanae Memorial Museum.

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Figure 3.20 Yamamoto Kanae, a design drawing of a betel nut bag for a lady’s handbag. Piece held in the collection of the Yamamoto Kanae Memorial Museum.

During the war in the 1940s, Taiwanese studies rapidly developed driven by political urgency – a rapid development due to the fact that Taiwan had become strategically the most important place as the ‘base of the South’ and the ‘heart of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere (daitóa kyóeiken)’ from which Japan would expand its empire to the southern regions. The year 1943 saw the establishment of new institutions such as Nanpó Kyókai (Association of the Southern Regions) and afﬁliated Nanpó Shiryókan (Archive of the Southern Regions), Minzoku Kenkyújo (Institute of Ethnology) in the Ministry of Education, Nanpó Jinbun Kenkyújo (Institute of Humanities in the Southern Regions) and Nanpó Shigen Kagaku Kenkyújo (Institute of Resource Science in the Southern Regions) at the Taihoku Imperial University and afﬁliated to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in 1943. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó (Taiwan Daily Newspaper) also reported the launch of government funded research projects on Taiwanese music.158 At the non-governmental level, the everincreasing amount of research on Taiwanese culture, including studies in connection with the ancient Japanese race and the hybridity of Japanese and Okinawan culture, as seen in Minzoku Taiwan (Taiwanese Folklore) in 1943,159 indicates manipulation and politicisation of academic research for the building of a Japanocentric order of the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere.

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Yanagi’s views on Taiwanese folkcrafts Yanagi travelled in Taiwan for a month during March and April in 1943 to investigate the local folkcrafts. This research trip was commissioned by the Japan Folk Crafts Museum and an organisation called Tóyó Bijutsu Kokusai Kenkyú Kai (the Society of Friends of Eastern Art [sic])160 for which Yanagi had been the Executive Director in 1941. In Taiwan he was assisted by the top ofﬁcials of the Culture and Education Department in the colonial government as well as Kanaseki Takeo, professor at the Taihoku Imperial University, and other important local ofﬁcials and intellectuals. His visit as a VIP was reported in the local Japanese newspaper Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó.161 He travelled all over the island, collected several dozen articles of folkcrafts, exhibited them for two days in the Civic Hall in Taihoku and gave a lecture before he went back to Japan. On his return to Japan, an exhibition of ‘Savage Textiles’ was also organised at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum. Although his publications on this subject are limited in number, his profound impression and his views on Taiwanese crafts are clearly expressed. His ‘criterion of beauty’ which uses the rhetorics of ‘medieval’ and ‘primitive’ discourses, appropriated from the modern aesthetic ideas in the Occident, is applied to Taiwanese crafts just as it had been to the Okinawan and the Ainu crafts. A table in a house of a poor family reminds him of the ‘gothic in medieval Europe’.162 Like many of his predecessors, he highly prizes ‘savage textiles’ (bampu), picking out those made by the Paiwan tribe (Figure 3.21). He writes that, unlike civilised Japanese, the High Mountain People, who ‘have not yet lost the primitive nature of making beautiful things’163 in their life where ‘there is no historical development,’164 can still produce such beautiful textiles. The beauty of these textiles can hardly be found elsewhere in the world and should be called ‘meibutsu gire’165 rather than ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’ textiles.166 While denouncing the derogatory connotations historically attached to these words, he redeﬁnes and repositions them in the modern aesthetic discourse of ‘primitivism’. He used the rhetoric of ‘primitive’ on the crafts of the aboriginal people; however, another important rhetoric of ‘Orientalness’ was applied mainly to the folkcrafts of the Chinese Taiwanese. He found the ‘Oriental shape’ in the folk pottery and the ‘authenticity’ of Oriental tradition in akae, enamel overglazed pottery, which had been continuously made from the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1912) eras.167 Bamboo crafts produced in Taiwan are discussed, with a particular stress being placed on their ‘healthy’168 beauty. Although saying ‘bamboo only exists in the Orient (tóyó)’,169 Yanagi uses such metaphors and poetic descriptions as ‘soft’, ‘magniﬁcent’, ‘straight’, ‘pure’, ‘faithful’ and ‘moralistic’ as if to imply the virtues of the Oriental people.170 The ‘enormous power’ and ‘strength’171 exhibited by the bamboo steamers (lan zheng), ‘stunning’ bamboo houses, bamboo chairs and furniture, with their characteristic

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Figure 3.21 A ceremonial skirt, entwined weave, ramie, cotton and wool, by Paiwan tribe. Piece held in the collection of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum.

‘sturdiness’ and ‘natural beauty’,172 are among the bamboo crafts which particularly impressed Yanagi. He gave special signiﬁcance to bamboo crafts because of its symbolic ‘Orientalness’. He also referred to the originality of the techniques used for making bamboo crafts which cannot be found ‘anywhere else in the world’.173 Guanmiao village in Tainan, the centre of the bamboo crafts, is described by Yanagi as ‘the best and almost ideal craft village in the world’174 and as a ‘utopia’ in reality175 which demonstrated morally bound family-based craftsmanship and a ‘medieval guild system’ to produce honest quality crafts.176 European Modernists’ validation of the ‘oriental beauty’ of bamboo Before Yanagi developed his discourse on Taiwanese bamboo, the ‘Orientalness’ of bamboo was already validated by the Orientalist Modernist designers such as Bruno Taut and Charlotte Perriand whom I have already

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discussed on pages 95–109. While in Japan, both Taut and Perriand highly praised the Japanese traditional crafts and architecture, and ‘discovered’ bamboo crafts as embodying the essence of ‘Orientalness’.177 They both became Yanagi’s friends through his guidance to mingei and Yanagi repeatedly mentioned anecdotes related to them. During his stay in Japan, Taut used bamboo to design many modern household products through which he delivered his idea of an authentic ‘quintessentially Japanese’ quality. Bamboo is an exotic material symbolising ‘Oriental’ beauty for most Euramericans, and they quickly notice its abundant use in Japanese architecture along with wood and paper, which is often found in fences, internal pillars and the ceiling of tea houses. Taut was no exception and he was captivated by bamboo as a material and by Japanese bamboo crafts. Moreover, it has been said that Taut was also stunned by the simplicity of Taiwanese bamboo stools (yiqiao) collected by Yanagi178 (Figure 3.22) and made many drawings of bamboo chairs brought back from China by Hamada Shóji. He picked up bamboo among other traditionally used materials and transformed it into stylish modern furniture such as the bamboo table lamp (Figure 3.23). He also created small products such as umbrella handles, paper knives and napkin holders made of bamboo (Figure 3.24). Taut’s choice of table lamp for his design does not seem simply coincidental. As Gillian Naylor noted, lighting ﬁxtures made of chrome, aluminium and glass are one of the ﬁrst successful prototype designs created by the

Figure 3.22 A Taiwanese bamboo stool (yiqiao). Piece held in the collection of Chuang Po-ho. Photograph: Cheng Yuan-ching.

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Figure 3.23 A bamboo lamp designed by Bruno Taut, L54.5ǂD44.0, 1934, exhibited at Miratis in 1935. Piece held in the collection of the Gunma Prefectural Museum of History. Source of photograph: Hokkaidóritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, Takamatsu shi Bijutsukan et al. eds 1996. Nihon Kógei no Seishunki 1920s–1945 (Craft Movements in Japan 1920s–1945), Tokyo: Cogito Inc. (Fig. 130, p. 92).

Bauhaus in association with the lighting industry in the 1920s in Germany. It also marked the breakthrough of the Bauhaus design ideal transforming craft-based design into mass-production.179 For Taut who had been familiar with these preceding experiments, the choice of table lamp for his prototype design in Japan seemed natural. He made a liaison between the German and Japanese modern design movements by translating the German prototype design into bamboo. Through his new way of using bamboo, Japanese traditional value was merged with European Modernist value.

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Figure 3.24 Umbrella handles designed by Bruno Taut, bamboo, L2.2ǂD15.2 (the largest item), 1934, exhibited at Miratis in 1935. Pieces held in the collection of the Gunma Prefectural Museum of History. Source of photograph: Hokkaidóritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, Takamatsu shi Bijutsukan et al. eds 1996. Nihon Kógei no Seishunki 1920s–1945 (Craft Movements in Japan 1920s–1945), Tokyo: Cogito Inc. (Fig. 128, p. 90).

Thereby bamboo becomes one of the most powerful visual spokespersons of Modernist ideas. Following Taut, Charlotte Perriand also constructed an inﬂuential discourse on bamboo. In her seminal exhibition ‘Tradition, Selection, Creation’ held at the Takashimaya department store in Tokyo and Osaka which was discussed earlier, she selected materials such as bamboo, wood, anodised aluminium (arumaito) for her study and experiment for application. But among them, bamboo caught her special attention, as in the case of Taut. She says: No other material has more inﬁnite characteristics than bamboo. If you study the ﬂexibility, thickness and hardness of bamboo and apply appropriate techniques according to different types and characteristics of bamboo, you have vast potential to create beautiful forms.180 In her exhibition, she exhibited Taiwanese bamboo stools (yiqiao) and a Taiwanese-style chair made under the instruction of Kawai Kanjiró (Figures 2.20 and 3.22). Different bamboo trays, some made by craft artists, some by peasants from the Tóhoku (north-east) region of the mainland Japan (which is regarded as the cradle of the ‘national traditional folkcrafts’), are

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used for tea trays and as a coffee table. A bamboo chair using bamboo stalks and a bamboo table, a bedside lamp and a trash basket made of woven bamboo are displayed, exemplifying different uses of the same material. However the central piece was her chaise longue. It is a version of her Modernist masterpiece originally made of steel and leather, but here made of bamboo (Figure 2.25). While Taut created the bamboo table lamp, Perriand created the bamboo chaise longue. They both used bamboo as the best tool to translate Modernist language. Her transformation of the original chaise longue made of steel tubes and leather into one made of bamboo gives instant proof of the compatibility of Japanese tradition and Modernism. On some other occasions, she also picked up bamboo buttons, a baby buggy and handbags created in Kyoto to be appropriated for export with slight modiﬁcation,181 and further suggested the new production of breadbaskets and toast racks made of bamboo.182 Taut and Perriand repeatedly stressed the Modernist’s creed of ‘simplicity’, ‘healthy beauty’ and ‘total beauty’ which they found in architectural space, painting and crafts, and the sophisticated unity of form, material and function in Japanese traditional crafts and architecture.183 Bamboo is specially selected for the symbol of Japanese tradition and embodiment of ‘Orientalness’, as well as for marketable modern products both in Japan and Euramerica. Their views on bamboo which combine modernity and national identity become milestones for the ﬁrst-generation Japanese designers such as Toyoguchi Katsuhei, Kenmochi Isamu, Sakakura Junzó and Yanagi Sóri who later became a promoter of so-called ‘Japanese Modern’. As Toyoguchi put it: ‘Bruno Taut and Charlotte Perriand taught us the new explorable aspect of Japanese traditional crafts technique through bamboo furniture.’184 In view of this context, Yanagi’s discourse on ‘Orientalness’ in Taiwanese bamboo crafts testiﬁes to his appropriation of the Modernist validation. Furthermore, this European Orientalist and Modernist validation developed in the colonial context through Kawai Kanjiró’s bamboo furniture project. Kawai was one of the most important potters and orators of the Mingei movement. As in the case of Taut and Perriand, Kawai was also struck by bamboo craft, in particular, Taiwanese bamboo craft. He found in a Taiwanese bamboo stool and in the cupboard owned by Yanagi, a ‘strong’ and ‘healthy’ character and developed the idea of reinforcing the weakness of Japanese bamboo craft in which he had noted a neglect of the intrinsic nature of bamboo and an overmanipulation of material.185 Kawai found a company called the ‘Japanese Bamboo Bed Manufacturing Company’ (Nihon Takesei Shindai Seisakujo) in Saga, Kyoto, owned by Óyagi Harukazu, where bamboo beds were made of local Saga bamboo by Taiwanese craftsmen. In partnership with this company, various pieces of furniture were designed by Kawai and handmade by three skilful Taiwanese craftsmen186 (Figure 3.25). They were exhibited at the Takashimaya department store in Osaka and Tokyo in 1941. Kawai happily described the work

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Figure 3.25 Bamboo furniture designed by Kawai Kanjiró, 1941. Pieces held in the collection of the Kawai Kanjiró Memorial Museum. Source of photograph: Sezon Bijutsukan, Nihon no Me to Kúkan (Japanese Aesthetics and the Sense of Space), Tokyo: Sezon Bijutsukan 1990 (Fig. III-2–5, p. 118).

as having both ‘the skills coming out of the bodies of the Taiwanese craftsmen’ and ‘vernacularity’ which has ‘a distinct ﬂavour of mainland Japan’.187 The outcome of this hybrid product gave him ‘joy and hope’, directing him to a new creative path. Kawai was also greatly encouraged by Yanagi and other members of the Mingei movement who appreciated Taut’s and Perriand’s remarks on bamboo crafts but weren’t fully satisﬁed by their design.188 Kawai appropriated the European Modernists’ projects which attempted to create ‘Japanese Modern’ using Japanese materials, and became a Japanese Modernist. This idea of the creation of ‘Japanese Modern’ also corresponds with the statement by Kenmochi Isamu, Taut’s disciple and an inﬂuential designer specialising in chair design working at the IARI. Reﬂecting the contemporary imperialistic atmosphere, Kenmochi proposed the creation of Oriental chairs in ‘the original Greater Eastern Asian Style’ inspired by Chinese and Taiwanese bamboo chairs.189 European Modernists’ validation was appropriated to a Japanese context by Yanagi, Kawai and Kenmochi, and developed into a Japanocentric discourse of ‘Oriental’ culture involving colonialism.

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Bamboo and ‘substitute products’ (daiyóhin) during the war This special attention to bamboo during the 1940s cannot be treated in isolation from the colonial cultural policies and wartime situations. During the war, crafts became economically constrained and politically manipulated. The New Order enforced the production of ‘controlled product’ (tóseihin) and ‘substitute products’ (daiyóhin). In collaboration with the Taisei Yokusan Kai (Imperial Rule Assistance Association), national bodies such as Kógei Shidósho (IARI: Industrial Arts Research Institute), Dai Nippon Kógei Kai (the Great Japan Crafts Association) established in 1943, which later became Nippon Bijutsu oyobi Kógei Tósei Kyókai (Japan Arts and Crafts Control Association), implemented the regulations and put control over the craft makers to promote creation of standardised necessities. Bamboo was a material that was intentionally chosen for Japan’s national interest. Bamboo together with wood, paper and clay were chosen as substitute materials for metal during the war when all metal and precious materials were collected from every household by the government to produce arms and to support the military. Bamboo represents the ‘simple’, ‘plain’, ‘healthy’, ‘thrifty’ lifestyle appropriate for a nation at war. The Modernist aesthetic discourse of ‘Oriental’, ‘simple and national beauty’ which was valorised by people such as Taut, Perriand and Yanagi, also echoed through numerous ofﬁcial propaganda and exhibitions.190 These Japanese situations also reﬂect on Taiwanese crafts. Chiang Shao-ying [Jiang Shao-ying] and Chuang Po-ho [Zhuang Bo-he] point out the manoeuvres on the development of Taiwanese crafts by the Japanese government. Some Taiwanese crafts are carefully chosen to be promoted as a new industry to bring new proﬁts to Japan without competing with Japanese industries, to supply substitute products for metal or precious materials, and to inspire romantic nostalgia. From around the 1910s, bamboo pulp factories and bamboo craft training centres funded by the colonial government were established for the purpose of export production.191 During the 1940s substitute products are enthusiastically discussed both in Japan and Taiwan. A large-scale exhibition on ‘Shinkó Daiyóhin’ (Newly Invented Substitute Products) created by the Taiwanese companies was organised by the Chamber of Commerce of Taiwan and travelled around Taiwan.192 Substitute products such as bamboo belt,193 bamboo reinforced concrete,194 bamboo scrub,195 bamboo ﬁbre,196 bamboo bucket197 are featured in Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó (Taiwan Daily Newspaper). Bamboo addressed the Japanese interest in substitute products, whereas Taiwanese crafts which did not meet with Japanese interest and the aim of Japanisation promoted by the kóminka policy, such as the creation of dolls for the traditional puppet theatre and crafts related to indigenous religions, were suppressed and left to become extinct.198 Bamboo was made to become the icon of the Orient through these economical and political manipulations. Taiwanese bamboo crafts championed by Yanagi as well as the success of bamboo works by Charlotte Perriand and Kawai Kanjiró are embedded within this political context.

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Kanaseki Takeo, Tateishi Tetsuomi and Minzoku Taiwan When Yanagi visited Taiwan for his craft research, he was helped by local experts. Though Yanagi had already been equipped with his established ‘criterion of beauty’ in Mingei theory and European Modernists’ rhetoric which could be easily applied to Taiwanese folkcrafts, he owed much to the people involved in Minzoku Taiwan (Taiwanese Folklore), and in particular to Kanaseki Takeo. Yanagi relied on Kanaseki with respect to actual information on Taiwanese folkcrafts, just as he owed much to Asakawa Yoshitaka and Takumi on the subject of Korean folkcrafts and Yoshida Shóya on Manchurian folkcrafts. Kanaseki was Yanagi’s main guide and presumably showed him around the crafts which had already been ‘discovered’ and studied by Kanaseki. Kanaseki’s views on Taiwanese folkcrafts, and the ideas expressed in Minzoku Taiwan by Kanaseki and his friends need special attention, because they were shared by Yanagi and are therefore of particular value in clarifying Yanagi’s position. Kanaseki was professor of medicine at the Taihoku Imperial University, specialising in anatomy, but he was also a devoted amateur scholar of Taiwanese folklore and folkcrafts. A popular journal, Minzoku Taiwan (Taiwanese Folklore) (Figure 3.26) was launched by Kanaseki, with himself as the intellectual leader as well as general editor and Ikeda Toshio, a member of staff at the Information Ofﬁce of the Taiwanese Colonial Government, as a chief editor.199 Minzoku Taiwan, published monthly during the years 1941–5, compiled articles on folklore, including traditional customs, lifestyles, mythology, music, crafts, etc. that were contributed by both Japanese and Taiwanese intellectuals from amongst its readers. This journal was sold in much greater numbers of copies than any other contemporary journal and attracted both Japanese and Taiwanese equally. The active involvement of Taiwanese people as contributors and readers also makes this journal unique.200 In terms of folkcrafts, there were three important regular columns: one by Kanaseki on folkcrafts, one by Tateishi Tetsuomi, a painter and art critic, on traditional street scenes and folkcrafts, and one by Yan Shui-long, a painter and designer, on craft studios. These three people initiated the Mingei (folkcrafts) movement in Taiwan under the theoretical guidance of Yanagi and Yanagita Kunio. They ‘discovered’ the folklore of Taiwan, recorded it, collected folkcrafts and encouraged the Taiwanese craftsmen to continue using their traditional craft skills in creating modern folkcrafts. The movement has continued to develop widely up until present times. Kanaseki’s aesthetic ideas resonate with Yanagi’s ‘criterion of beauty’. Kanaseki’s column on folkcrafts, ‘Mingei Kaisetsu’ (A Guide to Folkcrafts) in Minzoku Taiwan clearly shows the extent to which Kanaseki had imbibed Yanagi’s Mingei theory. For example, the metal candle holders with the design of Chinese characters meaning ‘happiness’ (xi) are described as having ‘the beauty of no-mindedness and free spirit’,201 a chopsticks container

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Figure 3.26 Minzoku Taiwan, 4(3), 1944.

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‘zhulong’ as symbolising ‘the healthy life’,202 a cobalt glazed plate for ordinary use as showing the ‘virtue and purity of poverty’ and ‘craftsmanship being built from their loyalty to tradition and their experiences gained through making multiple copies’;203 a wooden spoon with a curled handle was described as having a ‘function perfectly dissolved into design’,204 tiles known as ‘chuanwashan’ for exterior walls of houses as being reminiscent of the ‘solemn but intimate impression of medieval architecture in the West’,205 a bamboo basket called xielan for carrying offerings as ‘sturdy’ and having ‘beauty and function in complete harmony’206 (Figure 3.27) and so on. He also highlighted the ‘Oriental traditional shape’ of a tea bowl207 and highly praised the beauty of the ‘savage textiles’ made by the aboriginal people.208 Like Yanagi, Kanaseki and his friends also paid special attention to bamboo crafts, as being ‘the most remarkable folkcrafts in Taiwan’.209 They featured bamboo crafts as having supreme ‘healthy’ beauty, and the ‘utopian ideal’ village of Guanmiao, the manufacturing centre of bamboo crafts,210 many times. Along with modern discourse on Taiwanese vernacular folkcrafts, modern visual presentation makes Minzoku Taiwan attractive.211 Kanaseki’s column includes ﬁne photographs of objects mostly taken by the

Figure 3.27 Xielan (bamboo basket). Piece held in the collection of the Bamboo Craft Museum, Fengyuan, Taizhong. Photograph: The Bamboo Craft Museum, Fengyuan, Taizhong. Source of photograph: Nantou Xianli and Wenhua Zhongxin (Nantou Province Cultural Center) eds, Zhuyi Bowuguan Daoru (A Guide to the Bamboo Craft Museum), 1997, (p. 49).

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skilled cameraman Matsuyama Kenzó,212 Tateishi’s column is illustrated by his own woodblock prints and Yan’s column has his own illustrations. In particular, Tateishi’s column ‘Minzoku Zue’ (Folk Picture) vividly depicts street scenes, craft studios, food and people. They created a powerful visual effect in the modern individualistic style of ‘sósaku hanga’ (creative prints) which had been initiated by Yamamoto Kanae in Japan in the early twentieth century and became popular as innovative modern art both in Japan and Taiwan.213 His prints are modern and attractively expressive, reﬂecting his personal attachment and passion for Taiwanese culture. Tateishi was born and raised in Taiwan until the age of 7 before returning to Taiwan to work for nine years in later life. He had a culturally marginal identity, as a Taiwanese individual but also as a Japanese. In comparison to other established Japanese artists such as Ishikawa Kinichiró and Kinoshita Seigai who painted the idealistic picturesque Taiwanese landscape, Tateishi’s observation of the humane aspect of culture shows his understanding of Taiwanese culture to be deeper than that of other Japanese counterparts. He is a partial insider but is also equipped with the objective eyes of an outsider, pursuing an insatiable curiosity. Tateishi propagated the idea of ‘vernacular’ and ‘local colour’ by means of modern powerful visual images through Minzoku Taiwan. The evaluation of Minzoku Taiwan has been causing heated debate recently both in Japan and Taiwan. At the superﬁcial level, Minzoku Taiwan is merely a popular journal pursuing apolitical interest in Taiwanese folklore. Yet a more detailed analysis of this journal as a colonial cultural project generates a picture of much complexity. The difﬁculty in judgement is due to the extreme ambiguity of the journal’s political stance in the circumstances of colonisation and particularly in view of the probably heavily censored nature of its publication during the period of kóminka. Three typical critical evaluations are presented by Nezu Masashi, Kawamura Minato and Wu Mi-cha. Nezu’s point summarises the apologist views for Minzoku Taiwan, which represent the stance of paciﬁsts – anti-authority, anti-colonial and humanists. Nezu highly admires Minzoku Taiwan as ‘the only humanistic treasure during the long Japanese colonisation of Taiwan’214 which bravely confronted kóminka despite censorship, and therefore it is welcomed by many Taiwanese readers as the only ‘oasis’. As to the reason why the activities of Minzoku Taiwan were not suppressed by the authority, he explains that it was due to Kanaseki and his friends’ high social status as professors at the Taihoku Imperial University which outranked the government ofﬁcials. In line with Nezu, Lin Zhuang-sheng also argues that Minzoku Taiwan reﬂected Kanaseki and Yanagi’s ‘humanistic idealism’ and ‘liberal, egalitarian ideas about culture’ whose attitudes in the face of the authoritarian kóminka are comparable to those of today’s ecologists.215 This explanation of the ‘humanist Japanese intellectual’ is peculiarly similar to the mainstream evaluation of Yanagi’s involvement in Korea which I have already discussed, whereas Kawamura Minato argues Minzoku Taiwan is an

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agent of the colonial project which can be called the ‘Greater East Asian ethnology’. Kawamura points out that Minzoku Taiwan has a shrewd political camouﬂage of ‘scientiﬁc and objective’ studies of folklore to avoid the colonial government’s attention, given its concerns about stimulating Taiwanese nationalism. However by analysing the conﬂict between Kanaseki and Yang Yun-ping and Kanaseki’s views expressed in his other works, Kawamura argues that there is a fundamental racism behind the façade and Minzoku Taiwan is ultimately representing ‘exoticism/colonialism disguised as taste for things Taiwanese’.216 Kanaseki and a literary critic Yang Yun-ping’s series of debates known as ‘Minzoku Taiwan Ronsó’ (Minzoku Taiwan Debate) address the core question of the political nature of Minzoku Taiwan. It began with Yang’s criticism on Kanaseki’s ‘cold arrogance’ in his contradicting statement. Kanaseki says that as a consequence of modernisation ‘Taiwanese traditional customs degenerate which is natural and I can not help it . . . and I do not lament it, either’, but then he continues, ‘ . . . However our duty is to record the degenerating Taiwanese folklore and carry out research on them . . . which is a matter of urgency, being required for future studies on the East Asian People’. His ambivalent mixture of compassion and aloofness confused Yang and invited his more confused rebuttal saying Kanaseki’s ‘patronising, mechanical’ attitude needs more ‘love and enthusiasm’.217 This debate was further analysed by Wu Mi-cha but with careful comparison with Ikeda Toshio’s own memoirs of editing Minzoku Taiwan.218 Ikeda’s memoirs convinced Wu to believe that Minzoku Taiwan’s political gesture, seemingly in accordance with imperialism, is a ‘defensive shield’219 only to ‘protect the journal’ in the context of the wartime situation.220 Wu also argued that their genuine motivation emerged from the ‘sense of imminent crisis regarding the likelihood that traditional Taiwanese customs and folklore would disappear as a result of the kóminka policies’.221 Wu revised Minato’s views to a more balanced evaluation of Minzoku Taiwan, which analyses that though their aim was undeniably harmonious to the later cultural policies of kóminka in stressing the awareness of ‘local culture,’ it also provided the genuine contribution in building the foundation for ethnological studies in Taiwan.222 ‘Vernacularism’, colonial cultural policy and imperialism Kóminka forced Taiwanese people to assimilate and integrate into Japanese as imperial subjects and imposed various reforms to standardise and ‘Japanise’ people in the Japanese empire, known as the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere (daitóa kyóeiken), in order to create ‘national unity’ and solidarity for mobilisation for the coming war. It was a bottom-up system supported by local branch organisations and community networks and was ideologically justiﬁed by the family value rhetoric which appeared in the slogan, ‘eight corners of the world under one roof ’ (hakkó ichiu). However, on the other hand, in parallel with this tight control of kóminka,

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‘vernacularism’ was encouraged as part of cultural policy to play a conciliatory role. ‘Vernacularism’ increasingly caught the interest of politicians who gradually and shrewdly learned that culture is ‘the best means to inspire people power’.223 As Wu mentioned, the cultural policy of kóminka was a vital force for promoting local cultures.224 Slogans such as ‘love local culture’ (kyódo ai) and ‘local awareness’ (kyódo ishiki) were often cited as part of the nationalistic campaign. This ‘vernacularism’ proclaimed in the colonial cultural policy aimed at revitalising local cultures which were regarded as a foundation of Japan as a nation, thereby strengthening all of Japanese culture. ‘Vernacularism’ was particularly promoted under the eighteenth Governor-General, Hasegawa Kiyoshi who relaxed cultural policy to ‘allow Taiwanese indigenous religions, festivals and rituals, customs, local arts and lifestyle unless they breach the objectives of the colonial rule’.225 Liu Shu-qin argued that ‘vernacularism’ in its conciliatory colonial policy provided ‘a break for the cultural and literary activities which had suffocated under the previous oppressive rules’.226 The ideology of ‘vernacularism’ is manoeuvred by the Cultural Division of Taisei Yokusan Kai (Imperial Rule Assistance Association) and other centralised cultural associations organised during the 1940s both in Japan and Taiwan. In art, for example, Taiwan Bijutsu Hókó Kai (Association of Art for the Service to the Nation) was established in 1943 to become ‘the leading soldiers of the imperial service movement in the cultural division’ in order to ‘promote and establish Taiwanese culture as part of Japanese culture’ with a belief that ‘national power is none other than the nation’s life and cultural power which support national politics, economy and defence’.227 The signiﬁcance of the movement became part of the institutional education system. Nobe Keizó, a primary school teacher in Taiwan, presents a typical view, arguing that ‘vernacularism’ is achieved through school education. He criticised some of the existing ideas that ‘vernacular education’ would plant an element which might backﬁre causing Taiwanese ethnic nationalism to rebel against colonial rules, as being ‘passive’ and ‘out of date’, by pointing out that ‘it is as if they are saying, don’t use ﬁre to prevent causing a ﬁre or don’t use a knife to prevent injury’.228 He went on to explain the importance of ‘vernacular education’ for the assimilation and integration of the Taiwanese as imperial subjects and for ‘policing the savage tribes’ (rihan seisaku). He writes: ‘Vernacular education’ has to be implemented in schools, because unless the Taiwanese people themselves love Taiwan as a part of our nation, Taiwan cannot play an important role as a base for Japanese expansion into the southern regions and as the heart of the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere (daitóa kyóeiken) for the sake of the future and eternal development of the Japanese race.229 He suggested teaching children in schools in Taiwan, selectively but positively, about geography, history, folklore and nature, which were familiar to

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them as parts of their everyday life, but explaining the ways in which they contribute to kóminka. Nobe also suggested that ‘vernacularism’ be imposed with ‘paternal compassion’. He believed that a careful but ﬂexible and interdisciplinary approach, implemented with a paternal compassion to ‘vernacular education’, would eventually achieve profound kóminka.230 The idea of vernacular education was successfully implemented for example in craft education at primary schools in Taiwan. Handicraft classes were added as optional curricula in 1905.231 It was encouraged from an educational and creative point of view but strongly backed by pragmatic ideas of trade. Vernacularity was encouraged through the use of locally abundant and inexpensive materials such as bamboo, rintó (pandang/ pandanus tectorius) ﬁbre, gettó (alpina speciosa), tsúsó (rice-paper tree/tetrapanax papyriferus) and rattan in order to manufacture useful products for the local lifestyle but also to expand an important industry such as bamboo crafts ‘to prepare for the future craft production . . . and to bring a favourable effect on the national economy’.232 Vernacularism and folkcrafts proved to be a successful marriage that realised the political and cultural aims of Japanese imperialism. Yanagi was in line with this carefully crafted bottom-up politico-cultural policy. He praised the model of Nazi Germany which promoted the use of local handicrafts in daily life in the barracks, in the belief that ‘the nation is strengthened by the people who love the nation and love local culture’.233 ‘Paternal compassion’ expressed by Nobe also echoes with the attitudes of Yanagi and Kanaseki. Yanagi is apologetic about his use of the terms ‘primitive’ and ‘savage’, saying they are ‘our careless expressions’.234 In referring to ‘savage textiles’, he said ‘our textiles are in fact more childish and of lower quality . . . Taiwanese aborigines might call our textiles “impure textiles”.’235 But on the other hand, Yanagi also has a paternalistic attitude toward Taiwanese art: They [Taiwanese] create marvellous things without knowing it. That people create things without realising it demands our respect.236 Certainly they [Taiwanese] cannot differentiate good and bad things. The Japanese are the people who discover beauty. Therefore the Japanese have to raise their [Taiwanese] aesthetic sense by displaying beautiful things. It is the responsibility of the Japanese.237 Yanagi is an evaluator of beauty, a privileged Japanese coloniser. In ‘the centre of culture’238 – the metropolitan city (Tokyo) in the metropolitan country (Japan) – Yanagi is the subject who looks at the object that is the peripheral provinces and countries. He has the doctrine of noblesse oblige to justify carrying out research, collect, taxonomise, exhibit and preserve their crafts works. His attitude toward the Okinawans and the Koreans is more or less the same. Similarly, this attitude of colonial paternalism can also be

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found in Kanaseki’s statement about his aspiration for Minzoku Taiwan, that it be ‘not academic, but a popular magazine with a soft touch’ which ‘makes people unconsciously aware of their own vernacular culture’.239 He claims it is the responsibility of civilised Japanese to make records of the degenerating Taiwanese culture, and not follow the bad example of ‘the Romans who ignored their responsibility and did not make a single record of the culture of Carthage at its fall’.240 Yang Yun-ping’s criticism of Kanaseki’s ‘cold arrogance’ in ‘Minzoku Taiwan Ronsó’ which I already mentioned also suggests unmistakable colonial power relations even if we take into account the necessary political camouﬂage which Kanaseki had to make. The topic of ‘vernacularism’ created heated arguments among intellectuals towards the end of the war. Minzoku Taiwan, for example, showed a keen interest in this topic and organised two important panel discussions. The one held in 1943 focused on how Taiwanese folklore studies can contribute to Japanese folklore studies and the kóminka movement. For example, ‘ancestor worship’ (sosen súhai) was nominated by Yanagita Kunio, an authority on folklore studies, as an important subject, not only because it highlighted the similarity between Japanese, Koreans and Taiwanese thereby creating a feeling of solidarity and community among them, but also because ancestor worship enabled a smooth route for the propagation of worship of the Japanese emperor as a head of a family – the Japanese empire. For example a good luck talisman from Ise Shrine could be placed on the family altar in every household.241 This kind of idea spurred Kanaseki’s realisation that the effective political manipulation of folklore studies could be used in order to erase the memory of Taiwan’s ancestral past as Chinese.242 This topic was continued in a discussion held in 1944 on how folklore studies could contribute to the war, in a more urgent, tense atmosphere. Nakamura Akira, professor of political science at the Taihoku Imperial University, who had been a strong campaigner for an effective cultural policy and for the ‘political use of culture’,243 made provocative comments, saying ‘the scholars of folklore studies need to join the front line of the war through their work’.244 He called for the undertaking of studies which would be politically expedient, and which would examine in particular a culture which ‘does not exist in Japan and only exists in Taiwan’, thereby enriching the Japanese culture.245 Kanaseki endorsed this view by noting that ‘[studies on] folkcrafts are the best project for that purpose . . . to revitalise Japanese material culture’.246 Sharing this intellectual climate, Yanagi suggested that Taiwan should be regarded as a local region (chihó) of Japan. Thus, the studies on Taiwanese crafts can have a mission similar to the studies on the crafts of the Tóhoku (north-east region of Japan) as I have already discussed in the previous chapter. His mission is to strengthen the power of the nation by preserving the ‘quintessentially Japanese’ crafts and skills247 and he said ‘war gave a good opportunity to realise this belief ’.248 Here activities of Yanagi and Minzoku Taiwan are fully justiﬁed in terms of their mission to contribute to kóminka.

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‘Vernacularism’ was embraced in the idea of multiculturalism in the Orient, though it was obviously multiculturalism with a Japanocentric nature. In the ongoing development of close relations between politics and studies on folklore and folkcrafts during the war in 1940–5, ‘vernacularism’ was praised as a way to stir up hostility toward the enemy and to replace Westernisation brought about by the enemy. Apparently, Yanagi’s use of rhetoric revealed through his application of this ‘vernacularism’ to Okinawan kasuri, Taiwanese bamboo crafts, to contrast ‘Oriental beauty’ with ‘Occidental beauty’, which emphasised the ‘innate and original’ beauty of the Orient, captivated the authority. When Yanagi held a lecture and an exhibition in 1943, he was enthusiastically supported by the government whose propaganda positioned Yanagi’s project as being ‘welcomed by various people . . . who have expectations towards his contribution to ﬁnd the Oriental beauty in crafts deeply related to the Taiwanese everyday life, and consequently expel the American and British tastes’.249 Yanagi evidently adopted this highly romanticised nationalistic ideology of ‘vernacularism’ and politicised folkcrafts. He presumably swam with the current of this imperial cultural policy and went along comfortably with the colonial government. Even the fact that Hasegawa Kiyoshi, who was the Governor-General during Yanagi’s involvement, was a Navy General, does not seem to be mere coincidence. Yanagi had wide family connections with the Navy in Korea and his project had been supported by his family connections with senior Naval Ofﬁcers in the colonial government. The trajectory of Yanagi’s work clearly follows the colonial and imperial projects. ‘Vernacularism’, as an inﬂuential ideology, was politically manipulated and propagated in various ways and the studies on folklore and folkcrafts were a convenient vehicle for it. It became also clear that Yanagi and his friends unmistakably collaborated with the authorities through their activities on folkcrafts which were in harmony with the colonial conciliatory cultural policies. It is undeniable that they had purely personal and academic interests in folklore/folkcrafts studies that made them pursue their continuous and devoted research, but at the same time, it is also undeniable that they were engaged in the ‘right’ subject as far as the authorities were concerned and indeed one on which the authorities were able to capitalise. ‘Vernacularism’ and modernity in Taiwan ‘Vernacularism’ seems to have had a double edged aspect in Taiwanese art and craft. On the one hand, it works as an ideology for the colonisers’ Japanocentric multiculturalism, but it also planted a seed for colonised Taiwanese cultural nationalism. Liu Shu-qin’s insightful research shows that despite tight control on many things, the Taiwanese literary movement ﬂourished and ‘local literature’ was revitalised under the sophisticated conciliatory colonial policy promoting ‘vernacularism’. In ﬁne art, as Yen

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Chuan-ying [Yan Juan-ying] and Liao Hsin-tien [Liao Xin-tian] have discussed extensively, ‘local colour’, a synonym of ‘vernacularism’, was part of colonial art policy and propaganda promoted through the ofﬁcial exhibitions sponsored by the colonial government: the Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibitions (Taiten) organised in the years 1927–36 and the Taiwan Government-General Art Exhibition (Futen) in 1938–43, leading to the construction of a particular genre depicting ‘local colour’.250 On the one hand the Japanese judges of these exhibitions and on the other inﬂuential teachers at art institutions including Ishikawa Kinichiró and Shiotsuki Tóho specialising in Western-style painting, and Kinoshita Seigai and Góhara Kotó specialising in Eastern-style painting, were instrumental in the dissemination of this notion. Selection and award in the ofﬁcial exhibitions represented an ultimate honour and bestowed a status of authority upon the artists, therefore the notion of ‘local colour’ known to be favoured by judges were taken seriously by contestants. ‘Local colour’ was often a reﬂection of the colonisers’ taste for the images of Taiwan. For example, landscape paintings painted in bright colours with an unspoiled dynamic nature or a picturesque tropical ‘southern’ island with unmistakably exotic objects such as palm trees, betel nut trees, papaya trees, pineapple trees, sugarcanes, and water buffalos, or exotic and primitive aboriginal people are regarded as the typical work expressing ‘local colour’. ‘Vernacularism’ was also a great incentive for the development of Taiwanese crafts. A crafts industry to produce items for the use of Japanesestyle living within Taiwan and mainland Japan was developed. The characteristics of these crafts include the added value of Taiwanese ‘local colour’ to enhance the regional variety of Japanese culture. This infrastructure of the craft industry as well as the types and styles of crafts produced from the colonial period became the foundation of the post-war development of the Taiwanese craft industry. The examples include bamboo crafts such as furniture in traditional Chinese Taiwanese style and woven bamboo in Japanese style (Figure 3.28); ‘Taiwan/Oriental Panama’ and hats either made from local materials such as Taikó (Dajia) rush (Scirpus triqueter) or Rintó (Pandanus tectorius sol) or twisted paper strings;251 tableware pottery typically with exotic Taiwanese landscape depicting an idealised image of Taiwanese scenery that was favoured by the Japanese – palm trees, boats on the sea, and also a mountain which frequently resembles Mount Fuji (Figure 3.29);252 and ‘Hórainuri’ (Formosan lacquerware) typically with decorative patterns such as dancing aboriginal people, pineapples, bananas and exotic tropical plants and insects253 (Figure 3.30). As Bruno Taut and Charlotte Perriand gave inﬂuential advice on product designs in Japan, Yanagi talked about promoting Taiwanese folkcrafts both to preserve and develop local handcrafts industries, following after the model of Germany and Italy.254 Kanaseki also expressed his support for the development of local industries and side business for farmers.255 However, it was Yan Shui-long who actually devoted himself to promoting Taiwanese

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Figure 3.28 Huang Tu-shan, a Japanese-style woven bamboo Kóri basket made for the Japanese military, 1940s. Piece held in the collection of Huang Tu-shan. Source of photograph: Shyh-huei Huang [Shi-hui Huang], Minzu Yishi Huang Tu-shan Zhuyi Shenming Shi (The Life History of Huang Tu-shan – National Artist of Bamboo Art), Nantou-xian Zhushan: Sheliao Wenjiao Jijinhui, 1999 (p. 10).

Figure 3.29 Inge(?), plate with nangoku (southern country) landscape with palm tree, D10. Piece held in the collection of Yuko Kikuchi.

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Figure 3.30 ‘Hórainuri’ (penglaitu), plates of a Taiwanese island shape with design of aboriginal people, L20.0ǂW10.0. Pieces held in the collection of Nantou Province Folkcrafts Society. Source of photograph: Li-shu Huang ed. Taiwan Qiqi Wenwu Fenghua-Penglaitu Qiqi (The Grace of Taiwanese Lacquer Objects – Penglai-style Lacquer), Nantou: Nantouxian Minsu Wenwu Xuehui, 2001 (Fig. 48, p. 83).

folkcrafts. Yan was a multi-talented artist, given his status as a leading painter in modern art, a pioneer industrial designer and a leader of the folkcrafts movement in Taiwan. On his return from studying in Japan and France, fuelled by a vision of establishing an institution of crafts in Taiwan, he carried out colonial government-sponsored ﬁeld research on Taiwanese folkcrafts in 1941. With a strong nationalistic vision promoting ‘the silent tools to achieve the diplomatic mission of propagating own culture’,256 he also called for the nation-wide development of the indigenous vernacular art of crafts which he called ‘jiyú kógei’ (free-born crafts), equivalent to the modern concepts of ‘primitive and folk craft’. He advocates the Scandinavian and French models as well as the German national promotion of their crafts and the Nazi cultural policy where indigenous crafts – including those from the colonies – were ofﬁcially promoted for use in modern life and industry.257 Yan was involved in Minzoku Taiwan and the Japanese-inspired Taiwanese folkcraft movement, working together with Yanagi, Kanaseki and Tateishi, and also became a trustee member of Taiwan Seikatsu Bunka Shinkókai (the Taiwan Household Culture Promotion Council) in the 1940s.258 He was involved in the wartime national projects in the mainland of Japan, by exhibiting much-praised rush shopping bags

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at the ﬁrst ‘Exhibition of Household Products for the Nation’ (Kokumin Seikatsu Yóhin Tenrankai) at the Takashimaya department store in Tokyo which was organised by the Industrial Arts Research Institute (IARI) in 1941, which I mentioned on pp. 115–116. Yan was the only exhibitor from the Japanese colonies selected for this important venue.259 Like Yanagi and his friends, Yan enthusiastically promoted bamboo crafts and helped to set up training workshops throughout Taiwan in the 1940s.260 It is clear that Yan’s ideas are in line with Yanagi’s Mingei movement and its strong association with the English Art and Crafts movement. As a student Chiang Shao-ying [Jiang Shao-ying] recalls that Yan often referred to the ideas of Ruskin and Morris as well as Yanagi’s Mingei theory.261 Armed with these modern ideas of a national ‘art and industry for life’, he experimented with creating modern marketable designs for vernacular folkcrafts. He created bamboo furniture (Figure 3.31), woodwork, rush crafts and textiles (Figure 3.32), and his ideas and works had great public and ofﬁcial appeal, resulting in the establishment of academic and industrial institutions for crafts all over Taiwan in the 1960s. ‘Vernacularism’ seems to have appealed to Taiwanese artists as being ‘modern’, as well as bringing out an awareness of ‘cultural identity’. Accord-

Figure 3.31 Bamboo furniture designed by Yan Shui-long. Pieces held in the collection of the Yan family. Source of photograph: Ying-e Tu, Lanyu·Zhuangshi–Yan Shui-long (Lanyu·Decoration–Yan Shui-long), Taipei: Xiongshi Tushu, 1993 (pp. 80–81).

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Figure 3.32 A lotus stalk bag, woollen tie, rush table mat, design for tie, belt buckle designed by Yan Shui-long. Pieces held in the collection of the Yan family. Source of photograph: Ying-e Tu, Lanyu·Zhuangshi–Yan Shui-long, Taipei: Xiongshi Tushu, 1993 (pp. 77).

ing to the analysis of Wu Mi-cha, this phenomenon suggests the complex effect of colonisation. He noted the double-edged aspect of Japanese colonial policy, which aimed at kóminka, yet also planted the modern sense of cultural identity in Taiwan which developed into Taiwanese nationalism.262 Yanagi’s discourse on Taiwanese folkcrafts was constructed in this complex moment of Japanese colonial history.

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North-East China/Manchuria Historical context and Yanagi’s involvement in North-East China/Manchuria At almost the same period as his involvement with the Okinawan, Ainu and Taiwanese crafts, Yanagi also became busily engaged in the folkcrafts of North-East China/Manchuria. This area was also a politically highly charged area from the late 1930s until 1945. Manchuria was another colony of Japan in the north-east of China from 1931 to 1945 but its inﬂuence in the area began in the ﬁrst part of the twentieth century. After the victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Japan acquired a sphere of inﬂuence in Southern Manchuria and gradually strengthened its colonial power by territorial expansion through the Guandong military and by means of economic expansion by building the South Manchurian Railway (Mantetsu), at the same time investing in related industry. After the Manchurian incident, which occurred in 1931, Japan colonised Manchuria and constructed a puppet state called Manchukuo. As Louise Young’s comprehensive research on the Japanese colonisation of Manchuria shows, Manchukuo was a multidimensional ‘total empire’ built by numerous groups. These included the elite emigrants whose works are related to the Guandong army and the conglomerate of the South Manchurian Railway (Mantetsu) as well as merchants with opportunistic business ambitions and a vast number of impoverished peasant, emigrants from the north-east of the motherland Japan.263 Yanagi’s involvement in North-East China/Manchuria is mainly through Yoshida Shóya who had been working with Yanagi to promote the Mingei movement since the 1920s. As already mentioned, Yoshida was an ear, nose and throat specialist, and his eminent contribution to the Mingei movement is the establishment of the Tottori Mingei Guild, Tottori Folkcrafts Museum and the ﬁrst retail shop ‘Takumi’ in Tottori to promote new mingei works.264 Yoshida was drafted to the North-East China Dispatch Army as an army surgeon in 1938 and after being discharged from the army he lived in Beijing as an elite Japanese working for a Japanese hospital as well as for the army as a welfare and industry ofﬁcer until 1945. During his period in Beijing, as an enthusiast of folkcrafts, he enjoyed leading a creative life combining medical responsibilities with a ‘cultivated Japanese life using and surrounded by local Chinese folkcrafts’ at his home with family.265 Yoshida collected various crafts of North-East China, in particular, embroidered and stencil-dyed textiles and made them into a public display. Armed with his belief in the ‘Japanese mission to preserve’ the disappearing ‘handicrafts created by the Chinese tradition and blood on the land of China’266 he organised several exhibitions of folkcrafts including ‘Pekin Shinsaku Mingei Ten’ (Beijin Newly Produced Folkcrafts Exhibition) in 1940, ‘Gendai Kahoku Minyó Ten’ (Contemporary Northern Chinese Folk Pottery Exhibition) in 1942 and ‘Kahoku no Ryúki Ten’ (Willow Crafts of Northern China) in 1943 as well as planning the establishment of the

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Northern China Folkcrafts Museum. He was also actively involved in what he calls ‘Kómin Kógei’ (welfare crafts).267 Yoshida initiated a number of ‘self-sufﬁciency’ schemes of craft-trade in the villages by reviving traditional crafts with Japanese help to ‘acquire foreign money to make the Chinese people wealthy’.268 He was actively involved in the new production of crafts with other young members of the Mingei movement, such as Yanagi’s nephew Yanagi Yoshitaka, and Okamura Kichiemon, by establishing the ‘Kahoku Kósei Sangyó Shidósho’ (Northern China Welfare Industrial Institute), and the ‘Kahoku Seikatsu Kógei Ten’ (Northern China Household Crafts Shop) in co-operation with the Beijin Cultural Association and various trade craft exhibitions. These projects were carried out in close collaboration with the Japanese colonial policy in North-East China/Manchuria and were openly supported by the provisional government and afﬁliated organisations. As Brandt speculated, it is perhaps because of the discomfort over this close wartime collaboration that Yoshida’s activities in the northeast of China is seldom mentioned in the post-war accounts of the history of the Mingei movement.269 Yanagi visited North-East China/Manchuria with other members of the Mingei movement in 1940 and saw exhibitions organised by Yoshida. Then in 1943, the Manchurian Folkcrafts Research Expedition Group was organised under the leadership of Yanagi and although Yanagi himself did not participate in the expedition, he delegated the task of collecting Manchurian folkcrafts to his friends, including Tonomura Kichinosuke, Hamada Shóji, Shikiba Ryúzaburó and other members of the Japanese Association of Folkcrafts who were joined by the local members Yoshida Shóya and Muraoka Kageo. This expedition group was sent at the request of the Manshú Ijú Kyókai (Manchuria Emigration Association) and the Manshú Kei Kógyó Dan (Manchuria Light Industry Group) and funded by these organisations as well as by the Wakamoto pharmaceutical company in Shinkyó (Changchun), the capital of Manchukuo. The objects they collected on this ﬁeld research trip were shown at the exhibition of Manchuria Folkcrafts in Shinkyó. Yanagi’s delight at the success of this research inspired him to set up the Association of Folkcrafts and a Museum of Folkcrafts in Manchuria and he published ‘Manshú Mingei Kyókai narabini Mingeikan Setsuritsu Jigyó Keikaku’ (A Plan for the Establishment of an Association of Folkcrafts and a Folkcrafts Museum in Manchuria). In 1944 ‘Nichi Manshi Genzai Mingei Ten’ (Japan and Manchuria/China Contemporary Folkcrafts Exhibition) was organised at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum. In addition to collecting and exhibiting Manchurian folkcrafts, potter members of the Expedition Group including Hamada,270 Kawai Takeichi and Ueda Kóichi worked for the Manshú Tóki Kaisha (Manchuria Ceramic Company) to produce Japanese-style tableware inspired by Manchurian folk pottery for the market of Japanese residents in Manchuria. As in the case of Yoshida’s project in the north-east of China, the members of the Mingei movement were widely involved in these colonial ventures.

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Yanagi’s views on Chinese/Manchurian crafts There are only few writings on Chinese/Manchurian crafts by Yanagi. However from these available materials, we can clearly see Yanagi’s characteristic views on Chinese folkcrafts. His views are ﬁrst summarised as ‘primitive’ beauty, deﬁned by his now golden rule of folkcrafts – the ‘criterion of beauty’. A cobalt-glazed small plate from the Ming period was described as having the supreme beauty expressed in the ‘childish’, ‘clumsy’ design and ‘nonchalant’ brush strokes which can only be created by a ‘natural primitive person’ not by an ‘eminent craftsman’.271 Second, his more politicised views are found in his racialised and essentialised argument on the ‘innate Chinese beauty’ of folkcrafts. In his lecture ‘Hokushi no Mingei’ (The Folkcrafts of Northern China) broadcasted on the NHK radio in 1941, he stressed ‘Chineseness’ as suggesting ‘strong, sharp, big, sturdy’ characteristics which are the reﬂection of that nation’s ‘dynamic and severe natural climate’ and ‘vastly long history’.272 It is evident that Yanagi adores Manchurian/Chinese folkcrafts. However his reverence is strongly coloured by his colonial paternalistic views, similar to those he held on Taiwanese folkcrafts. He claims that the beauty of simplicity created in a rough, nonchalant manner a beauty accessible only to Japanese appreciation: [On the beauty of cobalt-glazed plate] The maker is a Chinese person who does not appreciate sophisticated beauty . . . It is made by none other than a rather uncouth Chinese person . . . But the Japanese recognise its beauty. They need the eyes of the Japanese to appreciate its beauty.273 At this time when the real outcome of the ‘Co-Existence and CoProsperity’(kyózon kyóei) of Japan and China is expected, I have keenly felt that there are many things that we should co-operate on in the ﬁeld of folkcrafts . . . It is the Japanese rather than Chinese people who can recognise the value of Chinese crafts . . . [and it is] Japanese duty and an act of friendship to promote Chinese innate beauty . . . and thereby we can develop the innate beauty of the Orient.274 His language clearly reﬂects his contemporaries typical views of the Japanocentric imperial order of the Greater East Asia and the constructed tóyó. As I have already discussed, Mingei theory was heavily politicised during the late 1930s and up to 1945 through Yanagi’s activities which involved the crafts of Japan’s peripheries and colonies. However, interestingly, his post-war writings on Chinese folkcrafts do not have any trace of these paternalistic views, while he maintains more or less the same arguments on the essential beauty of Chinese folkcrafts.275

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Yanagi’s Oriental Orientalism Yanagi’s theorisation of Korean crafts is his ﬁrst attempt to create a concept of the ‘Other’ and to enunciate cultural difference. It was his ﬁrst exercise attempting to essentialise culture through objects. The narrative form he used was the ‘beauty of sadness’ (hiai no bi), itself an appropriation of Orientalist views on cultural degeneration. This can be perceived as an important foundation for his later construction of Japanese cultural identity and creation of the ‘criterion of beauty’. While Yanagi’s involvement in Korea preceded his ultimate theorisation of ‘Japaneseness’, his involvement in the cultures of the Okinawans, the Ainu and the Taiwanese postdates his development of standard criteria of cultural evaluation. Overriding narratives such as medievalism, primitivism and Orientalism were appropriated from Orientalists, to allow Yanagi to locate their cultures in the Japanocentric ‘universal’ map. His articulation of these cultures shows conﬁdence and clarity but remains standardised with few variations: he applied the same narratives from the same toolbox. His views on Japanese peripheries and colonies are sympathetic. He played the same role of humanistic ‘sympathiser’ as the Orientalists Lafcadio Hearn and Bernard Leach did in Japan. Lafcadio Hearn sympathised with and romanticised Japan, particularly old Japanese life and customs which overlapped with his personal nostalgia for ancient Greece, now ‘degenerate’. Bernard Leach followed Hearn after reading his books and had a similar attitude toward Japan and Japanese art. Yanagi was particularly eager to learn from Leach, and in 1916 Yanagi wrote to Bernard Leach, ‘It is my pleasant desire, in this trip [to China], to understand our Oriental mind, more adequately through their [Chinese] art by your help.’276 Yanagi learned to see Oriental art through Leach’s Western eyes as a sympathiser. Sympathy as a rhetoric often appears in Orientalism and in colonialism to justify political dominance and colonisation and it does so in the case of Yanagi’s sympathy for Korea. Yanagi’s sympathetic attitude reﬂects the voices of many other Japanese people who sympathised with the unfortunate historical and social situations of the Koreans, and so he called for a strong Japanese leadership to improve their situations.277 Indeed, as has been noted above, Yanagi was by no means opposed to colonisation. Nevertheless many critics highly praise Yanagi’s stance on the Koreans, the Okinawans, the Ainu and the Taiwanese/Chinese, by pointing out ﬁrst, Yanagi’s humanism;278 second, Yanagi’s non-Eurocentric modernism;279 third, Yanagi’s ‘unique internationalism’, ‘transnationalism’, cultural pluralism and anti-fascist stance.280 These images of Yanagi as an absolute paciﬁst or vehement protester against authority have to be reviewed and corrected. Throughout his writings on Japanese peripheries and colonies, his major interest can be seen to lie in creating a Japanese national identity independent of the Occident, yet in their words and following the Occidental model of a modern nation. His

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theory stands on the basis of Japanocentric, Occidental-style modernisation and modern nationalism. Yanagi’s patronising attitude in his role as an evaluator of the beauty of Japanese peripheries and colonies are typical of the coloniser which holds dominant power. Yanagi’s romantic primitivism and paternalism are categorised in what Renato Rosalto calls ‘imperialist’s nostalgia’281 and George M. Fredrickson calls ‘romantic racialism’.282 It also involves the problematic aspect of aestheticism embedded in Orientalism. As Karatani Kójin analysed, there is a peculiar complementary relation between its scientiﬁc epistemology which deﬁnes the people in the Orient as intellectually and morally inferior, and the aesthetic epistemology which deﬁnes them as aesthetically superior.283 Yanagi’s aesthetic views on the cultures of the Japanese peripheries and colonies presents the same problem as does Orientalism. Mingei theory was increasingly politicised during the expansion of the Japanese empire under the ultra-nationalist regime from the late 1930s until 1945. There was mutual support between Yanagi and Japanese imperialism in their respective developments, as well as Yanagi’s obvious Japanocentric standpoint as both a coloniser and a subject in his enterprise to discover and build knowledge of other cultures. Yanagi’s theory was established in the epistemological framework of Orientalism in colonial situations. Yanagi’s ‘multiculturalism’ has been highly evaluated, but also needs to be challenged. ‘Multiculturalism’, which was often considered to be good and positive as having an idealistic, open, neutral stand point, has fundamental problems. As already discussed in relation to Taiwan on ‘vernacularism’, the notion of ‘multiculturalism’ which is often considered as a deterrent to assimilation, in fact, works comfortably within the notion of assimilation. In his discussions on the difference between the notions of ‘cultural diversity’ and ‘cultural difference’, Homi Bhabha also points to the problem of ‘cultural diversity’ which includes the notions of cultural relativism and multiculturalism. He presents the problem as ‘containment of cultural difference’ in which the Western ‘universalist and normative’ paradigm was applied to ‘Other’ cultures to ‘locate them within our own [Western] grid’.284 Cultural diversity is an ‘epistemological object’ and fundamentally a notion within the framework of Orientalism.285 Therefore, Yanagi’s ‘multiculturalism’ which also sits within this framework should be re-evaluated in relation to the issues of the Japanocentric Orientalism and the construction of a cultural national identity in modern Japan. Yanagi was a strong cultural nationalist whose theory had a centripetal force leading to the creation of a Japanese national identity. As mentioned earlier, his cultural pluralism was one of hierarchy which he used in the creation of a hybrid Japanese national identity, the location of which is in between the Occident and the Orient, but is also placed at the top of the Oriental hierarchy though loose medieval and classical cultural connections with both. This theory of Yanagi’s was itself a dynamic hybrid of two

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important opposing theories, while having a ﬁrm theoretical base in each. One is the theory of evolution and Social Darwinism, which were highly inﬂuential in the Occident of his time. The other theories of anti-rationalism by, for example, Henri Bergson and William James, were used by Yanagi as counter-logic and a dialectic challenge against evolution and progress when he applied Occidental rhetoric to draw analogies with the medieval and the classical. Yanagi raised signiﬁcant questions about progress: ‘What criterion do you apply to measure progress? Isn’t there anything newer or more full of vitality in the so-called backward countries? Can’t we ﬁnd novelty without change in the eternal values rather than pursuing progress in constant change?’286 However he never got beyond the concept of progress. He merely created another hierarchy which centred on a Japanese national identity and was based on an Occidental paradigm of ‘progress’. His hierarchy was also within the framework of the world order of his time. The Orientalist Modernist designers Bruno Taut and Charlotte Perriand projected their views on ‘Japan’ and the ‘Orient’. Their views not only validated Yanagi’s nationalistic discourse but also refracted Yanagi’s Japanocentric discourses on peripheries and colonies. Their compelling argument of the compatibility of modernity and ‘Orientalness’ has two edges: Modernist manifestation and Orientalism which clearly reﬂect the aesthetic trend in the modern movements in Europe which were a continuation of those of the late nineteenth century. The mission of the modern movements was to rationalise and democratise design, to abandon the European upper-class tradition of overdecoration, to demarcate a strict division of ﬁne art and crafts and ﬁnally to seek an alternative aesthetic philosophy for total and functional design. In this European context, Japanese art attracted European Modernists’ attention as an inspired alternative, and in John MacKenzie’s words, Japanese art was used as a ‘vehicle for radicalism’ in Europe.287 At the same time, these European Modernists empowered Japanese people like Yanagi, who had been contemplating the uniqueness of Japanese art and design within the ongoing cultural debate about how to overcome the gap between the Orient and Occident. Nagata Kenichi astutely observed that Yanagi invented the ‘Japanese ethnic aesthetic’ from the creed of ‘functional beauty’ which has been the slogan of European Modernism.288 Yanagi used the Modernist aesthetic to validate his ideas and created his variant of Orientalism. This is particularly evident in his discourse of the ‘Japaneseness’/‘Orientalness’ in the Okinawan crafts and ‘Orientalness’ in Taiwanese crafts. ‘Oriental Orientalism’ is created by Yanagi in a cultural mechanism of representation. The Occident made the Orient as other in order to create its identity. Japan made the rest of the Orient as other to create its identity in between the Occident and the Orient and, ﬁnally, mainland Japan made peripheral Japanese people as another Other within Japan.

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Reverse Orientalism The development of Mingei theory into national and international Modernism

In the earlier chapters I have discussed Yanagi’s notion of the supreme beauty of folkcrafts. He researched and collected these objects in the Japan Folk Crafts Museum and established Mingei theory and the ‘criterion of beauty’. He also developed marketing systems, by creating mingei shops ensuring the continuing production of folkcrafts and the resuscitation of craftsmanship. We have seen also that he imbibed various narratives embedded in the discourse of Orientalism and reinforced them through his hybrid Mingei theory. He also constructed a Japanese cultural national identity conforming to the image Orientalism projected, but at the same time, he projected his own variation of Orientalism, which I have termed ‘Oriental Orientalism’, on to Japan’s peripheries and colonies. Mingei theory was created in the context of the double mechanism of Orientalism and ‘Oriental Orientalism’, wherein a Japanese cultural national identity was moulded both as an Oriental identity (a counterpart of Occidental identity) and as a Japanese identity (a counterpart of the other Oriental identity). Yanagi’s ﬁnal contribution to Mingei theory was the integration of Mingei theory into the main stream of international Modernism by exporting his hybrid philosophy of crafts as an ‘authentic’ Oriental theory. I have termed this ‘Reverse Orientalism’, having developed the concept from the idea of ‘inverse Orientalism’ hinted at by Brian Moeran, who highlights the view that the Orient is deemed to be culturally dominant over the Occident in the evaluation of Mingei theory.1 After the Second World War, popularised Mingei style has been integrated in the nationalist design movement in Japan and disseminated world-wide as an exported product and a model of ‘good design’. On the other hand, Yanagi himself disseminated his theory by organising lecturing tours all over Europe and the USA with Hamada and Leach, preaching Buddhist aesthetics in the manner of missionaries. Wherever they went, they were enthusiastically welcomed by the people in the Occident. In 1952, they had a particularly profound impact on craftsmakers at the legendary International Conference of Craftsmen in Pottery and Textiles at Dartington Hall in England, presenting papers titled ‘ “Buddhists” ’ Idea of Beauty’ and ‘The Japanese Approach to the Crafts’.

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These have been edited slightly and compiled in The Unknown Craftsman with a change in the title from ‘The Japanese Approach to the Crafts’ to ‘The Responsibility of the Craftsman’. Ever since, The Unknown Craftsman, along with Leach’s A Potter’s Book have been widely regarded as a Bible of craft theory by crafts-makers and students at art and design colleges. The perfect combination of Yanagi’s ‘Buddhist aesthetics’, its adaptation by Leach and Hamada’s demonstration which literally make Mingei theory visible, has almost created its own cult movement. In the 1950 and 1960s, just as the counter-culture movement took inspiration from the Orient, Mingei theory, through the ‘Leach Tradition’, also underwent a revival in the post-war British ‘studio crafts’ movement. It has been clearly positioned as bringing an insightful ‘authentic’ Oriental theory to a muddled and unfocused debate. However, some questioning voices have also emerged from within the Mingei movement in Japan in relation to the discussions held during the last thirty years in Britain on the ‘obscure’ status of crafts marginalised by ﬁne art and design. Mingei theory through the ‘Leach Tradition’ has been a pivotal point of discussion in the critical scrutiny of ‘craftsmanship’ ‘skills’ and ‘tradition’ in the attempt to deﬁne ‘craft’. This chapter addresses the post-war development of Mingei theory in the international context. I will examine how Mingei theory has been redressed as an ‘authentic’ Oriental theory, how the Oriental mystiﬁcation has been effectively integrated into British studio pottery, and also how the MingeiLeach tradition has been challenged and is in the process of being deconstructed.

Mystiﬁcation of mingei in Zen Buddhist aesthetics After the Second World War, Yanagi grew increasingly interested in Buddhism and wrote extensively on Buddhist aesthetics and myókónin.2 It went along with the growing interests in the Occident in Zen Buddhism of which Yanagi well aware,3 and which under his analysis indicated the culde-sac that Occidental ideas had reached.4 As always, he was quick to respond to Occidental interest in Japan, to highlight the originality of the Orient and to meet expectations. Yanagi boasted his strong mission to contribute to the cultures in the Occident through his Buddhist aesthetics. Severely criticising Japan’s excessive and ‘shameful’ admiration of the Occident and the lack of ‘Japanese awareness of its own Japanese and Oriental culture’,5 he said that in order that Japan become a really independent nation it was vital to impress the world with ‘the signiﬁcance of Japan as a culturally independent nation’.6 He propounded the idea that there were ‘two things: Japanese art and its Buddhist ideas’, that ‘the Japanese can contribute to world culture with conﬁdence’7 and concluded that it was time ‘to give a lot of gifts to the Occident, as we have been receiving many things from the Occident’.8

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Combining these two things: Japanese art and its Buddhist ideas, Yanagi began to develop the idea of preaching his ‘Buddhist aesthetics’. His objective was ‘to clarify what interpretation of the world of beauty is possible from a Buddhist point of view and to explain the Buddhist basis on which the nature of beauty, as it is pursued in the Orient, chieﬂy depends’.9 In his development of his ‘Buddhist aesthetics’ he is chieﬂy indebted to Suzuki Daisetz.10 In fact, it was Suzuki who had ﬁrst triggered the new interest in Zen Buddhism in the Occident by his modern intellectual interpretations of Buddhism and his publications in English. Suzuki was Yanagi’s English teacher at the Gakushúin school, but their really close relationship began from around 1945 and soon Yanagi even became a board member of Matsugaoka Bunko, a private archive on Buddhism opened by Suzuki. In a letter to Suzuki on 17 December 1945 thanking him for the book, Nihonteki Reisei (Japanese Spirituality), Yanagi wrote: I was most attracted to the part concerned with the relation between Zen and nenbutsu (prayer) in Nihonteki Reisei (Japanese Spirituality) and I am looking forward to reading more intensively this winter. I have just also quickly read the song by Asahara Saichi and I marvelled.11 Yanagi was deeply inspired by Suzuki, and after this letter he wrote on several occasions to his friends,12 telling them that he was sharply drawn to Buddhism, particularly to Nenbutsushú or Jódo Kyó (the Pure Land School)13 and myókónin (wondrous good men)14 who are the most humble and purest believers, with the ‘Pure Land’ believers being particularly rich in faith. After that, Yanagi published major writings on Buddhist Aesthetics including Bi no Hómon (Laws Governing the Path to Beauty) in 1949, Muu Kóshu no Gan (Prayer of No Distinction between the Beautiful and the Ugly) in 1956, Bi no Jódo (The Pure Land of Beauty) in 1960, and Hó to Bi (Law and Beauty) in 1961. His publications also include oral history projects on myókónin, such as Myókónin Inaba no Genza (Wondrous Good Men, Genza of the Inaba Region) in 1950 and on Buddhist teachings, such as Namu Amidabutsu15 in 1955. Through these writings, Yanagi effectively put his own interpretations on key Buddhist ideas, developing a ‘Buddhist aesthetics’ while strengthening his Mingei theory by dressing it up as an ‘authentic’ and ‘essential’ Oriental theory. In his theory, he began calling mingei ‘myókóhin’ (‘wondrous good objects’), drawing an analogy with ‘myókónin’ (‘wondrous good men’), to describe objects instead of people, as if to suggest that folkcrafts made by unknown craftsmen had true beauty and were the most pure and ethical of all objects. As mentioned earlier in Chapter 1, in an earlier stage, during the formation of Mingei theory, Buddhist terms, jikige which he adapted into modern terms, chokkan (direct insight)16 and sokunyo (implicitness),17 were emphasised as undifferentiated ways of perceiving beauty, instead of differentiated ways of perceiving beauty by intellect and logic. In the later stage

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of his ‘Buddhist aesthetics’, his emphasis was on undifferentiated states of beauty itself. These he called funi (non-dual entirety)18 and bishú mibun (undifferentiation of beauty and ugliness). He claimed that ‘true beauty’ or jódobi (the Pure Land beauty)19 exists in a realm like jódo, the enlightened world of Buddha where there is no dualism and everything is one and eternal, therefore there is no distinction between the beautiful and the ugly.20 He claims that this ultimate beauty was to be found in medieval crafts, primitive crafts, Song pottery and Chosön pottery including Ido tea bowls and more generally in the Japanese folkcrafts which he ‘discovered’. According to him, this undifferentiated beauty is created by craftsmen who are in the state of non-dual entirety, who do not differentiate beauty and ugliness, and are rather simply engaged in repetitive group labour in the mass, hand-made production of objects for daily use, relying submissively on tradition: Tradition, the accumulation of the experience and wisdom of many generations, is what Buddhists call the Given Power – an aggregate power that in all cases transcends the individuals. . . . To the craftsman, tradition is both the saviour and the benefactor. When he follows it, the distinction between talented and untalented individuals all but disappears: any craftsman can unfailingly produce a beautiful work of art.21 Unlike other craft theorists such as John Ruskin and William Morris who emphasised the humanity of craftsmen, ‘freedom in creativity’ or ‘pleasure in labour’ as the principle of making beautiful things, Yanagi stressed discipline and the law of ‘submissive reliance on tradition’22 which he calls surrender to ‘the Other Power’ or tariki (reliance on an external power or grace)23 instead of relying on ‘the Self Power’ or jiriki (self-reliance). In his words: [A craftsman] maybe unlettered, uneducated and lacking any particular force of personality, but it is not from these causes that beauty is produced. He rests in the protecting hand of nature. The beauty of folkcraft is the kind that comes from dependence on the Other Power. Natural material, natural processes, and an accepting heart – these are the ingredients necessary at the birth of folkcrafts.24 The ‘Way of Other Power’ or tarikidó is far superior to and more democratic in terms of ‘salvation’ than the ‘Way of Self Power’ or jirikidó for craftsmen because tarikidó guarantees ‘true beauty’ in the product and its ‘Easy-Way’ or igyó-dó. What Yanagi tried in his ‘Buddhist aesthetic’ was, ﬁrst, to conclude his ‘criterion of beauty’ in Buddhist terminology. In the same way that his appropriation of modern Occidental ideas into a Japanese/Oriental context

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and the hybridisation of Occidental ideas with Oriental ones throughout the formation and development of Mingei theory is highly original, the last project of dressing Mingei theory in a ‘Buddhist aesthetic’ underlines the originality of Yanagi’s thought. However, during this process, in which Yanagi’s focus was drawn to ‘Buddhist aesthetic’, his discussions tend to focus on the uniqueness of ‘Buddhist aesthetic’ as the essence of Japanese culture while at the same time arguing a universal rationality. Therefore, Mingei theory becomes ever more conﬁned to cultural speciﬁcity expounding Japanese essentialism and so, in a sense, Mingei theory is nationalised. This tendency is explained by Robert Sharf who calls it ‘Zen nationalism’.25 Sharf argues that the notion of Zen Buddhism as the foundation of Japanese culture and as a Japanese unique experience, as well as holding universal rationality, is constructed intellectually only in the twentieth century by scholars such as Suzuki Daisetz and his followers. This intellectualised modern Zen Buddhism rationally adopts a rhetoric which is antithetical to the notion assumed to be represented by the West – in other words, it created the ‘romantic inversion of the Japanese negative stereotype of West’.26 Yanagi follows his teacher Suzuki in exactly the same way. This is clearly revealed through his creation of the antithesis of what is regarded as the Occidental paradigm based on the ideology of ‘rationalism’ dominant in the world cultures and his creation of the Oriental paradigm as an alternative. Yanagi made a chart which is reproduced below and which further clariﬁes the historical Occidental paradigm and hierarchy which he perceived as a source of contrasts.27 Occidental aesthetics

Buddhist aesthetics

individual person genius Way of Self Power hard practice signed ﬁne art appreciation creation distinction between beauty and ugliness leisure small quantity eccentric

collective people ordinary people Way of Other Power easy practice unsigned craft functional use (in daily life) tradition no distinction between beauty and ugliness labour big quantity normal

In terms of a cultural hierarchy, the notions listed on the left, which are associated with the Occident, have been perceived as those of ‘Civilisation’ and of ‘Enlightenment’, and as having higher values than the ones on the

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right which are associated with the Orient. Under Yanagi’s theory this hierarchy follows a reverse order in order to claim that the ‘Oriental’ paradigm is superior to the ‘Occidental’ one. However in this logic the dualism itself, which was historically deﬁned by the Occident, still remains and although he claimed that he presented alternative ideas beyond dualism, Yanagi remained trapped in the dual framework of ‘Orient’ and ‘Occident’. Therefore, while retaining this binary logic by his self-contradictory theory, Yanagi created a modern national myth of Mingei by adopting a Zen Buddhist aesthetic.

Mingei as modern visual representation of tea aesthetics While Yanagi dresses up Mingei theory with Zen Buddhist language, he also acquired another language – ‘the aesthetic language of tea’ in order to Japanise Mingei theory. Yanagi’s interest in chanoyu (tea ceremony) which spanned the later part of his life began in the 1930s and is manifest through many articles he wrote in the period 1956–8, most of which are compiled in Cha no Kaikaku (Revolution of Tea) published in 1958. These late writings and projects on chanoyu just before his death can be seen as a culmination of his life work in establishing a Japanese paradigm of universal aesthetic theory through a hybrid Mingei theory. In this collection Yanagi severely attacks the contemporary practice of chanoyu which he argues has lost the genuine spirit of tea. He criticises the rigid stylisation of the tea ceremony, the feudalism of established tea schools which are associated with money, power, snobbery and corruption. Yanagi calls for a revolution and a return to the fundamental principles of chanoyu, yet with a different style that embraces the abundant creative ideas of modernisations. For example, he welcomes the addition of a coffee ceremony and black tea ceremony into chanoyu as a more natural choice for modern Japanese and he regards this modernisation as an act of ‘genuine succession of, but not rebellion against, nor destruction of, tradition’.28 Yanagi’s selection of tea utensils is also unorthodox, in that he adopts a ‘mix and match’ method. Proclaiming that ‘history doesn’t progress without good heresy’, he challenges the tea authority by suggesting the use of wideranging domestic and foreign folkcrafts. In one article, in one of the annotated illustrations, Japanese bowls collected by an American entrepreneur Charles Freer and zoologist/ethnologist Edward Morse are juxtaposed with the national treasure Kizaemon Ido bowl to prove that both have equally convincing beauty, thereby relativising and challenging the pedigree and brand system constructed and authenticated by tea authorities.29 On other occasions, he suggested the use of unusual or new mingei objects for tea utensils.30 In 1955 Yanagi actually organised a revolutionary tea ceremony at his Japan Folk Crafts Museum and displayed his ideas in practice. This tea ceremony is also an interesting occasion to recognise his interest in modern interior decoration, with the arrangement of mingei objects

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continued from the model room project before the Second World War. Unlike the conventional ceremony in a tea room with a small number of guests sitting directly on the tatami mat ﬂoor, the ceremony was conducted in a large hall with twenty-four guests sitting on chairs using tea tables.31 There are also several pieces of furniture in the room. A Korean table is matched with benches and stools which are new mingei furniture made of reed in the Scandinavian style, while a Korean crockery box with wavy curves on the top surface is used for tea tables, and Yanagi’s bookshelves display tea bowls. The tea utensils include various Japanese mingei crockery items as well as a Chinese bamboo steamer used as a cake tray, a Thai box functioning as an incense container, a Vietnamese vase acting as a tea caddy, Okinawan women’s hair accessories are the tea spoons, and Korean cake moulds form a lid rest, while new mingei tea bowls by Hamada Shóji, Kawai Kanjiró, Funaki Kenji and Bernard Leach collected at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum complete the setting. Modern hygienic considerations were also taken into account as suggested by the use of washable indigo-dyed cotton cloth for the fukusa (tea cloth) which has traditionally been made of unwashable delicate silk.32 Yanagi paid special attention to wall decoration by arranging kasuri (indigo-dyed ikat textile) standing screens and wall hangings instead of calligraphy33 (Figure 4.1). Yanagi’s style of tea ceremony

Figure 4.1 A tea ceremony at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in 1955. Photograph held in the collection of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum. Source of photograph: Yanagi Sóetsu, Yanagi Sóetsu Zenshú (Collected Works of Yanagi Sóetsu), vol. 17, Tokyo: Chikuma Shobó.

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is unusual but it contains his original interpretation and the idea of modernisation which, as he claims, came out of his genuine intention to be a successor to tradition. However, the fundamental principle of this mix and match-type approach is not a ‘heresy’ in the tea tradition. As Christine Guth explains, the concept of toriawase (assortment) is one of the essential aesthetics of chanoyu, where the host of tea ceremony demonstrates his profound cultural knowledge, connoisseurship and creativity through selecting and matching the tea utensils, and through the interior decoration of the tea room from domestic, imported, humble and reﬁned objects.34 Therefore, just as early tea masters use Chinese and Korean objects as well as Japanese objects, Yanagi applied his own interpretation of toriawase using a wide range of Asian and European objects as well as Japanese objects. Through his original toriawase, Yanagi tried to claim that mingei visually represents the modern interpretation of the traditional tea aesthetic. Mingei is also mystiﬁed in tea and Zen Buddhist languages so as to connote speciﬁc Oriental and Japanese essence in the context of tea. Mingei represents the ‘plain, natural, homely, simple and normal’ beauty35 which also underlies the ultimate tea aesthetic of sabi (tranquil, archaic), wabi (sober, plain) and shibui (austere, subdued, restrained).36 In Yanagi’s explanation, sabi, wabi and shibui are the most profound Oriental/Japanese aesthetics that ennoble the state of ‘wealth in poverty’ (hin no tomi) where people are content in poverty and free from any desire. Mingei is deﬁned as having the ultimate embodiment of the aesthetic of sabi, wabi and shibui. For example, the Ido tea bowl, the tea bowl representing mingei, is described as having the ‘normal beauty’, ‘beauty of the Way of Other Power’ and ‘beauty exists in the state of undifferentiating beauty from ugliness’.37 It is explained that this particular beauty often appears in ‘imperfection’ and ‘asymmetry’ of form, colour and texture which only accords with Oriental/ Japanese aesthetics, and it forms a national ‘criterion for the highest beauty’ and ‘canon for beauty for all Japanese people’.38 As a result, this aesthetic is set again in the dichotomous framework of the Orient and the Occident, as the antithesis of the aesthetic which is assumed to be represented by the Occident.39 Mingei is deﬁned by Oriental/Japanese culturally speciﬁc, mythic languages of tea and Zen Buddhist aesthetic, thereby Mingei theory is further Orientalised and Japanised. Yanagi creates a national cultural discourse through Zen Buddhism and tea aesthetics. However, Yanagi is not the ﬁrst to combine these two aesthetics and promoted modern cultural nationalism. Before him were two important cross-culturally fertilised, bilingual Japanese thinkers: Okakura Tenshin40 and Suzuki Daisetz who preceded in Orientalising/Japanising in the dichotomous cultural framework of Orient and Occident. Okakura wrote The Book of Tea in 1906. As is the case with Okakura’s other books, this book was written in English and speciﬁcally addressed to Euramerican readers. In this book, Okakura introduces the ‘religion of aestheticism – Teaism’ as a ‘cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the

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sordid facts of everyday existence’, as a ‘worship of the imperfect’, as a holistic view about ‘man and nature’, and in general, a key cultural practice representing the essential Oriental/Japanese spirit.41 Yanagi acknowledges Okakura’s book as astutely dissecting the ‘beauty of imperfect’,42 but also criticises his idea of ‘imperfect’, deﬁned as being the halfway process toward perfection but not as a realm independent of any dual concepts.43 This statement seems to refer to Okakura’s passage: ‘The Taoist and Zen conception of perfection, however, was different. The dynamic nature of their philosophy laid more stress upon the process through which perfection was sought than upon perfection itself.’44 This suggests that perfection is undeniably the ideal, but Japanese have a unique sensibility towards appreciation of imperfection. Yanagi’s dissatisfaction lies in Okakura’s presentation of ‘imperfection’ because, for Yanagi, ‘imperfection’ is an independent alternative – a higher concept which exists even beyond the ‘perfect’. This problem seems to have been solved by Suzuki. As discussed in the previous section, Suzuki’s work is of great importance to Yanagi in his modern interpretation of Zen Buddhism. Suzuki wrote Zen Buddhism and Its Inﬂuence on Japanese Culture in 1938. This book was also written in English and speciﬁcally addressed to Euramerican readers to explain Zen Buddhism as the essence of ‘building up of Japanese culture’45 but also presented Japanese spirituality as an alternative but equally important value with those upheld in the Occident. One of the chapters in this book entitled ‘Zen and the Tea-Cult’ explained the ‘tea-cult’ as a core of Japanese ‘estheticism of primitive simplicity’. The principle of the tea ceremony is explained as ‘harmony’, ‘reverence’, ‘purity’ and ‘tranquillity’ which contributed to the democratic spirit of the Japanese as well as to the national aesthetic of wabi and sabi.46 Yanagi followed Suzuki’s modern interpretation of the tea ceremony as the expression of the ‘primitive simplicity’ and democratic spirit, when he expounds his Mingei theory praising the ‘primitive simplicity’ of ordinary mingei. Suzuki’s presentation of Japanese spirituality as an alternative and antithetical philosophy of the Occident is also followed by Yanagi in his dichotomous framework of the Orient and Occident. Okakura and Suzuki’s strong nationalistic intention of marketing Japaneseness in Euramerica is inherited by Yanagi. Yanagi’s original contribution can be seen in extending the abstract concept of tea aesthetics in relation to Zen Buddhism to the visual objects of mingei, in particular through theoretical analysis of the form, colour and technique of tea utensils. Mingei theory thus developed the national aesthetic discourse of Yanagi’s predecessors.

Mingei theory for studio crafts: the predicament of the Mingei-style artist-craftsmen Mingei theory reached its climax in post-war Japan when Yanagi came to the point of presenting it as an ‘Oriental’ Buddhist aesthetic. With the help

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of Zen Buddhist rhetoric and tea aesthetic, Mingei theory presented the strong nexus between the beauty of crafts and esoteric ‘Oriental’ spirituality and ideas. It greatly mystiﬁed and ‘orientalised’ the identity of ‘crafts’ and has remained as the factor which underpins the modern philosophy of studio crafts both in Japan and in Britain, where the ‘Leach tradition’ was established as a British version of Mingei theory. However this mystic nexus was challenged in the late twentieth century when faced with the contemporary reality of diverse crafts-making activities by studio craft artists. The remaining history of Mingei theory can be seen as following two paths – in the ﬁrst its legacy was adopted and further developed by the Mingei acolytes, while in the second it has been rejected and deconstructed by the anti-Mingei artists. Mingei theory has become problematic, revealing theoretical contradictions. A number of key issues were problematised by individual artist-craftsmen working within the Mingei movement. These issues, although occurring separately in Britain and Japan, appeared to address the common issues that conﬂict with the contemporary situations of craft and craft practice. However, the main focus in this section is the Japanese context, while discussions of speciﬁcally British context will be further developed on pages 233–241. Mystic theory and contradicting reality in the Mingei movement It is clear from the following that Yanagi saw difﬁculties in the creation of folkcrafts in this contemporary society: I feel that the great problem is how to make good things in the present state of society. I wish that everyone would realise that until recently beauty in things was commonplace and that it is our responsibility to demand that of the future.47 Yanagi claims that individualism, introduced by the modern Occident, was the major hazard. He was extremely negative about the idea that individual artist-craftsmen could make things of supreme beauty. Yanagi deﬁnes the beauty of folkcrafts as rating higher than the beauty of artists’ works because of their quality in being non-individualistic, non-egotistical and anonymous or unsigned: It is truly strange that folkcrafts should be better than the work of artists in pursuit of beauty . . . ‘individualistic beauty’ is lower than beauty that transcends the individual. To the latter type folk-craft belongs, whereas the individual artist is often so wrapped up in himself and his expression that he goes against the laws of nature. This can also be explained by the fact that the power of the individuals is weaker than that of tradition. Personality, however great, is nothing compared with nature. Surprisingly enough, the history of

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art is full of examples of the products of humble craftsmen that are far ﬁner than the work of clever individuals. This is because their work contains no signs of egotism. It is like looking for true belief in a world infested with self-centredness. Only when egotism diminishes does true belief make an appearance . . . What artist woodworker has produced furniture to compare with the Gothic? If we were to select a hundred examples of the most beautiful crafts out of the past and present, ninety-nine percent, no possibly one hundred percent, would be unsigned.48 I am not saying that it is absolutely impossible, but it is well to realise that the artist-craftsman’s solo path is fraught with difﬁculty. As long as he lingers in the stage of individualism he can never arrive at the beauty of ‘no-thought’ of folkcraft. To ﬁnd pure and simple faith in the ranks of intellect is a rarity of rarities.49 In the union of unknown craftsmen and individual artist-craftsmen Yanagi stressed and deﬁned the roles of individual artist-craftsmen having the potential to shepherd craftsmanship toward a rebirth of true work,50 as (1) the connoisseur who could judge and discover beauty, and (2) the intellectual critic or mentor who would instruct and lead craftsmen rather than be a maker himself. He clearly differentiates the roles of individual artist-craftsmen and craftsmen/artisans. Craftsmen are makers, just like human machines with high handcraft skills, able to repeat the creation of the same things following the forms and designs provided by individual artist-craftsmen: In these days of deterioration of the art of the people nobody else is available who can set the standards of beauty other than the artistcraftsman. Today, having our way, we need the capacity of those who can show us how to properly appreciate beauty in work. In the world of crafts we hunger for this leadership . . . Their value therefore, lies in their ability to understand beauty rather than in their expression of it. Consequently, their work takes on a great signiﬁcance as a gift to the world of thought . . . In actuality, the artist-craftsman’s function is to point the way as a compass does, rather than as a maker. For example, take the case of an artist-potter who makes a pot and puts on it a drawing of a landscape, which is then copied in thousands by many other artisans, as was done in Ming dynasty China. Now the curious thing is that, at the point when awareness of the original dies away, a new beauty far greater than the original comes into being. The object now no longer belongs to the work of the individual but to the craft world of tradition. The work of an artist is thus less than the expression of the people. The value, then, of the individual is principally his contribution to the world of intellectual thought.51

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Almost blindly following Yanagi’s theory, the New Mingei (Shin Mingei) movement was initiated, aiming at reviving mingei by unknown craftsmen and revitalising a depressed rural industry. The movement was led by people such as Yoshida Shóya, who set up a craft co-operative and an outlet for its products as well as a folkcrafts museum in Tottori, Funaki Michitada and others who set up craft guilds in Shimane, and Tonomura Kichinosuke who established a folkcrafts museum in Kurashiki, Okayama and became the director of Kumamoto International Folk Crafts Museum. However, the newly created mingei often did not match the aesthetic criteria set by Yanagi and revealed discrepancies in Yanagi’s theory. Nevertheless Yanagi himself enthusiastically supported this movement, keeping silent over the criticisms.52 On the other hand, many talented individual artist-craftsmen such as Bernard Leach, Tomimoto Kenkichi, Hamada Shóji, Kawai Kanjiró, Munakata Shikó, Serizawa Keisuke and Kuroda Tatsuaki emerged from the Mingei movement. Guided by Yanagi’s Mingei theory and greatly inspired by mingei objects made by unknown craftsmen, they tried to create their own original crafts, as beautiful as mingei. Although theoretically negative about individual artist-craftsmen, Yanagi, who praised the supreme beauty of mingei made by unknown craftsmen, also praised these individual artistcraftsmen. As Idekawa Naoki and Ajioka Chiaki have pointed out, this exposed various contradictions within Mingei theory.53 Yanagi could not explain logically the relation between the individual artist-craftsmen and unknown craftsmen, ending up by assigning hierarchical relations. Nor could Yanagi give an adequate explanations of the relation between his criteria of absolute beauty given to mingei made by unknown craftsmen and the criteria for new works created by individual artist-craftsmen. This led to the creation of two different sets of criteria. On seeing these discrepancies in Yanagi’s theory, Miyake Chúichi resigned from the Japan Folk Crafts Association, and founded the Nihon Kógeikan (Japan Craft Museum) in 1950 before establishing the Nihon Kógei Kyódan (Japan Crafts Society) in 1959. In his museum, he only collected old and new folkcrafts made by unknown craftsmen and excluded works by individual artist-craftsmen.54 Miyake adhered to the original ideas of Yanagi’s Mingei theory both in principle and in practice, even after Yanagi muddled his own theory through his involvement in the activities of individual artist-craftsmen. His inconsistency led to criticisms being raised from inside the Mingei movement, notably by Jugaku Bunshó, a lifelong friend of Yanagi who stated: ‘This [Miyake’s resignation from the Japan Folk Crafts Association] becomes a shameful, unhappy page in the history of the Japanese Mingei movement.’55 He too resigned from the Japan Folk Crafts Association. Ignoring the discrepancy within his theory, Yanagi gave enormous support to individual artist-craftsmen as long as they recreated and enhanced the beauty which Yanagi idealised. Some of them shared a great part of Yanagi’s mystic theory and stayed in his Mingei movement, while others shared a

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great part of it but later were estranged from Yanagi, leaving the Mingei movement. For example, Hamada is typical of the former category, Tomimoto of the latter, while Leach and Kawai hold ambivalent positions in the middle. Reinforcement of the mystiﬁcation of Mingei theory Hamada Shóji (1894–1978) was a model potter in the Mingei movement and was praised by Yanagi as superior to Kóetsu whom Yanagi regards as the best artist-potter of ‘raku’ tea bowls in the pre-modern period.56 He successfully demonstrated Mingei theory through his works and, at the same time, verbally elaborated the existence of ‘unconscious’, ‘nomindedness’ and ‘the Other Power’ (tariki) in his creative process. His was an enormous power in support of Yanagi’s process of mystiﬁcation and orientalisation as can be seen in such statements as: [Whilst demonstrating trail glazes on a dish] This work does not come out of my thought; rather I simply permit the movement that my hands have learned over many years. In fact, in the work forged by my body during sixty years, there is an unconscious revelation. I sense the work has become more comfortable.57 ... [Leach’s recollection]When Hamada discussed his own work in 1973, he said that he did not know how to describe his own state now. He is not aware of his own state of being, but somehow he says that his work is indicative of how he is getting along . . . his body knows what to do, and it is his body that goes ahead and does what is demanded of it. The result is quite satisfying. He would not say that everything comes out completely satisfactorily, but many of the pots do. He knows the truth of this, and he is very happy.58 In turn, Yanagi also continuously supported Hamada and admired Hamada’s works as ‘honest and healthy’ functional ware, created out of a healthy and natural life in the country, saying: Hamada is an individual artist-craftsman, therefore he is a follower of jirikido (the way of Self Power) . . . but he has never been blind to the gifts of the power of tariki (the way of Other Power) – the gifts of clay, ﬁre and ash . . . . Hamada’s recent saltglaze pots show how carefully he has contemplated the power of tariki.59 Munakata Shikó (1903–75), a print-maker, was also a model artistcraftsman like Hamada who activated Mingei theory. He stressed the ideal of ‘unconscious’, ‘no-mindedness’ and ‘the Other Power’ (tariki), impressing Yanagi by saying ‘I am not responsible for my work’60 (Figure 4.2):

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Figure 4.2 Munakata Shikó, ‘John, James, Thomas and Bartholomew’ from ‘Yaso Júni Shito Hanga Saku’ (Christ’s twelve disciples), wood prints, L87.2ǂW33.0 each, 1953. Piece held in the collection of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum.

The essence of hanga (woodblock print) lies in the fact that one must give in to the ways of the board . . . There is a power in the board, and one cannot force the tool against that power. It is this power which lies outside the artist, rather than any power within him, that dominates the creation of hanga.61 The question of individual originality, imitation and absolute beauty by unknown craftsmen From the Mingei theory point of view, ‘individual originality’ is theoretically the least virtuous matter or even has a somewhat despicable quality. This is also often explained through the following famous anecdote. When Leach was making pots in Japan, he raised the issue of ‘imitation’ and copyrights, as he had become rather annoyed by Japanese potters’ imitation of his works. One day when Leach was walking in Tokyo, he saw copies of Hamada and became quite upset. When he told Hamada about it, Hamada said ‘It is no problem, because if there are good copies people think they are mine and if they are not good, they think they are copies’. Kawai’s view was that the nature of crafts is to make copies and almost all craft works are copies. He said ‘I would rather want to create works that others will imitate,

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I will be happier if people copy my works’. Yanagi supported the position of Hamada and Kawai by quoting a Buddhist anecdote. The story is that a Buddhist nun who was also a poet made pots and decorated them with calligraphy of her poem. She did beautiful calligraphy and many people wanted them. A cunning merchant copied her pots, but could not write calligraphy as beautiful as hers. One day he came to the nun’s house and asked her to decorate his pots. Though she knew that he was going to sell them, she did not mind in the slightest decorating his pots. She even gave him her own pots, saying you might also like to sell my original with your copies. These anecdotes emphasises the Oriental virtue of ‘non-individuality’. However in the reality of contemporary society, some discrepancies between the theory and the practice were disclosed. While Mingei theory emphasised this Oriental virtue, on the other hand, individual artist-craftsmen such as Hamada and Kawai worked under the modern Euramerican system and sold their works as signed ‘original’ one-off art works at incredibly high prices (although the signature appeared only on boxes rather than on the works themselves). Even the loyal Leach, who was mainly in harmony with Yanagi’s Mingei theory, revealed himself to be harbouring crucial differences which led to the exposure of some of the more problematic issues at the core of Mingei theory. For example, although Leach supported Yanagi’s ideas of the ‘criterion of beauty’ and enormously praised works by unknown craftsmen, he questioned the ‘absoluteness’ of its beauty. ‘Sincerity’ and ‘vital force’ are the key elements in the creation of beauty and unknown/ known or unconscious/conscious are not at the heart of the issue: [Whether] an unknown peasant or . . . Staite Murray, . . . In either case sincerity is what matters, and according to the degree in which the vital force of the potter and that of his culture behind him ﬂow through the process of making, the resulting pot will have life in it or not.62 I have had a sense of doubt on one main issue – the relationship between the conscious artist and the comparatively unconscious craftsman. Yanagi’s constantly reiterated theme concerns the exceeding difﬁculties experienced in attaining a like purity and wholeness by the artist. He says our arts and crafts are in a diseased condition – with that I agree – but he turns to the artist-craftsman to act as the pilot in this dilemma because of his greater awareness, thereby indicating the power that has come to conscious man through the evolution of intellect. The results are not the same – Bach is not plainsong, Michelangelo is not Mokujiki, and Hamada’s bowls are not Ó Ido. But they are as ﬂowers, cultivated or wild, and who is to say which are more beautiful at that round table of Heaven? 63 Tomimoto Kenkichi was much more radically opposed to the idea of the negation of individual originality and the over-sacretisation of absolute

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beauty by the unknown. Tomimoto was very close to Leach and Yanagi in the beginning, but later he bitterly criticised Yanagi’s theory and left the Mingei movement. Thus it was around 1929, when Yanagi left for the USA to teach at Harvard University, that Tomimoto started to express his divergent opinions. The following are extracts from two letters written by Tomimoto in 1929. The ﬁrst is addressed to Leach and the second to Yanagi; they tell of his turning away from and separation from Yanagi. I can not agree Yanagi’s Gede-mono idea. Gede-mono is not all, it is a part of art, or it was, and in such modern mechanical time, his idea is completely wrong, the tendency of the people want not tool-making idea.64 (my bad English can not explain well) – The arts and science must come on the same road, not ﬁght each other as we were thinking before, must, must. Now I am thinking – the big capital, most developed machinery with new design, low price . . . etc.65 I would like to talk about my present opinion. It is useless to bring Windsor chairs back to Japan. Such antique things only amuse the bourgeois and are no use to general society. My ideas have developed as far as thinking that from now on my work is going to go in the opposite direction from yours.66 Although the ﬁrst letter to Leach is in Tomimoto’s broken English, it is still clear from these two letters that the major difference between Yanagi and Tomimoto lay in the practice of the Mingei ideal and the idea of using technology. For Tomimoto getemono, or ‘tool-making’ in Tomimoto’s words, was only a part of crafts and he considered that not all crafts should be getemono. This is much clearer in his recollection in 1962 saying: I could not stand anymore with the Mingei faction’s narrow minded ideas to exterminate all crafts other than folkcrafts or folkcraftish crafts.67 Tomimoto questioned the validity of Yanagi’s uncritical praise of artisans’ traditional tool-making in the modern world, and also shrewdly criticised Yanagi’s activities which saw him collecting antique folkcrafts which were luxury collectables but no longer folkcrafts. Although both Tomimoto and Yanagi shared the same idea of the ‘art of the people’, Tomimoto later found Mingei theory to be limiting. Yanagi’s preaching of the superior beauty of traditional folkcrafts created by anonymous craftsmen’s hands was too narrow a deﬁnition for Tomimoto, who found beauty in the original work of individual artists as well. Tomimoto as an artist of outstanding individuality and creativity could not be satisﬁed with Yanagi’s seemingly lax idea to ‘follow the tradition’. Tomimoto demonstrated his idea that contemporary folkcrafts had to be ‘inexpensive, available to everyone and

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beautiful’,68 through his own art. He made white porcelain coffee sets instead of tea bowls (Figure 4.3) and he himself undertook the experiment of decorating 3,000 white porcelain plates and making 15,000 brooches and sash clasps for the Shiseidó cosmetic company (Figure 4.4). For Tomimoto, innovation and technology were inevitable for the creation of contemporary folkcrafts. He went on to criticise the Mingei movement saying ‘they are as if ordering people to go to Kyoto from Tokyo on foot wearing straw sandals without taking a train’69 and made the cynical remark, ‘Even if you pile up a hundred Song pots, you will not make a single contemporary pot’.70 His famous dictum, ‘Don’t make patterns from patterns’71 clearly symbolises his categorical split from the Mingei movement. In 1927 Tomimoto created a craft section in Kokuga Sósaku Kyókai (National Creative Painting Association). This gradually split into two factions, the Tomimoto faction and the Mingei faction and in 1937 the Mingei faction left, only to return later in 1946. However when the Mingei faction rejoined, the Tomimoto faction left and the Mingei faction restructured the organisation. Yanagi and Tomimoto’s relatively smooth relationship only lasted for about ten years between 1916 and 1926, covering the period

Figure 4.3 Tomimoto Kenkichi, octagonal coffee set, white porcelain, coffee pot H13.0ǂD17.0; sugar pot H10.0ǂD12.6; milk pitcher H10.2ǂD14.5; cup H6.6ǂD6.6; saucer H2.4ǂD12.7, 1921. Piece held in the collection of the Tomimoto Kenkichi Memorial Museum. Source of photograph: Tomimoto Kenkichi Memorial Museum, Tókó·Tomimoto Kenkichi no Sekai (A Potter – The World of Tomimoto Kenkichi), Nara: Tomimoto Kenkichi Memorial Museum, 1983 (pp. 21–22).

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Figure 4.4 Tomimoto Kenkichi, porcelain brooches and obidome (sash clasps), overglazed enamel decoration, D3.2–5.0, 1946–50. Pieces held in the collection of the Tomimoto Kenkichi Memorial Museum. Source of photograph: Yuko Kikuchi and Toshio Watanabe, Ruskin in Japan 1890–1940: Nature for Art, Art for Life, Tokyo: Cogito in conjunction with Kóriyama City Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 1997 (p. 51, Fig. 284).

from when Leach established a workshop on Yanagi’s property, until the date when Hamada returned from the Leach pottery in Britain. Therefore it seems likely that their relationship was only maintained because of the mediating efforts by Leach and Hamada and both Yanagi and Tomimoto had a good relationship with each of them. Even after the relationship between Tomimoto and Yanagi had become sour, Leach tried unsuccessfully to mediate.72

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Kawai Kanjiró (1890–1966) also raised controversies in relation to the question of individual creativity. As a potter and a close friend of Hamada since their college years, Kawai held a successful exhibition in 1921, exhibiting 181 works following the styles of Chinese Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing wares which are regarded as the ﬁnest high art of Oriental pottery (Figure 4.5). He displayed an excellent technique in the use of glazes that resulted from painstaking research into and experiments with Chinese glazes. He was called an ‘emergence of comet’ in the pottery world but Yanagi criticised his works as artiﬁcial. Kawai was shocked by Yanagi’s comments, but was impressed by his new views of folkcrafts and his collection of Korean Chosön folk pottery. As a result, Kawai gradually changed his style from the reﬁned art pottery to the robust folkcraft-style pottery. Yanagi calls this change of Kawai’s his ‘conversion’.73 From that point Kawai became involved in the Mingei movement. However, as time went by, his style grew further beyond the folkcraft-style. Although he followed Yanagi’s theories

Figure 4.5 Kawai Kanjiró, a vase, celadon, ﬂower and dragon design, H19.0, 1922. Piece held in a private collection. Source of photograph: Kawai Kanjiró Memorial Museum, Seitan 100 Shúnen Kinen Kawai Kanjiró Sakuhin Shú (100 Year Anniversary of the Birth of Kawai Kanjiró: The Works of Kawai Kanjiró), Kawai Kanjiró Memorial Museum, 1990 (Fig. 9) Photograph: Kawai Kanjiró Memorial Museum.

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and himself preached them everywhere, his works became more and more avant-garde and experimental, especially after the Second World War (Figure 4.6). He said in one of his essays that there was an inner voice telling him what to do and following this voice he created ‘strange’ (hentekorin) things, no longer functional, explaining that he enjoyed this process which liberated him.74 However, this inner voice was apparently not the same as the divine power described by Yanagi. Yanagi praised Kawai’s conversion (tensei) and his talent, but he showed his dislike of Kawai’s works and gave warnings that Kawai had not fully showed his ‘true’ character: Sometimes Kawai creates moulded pots which nobody can accept, and which have such intense exaggeration they can hardly bear to share it with him . . . He sometimes digresses and expresses something which goes beyond the necessary. Therefore there are those who can not feel any empathy with it. It is too shocking and strange.75

Figure 4.6 Kawai Kanjiró, a vase, yellow glaze with slip decoration of ‘birds’ design, H41.5ǂD30.0ǂD16.0, 1953. Piece held in the collection of the Kawai Kanjiró Memorial Museum.

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I do not take to your gaudy work.. When the work is over-decorated, with too many lines, with too thick slip decorations, with too sharp trimming and with the excessive form, I cannot see your true essence.76 In contrast to Yanagi, Hamada’s comments on Kawai are generally sympathetic with a hint of ambivalence: Many criticise Kawai for having moved away from folk art, but actually that is not so. He really understood mingei because he did not go away from the central point. There is a strength in Kawai’s work and a bit of weakness as well . . . By understanding mingei, people can still do what is right for them to do, within themselves. Kawai stayed as he was, did not try to become a folk potter. Tomimoto also developed himself as he was . . . The three terms that are the core of mingei – health, naturalness, and beauty – are the core around which all of my friends developed. This is true mingei from my point of view; this is the deﬁnition of mingei. All of my friends, including Kawai, knew this from the inside and therefore never actually moved away from it. Not only that, they went on to develop individually without colliding with each other . . . People such as Kawai and Tomimoto have trodden their true path, they have eaten folkcrafts and then have developed their own path. This is legitimate, the natural thing, for them.77 He referred to Kawai’s ‘mistreatment’ and ‘weakness’ in the way he explores his artistic experiment to the ‘extremes’, but defended him and Tomimoto as the people who took the ‘true path’ which is ‘natural’.78 He described Kawai as ‘a crane who ﬂew from his nest, ate food at the mingei shore with other fellows and ﬂew away to his higher way’.79 Hamada argued further that Kawai had not fully developed because he had not relied on ‘the Other Power’ (tariki) instead of ‘the Self Power’ (jiriki). But at the same time, he added that Kawai had absorbed mingei and had gone further, therefore the extreme nature of his works is justiﬁed. So even in the comments of the ‘model potter’, the problems underlying Mingei theory can be recognised. Yanagi had challenged modern conscious individuals to do a nearimpossible task which reﬂected, in a sense, an idealised model. He demanded them not to stop with the self but to go beyond. Nevertheless, the task of changing from reliance on ‘the Self Power’ (jiriki) to ‘the Other Power’ (tariki), that is to move from a state of ‘consciousness’ to ‘unconsciousness’ in working one’s craft, or similarly to become ‘egoless’ from a state of ‘ego’, was not feasible for individual artist-craftsmen living in the modern world. This seductive-sounding aphorism and moral self-discipline against arrogance and excessive egoism in the modern world did not work in reality, as illustrated by the cases of Tomimoto and Kawai.

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Mingei for national design: the Mingei-style for ‘Japanese Modern’ design and Kurafuto Mingei and ‘Japanese Modern’ design Despite the fact that Mingei theory exposed problems within the Mingei movement, Mingei theory and the Mingei-style have become a great source of inspiration for product and craft design since the Second World War. The ‘Japanese Modern’ style for which Taut and Perriand had set the model by the integration of many mingei objects, is continuously explored ofﬁcially by the IAI (changed from the IARI in 1952),80 by industry and also by Taut’s and Perriand’s friends and disciples who became the ﬁrstgeneration Japanese designers. As already discussed on pages 95–109 in Chapter 2, their inﬂuential messages that ‘Japaneseness’ is compatible with a universal ‘modern’, boosted the pre-war nationalistic sentiment, but it also continued to be inﬂuential to the national design during the post-war period. ‘Japanese Modern’, a term invented by a designer Kenmochi Isamu, becomes the post-war buzzword. First, the IAI ofﬁcially launched the design research project of ‘Japanese Modern’ in 1953 to develop the national interest in the promotion of export crafts with ‘quintessentially Japanese’ characteristics. ‘Japanese Modern’ is also nurtured through the ‘Marute’ (Hand Project) the commonly known name for Nihon Yúshú Shukógeihin Taibei Yushutsu Suishin Keikaku (Programme of Export of Japanese Excellent Handicraft to the USA) implemented in 1960 by the government. ‘Marute’ was the result of the proposal called the ‘Japanese Good Handicrafts Promotion Scheme’ made by an American designer Russel Wright with the aim of promoting the export of modernised local handicrafts which he believed would suit western lifestyles. Subsequently, the ‘Good Design’ movement developed in Japan as a nation-wide design movement from the 1950s onward as, indeed, it did in the West. In this continuous search for ‘Japaneseness’, ‘modern’ and ‘good design’ in design, mingei stood out as a point of reference. The Japanese craft world was also strongly inﬂuenced by these new design movements and saw the invention of a new type of crafts called kurafuto. Kurafuto is the transcription of English word ‘craft’, but kógei is the Japanese term which has been used for the translation of ‘craft’ in general. While kógei has been in use from the late nineteenth century, kurafuto is a newly invented term dating from the mid 1950s. Kurafuto is a difﬁcult term to deﬁne clearly, because of its complex crossover between the territories of ‘art’, ‘craft’ and ‘design’ based on the modern Western concepts, but also because of minutely divided ﬁelds within the vast category of ‘craft’ which had developed over many centuries in Japan. According to an eminent craft historian Kaneko Kenji, there are four categories of professional contemporary Japanese crafts: ‘Dentó Kógei’ (traditional crafts), ‘Seikatsu Kógei’ (household crafts), ‘Zenei Kógei’ (avant-garde crafts), ‘Sósaku Kógei’ (creative crafts).81 Kurafuto is ‘Seikatsu Kógei’ (household crafts) which is deﬁned as

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mainly functional household crafts mostly made of natural materials with simple, durable good design either made by the artist/designer craftsperson or by the combination of designer and craftsperson for some quantity production that is ultimately affordable for ordinary people. In other words, kurafuto is contemporary mingei. Though imbibing the strong idea of modern design, kurafuto not only has a geneological association with Mingei-style, that is with the ideal of simplicity and truth to material developed via the ‘Japanese Modern’ design, but also has an ethical and social democratic ideal towards the beauty of life for ordinary people. Kurafuto has been produced from the collective kurafuto movement initiated by at least ﬁve steering institutions from the 1950s onwards. The ﬁrst institution is the IAI which aims at ‘promotion of craft industry . . . to integrate the excellent traditional Japanese craft into present-day’s technology and present-day’s function’ according to Yoshitake Mosuke, chief designer of Zakka Ishó Ka (Department of Household Thing Design) at the IAI82 (Figure 4.7). The second is the tableware industry which produces kurafuto and promotes mostly for the purpose of export to the West. Some examples will be discussed later in the section on the Camberwell Collection on pages 226–233. Promotion of kurafuto by the IAI and the tableware industry are clearly a part of the ‘Good Design’ movement and the Marute Project. The third is the Japan Designer Craftman Association (JDCA) established in 1956 (the name changed to Japan Craft Design Association JCDA in 1976). They exhibited works which called ‘nyú kurafuto’(new craft)/‘kurafuto dezain’(craft design) made by the members at an annual ‘New Kurafuto Exhibition’ at Matsuya department store in Tokyo.

Figure 4.7 An iron ashtray designed by Yoshitake Mosuke, 1955, manufactured by Yamashó Casting Company. Source of photograph: Kógei Nyúsu 32(2), 1964.

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The JCDA’s founding statement says that their aim is to ‘design Zakka Kógei (household crafts)’.83 The fourth is the Craft Centre Japan (CCJ) established in 1960. They hold a permanent exhibition space at the Maruzen book store in Tokyo as well as in Sapporo, Nagoya and Okayama, to display newly designed local household crafts for modern living which are selected by the CCJ three times a year. Their initial aim to revitalise the local economy by modernising local crafts by designers is shared by the ﬁfth institution, the Japan Folk Crafts Association, which was established by Yanagi and his circle of friends in 1934 and continued to promote the creation of new mingei (Shin Mingei) as discussed on pages 72–76 and 109–122 of Chapter 2. The Mingei movement was subsumed by this collective kurafuto movement and continuously developed until the present. ‘Japanese Modern’ product design by the ﬁrst-generation designers The inspiration from mingei is widely recognised in the objects of the ‘Japanese Modern’, from product design to kurafuto, from the ofﬁcial project to individual creative work and industrial business. The strong consciousness of national design strikingly unites the various products of ‘Japanese Modern’. The relationship between the ‘Japanese Modern’ design with mingei can be explored further by examining product design by the ﬁrst-generation Japanese designers. It is particularly observable in furniture design where the use of woven bamboo and cane by the ﬁrstgeneration Japanese designers illustrated the inﬂuence of mingei. Kenmochi Isamu, Taut’s disciple at the IARI before the war and the inventor of the term ‘Japanese Modern’, set the post-war benchmark for the ‘Japanese Modern’ style with his cane chair of a curved sculptural form through the innovative use of traditional weaving technique (Figure 4.8). Sakakura Junzó, a leading Modernist architect, ex-colleague of Perriand at Le Corbusier’s Studio, developed ‘bamboo basket furniture’ (takekagoza) by applying the bamboo basket-weaving technique to the seat cushion which is ﬁxed on the low height wooden frame suitable for Japanese people84 (Figure 4.9). Yanagi Sóri (Munemichi), the eldest son of Yanagi Sóetsu, who trained in Sakakura Junzó’s studio and acted as a guide for Charlotte Perriand in Japan, also designed a typical ‘Japanese Modern’ style. Like that of Taut and Perriand, their ‘Japanese Modern’ work was greatly inspired by mingei, yet is more indigenised and often incorporates high technology. Another important interpretation of ‘Japanese Modern’ was given by the Japanese-American sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi whose works greatly inspired the ﬁrst-generation ‘Japanese Modern’ designers. The IAI invited Isamu Noguchi, who went on to become one of the most inﬂuential designers in post-war Japan after Taut and Perriand, to visit Japan for four months in 1950. During this time he organised a solo exhibition at the Mitsukoshi department store which caused an ‘extraordinary reaction in the art world’.85 Kenmochi Isamu, who assisted Noguchi

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Figure 4.8 A cane lounge chair designed by Kenmochi Isamu, H72.0ǂW81.0ǂ D78.0, 1960. Piece held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Photograph: Utsunomiya Museum of Art.

Figure 4.9 A bamboo basket chair designed by Sakakura Junzó, bamboo and wood, H64.0ǂW42.5ǂD63.0, 1948, Miho Kenchiku Kógei. Piece held in the collection of Sakakura Yuri. Photograph: Utsunomiya Museum of Art.

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at the IAI, describes Noguchi as an artist with an international sense and an exceptional talent for the in-depth understanding of Japanese art, and who presents the best example of ‘Japanese Modern’ in which he ‘does not copy the Japanese traditional style, but utilises the traditional technique and material, adopting only the functional principle and creates an original form of modern design’.86 Kenmochi observed Noguchi’s strong interest in bamboo weaving and said ‘Noguchi knows more about the international use and value of bamboo than Taut and Perriand and seems to have a ﬁrm belief in its increasing value in the American market’.87 Noguchi, jointly with Kenmochi, designed the easy-chair with steel legs. This chair strongly expresses the sculptural aesthetic beauty in a fat round bamboo basket cushion with a banana-shaped back and curved linear legs (Figure 4.10). It

Figure 4.10 A bamboo easy chair designed by Isamu Noguchi in co-operation with Kenmochi Isamu, bamboo and iron legs, 1950. Source of photograph: Kógei Nyúsu, 18(10), 1950.

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also expresses the traditional beauty of the bamboo material inspired by mingei, and is accompanied by a sense of the modern urban style while also making use of innovative technology in his use of steel and the ergonomic calculation of the springy nature of bamboo. In this work, Noguchi presents an ultimate example of ‘Japanese Modern’. The Mingei-style became popularised with the ‘Japanese Modern’ design products which represented the ‘cutting-edge’ of innovative design. ‘Japanese Modern’ and bamboo nationalism ‘Japanese Modern’ design often involves the materials which are also deeply associated with mingei. Bamboo is one of the most conspicuous materials used for ‘Japanese Modern’. The IAI has continually invested in bamboo products from the pre-war period and the IAI’s magazine Kógei Nyúsu featured bamboo in 1949 and 1950 with a particular focus on the bright prospect of bamboo products for export to the West.88 In 1950 the Council of Industrial Design (COID) in Britain hosted an exhibition of Japanese bamboo products in London organised by the IAI. The organisation of this exhibition was uniquely requested by the Director of the COID and the transport cost was covered by the British. The exhibits consisted of ‘Japanese Modern’ household products in bamboo designed for the modern British and American lifestyle (Figure 4.11). These exhibits show the characteristic use of the traditional bamboo weaving techniques in small items as well as a tea table which has a strong reminiscence of Perriand’s idea using a ﬂat woven tray for a table top (Figure 4.12). Mingei-style and ‘Mingei-inspired Perriand style’ are clearly evident in these ‘Japanese Modern’ bamboo products. Bamboo products also met with considerable interest in the West. We know that the COID was well aware of the American fashion for contemporary interior design integrating Oriental furniture or American furniture inspired by Oriental design, because of the reference to the House & Garden magazine of the previous year,89 featuring ‘Far East inﬂuence in contemporary decoration’. This feature issue described ‘serviceable simplicity’ inﬂuenced by ‘The Far East . . . where simplicity was the ultimate sophistication’ and states ‘This is close to our taste today’.90 Popular Oriental furniture included Ming-style Chinese furniture for interiors, alongside bamboo and cane furniture for the porch and garden, and such items were often featured in magazines such as House & Garden during this time in the USA.91 By the mid 1970s bamboo and cane furniture had also become fashionable in the UK. For example, House & Garden (London edition) featured cane, rattan, wicker and bamboo furniture with a stunning display of ‘balloon-shaped’/’peacock’ chairs from Hong Kong in 197292 and ‘Bamboo Design’ in 1977,93 while sales advertisements such as ‘Cane is the furniture for 1976’ by Jetline Ltd94 ﬁlled the magazines. Design magazine also featured the bamboo interior of a boutique in Bond Street in 1975.95 Bamboo and cane furniture became trendy because it creates a simple,

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Figure 4.11 Modern Bamboo Products Exhibition in London. Source of photograph: Kógei Nyúsu, 18(7), 1950.

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Figure 4.12 Modern Bamboo Products Exhibition: bamboo tea table, designed by IAI; sandwich tray designed by Gunma Craft Institute. Source of photograph: Kógei Nyúsu, 18(7), 1950.

serene, light, airy and exotic ambience in an Oriental garden retreat-like space, and was also inexpensive to purchase. From a historical perspective, although bamboo furniture was new, cane furniture was not at all new to British culture. According to Hilary Gelson, cane furniture using imported materials from the Orient has existed since the seventeenth century in Britain and it was nostalgically remembered as quality furniture associated with the image of leisurely chairs in the garden, decks on luxury cruise liners, cafes and club bars, and formed an icon of middle-class culture in Britain and the European continent in the 1920s. However the cane chairs of the Modernist curvilinear style and the Oriental exotic styles appeared as products of the 1970s revival led by designers such as Nanna Ditzel in collaboration with a Hong Kong manufacturer.96 The Mingei-style ‘Japanese Modern’, a product of nationalistic design, poured forth into the British market and was met by a British nostalgia for the Orient.

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‘Japanese Modern’ kurafuto as a model: the Camberwell Collection The Mingei-style was disseminated in the ﬁeld of British design through ‘Japanese Modern’ kurafuto produced by industry and craft artists, and further, spread throughout the West generally, where ‘Japanese Modern’ design was regarded as taking the lead in global design with its combination of craft and design alongside tradition and modern. During the 1960s and 1970s, Design magazine published by the Council of Industrial Design (COID) in Britain delivered the message that design should learn from craft.97 Reﬂecting this message, the magazine, on the one hand, portrays Japan as an economic and technological world power, but on the other, features its design world revival of interest in traditional crafts98 and its achievement of ‘harmony between modern technological industries and Japanese craft traditions’.99 Thus, ‘Japanese Modern’ was ideologically admired in the design world in that it met with consumer taste while also being the educationalist’s choice. The ‘Japanese Modern’ design was introduced as a model for good design through the education system and was disseminated in post-war Britain. An interesting example of how this was achieved is offered by the Camberwell Collection. In 1951 the London County Council (LCC) Education Section (later the Inner London Education Authority: ILEA) and the Council of Industrial Design (COID) jointly launched a boxed showcase scheme called ‘Schools Circulating Design Collection’. The boxed showcases travelled to schools and training colleges to teach youngsters about good design and the process involved in design. The collection was accumulated over the period of twenty-ﬁve years until the mid 1970s. It includes good examples of objects of pottery, wood, textiles, metal, glass which were made by hand or machine, or the combination of both. Apart from the main collection of British objects, it includes a large portion from Scandinavian countries and from other part of the world including other European countries, Japan, Latin America, Africa, India and the ‘Antipodes’. When the ILEA disbanded in 1990, the remaining collection comprising over 200 objects was acquired by Camberwell College of Arts.100 The whole catalogue of the original Japanese collection is not known. However, judging from the two black and white photographs entitled ‘Household Things from Japan’ and from the twenty-ﬁve surviving objects currently existing in Camberwell College of Arts one can estimate that at least forty-three items were in the original collection (Figures 4.13 and 4.14). The items consist of household items made of ceramic, glass, cast iron, lacquered wood, bamboo and paper. In the surviving Camberwell Collection, kurafuto (craft)/kurafuto dezain (craft design) is strongly represented as ‘Japanese Modern’ design. The Japanese collection is described as neither traditional nor Western and the explanations suggest that they come from the uniquely modern living conditions in Japan. The image of Japan described in the captions in the photographs is of an ‘industrial city’ but one in which the coexistence of

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Figure 4.13 ‘Household Things From Japan 1.’ Pieces and photographs held in the collection of the London Institute – Camberwell College of Arts (ex-LCC/ILEA collection).

Figure 4.14 ‘Household Things From Japan 2.’ Pieces and photographs held in the collection of the London Institute – Camberwell College of Arts (ex-LCC/ILEA collection).

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‘modern’ and ‘tradition’ is evident. For example, the captions describe the juxtaposition of the modern ofﬁce and commercial buildings with narrow streets of one-storeyed houses; the modern ofﬁce environment at work and the traditional living space at home; handcrafts and industrial design: all of which are representative of the modern and tradition dichotomy. This slightly ‘post-modern’ view of Japan as modern and traditional also reﬂects the selection criteria of Japanese household things. The caption says: Some Japanese industrial design is indistinguishable from western products, some is no more than machine copy of hand made articles of the past. The items in this exhibition have been chosen from a third group of Japanese products: they have no exact counterparts in the west and, although they embody the best in Japanese traditional forms, none is a copy of the past. All the articles are in quantity production unless described as hand made. They selected designed machine-made household products (although many of them were not purely machine-made but rather involved hand-making processes) in quantity production which had to be original and modern, but are, nevertheless, neither copies of western products, nor copies of traditional Japanese handmade crafts. They are also described as ‘elegant’, ‘practical’, and also reﬂect traditional ‘craftsmanship’, yet are available to everyone. Japanese kurafuto objects ﬁt into the contemporary Modernist design ideal. As Jane Pavitt noted, the majority of the rest of the Camberwell Collection convincingly manifest the Modernist design ideals with a sense of internal consistency.101 The Japanese collection also seems to speak of the European Modernist design ideal of reﬁned and functional design, however it is also characterised by the forms and techniques of traditional handmade crafts. This is also the period referred to as the ‘renaissance in craft pottery’ when the Picasso-inspired ceramic work by such people as William Newland, Margaret Hine, James Tower and Nicholas Bergette emerged, and Modernist work by Lucie Rie and Hans Coper ﬂourished.102 Their works are often described as urban ‘anti-Orientalist’ ceramics as opposed to the ‘neo-Orientalist’ objects of the Leach/Mingei school. The Camberwell Collection seems to reﬂect the trend of that period which ﬁnds ‘novelty value’ in the Modernist pottery. However, Japanese kurafuto which also developed from mingei as one of the sources was also ironically received as being of ‘novelty value’. Kurafuto tableware: Sasaki glass, Seyei ceramic and Tomimoto Kenkichi The nature of the ‘novelty value’ of Japanese kurafuto can be observed through the surviving items of the Camberwell Collection which include typical kurafuto tableware by three different manufacturers: Sasaki Glass, Seyei Ceramic and Yasaka Kógei jointly with Tomimoto Kenkichi. First,

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there are three glasswares identiﬁed as Sasaki Glass products: a white frosty glass ashtray; a set consisting of a water jug and a goblet; and a black ashtray of sun face design called ‘El Sol’ much like Picasso’s ceramic. They all date from the early 1960s. The white ashtray is part of ‘Nagisa’ (‘Cascade’ in the English catalogue) series, designed by Itó Yukio, a popular series which continued to be manufactured for more than thirty years. This ashtray became the front cover image of their English catalogue which is perhaps why LCC/ILEA was initially attracted to purchase it103 (Figure 4.15). The water jug and goblet are part of ‘Minamo Line’ (water surface

Figure 4.15 An ashtray, from Sasaki’s Glassware (English Sales Catalogue), No. 44. Pieces held in the collection of Sasaki Glass Mfg. Co., Ltd., 1962.

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line) series (Figure 4.16). Its rippled pattern, created by blowing into a clay mould, had been popular since the glass designer Awashima Masakichi took out copyright for his ‘Shizuku’ (water drop) design in 1954.104 The ‘Minamo Line’ series glasswares are in simple and clean Modernist forms and the water jug has the organically ﬂowing line of an English medieval jar. The Sasaki Glass Company, established in 1902 in Tokyo, pioneered the manufacturing of industrial kurafuto glass along with the Hóya Glass Company and the Kagami Crystal Glass Company. From around 1935 the company deployed in-house designers to work with groups of skilled craftsmen to produce kurafuto glass and received hundreds of ‘Good Design’ awards for their tablewares. It was only in 1967 that Sasaki became the ﬁrst company in Asia to use an automated system to mass-produce glass products, and so all the glasses in the Camberwell Collection seem to be hand-made/blow glass in batch production, although this is not stated in the caption. Second, there are a number of ceramic tablewares identiﬁed as Seyei Ceramic. Seyei Ceramic was established in 1897 in Nagoya, and during the 1960s it was listed as one of the seven largest export ceramic tableware manufacturers of bone china and stone wares including the Nihon Ceramic of the ‘Noritake’ brand, Sangó Tóki of ‘Sangó’ brand and Narumi Ceramic of the ‘Mikasa’ brand.105 Though speciﬁc production years cannot be conﬁrmed, these tablewares appear to be products dating from the 1960s and

Figure 4.16 A jar and a goblet, manufactured by Sasaki Glass. Pieces held in the collection of the London Institute – Camberwell College of Arts (exLCC/ILEA collection).

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the 1970s when the company was most active in the export business and also when the ‘Japanese Modern’ kurafuto style was in fashion.106 The ashtrays, the bottle and the ﬂower vase which seem to belong to the series called ‘Seyei Kurafuto’ are designed by local potters, and mostly comprise earthy brown pots which are in the obvious Mingei- style. Other items which include a set comprising an ochre teapot with a cane handle and cups, a set of white with black dotted striped teapot with a cane handle and cups with a mark of ‘mon’ (a gate) (Figure 4.17), an ashtray with a blue-green and yellow glaze, an ashtray with a yellow-green and black glaze, a bottle of brown glaze and a ﬂower vase. The ﬁrst tea sets were designed in typical Modernist taste, assuring simplicity in design and form, while incorporating Mingei-style Oriental elements such as the cane handle and crest. But there is also evidence of the Modernist purity which resonates throughout other teapots in the Camberwell Collection by Modernist potters Lucie Rie, Ruth Duckworth and Arabia Ceramic (Finland) that are representative of the ‘Scandinavian Modern’ style which is widely regarded as an example of the successful co-operation of craft and industry. Third, a set consisting of a tea pot and six tea cups with chequered and circle overglaze decoration (Figure 4.18) and eleven plates with an overglaze decoration of a character ‘ﬂower’ in three different sizes have a ‘Tomisen’ mark on the back. ‘Tomisen’-marked pottery/porcelain were designed by Tomimoto Kenkichi and were manufactured at Yasaka Crafts in Kyoto in

Figure 4.17 A set of teapot and cup, Seyei Ceramic. Pieces held in the collection of the London Institute – Camberwell College of Arts (ex-LCC/ILEA collection).

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Figure 4.18 A set of teapot and cups designed by Tomimoto Kenkichi and manufactured by Yasaka Crafts, 1957. Pieces held in the collection of the London Institute – Camberwell College of Arts (ex-LCC/ILEA collection).

1957.107 They are excellent examples of Tomimoto’s typically sophisticated and simple design. The collection of Tomimoto’s design works in the Camberwell Collection were products that emerged from a series in which he combined Morrisian ethical practice with modern kurafuto ideas. This series started in 1950 and the products ranging from tablewares to brooches were designed by Tomimoto and manufactured in substantial quantities to be rendered affordable to ordinary people.108 Tomimoto’s designed works in the Camberwell Collection illustrate that ‘Japanese Modern’ design is permeated with Mingei theory and the Mingei-style. Recall that although Tomimoto was a key ﬁgure in the Mingei movement at its early stage, he dissociated himself from the movement before the Second World War. Yet it is Tomimoto who took the progressive step of developing the contemporary Mingei movement in the post-war period, by fashioning kurafuto from the mingei ideal as contemporary mingei. It is of some irony that these objects, difﬁcult to trace elsewhere, have been collected in Britain where Tomimoto’s initial inspiration came from. This is indeed a perfect example of Reverse Orientalism in which the English Arts and Crafts ideas, redressed in the Japanese mingei ideal, return to the contemporary international design movement to inspire the new generation of British people. ‘Japanese Modern’ kurafuto tableware in the Camberwell Collection exempliﬁes ‘novelty value’ through the strong presence of Mingei-style with a Modernist outlook. They constituted the

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standard of ‘good design’ and were disseminated throughout Japan as well as the West.

The foundation and deconstruction of the ‘Leach Tradition’ for British studio craft philosophy Legendary ‘Leach Tradition’ in Britain While the tradition of mingei steadily developed as a style which can be discerned within ‘Japanese Modern’ design and the kurafuto movement in Japan, the so-called ‘Leach Tradition’ also simultaneously developed into a particular Anglo-Oriental style and became the philosophical backbone of the British studio pottery movement. The ‘Leach Tradition’ was gradually constructed since the interwar period after Leach came back from Japan in 1920. Together with English Arts and Crafts ideas and Modernist ideas, the Oriental ideas became a major source for the British studio pottery movement. The ‘Leach Tradition’ is contextualised in the British modern art movement. It was founded when the Oriental ideas were strong currency for modernity. As Alan Powers has pointed out, international and crosscultural elements from Japanese, Indian and Persian high art and folk culture were brought to British crafts by the studio craft artists such as Leach, Staite Murray and Phyllis Barron.109 As Julian Stair’s recent research also argues, the ‘Leach Tradition’ developed in the ‘realm of Modernist theory’ from a complex interaction between the Fine Art Modernist ideas propagated in Britain by Roger Fry and Herbert Read and the Oriental ideas in pottery dating from even before the First World War.110 The ‘Leach Tradition’ is, in short, a British derivative of Mingei theory which was constructed by Bernard Leach. Leach was a loyal spokesman for Yanagi, reinforcing the mystiﬁcation of Mingei theory. The ‘Leach Tradition’ is deﬁned by his style and philosophy expounded in A Potter’s Book published in 1940 which has become the Bible for British potters since. Leach set the so-called ‘Sung [Song] standard’111 which is elaborated as the use so far as possible of natural materials in the endeavour to obtain the best quality of body and glaze; in throwing and in a striving towards unity, spontaneity, and simplicity of form, and in general the subordination of all attempts at technical cleverness to straight-forward, un-selfconscious workmanship’.112 Though he calls this the ‘Sung standard’, this standard is also found in other pottery including Korean celadons and Ri-cho [Chosön], early Japanese tea master’s wares, early Persian, Syrian, Hispano-Moresque pottery, German Bellarmines, and some Delft and English slipwares.’113 The standard was proclaimed as an ideal state to which British potters should aspire, even though it is not entirely possible for the contemporary British potters to

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recreate the context of the Chinese craftsmen of more than a thousand years ago, nor, for that matter, of medieval artisans. This idealised standard was fully validated by the ‘criterion of beauty’ theorised by Yanagi in his Mingei theory. Leach also reinforced Mingei theory by giving more detailed ‘constructional ideas’114 to potters to clarify what is really meant by the beauty of naturalness, simplicity, and tradition as well as providing recipes for Oriental pottery. During the 1960s and 1970s, Leach further propagated his ideas through major writings including A Potter in Japan (1960), Kenzan and his Tradition (1966), A Potter’s Work (1967), The Unknown Craftsman (1972), Hamada, Potter (1975), A Potter’s Challenge (1976), Beyond East and West (1978). Leach reshaped Yanagi’s abstract concept into more concrete and digestible ideas to suit the Western audience. His translation and adaptation of Yanagi’s theory into The Unknown Craftsman reiterated the essence of Mingei theory. The essence of the ‘Leach Tradition’ is a spiritual and holistic approach to pottery.115 The Japanese tea masters’ ideal doctrine has been described by Michael Cardew as ‘the doctrine that technical accomplishment counts for little besides inner life, [and furthermore] that plain things made for the use of humble people have more mana or power than articles of luxury’.116 Walter Keeler describes the feeling that it generated: ‘[it gave] a whole sense of philosophy and life and [of] everything that surrounded making pots being important, and it wasn’t anything you did in isolation but it was part of your whole life.’117 This approach can be summarised succinctly as the ‘ethical pot’. Oliver Watson deﬁnes the ‘ethical pot’ in terms of the quality inherent to pots ‘beyond mere looks’ which emerges from potters’ attitudes: ‘when [the pot is] lovingly made in the correct way and with the correct attitudes, it contains, for those who are open to the message, a spiritual and moral dimension.’118 The spiritual and holistic approach also brings about mystical ideas which are beyond criticism. Although one might read a hint of criticism in his comment that ‘analytic reasoning is important enough as a support to intuition’,119 one should also note that Leach propagated the idea of ‘chokkan’ through his translation, rendering it as ‘seeing eyes’120 or the true beauty intuitively grasped by ‘intuitive craftsman’.121 Michael Casson could not describe this overpowering idea beyond suggesting that ‘magic’ or ‘zen’ is responsible for making usable things with an ‘unconscious’ mind.122 The pedagogical side of the ‘Leach Tradition’ centred on workshop philosophy. Leach’s scepticism of art school training made him practice at his own Leach Pottery in St Ives to pass the ‘tacit knowledge’ of potterymaking through repetitive exercises and group work at the studio, combined with immersion in philosophical ideas. Between 1923 and 1979 over a hundred apprentices and students emerged from the legendary Leach Pottery, spreading his doctrines and fostering the various ‘branch factions’ of the ‘Leach Tradition’, which run parallel with the pedigree line kept by the main Leach family’s dynasty.123 Just as the Mingei movement thrived

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during the Second World War, the ‘Leach Tradition’ was in harmony with the political and practical propaganda that surrounded an idealised image of England in which its vernacular crafts and countryside were regarded as a cradle of ‘tradition’. The ‘Leach Tradition’ also saw a revival at the height of the counter-culture and the recent Green movement which sought alternative ideas and lifestyles based upon the ‘mythic’ William Blake, Zen, organic farming, conservation, ‘small is beautiful’ and handicrafts.124 However, the ‘Leach Tradition’ through which Mingei theory also planted its roots is now the target of incessant reviews and criticisms. By the 1970s, studio crafts had made remarkable progress, as portrayed in the benchmark exhibition ‘The Craftsman’s Art’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1973 so as to coincide with the establishment of its institutional base, the Crafts Advisory Committee in the same year. Contemporary studio craft acquired a more independent voice by which it could express the diversity within. To some contemporary potters, the ‘Leach Tradition’ is ‘repetitive’ and ‘unexperimental’125 or ‘conservative, reserved and limited in vision’ and ‘anachronistic’ and ‘unfashionable’126 or even ‘Oriental Mystic’127 that conjures visions of a ‘quasi-historical Far Eastern Middle Earth peopled with Hobbit potters’.128 However, it also becomes evident that the ‘Leach Tradition’ is now regarded as a major foundation of the twentieth-century British studio pottery movement. By common consensus, the ‘Leach Tradition’ has become an unignorable reference point for all critical debate, provoking the question whether ‘to Leach or not to Leach’.129 It can be seen as a supportive framework on the one hand, and an obstacle to progress on the other. Redeﬁning ‘craft’: from studio crafts to obscure objects of desire The scrutinisation and deconstruction of the ‘Leach Tradition’ began with the process of redeﬁning the objects called ‘craft’ in contemporary visual culture. Contemporary ‘craft’ expanded its horizons into uncharted territory, in the direction of high-quality, unique one-off art objects and limitedquantity design work. The image of craft is predominantly created by the objects exhibited in high street craft galleries and at events like the prestigious Chelsea Crafts Fair which has been organised annually since 1979 by the Crafts Council (formerly the Crafts Advisory Committee). Yet the identity of craft has become increasingly obscure during the same period, in that it falls in between ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘design’, failing to be legitimised by either ﬁeld. From the 1950s, the phenomenon in which the ‘twin process – craftsman enters the art world, while artists hi-jack craft’ can be observed.130 In the pottery world, for example, the 1950s saw the potters (e.g. Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, William Newland, etc.) trespassing on the territory of art at the same time as the artists trespass on the territory of potters (e.g. Pablo Picasso, Jean Lurçat etc.).131 ‘Craft’ has become inﬁnitely close to ‘art’ but demands an independent territory because of its need to invoke a ‘special

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kind of knowledge’.132 Notions such as ‘skill’, ‘workmanship’, ‘function’, ‘art vs. craft’ and ‘consumption’ have become the focus of debate in identifying this ‘special kind of knowledge’ and they are increasingly considered to be the key issues that determine the identity of ‘craft’ from the 1970s to the present. Question of ‘skill’ In most English dictionaries, ‘skill’ is the primary meaning offered to deﬁne the word ‘craft’. However, according to her extensive studies on craft science,133 Anna-Marja Ihatsu argues that the dictionary deﬁnitions are not clear, ranging from invoking a notion of ‘skill’ (mostly associated with manual dexterity or its ‘activity’ involving ‘skill’), to a ‘union of makers’ or ‘trade’ by this skilful ‘union of makers’.134 In addition to these vague dictionary explanations, the crucial problem is the undeﬁnability or unwillingness to clearly deﬁne ‘skill’ and its variation includes ‘workmanship’ and ‘knowledge’ of craft in the practice of contemporary ‘studio craft’, which resulted in its further uncritical mystiﬁcation. According to the thought-provoking analysis by Christopher Frayling and Helen Snowdon, there are three different deﬁnitions of ‘skill’. The ﬁrst deﬁnition given by the makers working in the tradition of the Arts and Crafts movement is that skill is the essence of craft socially and aesthetically, and so challenges automated industry which brings about the degradation of work by deskilling and compartmentalisation of the wholeness of human beings. The second deﬁnition by designer craftspeople is that skill is an essential component of the design process. The third deﬁnition by artist craftspeople is that skill is nothing to do with ‘pure creative potential’ and is a secondary element.135 The element common to the ﬁrst and second deﬁnitions of ‘skill’ involve quality coming from inseparable mind and body (hand), whereas the third deﬁnition solely involves the body (hand) quality. In fact, the whole discussion of the meaning of ‘skill’ is weighed down by the legacy of the Arts and Crafts movement and so is built on the foundation of Victorian ideas that industrialisation breaks the organic unity of mind and body (hand) which resulted in soulless shoddy machine products. The legacy of the Arts and Crafts movement helps to create a special aura for ‘craft’ which adds to the value of ‘craft’, but is also a ‘thought-preventor’ creating anachronism and myth. The consensus of makers is that the ‘skill’ involving ‘craft’ is not easily describable and articulated, and consequently, there is slippage in critical thinking. It is often labelled as ‘experience’ or described by arbitrary sentimental terms such as ‘love’, ‘feel’ or ‘magic’ in the way of ‘hippie folk-wisdom’. The idea of ‘theory’ and ‘reasoning’ are rejected and an intellectual assessment is made difﬁcult.136 This particular historical condition seems to have affected the identity of ‘craft’ for a long time in Britain. Even the so-called ‘craft revival’ in the 1970s was also analysed by Frayling and Snowdon as ‘nostalgia masquerading as history’ and deeply

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rooted in English history, reinventing a myth of the happy artisan’ in ‘merrie England’.137 In my view it is because of this culturally speciﬁc background that the ‘Leach Tradition’ also dies hard. Mingei theory, through the ‘Leach Tradition’, has many things to offer in this laxity in critical thinking in addressing ‘craft’. Thus the undeﬁnable ‘skill’ can be simply ascribed to the Oriental mythic philosophy encouraging the spiritual and holistic approach. However, in Britain there are also several attempts made by craft theorists to deconstruct this myth. In 1968, David Pye, a woodcraft maker and theorist, published The Nature and Art of Workmanship in which he rigorously tries to demystify the murky notion of ‘skill’. Pye presented his important notions of ‘workmanship’ which he divided into two kinds: ‘workmanship of certainty’ and ‘workmanship of risk’. In ‘the workmanship of certainty’, regularity in work is acquired because ‘the result of every operation during production has been predetermined and is outside the control of the operative once production starts’, while in ‘the workmanship of risk’, irregularity in work occurs because ‘the result of every operation during production is determined by the workman as he works and its outcome depends wholly or largely on his care, judgement and dexterity’.138 They both are in the realm of manufacturing industry and complement each other but the latter involves a disparity between idea and achievement in the process of making, and therefore produces unidentical, one-off objects with diversity. The former, on the other hand, has little or no disparity between idea and achievement and therefore produces identical and uniform objects in quantity. Therefore ‘crafts’ are deﬁned as the product of the ‘workmanship of risk’ and he passionately defends them as being important and needing to be continued. The notion of ‘skill’139 as well as the notions of ‘hand vs. machine’,140 ‘good material’141 and ‘truth to material’142 and ‘function’143 which are often mystiﬁed in the Arts and Crafts aesthetics and the ‘Leach Tradition’, are also rejected by Pye as ‘meaningless’, ‘myth’ and ‘thought-preventer’144 obfuscating the real process of making things. Pye greatly contributed to the demystiﬁcation and the redeﬁnition of ‘crafts’ in the context of contemporary reality. However, in terms of the ‘Oriental’ philosophy of crafts, even the rigour of Pye did not apply the same pointed sharpness in its criticism addressed to the legacy of the Arts and Crafts ideas, to Japanese aesthetic ideas. Therefore even though Pye was able to look at European crafts with discernment, Pye’s admiration of Japanese cult of ‘sabi’ and the ‘downward extension of diversity’ created by ‘rough workmanship’145 was naïve, ignoring the contemporary reality facing Japanese craftsmen and devoid of the scrutinising analysis that can be seen at face value in the British context. He was also blindly accepting ‘Japanese aesthetic ideas’ as they were, without taking into account that modern Euramerian ideas on Japanese crafts were, to a great extent reﬂected in Mingei theory which absorbed English Arts and Crafts ideas and mixed them with Buddhist

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aesthetic ideas. This kind of attitude can be frequently observed in the contemporary arguments on crafts which are on the verge of an identity crisis. In the discussions on ‘what is craft?’ and ‘what is the role of craftsman in the twentieth century?’ held by crafts-makers and crafts theorists, Japanese aesthetics, notably propagated by Mingei theory, have often been drawn upon in arguments which point to ‘insightfulness’ of ‘Oriental’ views that support of the status of ‘crafts’, where this has been obscured by the distinctions between ﬁne art and industrial design. Although critical of Pye’s argument, ﬁnding his ‘extremism’ to be ‘productive’ but ‘bafﬂing’,146 the eminent craft theorist Peter Dormer developed Pye’s idea of ‘workmanship’ into ‘craft knowledge’ in his major book The Art of the Maker (1994) and the book which he edited, The Culture of Craft (1997). Dormer offers a deﬁnition for craft in which ‘craft with making as its central activity, is all bound in with tacit knowledge and connoisseurship’.147 The key notion he attempts to theorise is craft knowledge which he calls ‘tacit knowledge’ following Michael Polanyi’s use of the term ‘tacit knowing’ to philosophise unspeciﬁable human knowledge.148 Dormer argues that it is ‘a body of knowledge gained through experience . . . and impossible to articulate precisely but can be demonstrated’.149 Dormer’s biggest contribution is the demystiﬁcation of notions surrounding ‘craft’ which have prevented the intellectual assessment and critical evaluation which enable ‘craft’ to be deﬁned in the contemporary environment. Dormer warns about the unintelligent, lax treatment of craft knowledge: There is often a temptation when considering craft knowledge to drop the guard of scepticism and to treat with laxity such vague and often opportunistic claims about ‘intuition’; for a tension exists between the objectivity of science and the subjectivity of tacit knowledge.150 This is an effective criticism of Yanagi’s notion of ‘intuition’ or ‘Other Power’ (tariki) which encouraged the mystiﬁcation of crafts in esoteric terms and essentialised Mingei theory as an ‘Oriental’ philosophy.

Art or craft The previous section has underlined how the debate surrounding British contemporary crafts appears to be rooted in historical problems. In the Western history of visual culture, the intellectual separation of ‘ﬁne art’ and ‘craft’ occurred after the Renaissance, while a signiﬁcant further polarisation of their differences can be detected in the nineteenth century, as we have seen. ‘Art’ represents mental, aesthetic, original, individual and free activity, whereas ‘craft’ represents physical, functional, traditional, repetitive and constrained activity. This resulted in relegating the status of ‘craft’ to a lower status than that of ‘ﬁne art’ and as a consequence ‘craft’ has been suffering from prejudice up to the present.151 In modern history, the Arts

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and Crafts movement attempted to upgrade ‘craft’ to ‘art’ status, while the Bauhaus tried to amalgamate art and craft. However, after the Bauhaus ‘design’ expounded and consolidated its independent and highly respected territory, ‘craft’ was left out in the ‘salon de refuse’.152 The struggle of ‘craft’ with the overpowering institution behind ‘art’ remained an unresolved issue. As Christopher Frayling and Helen Snowdon analyse, a catch-all term ‘artist-craftsman’ including a wide range of types of makers from ‘the Arts and Crafts tradition (Cotswold version), the Council of Industrial Design tradition (Haymarket version), the tradition of the Oriental Mystic (Cornish version) and the Craftsman’s Art tradition (South Kensington version)’ does not offer any solution to this issue, but rather creates further confusion.153 The ‘tradition of the Oriental Mystic’, that is the ‘Leach Tradition’, presented one way of ﬁlling the gap between ‘art’ and ‘craft’. It propagated the virtue of following ‘tradition’ by the relative suppression of the notion of ‘individual originality’ a quality which has been regarded as determining ‘art’, and aimed to evaluate the aesthetic value of the work of unknown craftsman and the work of individual artist on equal terms. It also encouraged repetitive exercise and copying from tradition as the necessary learning process for the standard of beauty which is beyond the demarcation of ‘art’ and ‘craft’. For example, Daniel Rhodes is typical of the view that embraces the mingei ideal of a ‘non-individual’ approach, saying: Pottery as meditation, as selﬂess concentration, requires the abandonment of anxiety and the perfection of skill to the point where it can be forgotten and one’s consciousness becomes absorbed in the tactile sensations of process. In this state, the work will form itself, and the potter may feel presumptuous even to take credit for the happenings which emerge from his kiln. The question of originality will have been solved.154 Traditionally in the world of crafts, copying and imitation have been part of learning and training. Peter Dormer’s view is that ‘in learning a craft, the role of mimicry is probably essential’.155 He believes that crafts involve ‘tacit knowledge’ and a communal body of knowledge, therefore he believes the notions of ‘imitation’ and ‘originality’ are not relevant to the identity of crafts which is only deﬁned by actual knowledge of making. In this aspect, his views share the ideas espoused in Mingei theory which provide the neutralising effect on people’s oversensitivity to the word ‘imitation’ and overemphasis on individual ‘originality’. This ‘art’ vs. ‘craft’ debate develops maturation and sophistication in the descendant makers who belong to ‘the Craftsman’s Art tradition’. At the cutting-edge of the debate we can identify representations of two schools of practitioners. Alison Britton is a leading ﬁgure in the so-called ‘vessel school’ of ceramics which established its area of one-off, decorative, non-

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functional, vessel forms of ceramic art since the 1970s. Britton seems to resist most strongly the historically conﬁned lower status of ‘craft’. The concept of ‘function’ which associates historically with lower status non-art in visual culture is crucially problematised by this school of craftspeople as a hindrance for artists wanting to freely explore the form. She declares that she explores the ‘outer limits of function’ to make a ‘decorative object’ because it is necessary to avoid a form that is predetermined by ‘function’. Her vessels should perform a ‘function’ but at the same time that ‘function’ should be self-referential and detached.156 She also claims that ‘skill’ is irrelevant because with demonstration of ‘skill’, ‘function’ tends to be seen as the end objective and artistic creativity, her raison d’être, in this context is likely to be overlooked. Though admitting that ‘the manual and the mental are seamlessly combined in the operation of skill’, she claims that the ‘manipulation of skill’ or abandonment of skill is needed in order to achieve artistically desirable ends.157 British ‘tradition’ is also abhorred by this school because of its association with this nexus of ‘skill’ and ‘function’. The ‘vessel school’ tries to dissociate itself from the ‘Peasant to Industrial to Arts-and-Crafts to the Oriental Drift’ and ally itself with American and continental European Modernists.158 An important critique of the ‘vessel school’ came from Julian Stair, a ‘domestic ware’ potter. Stair notes that although the ‘vessel school’ brought ‘revolution’, effectively ‘breaking down the old barriers’, it was in fact ‘incapable of replacing them with anything new and substantial’. The ‘use of functional shapes as a basis for nonfunctional forms’ is ‘contradictory’ in that it denies the concept used to deﬁne its formation. ‘Tradition’ is also regarded as the source of meaning which necessitates its being addressed as opposed to being escaped from. Unlike Leach, Cardew and Rie who created new language built by challenging old meanings associated with ‘tradition’, the ‘vessel school’ is merely carrying out a ‘reduction of history to the level of pure aesthetism’ and so could simply ‘pick and it choose whatever takes one’s fancy’ which results in creating no meaning whatsoever.159 Positively ‘obscure objects’ A signiﬁcant conference entitled ‘Obscure Objects of Desire?’ was organised by a craft historian Tanya Harrod in 1997. The aim of the conference was to vitalise critical and theoretical debate on ‘craft’ from philosophical, historical, social and cultural studies perspectives.160 The critical assessment and deconstruction of the ‘Leach Tradition’ has been a positive process in British craft history. The condition of crafts in Britain in the 1990s was predicted by Frayling: ‘craft will continue to provide a challenge – not from the perspective of the avant-garde, but from the perspectives of good practice, integrity of intention, and domestic utility.’161 This prediction has proved correct, as Harrod’s illustration of the current situation of ‘studio craft’ shows, in which it is still plagued by ‘weak identity’ yet maintains a

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strong presence in contemporary visual culture by demonstrating diverse creative potentials and critical approaches.162 The status of crafts in commercial terms has also been ﬁrmly established, as the annual Chelsea Crafts Fair proves that consumer demand for crafts is high, and indeed many craftspeople can sell their works for exceptionally high prices. In studio pottery, many ambitious exhibitions illustrate the cross-over of craft, sculpture, architecture and landscape art and have proved successful in opening up new ﬁelds of creation. Although it suggests that it remains haunted by the ‘Leach Tradition’, and its objects have never escaped the predicament of being ‘obscure objects of desire’, crafts appear to be positively developing an independent territory in the contemporary visual culture of Britain.

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From the examination of the development of Mingei theory through the four stages: Orientalism; appropriation of Orientalism; Oriental Orientalism; and Reverse Orientalism, some notable characteristics of Japanese ‘modernity’ have emerged. First of all, it is its ‘hybrid’ and ‘universal’ nature that makes Mingei theory modern. Mingei theory is a product of the hybrid location of culture which is ‘transnational and translational’1 in Homi Bhabha’s words. What was ‘original’ was ‘simulated, copied, transferred, transformed, made into a simulacrum’2 and continued to be translated and made into original ‘hybrid’ culture. Mingei theory is just such a case of cultural hybridisation, created in a discursive ﬁeld by negotiating the borders of Orient and Occident. Yanagi selected, absorbed, translated and appropriated modern theories from the Occident into the Japanese indigenous context in a remarkably original way. This process of translation acquired universality through translations, accordingly it also becomes further transferable. The phenomenon of ‘Reverse Orientalism’ can be explained from this perspective. One for the main reasons for the enthusiasm over Mingei theory which echoed throughout the West was the hybridity of Mingei theory itself. Mingei theory becomes a universal cognisant language because of the shared common ground with design theories in the West, ﬁrst by way of translating the principles of beauty common to the ideals of modern design aesthetics, including the English Arts and Crafts aesthetic theories and the Modernist ideas. Japonisme as part of Orientalism, which continued to date from the late nineteenth century, also underlies the enthusiastic reception of Mingei theory as its catalyst. As in the cases of the French Impressionists’ cult of Japanese art, or in the modern international design movement, Japanese art has often been used for the purpose of innovation and anti-historicism in the modern period. The integration of Mingei theory into the modern/contemporary discussions on ‘crafts’ and a trend of ‘Japanese Style’ in modern/contemporary design can also be seen in this context. Although Mingei theory and its associated style has been called ‘Oriental’ philosophy and ‘Japanese Style’, as if it were the discovery of an ‘authentic’ tradition and the post-modern symbol of multiculturalism, it was none the less a western modern theory and style of design at its core.

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Yanagi’s ‘hybridity’ certainly created an original theory, but it also created a problematic by-product. ‘Hybridity’ is often considered by postcolonial theorists as the ‘third space’3 which is continuously hybridised and ‘waiting to be created and constructed’,4 being free from essential identiﬁcation and a system of dominance. However in Yanagi’s case ‘hybridity’ did not remain in such an open situation, at least the half century from the formulation of Mingei theory till the beginning of its deconstruction in the 1970s. Mingei theory did not offer an example which disrupted the framework of the Orient/Occident as the post-colonial scholarship model would favour, but instead consolidated the dichotomous cultural national identities as complementary, by ensuring an acknowledgement of Japanese neo-traditionalism and Oriental essentialism in Euramerica. Mingei theory is closed, keeping its discourse within the dichotomous framework of the Orient/Occident. Furthermore, fuelled by Japanese imperialism, it created another ‘Other’ via a system of dominance developed through a Japanocentric cultural map created by Yanagi during his ﬁeld and theoretical works on Japanese peripheries and colonies. To create its own identity, the Occident designated the Orient as ‘Other.’ Japan in turn, made the rest of the ‘Orient’ as ‘Other’ in order to create its own identity somewhere between the Occident and the Orient, Second, the modernity of Mingei theory is also enunciated in ‘neotraditionalism’. John Clark analysed the phenomenon of ‘neo-traditional art’ as a distinct feature of modernity in Asian art. He deﬁnes it as ‘accepting the legitimacy of past forms and techniques and an attempt to reinvent the context from which that legitimacy is drawn’. It involves ‘a reinterpretation of the formal value systems that govern art [i.e. style, technique, content] . . . and the legitimising of a claim to authority over the future’.5 Mingei theory legitimised certain types of indigenous objects as mingei, reinvented its context and reinterpreted its formal value in modern ideas and languages gathered from the Occident and the Orient. It invented a ‘tradition’ of Japanese art and constructed a national cultural identity through it. The necessary condition for the acquisition of a national cultural identity was the binary framework of cultural discourse. As this book veriﬁed, the dichotomous framework of Orient and Occident was vital in the formation of Mingei theory and the construction of a cultural national identity of Japanese art. This framework has become a circular mechanism in art. ‘Orientalism’ was projected on to the Orient from the Occident. Japan absorbed this then projected ‘Oriental Orientalism’ on to other Oriental countries, and ﬁnally projected ‘Oriental Orientalism’ back at the Occident. Japanese cultural national identity and the tradition of Mingei could not stand alone, independent of the Occident, and the Occidental system of knowledge and its ideologies. The Occident also beneﬁted from this interrelation between Japan and the Occident as this helped to consolidate its own cultural national identity. The Orientalness of Mingei theory which was modern and attractive in both the Orient and the

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Occident was created in this complementary and interdependent cultural discourse. In other words, modernity of the Orientalness for the modern Japanese cultural identity was validated by the Occident. Within this dichotomous framework and within this closed discourse, the myth of the Oriental aesthetic was also allowed to be constructed discursively. Mingei theory has been a closed discourse for a long period of time while retaining its Oriental myth. However toward the end of the twentieth century this closure has been challenged and has slowly opened the gate, allowing more hybridisation. The myth of the Orient, or at least of Japan, is fading in the international world. The closure made by mutual complementation of Orientalism and Reverse Orientalism has lost its novelty and has increasingly appeared anachronistic. The hybrid product of Mingei theory after all becomes simulacrum, a copy of non-existent and no substantive entity. The time has passed and this simulacrum has become too abstract to be deﬁned as Other, and consequently the demystiﬁcation of mingei has progressed. Janet Koplos’s aptly captures this fading phenomenon. It reports the irrelevance of Mingei theory in terms of the virtue of unknown craftsmen in the contemporary reality of Japan where those actual pure mingei craftsmen have vanished. However, she also observes the haunting elements of mingei in Japanese crafts. Mingei is dead, but the term mingei, the meaning of which has been transformed into a more general label that represents simple design, neither too technical nor too decorative, is still omnipresent in the craft ﬁeld. She also notes that the ‘mingei attitude’ which suggests warm humanity by usefulness, is vibrant in all variety of product design and functional crafts.6 External factors also help this demystiﬁcation. The image of Japan and the Orient in general has become more and more realistic, with quite a few people having ﬁrst-hand knowledge of these areas and its globalisation effect on Japanese and Euramerican cultures which have simultaneously been experiencing similar things. Many of us living in this world are coming to realise that we have more common experience and knowledge than culturally speciﬁc ones. Accordingly, Japan’s image has also changed and the myth of Oriental philosophy has also been collapsing through natural means. The myth of Japan created by Orientalism has been diffused. However, it might be seen as a shift of the axis of the binary system and it may be that it is just that Japan has moved to the camp of the Occident. In March 2003 at the time of writing this conclusion, the USA and Britain declared war on Iraq. Japan is also supporting the war as their ally. The enemy is the ‘mysterious’ Iraq. The binary framework is no longer the previous model of the Occident vs. the Orient, but pro-USA vs. anti-USA. The myth-making and othering mechanism is still regenerated with full swing in an alarmingly worrying manner under new USA-led imperialism within this new framework. Furthermore, it is also shown that Oriental Orientalism has not been waning but rather it is continuously growing in the craft ﬁeld. As the so-called ‘Asian boom’ has been sweeping through Japan since the 1990s, South-East Asian crafts have

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become the centre of ‘object of desire’ attracting young women in Japan. As Nakatani Ayami has shown, glossy women’s magazines parade them and represent them by using such terms as ‘warmth’, ‘calmness’, ‘simplicity’ and ‘nostalgia’, with a multitude of nostalgic and exotic narratives.7 Contemporary Japan is constructing another Asia in South-East Asia. This situation reminds us of the cultural politics of Mingei theory and of the continuity of Yanagi’s Oriental Orientalism toward Japanese peripheries and colonies which create another ‘Other’. The myth-making mechanism in culture shifts geographically but remains alarmingly intact. My study on Mingei theory is, thus, just a small ‘empirical microstudy’8 of the complex aspects of the still unmapped territory of modern Asian art. However, it strongly suggests the need to take into account the cultural politics and cautions for surrounding discursive ﬁelds. The ideological commitment to reject neo-traditionalism and essentialism needs to be rigorously pursued in order to extricate the cultural manipulations which violate openness in art discourse.

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Notes

Introduction 1 Ofﬁcially Yanagi’s given name is pronounced Muneyoshi, however the author has chosen to use Sóetsu as this is the name by which he is widely known. Sóetsu is the On-yomi pronunciation of the Chinese character for Muneyoshi. 2 Yanagi 1981, 1: 525. 3 The terms ‘Orient’ and ‘Occident’ are used in terms of Said’s notions of manmade, cultural ﬁctitious entities, and these are the constructs within which Yanagi lived and worked. The term ‘Euramerica’ coined by John Clark is used in the post-colonial context. 4 Bhabha 1990, 1994. 5 Sakai 1997. 6 Chen 1995. 7 Tanaka 1993. 8 Moeran 1989, 1997.

1 Orientalism: the foundation of Mingei theory 1 Yanagi meant Ruskin and Morris as one type of predecessor and the Japanese tea masters as the other. 2 Yanagi 1981, Kógei no Michi: ‘Kógei Biron no Senkusha ni tsuite’ (On the Predecessors of Craft Aesthetic Theorists), 8: 194–195. 3 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kógei Bunka’ (Craft Culture), 9: 346. 4 Yanagi 1981, ‘Mingei Undó wa Nani o Kiyoshitaka’ (What was the Contribution by the Mingei Movement?), 10: 3. 5 Mokujiki Shónin was a travelling monk (1718–1810) who carved wooden Buddhas as he travelled all over Japan. 6 Yanagi 1984: 347. 7 Ibid., 341. 8 This period was probably around 1924–7. 9 Yanagi 1984, 346. 10 Tonomura 1973. 11 Jugaku 1934. 12 Tsurumi 1987 (1976). 13 Okamura 1991. 14 Idekawa 1988. 15 Takasaki 1979, 1991. 16 Moeran 1980, 1997. 17 Ajioka 1995.

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18 Brandt 1996. 19 School of writers including Mushanokóji Saneatsu, Shiga Naoya, three Arishima brothers: Arishima Takeo, Arishima Ikuma, and Satomi Ton, Yanagi Sóetsu, Kinoshita Rigen, Sonoike Kinyuki, Kojima Kikuo, Nagayo Yoshiró, Kóri Torahiko who were all from Gakushúin Kótóka. They published the magazine Shirakaba, the combined outgrowth of the School’s three small magazines, literary clubs magazines, from 1910 to 1923. 20 Yanagi 1981, ‘Onshi Hattori Sensei’ (My Teacher Mr Hattori), 1: 463. 21 Yanagi’s letter to Shiga Naoya dated 19 July 1909, describing Metchnikoff as ‘not a dry scientist, who treats both values of the body and soul as equal’, Yanagi 1981, 21 jó: 11. 22 Móri 1995. 23 Woolf 1969, 56, 87. 24 Tsurumi 1987(1976), 96–119. 25 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kagaku to Jinsei’ (Science and Life), 1: 126. 26 Ibid., 139. 27 Myókónin, a term used in the Pure Land School of Buddhism, are the humblest and the purest believers, particularly rich in faith, among the Pure Land believers. Most of them are from the lowest social class. 28 This is Suzuki’s own romanisation of his name. 29 Yanagi 1981, ‘Gakushúin no Koto’ (About Gakushúin School), 1: 467. 30 Ibid., 359. 31 Sumiya 1982; Kósaka 1974. 32 Analysis of Nishida’s ideas in his writings is concisely explained in Odin 1987. 33 Chokkan has several English translations, such as ‘intuition’ in Yanagi 1954; ‘the seeing eye’ in Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972) and ‘direct perception’ in Moeran 1984 and his other articles. 34 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 229. 35 The translations and explanations were made by Leach in ‘The Buddhist Idea of Beauty’ in Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972) which was adapted from Yanagi’s original paper, ‘Buddhists’ Idea of Beauty’ presented in 1952 at the conference in Dartington. 36 Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letter to Shiga Naoya dated 19 July 1909, 21 jó: 11. 37 Yanagi’s copy of Bergson 1911, 158. It is collected in the Japan Folk Crafts Museum archive. 38 Ibid., 282. 39 Ibid., 187. 40 Gotlieb 1988. 41 Yanagi 1981, ‘Wiriamu Bréku’ (William Blake), 4: 321–322. 42 Yanagi 1981, ‘Shúkyó to sono Shinri’ (Religion and Its Truth), 2: 292. One of the earliest and most powerful expressions of the ‘via negativa’ is found in Mystical Theology by Dionysius, the pseudo-Areopagite (500–?). 43 Ibid., 2: 15. 44 They are summarised as the six methods practised in Oriental ideas in his article ‘Sokunyo no Shujunaru Rikaidó’ (Various Ways to Know Sokunyo) published in 1919, Yanagi 1981, 2: 319–381. 45 Yanagi used the word ‘chokkan’ for the ﬁrst time in the article ‘Tetsugaku ni okeru Tenperamento’ (Temperament in Philosophy) in 1913, having developed this concept during the period when he was studying Blake. 46 Yanagi translated ‘sokunyo’ as ‘the Implicit’, Yanagi 1981, 2: 551 and Leach translated as ‘the relationship in which the particular implies and equates with Unity’, Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 229. Both terms ‘soku’ and ‘nyo’ are Buddhist terms but were combined by Yanagi as a new word. 47 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 110.

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48 Ibid., 130. 49 See note 19 in Chapter 1. 50 Yanagi, 1981, Yanagi’s letters to Nakajima Kaneko dated July and 5 September 1911, 21 jó: 44, 48. 51 Six original letters in German dated remain in Worpsweder Archiv der Aarkenhoff-Stiftung. Two letters (one not in Worpsweder Archiv) were published in Shirakaba, 2–12 (1911); 3–10 (1912) with Yanagi’s translation. Copies of six letters in Worpsweder Archiv and translation of seven letters are in Elze et al. 2000, 184–186. 52 Elze et al. 2000, Yanagi’ s letter to Vogeler dated 25 December 1911, 184–185. 53 Ibid. 54 Shirakaba, 3–10 (1912). 55 Shirakaba, 2–12 (1911). 56 Editor, ‘Verupusuvéde no Gaka’ (An Artist of Worpswede), Shirakaba, 2–12 (1911): 105. 57 Yanagi 1981, ‘Fógerá‚ no Geijutsu’ (Vogeler’s Art), 1: 520–528. 58 For Vogeler’s reception in Japan, see Iwashita Masayoshi ‘Hainrihhi Fógerá to Sono Jidai’ (Heinrich Vogeler and his Time) in Elze et al. 2000. 59 Shirakaba, 2–12 (1911). 60 Elze et al. 2000, 185. 61 Yanagi 1981, ‘Fógerá no Sakuhin Kakaku’ (Price List of Vogeler’s Works), 1: 533. 62 Elze et al. 2000, 185. 63 Though the Post-Impressionists’ works initially caused a sensation and outraged the English public, they soon became the Modernist icons. See Robins 1997. 64 C. Lewis Hind was an editor of The Studio. 65 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kakumei no Gaka’ (Revolutionary Painters), 1: 567. 66 Yanagi 1981, ‘Van·Gooho ni kansuru Chosho’ (Books on Van Gogh), 1: 577. 67 Moriguchi 1941, 97. 68 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kakumei no Gaka’ (Revolutionary Painters), 1: 513–567. 69 Yanagi 1981, ‘Van·Gooho ni kansuru Chosho’ (Books on Van Gogh), 1: 578. 70 Tanaka 1998. 71 For example, the part on Strindberg and Gauguin, where Strindberg says he cannot accept Gauguin’s art though he has his own ‘immense yearning to become a savage and create a new world’ and Gauguin responds saying ‘your civilization is your disease, my barbarism is my restoration to health’ can be found in Meier-Graefe 1908, 62; Hind 1911, 35, and Rutter 1910, 32–33. 72 Yanagi 1981, ‘Van·Gooho ni kansuru Chosho’ (Books on Van Gogh), 1: 577. 73 Rutter 1910, 42. 74 Robins 1997, 10. 75 Roger Fry is a painter and an eminent art critic of the Bloomsbury group and also a leader of the Omega Workshops which opened in 1913 as a PostImpressionist inspired experimental enterprise for interior design projects. 76 Yanagi 1981, ‘Anri Matisu to Kóki Inshó-ha’ (Henri Matisse and the PostImpressionists), 1: 706–716. Grafton Galleries 1910–1911: 7–13. 77 Takamura Kótaró was a son of the eminent sculptor Takamura Kóun and an elder brother of Takamura Toyochika who established an avant-garde craftsmen’s group Mukei (Formless). Kótaró became an eminent poet and sculptor after studying in Tokyo, New York, London and Paris. His Modernist manifesto ‘Midori no Taiyó’ (The Green Sun) was published in Subaru 1910. 78 Yanagi 1981, ‘Ríchi’ (Leach), 14: 77–82. 79 Leach 1985 (1978), 74. (Though I suspect this is a confusion in Leach’s memory since the ﬁrst exhibition organised by the Shirakaba group, an exhibition of paintings by Minami Kunzó and Arishima Ikuma, was in July 1910).

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80 Yanagi 1981, ‘Abiko kara Tsúshin 1’ (Letter from Abiko 1), 1: 338–9; ‘Ríchi’ (Leach), 14: 79–80. 81 Leach 1985 (1978), 53. 82 Moeran 1989. 83 An author, translator and teacher of English language and literature who was born in Greece, of Anglo-Irish and Greek parents. His books with their exotic, romantic view of Japan greatly inﬂuenced Westerners’ views on Japan in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. 84 de Waal 1997a, 33; 1997b, 72. 85 Tomimoto 1912b. 86 Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letter to Leach dated 19 May 1912, 21 jó: 66. 87 Kawada 2002. 88 Leach n.d. This information was given by Emmanuel Cooper. 89 ‘That time’ means his six years at the Roman Catholic School after coming back from Hong Kong. 90 Translation from the transcribed lecture by Leach in broken Japanese, published in Leach 1921, 2. 91 Leach 1985 (1978), 66. 92 Leach 1981 (1975), 26. 93 Ibid., 24. 94 Yanagi/Leach, 1989 (1972), 94. 95 I am grateful to Mr S. Yamamoto, Acting-Director of the Tomimoto Kenkichi Memorial Museum, for the information about Tomimoto. 96 Although the South Kensington Museum ofﬁcially became the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899, Tomimoto refers to it as the ‘South Kensington Museum’ in his writings in the early twentieth century. 97 Some of these drawings are currently kept in the Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. 98 All Tomimoto’s works mentioned here are compiled in Tomimoto 1981. 99 Tomimoto 1981, 445–446. 100 Tomimoto’s unpublished letter to Leach in 1911, from the archive of the Tomimoto Kenkichi Memorial Museum. 101 Seitósha (Blue Stocking) was established in 1911 by Hiratsuka Raichó and four other women writers. It was the ﬁrst feminist literary group in Japan to manifest the liberation of women. Otake Kazue contributed essays, poems and illustrations for Seitó magazine using a male sounding pen name Kókichi. 102 Tomimoto 1981, 458–471, 447–457. 103 Tomimoto 1981, 447–457. 104 Fiona MacCarthy and Edmund de Waal also pointed out Josef Hoffmann’s inﬂuence on Tomimoto’s chairs. 105 Advertisements of Tomimoto’s Design Ofﬁce can only be seen in Takujó, 3, August 1914 and 4, October 1914. 106 Shirakaba, 3–4 (1912): 141. 107 Shirakaba, 4–10 (1913): 276. 108 Shirakaba 5–2 (1914): 165. 109 Shirakaba 5–3 (1914): 117. 110 Criticising Rodin’s work set in front of Pantheon in Paris, in Tomimoto 1911. 111 Yanagi 1981, ‘Tomimoto-kun no Tóki’ (Timoto’s Pottery), 14: 150. 112 Tomimoto 1981, 272–278. 113 However it is said that this action taken by Tomimoto did not reﬂect his positive commitment to this. 114 Tomimoto coined the term minkan geijutsu (Tomimoto 1981, 478) and Yanagi and his friends coined the term mingei. Min of minkan and mingei means

Notes

115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125

126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137

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people, and the gei of geijutsu means art. Both minkan geijutsu and mingei mean the ‘art of the people’ and folk art. Bungei 1992, 245–295. For Tolstoy and Kropotkin’s relationship to Ruskin see Kawabata 1997. For the ‘agrarian myth’ see Gluck 1985, 178–204. Mizue 1920; Geijutsu Jiyú Kyóiku 1921; Kógei Jidai 1927. For Ruskin’s reception in Japan, see Kikuchi 1993; Kikuchi and Watanabe 1997. Shumiteki or ‘aesthetic’ in the title of this article is taken from A. ComptonRickett’s categorisation of Morris as ‘the aesthetic reformer’ in ComptonRickett 1913. For Morris’s reception in Japan, see Makino, Shinagawa and Ito 1991; Nakayama 1996; Ajioka 1998. Murobuse 1920, 40. Murobuse 1923, 154. Ueda 1985, 365–366. Scott, T., A Bibliography of the Works of William Morris, Geo. Bell & Sons, 1897 (1st ed.). Mackail, J. W., The Life of William Morris, 2 vols., Longmans, Green and Co., 1899 (1st ed.). Morris, W., Architecture, Industry and Wealth, Collected Papers, Longmans, Green and Co., 1902 (1st ed.). Valance, Aymer, William Morris; His Art his Writings and his Public Life, George Belland Sons, 1909, (with a note given to Ókuma from Uchida on Feb. 20, 1927). Cook, E. T., The Life of Ruskin, 2 vols., George Allen & Unwin, 1912. Clutton-Brock, A., William Morris: His Work and Inﬂuence, Thornton Butterworth, Ltd. 1921. Penty, A., Post-Industrialism, George Allen & Unwin, 1922 (1st ed.). Penty, A., Towards a Christian Sociology, George Allen & Unwin, 1923 (1st ed.). Penty, A., A Guildsman’s Interpretation of History, George Allen & Unwin, 1923. Sparling, H. H., The Kelmscott Press and William Morris Master-Craftsman, Macmillan, 1924 (1st ed.). Ruskin, J./ translated by Ishida, K., Kono Saigo no Mono nimo (Unto This Last), Kóbundó, 1924. Ruskin, J., The Stones of Venice, 3 vols, George Allen & Unwin, 1925. Wright, W.M.P./Penty, A., Agriculture and the Unemployed, Labour Publishing, 1925 (1st ed.). Penty, A., Protection and the Social Problem, Methuen, 1926 (1st ed.). Helmholtz-Phelan, A.A., The Social Philosophy of William Morris, Duke University Press 1927 (1st ed.). Ball, A.H.R., William Morris Prose Selection, Cambridge University Press, 1931 (1st ed.). Scott, E.H., Ruskin’s Guild of St George, Methuen, 1931 (1st ed.). Tokyo Wiriamu Morisu Kenkyúkai, Morisu Shoshi (Bibliography on Morris), Maruzen, 1934. Morris, M. ed., William Morris, Artist Writer Socialist, 2 vols, Basil Blackwell, 1936. Jugaku 1980, 235. Ruskin/Cook and Wedderburn 1903–12, The Stones of Venice Vol. II, 10: 194. Morris, W. /Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘The Art of the People’, 22: 42. Morris, W. /Morriss, M. 1910–14, ‘Useful Work and Useless Toil’ 23: 99. Ruskin/Cook and Wedderburn 1903–12, ‘General Statement Explaining the Nature and Purposes of St George’s Guild’, 30: 58–59. Ruskin/Cook and Wedderburn 1903–12, Fors Clavigera Letter 58, 30: 45. Ruskin/Cook and Wedderburn 1903–12, ‘General Statement Explaining the Nature and Purpose of St George’s Guild’, 30: 51–52. Letter from Edward Carpenter to Walt Whitman in 1877, quoted in Barnes 1985, 7. Ruskin/Cook and Wedderburn 1903–12, ‘Letter in the Times, March 6’, 1883, 30: 317. Ruskin/Cook and Wedderburn 1903–12, ‘The Master’s Report 1881’, 30: 39. Ruskin’s unpublished letter to Edward Tozer, the Mayor of Shefﬁeld on 10 February 1881, 4–5. St George’s Museum was visited by many people around the country including Prince Leopold, the youngest son of Queen Victoria. Many papers and

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138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176

Notes magazines publicised the museum. See for example, The Shefﬁeld Daily Telegraph 1876, 1883; Art Journal 1882; The Gentleman’s Magazine 1888; Magazine of Art 1888; The Daily Graphic 1890; Holmes 1892. Ruskin’s projects in Shefﬁeld, see also Barnes 1985; Heeley’s History Workshop in Shefﬁeld 1987. Mushanokóji 1955, 361. Ibid., 356. Ibid., 359. Ibid., 364. Ibid., 367. Ibid., 361. Ibid., 365. Yanagi 1981, ‘Kore wa Fukai Shigoto no Hitotsu da’ (This is a Signiﬁcant Work), 1: 373. Ibid., 1: 376. Mushanokóji 1927, 8: 1; Ruskin/Cook and Wedderburn 1903–12, Sesame and Lilies, 18: 186–187. Ruskin/Naitó 1921, 16–17; Ruskin/Cook and Wedderburn 1903–12, Modern Painters, 3(5): 382–384. Ruskin/Naitó 1921, 17–18; Ruskin/Cook and Wedderburn 1903–12, Modern Painters, 5(7): 214–215. Ruskin/Kimura 1918. Kimura 1918, 28. Carpenter/Nagashima 1921, 2–6; Carpenter 1899 (1898), 211–212, 217– 218, 223–224, 232, 233–234. Carpenter/Nagashima 1922, 5–1: 8–12; 5–4: 3–8; Carpenter 1887, 141–142, 87–88, 70–71, 15–16, 3–8. Until modern times, prints were created by a team of artists, engravers and printers working in co-operation. Sósaku hanga are created by one artist who follows through the whole process, thus allowing for more original creative ideas. Yamamoto 1991b (1921), 56. Quoting from Ozaki 1975, 294. Yamamoto probably took the idea of shirakabamaki from the birch-bark box as created in the Talashkino workshop in Russia. Prospectus and guidelines for applicants, see Nihon Nómin Bijutsu Kenkyújo 1922, 1923. Nihon Nómin Bijutsu Kenkyújo 1923, 2. Yamamoto 1927, 14–15. For detailed information about Princess Tenisheva and the Talashkino Workshops, see Salmond 1996, 115–143. Yamamoto 1924a, 11. Yamamoto 1991a (1921), 165. Ibid., 150. Adachi 1924, 2–15. Takizawa 1924, 15–18. Tsurumi 1992 (1976), 46. ‘Marginal art’ is Tsurumi’s own translation. Ibid., 13. The translation is by Mallory Blake Fromm 1980, 1984. Itó Katsumi’s recollection cited in Kawabata 1984, 33. Onda 1961, 2727–2734. Kawabata 1984, 21–35. Ishida 1974, 75–83. Saitó 1991, 483–495. Tada 1981, 64–78. Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘Useful Work Versus Useless Toil’, 23: 98.

Notes

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177 This is probably quoted but slightly changed from the original ‘art is the expression by man of his pleasure in labour’ in Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘The Art of the People’, 22: 42. However according to Ueda Akira, Miyazawa quotes this not directly from Morris’s writings but from Murobuse Kóshin’s Bunmei no Botsuraku, see Ueda 1985, 357–384. 178 I do not agree with Fromm that these quotes are summary of News from Nowhere, Fromm 1984, 131. 179 Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘Useful Work Versus Useless Toil’, 23: 112. 180 Ibid., 23: 99. 181 Ibid., 23: 99. 182 Ibid., 23: 112. 183 Ibid., 23: 100. 184 Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘How We Live and How We Might Live’, 23: 25. 185 Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘Useful Work Versus Useless Toil’, 23: 112. 186 Ibid., 23: 113. 187 Ibid., 23: 114. 188 Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘How We Live and How We Might Live’, 23: 23. 189 Fromm 1984, ii. 190 Ibid., vii. 191 Ibid., iv. 192 Ibid., iii. 193 Ibid., vi-vii. 194 Ruskin/Cook and Wedderburn 1903–12, Unto This Last, 17: 105. 195 Fromm 1984, ix. 196 Ibid., viii-ix. 197 Ibid., ii. 198 Ibid., ix. 199 Ibid., iii. 200 See Inoue 1992. 201 Onda 1961, 2730–2731. 202 Horisawa 1984, 60–62. 203 Bungei Shunjú ed. 1991, 145. 204 Miyazawa 1990 (1980), ‘Haru to Shura’ (Spring and Asura), 1: 234. 205 See the beginning of Chapter 1. 206 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kógei Biron no Senkusha ni tsuite’ (On the Predecessors of Craft Aesthetic Theorists) 8: 194–208. 207 Tea and tea drinking originated in China in the eighth century, encouraged by Lu Wu, a Chinese poet who formulated the Code of Tea in his book Chajing (The Holy Scripture of Tea). Tea drinking was brought into Japan from China around the eighth century and was later developed as a kind of tea drinking ritual among Zen Buddhist monks in the thirteenth century. But by the sixteenth century, largely inﬂuenced by Zen Buddhism and aesthetically reﬁned under the great tea masters, namely Sen no Rikyú, the Way of Tea or the Cult of Tea cultivated spiritual and philosophical aesthetic ideas of ‘harmony, reverence, purity and tranquillity.’ See also pages 40–42 and 202–205 for further discussions on the tea aesthetic and Yanagi’s thought. Later in 1950, Yanagi expressed his discontent with the comparison between Sen no Rikyú and him given by others as a compliment by boasting that his work surpassed Rikyú’s and his attitude is genuine unlike Rikyú who was a political animal chasing money and power. Yanagi 1981, ‘Rikyú to Watashi’ (Rikyú and I), 17: 114–123. 208 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kógei Biron no Senkusha ni tsuite’ (On the Predecessors of Craft Aesthetic Theorists) 8: 205–206. 209 Guth 1993.

254

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210 Yanagi’s criticism on modern chanoyu becomes clearly articulated particularly in his writings after the Second World War. 211 These two articles are adapted by Leach in English in The Unknown Craftsman as ‘The Way of Tea’ and ‘The Kizaemon Tea-bowl’ respectively. 212 As for ‘chokkan’, see also note 33 in Chapter 1; Yanagi’s praise are found in his publications as early as 1926, see Yanagi 1981, ‘Getemono no Bi’ (The Beauty of Getemono), 8: 13–14. 213 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 193. 214 Ibid., 184. 215 Ibid., 192–193. 216 Ibid., 184.

2 Appropriation of Orientalism 1 Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letter to Bernard Leach dated 22 July 1922, 21 jó (part 1): 631. 2 Yanagi 1981, ‘Chúseiki no Geijutsu’ (Art in the Middle Ages), 1: 615. 3 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kondo no Sashie ni tsuite’ (On the Illustrations in This Issue), 1: 588. 4 Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letter to Tanaka Kisaku dated 25 March 1923, 21 jó: 251. 5 Yanagi 1981, ‘Mokujiki Gogyó Shónin no Kenkyú’ (The Studies on Mokujiki Gogyó Shónin), 7: 103. 6 Ibid., 74–75. 7 Ibid., 104. 8 Ibid., 103. 9 Yanagi 1981, ‘Shónin Saku Shúso Zó’ (The Iconography of Shónin), 7: 405. 10 These English translations were given by Yanagi himself. 11 Yanagi 1981, ‘Enkú Butsu to Mokujiki Butsu’ (Buddhas carved by Enkú and Buddhas carved by Mokujiki), 7: 583. 12 Ibid., 585. 13 Yanagi translated Mâle/Mathews 1984 (1898), 3–23, 400–402. 14 Ajioka 1995, 275–278. 15 Mâle/Mathews 1984 (1898), 7; Yanagi 1981, ‘Chúseiki no Geijutsu’, 1: 602–603. 16 Jarrett 1926, 236–268. 17 Ibid., 238. 18 Ibid., 244. 19 Ibid., 238. 20 Ibid., 242. 21 Ibid., 243. 22 Ibid., 244. 23 Ibid., 245. 24 Ibid., 238. 25 Ibid., 255. 26 Ibid., 263. 27 Mâle/Mathews 1984 (1898), 402; Yanagi 1981, ‘Chúseiki no Geijutsu’, 1: 615. 28 Jarrett 1926, 248. 29 Ibid., 249. 30 Yanagi 1981, ‘Shónin no Rei ni Tsugu’ (Talking to Shónin’s Soul), 7: 281; ‘Mokujiki Shónin no Iseki o Zenkoku ni Chósashite’ (Travelling around Japan to Carry Out the Research on Mokujiki Shónin’s Work), 7: 391. 31 Yanagi 1981, ‘Mokujiki Gogyó Shónin Ryakuden’ (A Short Biography of Mokujiki Gogyó Shónin), 7: 233; ‘Kenkyú Zasshi no Kankó ni tsuite’ (On the Publication of a Journal), 7: 302; ‘Mokujiki Shónin no Iseki o Zenkoku ni Chósashite’, 7: 390. 32 Yanagi 1981, ‘Shónin no Rei ni Tsugu’, 7: 281.

Notes

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33 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kenkyú Zasshi no Kankó ni tsuite’, 7: 302–303. 34 Yanagi 1981, ‘Getemono no Bi’ (The Beauty of Getemono), 8: 13. 35 Yanagi 1981, ‘Nihon Mingei Bijutsukan Setsuritsu Shuisho’ (A Proposal for the Establishment of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum), 16: 6. 36 Yanagi’s letter to Hamada Shóji dated 6 September 1929, Yanagi 1981, 21 jó (part 1): 371. 37 Yanagi’s letter to Bernard Leach dated 15 September 1929, Yanagi 1981, 21 jó (part 1): 594. 38 Yanagi 1981, 8: 482–508. The term ‘the criterion of beauty’ is taken from Bernard Leach’s usage in Leach 1976 (1940), 7. 39 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kógei no Michi’ (The Way of Crafts), 8: 61–279; The diagram in Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 198–199 was translated from Yanagi 1981, 8: 211. 40 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 198. 41 Ibid., 210. 42 Ibid., 198. 43 Ibid. 44 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kógei no Michi’ (The Way of Crafts), 8: 211. 45 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 198. 46 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kógei no Michi’ (The Way of Crafts), 8: 211. 47 Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘The Lesser Arts’, 22: 4. 48 Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘Some Hints on Pattern-designing’, 22: 180. 49 Yanagi 1981, ‘Mashiko no Edobin’ (Decorated Teapots of Mashiko), 12: 323. 50 Ibid., 318. 51 Ibid., 317. 52 Yanagi 1981, ‘Getemono no Bi’, 8: 13. 53 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 205. 54 Ibid., 206. 55 Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘Art and the Beauty of the Earth’, 22: 166. 56 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 198. 57 Ibid., 197. 58 Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘The Lesser Arts’, 22: 23. 59 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 210. 60 Ruskin/Cook and Wedderburn 1903–12, ‘The Nature of Gothic’, 10: 209. 61 Ibid., 211. 62 Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘The Lesser Arts of Life’, 22: 240. 63 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 214–215. 64 Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘The Lesser Arts’, 22: 4. 65 Yanagi 1981, ‘Zakki no Bi’ (The Beauty of Ordinary Objects), 8: 19. 66 Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘The Lesser Arts’, 22: 24. 67 Morris, ‘Textiles’, 1893 in Naylor ed. 1990 (1988), 215. 68 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 135. 69 Yanagi 1952b, 22. 70 Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘The Lesser Arts’, 22: 20. 71 Yanagi 1981, ‘Ningyó to Ningen’ (Dolls and Human Beings), 9: 168. 72 Ruskin/Cook and Wedderburn 1903–12, ‘The Nature of Gothic’, 10: 184. 73 Ibid., 10: 209. 74 Ibid., 10: 180. 75 Bernard Leach translated as ‘austere’, ‘subdued’, ‘restrained’ in Yanagi/Leach, 148. 76 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 123. 77 Ibid., 203. 78 Ibid., 204–205. 79 Ibid., 205. 80 Yanagi 1981, ‘Mumeihin no Kachi ni tsuite’ (On the Value of Unsigned Works), 14: 31.

256 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120

121

Notes Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘The Art of the People’, 22: 42. Yanagi 1952b, 22. Ibid. Morris, W./Morris, M. 1910–14, ‘The Lesser Arts’, 22: 12. Bernard Leach translated as ‘state of going beyond all forms of dualism’ in Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 228. Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 203–204. Ibid., 200. Ibid., 110. Ibid., 112. Ibid., 212. ‘Communion’ is Yanagi’s translation of ‘Kyódan’. Koseki 1996. Yanagi 1981, ‘Kóetsu Ron’ (Thoughts on Kóetsu), 17: 221–232. See Nakami 1993–1994 for Yanagi’s absorption of Guild Socialism by Kropotkin and Penty. Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 208. Ibid., 198–199. Yanagi 1981, ‘Mingeikan ni tsuite’ (On the Japan Folk Crafts Museum), 16: 13. Yanagi’s letter to Hamada dated 27 September 1928, asking him to make the tiles in Mashiko, Yanagi 1981, 21 jó: 338. Hamada 1933, 37–43. Hatakeyama 1997a, 7. Hatakeyama also pointed out that the inﬂuence of Art Deco and Constructivism prevailed in Japan during that time, Hatakeyama 1997a, 7. Yurugi and Nagata eds, 1997. Ueda 1992, 135–138; Yoshida/Tottori Mingei Kyókai 1998, 151–152, 156–160. Kanatani 1996. Kógei Nyúsu 1935. Yoshida/Tottori Mingei Kyókai 1998, 175. Yoshida/Tottori Mingei Kyókai 1998, 176. Kihachijó kimono is a yellow and black/brown plaid silk kimono famous in Hachijó Island. Tominaga 1981. Further discussions on Miyake are found on page 208. Yoshida/Tottori Mingei Kyókai 1998, 175–182. Shirakaba editors 1917. The English translation for ‘Chósen Minzoku Bijutsukan’ was given by Yanagi in Yanagi 1981, 21 jó: 635. See pages 126–130 for further information on Korean Folk-arts Gallery. Kumakura 1978, 122. Yanagi 1981, 21 jó: 596. Yanagi 1981, ‘Mingeikan no Shimei’ (The Mission of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum), 16: 71. Yanagi 1981, ‘Nihon Mingei Kyókai no Seiritsu’ (The Establishment of the Japan Folk Crafts Association), 16: 362. Mizuo 1992, 178. Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson (1848–1922), a printer and book-binder, also a founder of Doves Press. Yoshida/Tottori Mingei Kyókai 1998, 160. Ibid., 154. New design was created from the following source books: Pine Furniture of Early New England by Russell Hawes Kettell and Eikoku no Kógei (Crafts in Britain) by Ishimaru Shigeharu which were suggested by Yanagi, with Yoshida’s addition of a ‘original Japanese’ taste, Yoshida/Tottori Mingei Kyókai 1998, 238. Yanagi 1981, ‘Yoshida-kun no Susumikata’ (The Way of Mr Yoshida), 14: 404–418.

Notes

257

122 Yanagi 1981, ‘Mingei to Minzokugaku no Mondai’ (The Problem of Folkcrafts and Folklore Studies), 10: 734. 123 Yanagi 1981, ‘“Takumi” no Kaiten’ (The Opening of “Takumi”), 10: 445. 124 Yanagi 1981, ‘“Takumi” no Kaiten ni tsuite’ (On the Opening of “Takumi”), 10: 446. 125 Ibid., 448. 126 Harvey and Press 1991, 130. 127 Clifford 1988, 247. 128 Ibid., 224. 129 The several thousand Westerners were employed by the Japanese government in the Meiji period to provide expertise in various ﬁelds. For information of oyatoi gaikokujin, see Umetani, Yoshida, et al. 1968–1976; Burks ed. 1985; Beauchamp and Iriye eds. 1990. 130 Kósaka 1974, 392–399. 131 Shirakaba, 10–8 (1919). 132 Shirakaba, 11–2 (1920). 133 Shirakaba, 11–7 (1920). 134 Shirakaba, 13–9 (1922). 135 Shirakaba, 14–10 (1923). 136 Natsume 1981a, 508. 137 Natsume 1981b, 629–630. 138 Natsume Sóseki is normally known as Sóseki. 139 Quoted in Scott 1922, 100–101. 140 Two letters from Auguste Rodin dated 18 August and 17 September 1911 are published in Shirakaba, 3–2, 1912. 141 Shirakaba, 2–5 (1911). 142 Yanagi 1981, ‘Hon Shókai: Koizumi Yakumo, Tabe Ryúji cho’ (A Book Review: Koizumi Yakumo (Lafcadio Hearn) by Tabe Ryúji), 1: 330–331; ‘Chósen to Sono Geijutsu’ (Korea and Her Art), 6: 24; ‘Ríchi’ (Leach), 14: 79. 143 Yanagi 1981, ‘Abiko kara Tsúshin 1’ (A Letter from Abiko 1), 1: 335; 14: 79–80 etc. 144 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kógei to Bijutsu’ (Crafts and Fine Art), 8: 556. 145 Sató 1996a. 146 Inaga 1995, Izuhara 1989, Kitazawa 1989, Sató 1996a,b, etc. 147 Kinoshita 1993. 148 Izuhara 1989, 47–57; Iioka 1991; Sató 1996b. 149 For information on international exhibitions, see Conant 1991; Umetani, Yoshida et al. 1968–1976, 2: 74–96; Izuhara 1989, 57–61. 150 Kiritsu Kóshó Kaisha was a quasi-ofﬁcial company established in 1874, the year after the Vienna International Exhibition; they expanded their branch ofﬁces in New York in 1877 and Paris in 1878 during the peak of Japonisme in the West. 151 Sató 1996b, 175. 152 See Fujita 2001 for further details about Nótomi. 153 Tokyo Shokkó Gakkó changed its name to Tokyo Kógyó Gakkó (Tokyo School of Technology) in 1890, then Tokyo Kótó Kógyó Gakkó (Tokyo Higher School of Technology) in 1901, and ﬁnally to Tokyo Kógyó Daigaku (Tokyo Institute of Technology) since 1929. 154 See Higa and Miyazaki 1996 for information about Ishikawa Prefectural School of Technology. 155 See Izuhara 1989 and Sató 1996a, 1996b for general information about schools of kógyó and kógei. 156 See Fujita 2001 for detailed curriculum of Kanazawa Kógyó Gakkó, Toyamaken Kógei Gakkó and Kagawa-ken Kógei Gakkó. 157 As for details of this transitional period, see Ajioka 1995, particularly Chapter 3.

258

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158 Principal of the Tokyo Advanced School of Industry, one of the leading authorities in the ﬁeld of industrial technology at that time. 159 Head of the Dept. of Design in the Tokyo Advanced School of Industry. 160 Nó Shómushó Bijutsu Kógei Tenrankai (Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce Art Crafts Exhibition) renamed Nó Shómushó Kógei Tenrankai (Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce Craft Exhibition) in 1918, then changed to Shókóshó Kógei Tenrankai (Ministry of Commerce and Industry Craft Exhibition) in 1925 and continued until 1939. 161 See Matsudo shi Kyóiku Iinkai Bijutsukan Junbishitsu and Mori 1996 and 1998 for the detailed history of Tokyo Kótó Kógei Gakkó (Tokyo Higher School of Arts and Technology). 162 Recently much academic research and many exhibitions have been produced in Japan regarding the New Craft movement, such as Tokyo Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan 1988; Izuhara 1989; Sezon Bijutsukan 1990; Mie Kenritsu Bijutsukan 1995, 1996; Hokkaidóritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, Takamatsu shi Bijutsukan et al. eds 1996; Matsudo shi Kyóiku Iinkai Bijutsukan Junbishitsu and Mori 1996 and 1998; Tokyo Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan 1983, etc. 163 Kógei Jidai 1 (1926): 2–3. 164 Takamura 1996. 165 Tsuchida 1996, 230; Takamura 1926. 166 Ajioka 1995, 174. 167 Yanagi 1981, Kógei no Michi: ‘Tadashiki Kógei’ (Correct Crafts), 8: 97. 168 Izuhara 1989. 112. 169 It seems that Yanagi was totally unaware of this fact until around 1933 when he published ‘Kógei to Bijutsu’ (Craft and Art), Yanagi 1981, 8: 561 and had not fully absorbed the implications of it until around 1942 when he published ‘Kógei Bunka’ (Craft Culture), Yanagi 1981, 9: 362. 170 Alcock 1863, 2: 280. 171 Alcock 1878, 103. 172 Ibid., 250–252. 173 Conant 1991, 80. 174 Kitazawa 1989, 1991, Sató 1996b, Clark 1986, etc. 175 Kitazawa 1989, 258–263. 176 Okakura 1979–1981, ‘Sho wa Bijutsu narasu no Ron o Yomu’ (Reading the article about calligraphy as non-art), 3: 7. 177 Okakura 1979–1981, ‘Bijutsu Kyóiku Shisetsu ni tsuki Iken’ (Opinions about Institutions of Art Education), 3: 388. 178 See Tanaka 1993, 47–49. 179 François Guizot’s History of Civilisation (1857–81) and Thomas Buckle’s History of Civilisation in England (1857–61) were widely used for history textbooks. See also Tanaka 1993, 39–40. 180 Tanaka 1993. 181 Ibid., 108. 182 Ibid. 183 Sakamoto 1996. 184 Okakura Nakamura 1984, ‘The Ideals of the East’, 1: 13. 185 Ibid., 1: 14. 186 Okakura Nakamura 1984, ‘The Awakening of the East’, 1: 160. 187 Okakura Nakamura 1984, ‘The Ideals of the East’, 1: 15–16. 188 Sató 1996b, 123. 189 Itó 1909. 190 Inoue 1994, 63–68. 191 Itó 1909, 21. 192 Itó 1893.

Notes 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231

259

Inoue 1994, 38–43. Taut/Shinoda 1943, 341. Taut 1936, 18–19. Taut/Hirai 1934, 26. Taut 1936. A letter to Yanagi Sóetsu (1934) in Taut/Shinoda 1943, 439; ‘Kógei’ (Crafts) in Taut/Shinoda, 1943, 122. ‘Sendai Kokuritsu Kógei Shidósho ni taisuru Teian’ (A Proposal to Sendai National Industrial Arts Research Institute (IARI)) in Taut/Shinoda 1943, 385–390; Shóji 1997. Taut/Shinoda 1943, 320. Ibid., 311. Ibid., 137–138. Ibid., 509. Ibid., 251. Campbell 1978, 124. Taut/Mizuhara 1992, 4. Taut/Shinoda 1943, 436–450. Ibid., 354–355. Ibid., 164, 354, 448, 450. Kógei Nyúsu 1936, 459. Perriand/Sakakura 1941a, 30. Perriand/Sakakura 1941b. Perriand/Sakakura 1941a, 31. Perriand/Sakakura 1941b, 5. Ibid., 10. Benton 1998, 34–35. Kógei Nyúsu 1941c. Ibid., 187–188. Yanagi 1981, ‘Getemono no Bi’ (The Beauty of Getemono), 8: 13. Yanagi 1981, ‘Mingei to Kokuminsei’ (Folkcrafts and National Characteristics), 10: 459. For example, Yanagi 1981, ‘Getemono no Bi’ (The Beauty of Getemono), 8: 13; Yanagi 1981, ‘Kenkyú Zasshi no Kankó ni tsuite’ (On the Publication of a Journal), 7: 302–303. Yanagi 1981, ‘Seikatsu Kógei kara Mita Tairiku to Nihon’ (The [Asian] Continent and Japan from the View Point of Folkcrafts), 10: 474; Yanagi 1981, ‘Mingei to Tóhoku’ (Mingei and the North-East), 9: 547–548. Mino is a peasant’s raincoat in the shape of cape, made of woven strings of straw, hemp, paper, etc. Yanagi 1981, ‘Teshigoto no Nihon’ (Japan – A Nation of Handicrafts), 11: 72–74; Yanagi 1981, ‘Sashie Ryakuchú – Mino no Rui 13 Zu’ (Notes for Illustrations – 13 Types of Mino), 11: 518. Kabazaiku is a craft made of cherry bark used for objects such as a cigarette case, tea caddy, ink stone box, tray. Yanagi 1981, ‘Yukiguni no Mino’ (Mino of the Snowbound Country), 11: 491–515; Yanagi 1981, ‘Mino ni tsuite’ (On Mino – Peasant’s Raincoat), 11: 634–638. Yanagi 1981, ‘Teshigoto no Nihon’ (Japan – A Nation of Handicrafts), 11: 60; Yanagi 1981, ‘Kabazaiku no Michi’ (The Way of Kabazaiku), 11: 524. Yanagi 1981, ‘Kabazaiku no Michi’ (The Way of Kabazaiku), 11: 523–533. Ibid. Brandt 1996, 184–204. Kitagawa 1993. One of the new kabazaiku products, a modern square shaped tea caddy, was used at the tea ceremony which Yanagi organised at the Japan Folk

260

232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242

243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255

Notes Crafts Museum in 1955 (see the illustration in Yanagi 1981, 17: 426). This ceremony was conducted according to Yanagi’s original interpretation of the tea ceremony. Tea utensils chosen for this tea ceremony are a mix and match of unconventional folkcrafts and new crafts. See further discussions on pages 202–205. Yanagi 1981, ‘Kabazaiku no Denshú’ (Workshop of Kabazaiku), 11: 534–538. Kitagawa 1993. Robertson 1998. Ivy 1995. Harada, Ozaki et al. eds, 1989–1991, 3: 308–309. Young 1998. Havens 1974, 135–140. Kunii 1935a, 1935b. Saitó 1943. Kógei Nyúsu 1942a, 294. Also see Kógei Nyúsu 1942b, 372–375 for the activities of the Institute of Kabazaiku. The ‘New Order’ is an abbreviation of the ‘New Order Movement’ which was imposed under the leadership of Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro. This movement included a series of political, economic, cultural, journalistic, and many other reforms to enforce national unity and raise national morale for the Second World War. Akazawa, Kitagawa and Yui eds 1985, 248–250. Kitagawa 1993, 209; Akazawa, Kitagawa and Yui eds 1985, 248. Yanagi 1981, ‘Chihósei no Bunka teki Kachi’ (The Cultural Value of Locality), 9: 233. Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letter to Jugaku Bunshó dated 26 February 1941, 21 chú: 209. Yanagi 1981, ‘Nihon Mingei Kyókai no Teian (Dan)’ (Japan Folkcrafts Association ‘Talk’), 9: 573–577. Nihon Mingei Kyókai 1940b. Yanagi 1981, ‘Shin Taisei to Kógei Bi no Mondai’ (The New Order and Problems of the Beauty of Crafts), 9: 242–261. Ibid., 261. Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letter to Kawai Kanjiró dated 20 April 1942 and to Yoshida Shógoró dated 22 April 1942, 21 chú: 237–238. Kitagawa 1993, 228–229. Kógei Nyúsu 1941d, 406. Yanagi 1981, ‘Mono to Bunka’ (Objects and Culture), 9: 316–319. Vlastos ed. 1998.

3 ‘Oriental Orientalism’ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Sakai, 1997, 162. Oguma 1998. Morris-Suzuki 1998, 159; Morris-Suzuki 2001. Hatada 1969, 36–39. Duus 1995; Myers and Peattie eds 1984; Tanaka 1993. Kuraya 1998, 8. Ibid., 6. Sekino 1941; Sekino 1910a, 1910b, 1910c. There are several opinions about the derivation of the name Ido; 1. Mr Ido of Yamato region owned this bowl, 2. Mr Ido, the governor of Wakasa region, owned the bowl, 3. From the shape of the bowl which is exceptionally deep, as deep as Ido (a well in another meaning), 4. From the place name, Ido, in Kyongsan Province, Korea, where this bowl came from.

Notes

261

10 The Chosön blue-and-white porcelain pots were highly valued in Japan; they are decorated with ﬂower and plant designs widely known as ‘autumn grass style’ (akikusade) – a term which Yanagi coined in his article ‘Kógei Bunka’ (Yanagi 1954, 3: 336). Idekawa Naoki argued that the kind of ﬂowers and the plants used for this design need not necessarily be autumn ones, because spring and summer plants such as plums, orchids and irises were also seen mixed with the autumn plants. However Yanagi deliberately used the term Akikusa to emphasise the sad feeling and the ‘beauty of sadness’ he perceived to be characteristics of Chosön pottery. See Idekawa 1988, 159–162. 11 Yanagi 1981, ‘Chósenjin o Omou’ (Sympathy toward the Koreans), 6: 23–32. 12 The English translation for ‘Chósen Minzoku Bijutsukan’ was given by Yanagi in Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letter to Leach dated 11 September 1921, 21 jó: 635. 13 This building used to exist outside the north gate of the Kyongbok-kun palace. 14 For example, Kaneko’s ﬁrst recital programme includes arias from ‘Mignon’ by Thomas, ‘Le Prophète’ by Meyerbeer, ‘Der Freischütz’ by Weber, ‘Il Trovatore’ by Verdi, ‘Carmen’ by Bizet and lieder by Schubert, Schumann and Strauss. 15 Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letter to Leach dated 14 December 1923, 21 jó (part 1): 617. 16 Takasaki 1979, 84; Takasaki 1991, 104. After Asakawa Takumi’s death in 1931, this museum was mostly closed to the public and opened to a few occasional visitors. The key of the museum was kept by Asakawa Noritaka and the museum was maintained by Yanagi and Asakawa’s friends in Seoul. During the Second World War, the collection of the museum was moved to Kunjongjon from Chipkyong-dang then moved to Minjok Pangmulgwan (Folklore Museum) and later was absorbed into the collection in Kungnip Jungang Pangmulgwan (National Museum of Korea) after the war (Takasaki 1991, 107). 17 Matsuhashi 1999, 99–118. 18 Akaboshi and Nakamaru 1975, 11, 49–50. 19 See note 33, Chapter 1. 20 Yanagi 1981, ‘Tójiki no Bi’ (Beauty of Ceramics), 12: 4. 21 Yanagi 1981, ‘Chósenjin o Omou’, 6: 27. 22 Yanagi 1981, ‘Chósen no Tomo ni Okuro Sho’ (A Letter to My Korean Friends), 6: 42–43. 23 Yanagi 1981, ‘Chósen no Bijutsu’ (The Art of Korea), 6: 102. 24 Ibid., 103. 25 Ibid., 104–105. 26 Ibid., 105. 27 Ibid., 107. 28 Ibid., 105. 29 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kare no Chósen Yuki’ (His Visit to Korea), 6: 69–70. 30 Kim 1999. 31 Yanagi 1981, ‘Chósen to sono Geijutsu’ (Korea and Her Art), 6: 159. 32 Ibid., 158. 33 Ibid., 161. 34 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kórai to Richó’ (Koryö and Chosön), 6: 363. 35 Yanagi 1981, ‘Chósen to sono Geijutsu’, 6: 165. 36 Yanagi 1981, ‘Richó Yómanroku’ (Essay on Chosön Ceramics), 6: 187. 37 Yanagi 1981, ‘Richó Tóji no Nanafushigi’ (Seven Wonders of Chosön Ceramics), 6: 530–543. 38 Yanagi 1981, ‘Chósen Jawan’ (Korean Tea Bowls), 6: 481–491. 39 Yanagi 1981, ‘Richó Tóji no Bi to sono Seishitsu’ (Beauty and Characteristics of Chosön Ceramics), 6: 519–529. 40 Ibid., 519. 41 Ibid.

262 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

Notes Yanagi 1981, ‘Chósen Jawan’, 6: 483. Brandt 1996, 67–68. Yanagi 1981, ‘Richó Tóji no Bi to sono Seishitsu’, 6: 519. Yanagi 1981, ‘Richó Tóji no Nanafushigi’, 6: 537. Ubukata 1961. Tsurumi 1987 (1976). Takasaki 1979. Idekawa 1988. Ch’oe 1974. Pak 1922. Ko 1931. Kye 1961; Kim 1961; Anonymous 1961. Kim, U. 1968. Kim, T. 1968. Kim, Yanggi 1975, 1977a, b, c, d. Lee 1978. Ch’oe 1974. Lee 1974; Kim 1977; Mun 1977. Cho 1989. Yanagi 1981, ‘Chósen no Tomo ni Okuru Sho’, 6: 38. Yanagi 1981, ‘Sekika ni tsuite’ (Concerning Becoming Red or a Communist), 1: 381–387; ‘Kenshó Shósetsu Boshú ni tsuite’ (Concerning Prize Award Contest of Novels), 6: 179–183; ‘Hihyó: Arekisandá Paueru ‘Nihon no Chósen Tóchi Seisaku’ o Hyósu’ (Review of Alexander Powell’s ‘Japan’s Policy in Korea’), 6: 184–186; ‘Nissen Mondai no Konnan ni tsuite’ (About Difﬁculties of the Problems between Japan and Korea), 6: 227–232 and ‘Chósen ni okeru Kyóiku nitsuite’ (About Education in Korea), 6: 233–239. Yanagi 1981, ‘Hihyó: Arekisandá Paueru ‘Nihon no Chósen Tóchi Seisaku’ o Hyósu’, 6: 186. Powell 1922. Alexander Powell (1879–1957) was a political analyst and a political editor specialising in foreign affairs for several newspapers and magazines in the USA and Britain. Yanagi 1981, ‘Chósenjin o Omou’, 6: 24. Yanagi 1981, ‘Chósen ni okeru Kyóiku ni tsuite’, 6: 228. Takasaki 1979, 99–102. Gompertz 1964, 1968. Hall 1818. Tomiyama 1994. Yanagi 1981, ‘Okinawa to Watashi’ (Okinawa and I), 15: 575–577. Yanagi 1981, 21 chú: 161–201. Yanagi 1981, ‘Naze Ryúkyú ni Dójin Ichidó de Dekakeruka’ (The Reason Why We All of Us in the Mingei Group Go to Ryúkyú To gether), 15: 23. Yanagi 1981, ‘Kógei no Michi’ (The Way of Crafts), 8: 91. Ibid., 193. Tonaki 1990 (1986), 77–78; Interview with Tonaki Akira and Matsushima Chógi in 1997. Yanagi 1981, ‘Jo – Yanagi Sóetsu Senshú Dai Go Kan’ (Preface – Selected Works of Yanagi Sóetsu, Vol. 5), 15: 471. Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú no Tomi’ (Treasures of Ryúkyú), 15: 58. Yanagi 1981, ‘Okinawajin ni Uttauru no Sho’ (Appeal to the Okinawans), 15: 160–161. Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú no Tomi’, 15: 80–81 and a similar statement is also found in ‘Okinawa no Bunka’ (The Culture of Okinawa), 15: 589. Yanagi 1981, ‘Shuri to Naha’ (Shuri and Naha), 15: 237–238.

Notes 82 83 84 85 86

87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116

263

Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú no Tomi’, 15: 82. Ibid., 83. Yanagi 1981, ‘Shuri to Naha’, 15: 216. Davis 1979. Yanagi thought the only way to know the ultimate Reality and God is by the ‘negative way’ or the ‘via negativa’, through negation. Yanagi argued the superiority of the Orient by pointing out that this idea can be found in mysticism in the Occident, particularly in the medieval times, but more abundantly in the Orient. Yanagi 1981, ‘Shuri to Naha’, 15: 240. Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú no Fúbutsu’ (Folklore of Ryúkyú), 15: 102. Yanagi 1981, ‘Shuri to Naha’, 15: 261. Yanagi 1981, ‘Naze Ryúkyú ni Dójin Ichidó de Dekakeruka’, 15: 23. Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú deno Shigoto’ (The Work at Ryúkyú), 15: 139. Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú no Tomi’, 15: 69. Ibid., 66–67. Ibid., 72–73. Wooden Buddhist statues carved by a travelling Buddhist monk Mokujiki Shónin. See pages 43–49. Okinawaken Gakumubu 1940; Yoshida 1940a, 1940b and other related materials are compiled in Naha Shiyakusho Sómubu Shishi Henshúshitsu 1970. Yanagi 1981, ‘Kokugo Mondai ni kanshi Okinawaken Gakumubu ni Kotauru no Sho’ (Reply to Education Affairs Department of Okinawa Prefectural Ofﬁce Regarding the Issues of the National Language), 15: 153. Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú no Tomi’, 15: 60. Yanagi 1981, ‘Kokugo Mondai ni kanshi Okinawaken Gakumubu ni Kotauru no Sho’, 15: 149–150. Ibid., 150. The oldest poetry anthology in Japan edited by ‘Ótomono Yakamochi during the Tenpyó period in the eighth century. It contains 4,500 poems by various people ranging from the royal family to ordinary unknown people and is the oldest use of the Japanese language. An anthology of classic epic poems from the Okinawan region, containing 1,554 poems written in the period from the twelfth to seventeenth centuries. Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú no Tomi’, 15: 58–59. Yanagi 1981, ‘Kokugo Mondai ni kanshi Okinawaken Gakumubu ni Kotauru no Sho’, 15: 149. Ibid., 151. Okinawaken Gakumubu 1940; Yoshida 1940a, 1940b; further information on issues involved in this debate and critical arguments from the contemporary critics in Okinawa can be found in Shin Okinawa Bungaku 1989. Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú no Tomi’, 15: 74. Ibid., 71. Yanagi 1981, ‘Kokugo Mondai ni kanshi Okinawaken Gakumubu ni Kotauru no Sho’, 15: 152. Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú deno Shigoto’, 15: 140. Yanagi 1981, ‘Kokugo Mondai ni kanshi Okinawaken Gakumubu ni Kotauru no Sho’, 15: 152. Yanagi 1981, ‘Okinawajin ni Uttauru no Sho’, 15: 155–156, 159. Tóyó literally means Eastern seas but is usually translated as the Orient, a politico-cultural concept ‘invented’ in contrast to the concept of the Occident. See pages 91–95 for further discussions on tóyó. Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú no Tomi’, 15: 66. Ibid., 15: 76. Yanagi 1981, ‘Bashófu Monogatari’ (The Story of Banana Fibre Textiles), 15: 390.

264

Notes

117 Yanagi 1981, ‘Shuri to Naha’, 15: 252 and Yanagi 1981, ‘Sashie Shóchú Kógei Dai Kyújú Kyú gó’ (A Brief Explanation on Illustrations in Kógei no. 99), 15: 34. 118 Yanagi 1981, ‘Genzai no Tsuboya to Sono Shigoto’ (The Present Tsuboya Pottery and Its Works), 15: 368. 119 Yanagi 1981, ‘Sashie Shóchú Kógei Dai Kyújú Kyú gó’, 15: 35–36. 120 Yanagi 1981, ‘Shuri to Naha’, 15: 245–246; Yanagi 1981, ‘Henshú Kóki Kógei Dai Kyújú Kyú gó’ (Editor’s Notes for Kógei no. 99), 15: 44; Yanagi 1981, ‘Shuri to Naha’, 15: 250. 121 Yanagi 1981, ‘Bashófu Monogatari’, 15: 397. 122 Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú no Tomi’, 15: 48. 123 Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú Bunka no Saininshiki’ (Re-recognition of the Ryúkyú Culture), 15: 184. 124 See for example the clear classiﬁcation in Itó Chúta’s ‘Evolution Theory of Architecture’ (1909), discussed on pages 93–95 of this work. 125 Ezo also meant ‘primitive people’ until the nineteenth century with a particular reference to the aboriginal inhabitants of northern Japan. They are the tribal people who inhabited the entire Japan archipelago but had retreated northward by the eighth century under military pressure from the Yamato state. Scholars still disagree on whether the ancient Ezo were ancestors of the Ainu, or people of unidentiﬁed origin. 126 As for racialisation of the Ainu, see Siddle 1996. 127 Yanagi 1981, ‘Ainu eno Mikata’, 15: 502. 128 Yanagi 1981, ‘Sashie Shóchú Kógei Dai Hyaku Nana gó’ (A Brief Explanation on Illustrations in Kógei 107), 15: 548. 129 Yanagi 1981, ‘Ainu eno Mikata’, 15: 506–507. 130 Yanagi 1981, ‘Sashie Shóchú Kógei Dai Hyaku Roku gó’ (A Brief Explanation on Illustrations in Kógei no. 106), 15: 510. 131 Yanagi 1981, ‘Sashie Shóchú Kógei Dai Hyaku Nana gó’, 15: 546. 132 Yanagi 1981, ‘Henshú Kóki Kógei Dai Hyaku Roku gó’ (Editor’s Notes on Illustrations in Kógei no. 106), 15: 526. 133 Yanagi 1981, ‘Sashie Shóchú Kógei Dai Hyaku Roku gó’, 15: 514. 134 Ibid., 15: 512–513. 135 Shósóin is a treasure repository in Nara which houses about 9,000 works of art and other valuable articles of the late Nara (710–780) period. 136 Yanagi 1981, ‘Sashie Shóchú Kógei Dai Hyaku Roku gó’, 15: 515. 137 Yanagi 1981, ‘Henshú Kóki Kógei Dai Hyaku Roku gó’, 15: 526. 138 Yanagi 1981, ‘Sashie Shóchú Kógei Dai Hyaku Nana gó’, 15: 549. 139 An exciting experience shared between Tomimoto and Leach, of discovering the beauty of Ainu crafts such as necklace, carved wooden knife, the Ainu kimono and an exotic and beautiful Ainu girl was described in Tomimoto 1912b. 140 Nihon Mingei Kyókai 1940a: 425–426. 141 Yanagi 1981, ‘Okinawa no Hanashi’ (The Story of Okinawa), 15: 418. 142 Shisei Yonjú Shúnen Kinen Taiwan Hakurankai Shi 1935, 1. 143 For more detailed examination of imperialisation (kóminka), see Tsurumi 1990; Chou [Zhou] 1996. 144 As for Japanese Taiwanese Studies in Japan, see Liu 1975, 40: 5–17; Miyamoto, Segawa and Mabuchi eds 1987. 145 Tsukide 1903, 52, 55. 146 For example, see Taiwan Sótokufu Hakubutsukan 1927. ‘Banzoku no Bu’ (Savage Section) lists a wide ranging substantial collection of tribal tools and crafts at the museum. 147 As for Inó’s collection at National Taiwan University (previously Taihoku Imperial University), see Hu and Tsui [Cui] 1998.

Notes 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160

161 162 163 164 165

166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177

178 179 180

265

Inó 1908, 267: 315. Sugiyama 1929a, 4: 60–73, 6: 70–94 and 1929b. Miyagawa, 1930, 2. Ibid., preface. I am grateful to Yang Meng-zhe for providing information about Yamamoto Kanae’s visits to Taiwan. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó (Taiwan Daily Newspaper) 1924. Yamamoto 1924b, No. 5, 16 May. Yamamoto 1924b, No. 3, 14 May. Yamamoto 1924b, No. 7, 17 May. Yamamoto 1924b, No. 5, 16 May. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1943a, 1943c. Minzoku Taiwan 1943a, 2–3, 12–13. The Society, a semi-governmental organisation, was established in 1940 under the patronage of the Minister of the Foreign Ofﬁce, and the Minister of the Department of Education, which had Marquis Hosokawa Moritatsu as President (who was also President of the Committee for National Treasures) and directors made up of important ﬁgures in institutions including the Imperial Household Museum, the Imperial Art School, the Institute of Art Research and professors of the Imperial Universities. The object of the Society was to promote and disseminate Japanese art, crafts and architecture in the world and the Society published a monthly magazine Bulletin of Eastern Art. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó, 1943b, 1943d, 1943e, 1943f. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó, 1943e. Yanagi 1981, ‘Taiwan no Mingei ni tsuite’ (On Taiwanese Folkcrafts), 15: 613. Yanagi 1981, ‘Taiwan Takasagozoku no Orimono’ (The Textiles of the Taiwanese Takasago Tribes), 15: 563. Luxurious fabrics which were imported to Japan from China, India, and other South-eastern countries in the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. These were used for covers and bags for the special tea ceremony utensils and for the mounting of scrolls. Yanagi 1981, ‘Taiwan Takasagozoku no Orimono’, 15: 563–564. Yanagi 1981, ‘Taiwan no Mingei ni tsuite’, 15: 610; Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1943e. Yanagi 1981, ‘Take no Shigoto’ (Bamboo Works), 11: 443. Ibid., 11: 441. In fact, bamboo also exists in Africa and South America. Ibid. Yanagi 1981, ‘Taiwan no Mingei ni tsuite’, 15: 602. Ibid., 606–607. Many of the items of Taiwanese bamboo furniture are in the style of wooden furniture of the Fujian province of the southern China. Ibid., 608. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1943e; Yanagi 1981, ‘Taiwan no Mingei ni tsuite’, 15: 611. Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letter to Kawai Kanjiró dated 25 March 1943, 22 ge (part 2): 137; Taiwan Kóron (Taiwan Public Opinion) 1943, 68. Taiwan Kóron 1943, 67–68. Taut/Shinoda 1943; Perriand/Sakakura 1941a, 1941b; Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1943e; Yanagi 1981, ‘Taiwan no Mingei ni tsuite’, 15: 612; Yanagi 1981, ‘Perriand no Tenrankai o Mite’ (Reviewing the Exhibition by Perriand), 14: 543–544; Kanaseki 1943a: 234–236. This stool is one of the pieces of bamboo furniture, originally made by aboriginal people living in the plains in Taiwan, which cannot be found in Fujian province. Naylor 1985. Tokyo Asahi Shinbun, 29 March 1941.

266 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190

191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199

200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212

213 214 215 216 217 218 219

Notes Kógei Nyúsu 1941a, 27. Kógei Nyúsu 1941b, 59. Taut/Shinoda 1943; Perriand/Sakakura 1941a, 1941b. Toyoguchi 1949. Kawai 1941; Kawai, Yanagi and Shikiba 1941. These Taiwanese craftsmen probably include Xu Zheng-Sheng, Chen ZanCheng, Xiu Zheng and Xu Jin-Long mentioned in Chiang [Jiang] 1988a, 24. Kawai, Yanagi and Shikiba 1941, 15. Ibid., 14. Kenmochi 1942, 23. For example, the national ideal for ‘simple’ beauty is expressed in the ﬁrst ‘Exhibition of Household Products for the Nation’ (Kokumin Seikatsu Yóhin Tenrankai) organised by the National Industrial Art Research Institute (IARI) at Takashimaya department store in Tokyo in 1941. Taiwan Kyóiku (Education in Taiwan) 1912, 57. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1942a, 1942b. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1940c. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1940a; Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1940d. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1940b. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1940e. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1941. Chiang [Jiang] 1991, 30–31; Chuang [Zhuang] 1990, 121; Chuang [Zhuang] 1994, 86. Ikeda Toshio was involved in the Mingei movement, with his particular contribution to the research on crafts in Shimane prefecture, the hometown of Ikeda in the post-war period. He edited Izumo no Kami (Paper of Izumo) in 1952 which compiled essays by Yanagi Sóetsu, Jugaku Bunshó, Shikiba Ryúzaburó and Hamada Shóji. Ikeda 1982, 144–145. Kanaseki 1942a. Kanaseki 1942b. Kanaseki 1942e. Kanaseki 1942f. Kanaseki 1943c. Kanaseki 1943d. Kanaseki 1944. Minzoku Taiwan 1943a; Kanaseki 1943a, 254. Kanaseki 1943b. Kanaseki 1943b; Kanaseki 1942c; Tateishi 1941; Teteishi 1943a; Tateishi 1943b; Tateishi 1944. Minzoku Taiwan 1943a, 10–11. Matsuyama Kenzó (his real name is Sugiyama Naoaki) is well-known professional cameraman who worked in the ﬁlm industry. He was a member of a proletarian photographers association. He changed his name when he came to Taiwan to evade the draft. See Ajioka 2000 for the development of the ‘Japanese Creative Prints’. The Taiwanese Society of Creative Prints was established in 1935 and Tateishi was one of the core members. See Ceng 1997. Nezu 1980, 517. Lin 1995. Kawamura 1996, 139. Minzoku Taiwan 1941b. Ikeda 1982. Wu/Fix 2000, 11.

Notes 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250

251

252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260

267

Ibid., 6. Ibid., 8. Ibid., 13. Liu/Nakajima 1995, 118. Wu/Fix 2000, 9–10. Liu/Nakajima 1995, 119. Ibid., 120. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1943g. Nobe 1942, 45. Ibid. Ibid. In Japan, handicraft classes were ﬁrst implemented at primary schools in 1890 as optional curriculum, then after various changes, they were integrated into the compulsory curriculum in 1926. Sengoku 1907, 65: 15. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1943e. Yanagi 1981, ‘Taiwan Takasagozoku no Orimono’, 15: 564. Ibid. Yanagi 1981, ‘Taiwan no Mingei ni tsuite’, 15: 608. Ibid., 602. Yanagi 1981, ‘Ryúkyú no Tomi’ (Treasures of the Ryúkyú Islands), 15: 74. Kanaseki 1941b. Kanaseki 1941a. Minzoku Taiwan 1943b. Ibid., 10–11. Nakamura 1941. Minzoku Taiwan 1944, 19. Ibid., 16. Ibid. Taiwan Kóron (Taiwan Public Opinion) 1943, 64–65. Ibid., 71. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1943d. Yen [Yan] 2000; Yen [Yan]/Tsuruta 2001, 226–224, 544–561; Liao 2002. See also Shaih [Xie] 1995 (1976); Li 1993; Li 1995; Wang 1996; Clark 1987 for the development of Taiwanese modern paintings in general under the Japanese Occupation. Taiwan/Oriental panama was extremely popular in Japan and abroad. Yoshida Shóya, one of the core ﬁgures of the Mingei movement, had an interesting project of promoting Taiwan/Oriental panama with a hat band using textiles made in Tottori prefecture where Yoshida led the New Folkcrafts (Shin Mingei) movement to revive and modernise the local folkcrafts. Yoshida/Tottori Mingei Kyókai 1998, 49. Chen 1996; Chen 1997; Xu and Zhou 1993. Chuang [Zhuang] 1997; Huang/Ueng [Weng] 2000; Huang ed. 2001. I am particularly grateful to Huang Li-shu who gave me abundant information about the development of Taiwanese lacquer crafts. Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpó 1943e. Kanaseki 1942d. Yan 1942, 22–23. Yan 1942; Yan 1952, 116–125. Yan’s work is also contextualised well in the cross-cultural folkcrafts movements in Chiang [Jiang] 1988b, 10–16; Kógei Nyúsu (Industrial Art News), 1943. Kógei Nyúsu 1941e, 462–463. Huang/Peng 2001.

268 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288

Notes Chiang [Jiang] 1988b, 10. Wu/Hokari 1994. Young 1998. See Yoshida/Tottori Mingei Kyókai 1998 for further information about Yoshida. Yoshida/Tottori Mingei Kyókai 1998, 130–131. Ibid., 96–97. Ibid., 121–122. Ibid., 115. For further detailed activities of Yoshida in North-East China, see Brandt 1996, 228–264. Curiously enough, all the chronologies of Hamada’s life published so far fail to mention his visit to Manchuria in 1943. Yanagi 1981, 12: 170–171. Yanagi 1981, ‘Hokushi no Mingei’ (Folkcrafts in Northern China), 15: 569–574. Yanagi 1981, ‘Sometsuke no Kozara’ (A Small Cobalt-Glazed Plate), 12: 169–170. Yanagi 1981, ‘Hokushi no Mingei’, 15: 574. See for example, Yanagi 1981 ‘Chúgoku no Tójiki’ (Chinese Pottery/Porcelain), 12: 545–555. Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letter to Bernard Leach dated 28 July 1916, 21 jó: 658. Duus 1995, 408–409. Ubukata 1961, 68; Nakami 1988. Oyafuso 1989, 57; Nakahodo 1989, 25. Tsurumi 1987 (1976), 172; Mizuo, ‘Bi no Jódo Okinawa to Yanagi Sóetsu’ (The Pure Land Okinawa and Yanagi Sóetsu) in Yanagi 1981, 15: 633, 635–636; Mizuo 1992, 207; Yakabi 1989, 46. Rosaldo 1989, 68–87. Fredrickson 1971, 97–129. Karatani 1997. Bhabha, 1990, 207–209. Bhabha, 1994, 34. Yanagi 1981, ‘Okinawajin ni Uttauru no Sho’ (Appeal to the Okinawans), 15: 158. MacKenzie 1995, 130. Nagata 1998.

4 Reverse Orientalism: the development of Mingei theory into national and international Modernism 1 Moeran 1989, 139; Moeran 1997. 2 As for myókónin, see note 27 in Chapter 1. 3 Yanagi 1981, ‘Bukkyó Bigaku ni tsuite’ (On Buddhist Aesthetics), 18: 492–493; Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letters dated 25 November 1952 to Suzuki Atsushi, Suzuki Daisetz, Furuta Shókin and Taniguchi Sueko, 21 ge: 86–89. 4 Yanagi 1981, ‘Tóyó teki Kakushin’ (Oriental Belief), 18: 78. 5 Yanagi 1981, ‘Mudai’ (No Title), 19: 797–800; Yanagi 1981, ‘Tóyó Bunka no Kyóyó’ (Cultivation through the Oriental Culture), 19: 806–809; Yanagi 1981, ‘Seiyó no Kitai suru Mono’ (The Things the Occident Expects), 19: 810–811; Yanagi 1981, ‘Seiyó Súhai’ (Admiration of the Occident), 19: 812–813; Yanagi 1981, ‘Dentó to Kyódo’ (Tradition and One’s Own Land), 19: 814–816. 6 Yanagi 1981, ‘Mudai’, 19: 797–798. 7 Ibid., 798. 8 Ibid., 19: 800; Yanagi 1981, ‘Tóyó Bunka no Kyóyó’, 19: 807. 9 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 129.

Notes

269

10 Suzuki’s real name by birth is Suzuki Teitaró. 11 Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letter to Suzuki Daisetz dated 17 December 1945, 21 chú, 425. Asahara Saichi was an example of myókónin (see note 27 in Chapter 1) He was a poor geta (wooden clogs) maker and created numerous poems written with simple and direct sincerity about his pure spiritual experiences in his belief in Jódo Kyó (see note 13 in Chapter 4). 12 Yanagi 1981, Yanagi’s letter to Tonomura Kichinosuke dated 12 January 1946; to Kósaka Tsuraaki dated 17 January; to Jugaku Bunshó dated 18 February, 21 chú 429–431, 437. 13 Jódo Kyó or the Pure Land School is one of the schools of Buddhism established by Hónen in the twelfth century. It teaches people who seek to be reborn in the Pure Land to rely on the merciful compassion of Amida Buddha by chanting na-mu-a-mi-da-bu-tsu (the name of Amida). 14 Suzuki’s translation in Suzuki 1972, 167. 15 Chanting words in the Pure Land Sect of Buddhism. 16 There are several English translations of chokkan (see also note 33 in Chapter 1). Yanagi used the word ‘chokkan’ for the ﬁrst time in the article ‘Tetsugaku ni okeru tenperamento’ (Temperament in Philosophy) in 1913, having developed this concept during the period when he was studying Blake. 17 Yanagi translated this as ‘the Implicit’, Yanagi 1981, 2: 551 and Leach translated as ‘the relationship in which the particular implies and equates with Unity’, Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 229. Both terms ‘soku’ and ‘nyo’ are Buddhist terms but were combined by Yanagi as a new word. 18 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 127. 19 Yanagi 1981, ‘Bi no Jódo’ (The Pure Land of Beauty), 18: 247, 255. 20 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 130. 21 Ibid., 135. 22 Ibid. 23 The translations and explanations were made by Leach in ‘The Buddhist Idea of Beauty’ in Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972) which was adapted from Yanagi’s original paper ‘Buddhists’ Idea of Beauty’, presented in 1952 at the conference in Dartington, in Yanagi 1952a. 24 Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 200. 25 Sharf 1995. 26 Ibid., 48. 27 Yanagi 1981, ‘Bukkyó Bigaku no Higan’ (Prayer of Buddhist Aesthetics), 18: 148. 28 Yanagi 1981, ‘Chaki no Teiji’ (Presentation of Tea Utensils), 17: 56. 29 Yanagi 1981, ‘Sashie Kaisetsu’ (Explanation on Illustrations), 17: 158–170. 30 Ibid., 136–146, 158–170, 233–243, 390–403, 459–471. 31 Invention of chair-style tea ceremony ‘ryúrei-shiki’ was invented long before Yanagi by Gengensai in 1872 to be specially adapted for foreigners. Kuwata 2002(1987), 228. 32 Yanagi 1981, ‘Kuchie Shókai’ (Illustrations with Annotation), 17: 416–427. 33 Yanagi 1981, 17: 651, ‘Kuchie Shókai’, 17: 423–424. 34 Guth 1993, 64–66. 35 Yanagi 1981, ‘Chadó o Omou’ (Thoughts on the Way of Tea), 17: 202 and its translation Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), ‘The Way of Tea’, 185. 36 Yanagi 1981, ‘Sabi no Bi’ (The Beauty of Sabi), 17: 76–83; English translation of shibui/shibusa is taken from Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), ‘The Buddhist Idea of Beauty’, 148. 37 Yanagi 1981, ‘Chaki’ (Tea Bowls), 17: 253; ‘Ido to Raku’ (Ido and Raku), 17: 97. 38 Yanagi 1981, ‘Chadó o Omou’, 17: 202 and its translation Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), ‘The Way of Tea’, 184. 39 Yanagi 1981, ‘Nihonbi to Cha’ (The Japanese Beauty and Tea), 17: 405–411.

270 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

Notes Okakura’s real name by birth is Okakura Kakuzó. Okakura 1959(1906), 3–4. Yanagi 1981, ‘Chaki no Bi to Zen’ (The Beauty of Tea Bowls and Zen), 17: 294. Ibid., 296. Okakura 1959(1906), 70. Suzuki 1938, 13. Ibid., 122–151. Yanagi/Leach 1989 (1972), 105. Ibid., 199–120. Ibid., 201. Ibid., 105. Ibid., 201. Ajioka 1995, 254–256, 284–293; Okamura 1991. Idekawa 1988, 201–242; Ajioka 1995, 258–305. Tominaga 1981; Moeran 1997, 28. Jugaku 1980, 177. Yanagi 1981, ‘Kóetsu to Hamada’, 17: 124–135; ‘Kóetsu Ron’, 17: 221–232. Leach 1981 (1975), 136. Ibid., 137. Yanagi 1981, ‘Hamada Shóji no Shigoto’ (The Work of Hamada Shóji), 14: 227. Yanagi 1981, ‘Munakata to Watashi’ (Munakata and I), 339. Yasuda ed. 1958, 81. Leach 1976 (1940), 17. Yanagi/ Leach 1989 (1972), 98. I would paraphrase this: as ‘In this modern era of machines, people want something more than just functional handicrafts by craftsmen.’ Tomimoto’s unpublished letter to Leach in English dated 21 December 1929, from the archive of the Tomimoto Kenkichi Memorial Museum Tomimoto’s unpublished letter to Yanagi in Japanese dated 23 December 1929, from the archive of the Tomimoto Kenkichi Memorial Museum Tomimoto 1969 (1962), 286. Tomimoto 1981, ‘Tóhenshú’ (Ceramic Pieces), 362. Inui 1983, 32. Tomimoto 1981, ‘Seitó Yogen’ (Miscellaneous Thoughts on Pottery Making), 373. Tomimoto 1981, ‘Moyó to Kógei’ (Decoration and Crafts), 341. Leach 1985(1978), 76. Kawai 1990(1978), 24–25; Idekawa 1988, 224–230. Kawai 1990(1978), 143, 156–157. Yanagi 1981, ‘Kawai Kanjiró no Hito to Shigoto’ (Kawai Kanjiró and His Work), 14: 185–186. Ibid., 160. Leach 1981(1975), 124. Ibid., 109, 124. Hamada 1974, 244. Kógei Shidósho (Industrial Arts Research Institute) renamed Sangyó Kógei Shikenjo (Industrial Arts Institute) in 1952, then renamed again Seihin Kagaku Kenkyújo (Product Science Research Institute) in 1969. Kaneko 2001, 16–17 Kógei Nyúsu (Industrial Art News) 1955, 20 ‘JCDA ni tsuite’ (On JCDA) in Nihon Kurafuto Dezain Kyókai 1986, 136. Kógei Nyúsu 1949; Chó 1997, 22. I’m grateful to Kaoru Kojima for drawing my attention to the latter article.

Notes 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

101 102 103 104 105 106

107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128

271

Kógei Nyúsu 1950. Kenmochi 1953, 7. Ibid. Kógei Nyúsu, (1949)17–8, (1950)18–7. Design 1950, 10. House & Garden 1949b. For example, House & Garden 1949a, 88. North 1972. House & Garden 1977. House & Garden 1976. Design 1975b. Gelson 1974. For example, a comment by Sir Gordon Russell, former director of COID and chairman of Crafts Council. Russell 1965. See for example, Design 1966; Design 1974; Design 1975a; Design 1975c. Design 1966, 52. Pavitt ed. 1996. I am grateful to Mr Sanada Júró of Sasaki Glass, Mr Chújó Motoji of Seyei Trading Company, Mr Miyata Masatoshi of Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum, Mr Yamamoto Shigeo of Tomimoto Kenkichi Memorial Museum and Mr Sugise Kiyomi for allowing me to use old sales catalogues and providing information. Pavitt ed. 1996, 4–15. Harrod 1989; Harrod 1999. Sasaki Glass Mfg. Co., Ltd. 1962, 44. Kógei Zaidan ed. 1984, 71–74. Nihon Bóeki Shinkó Kai 1969. Not many sales catalogues are kept in the company, due to the company’s shrinking business in the 1970s, and it is difﬁcult to be precise as to the dates of the products or catalogues as there is no indication of a publication date or a year of print. Tsujimoto 1999, 188–190; Tomimoto Kenkichi Kinenkan, Sogó Art Museum, et al. eds 2000, 127–136. For further information on Tomimoto Kenkichi, see Kikuchi 1997c, 22–23. Powers 1991. Stair 2003, 42. Leach 1976 (1940), 5. Ibid., 6. Ibid., 4. Ibid., 23–24. Wakeﬁeld 1974. Cardew 1988, 30. Voake 1986, 43. Watson 1993 (1990), 15. Leach 1976 (1940), 18. Yanagi/Leach 1989(1972), 88. Leach 1976(1940), 2. Coleman 1976. Whybrow 1996. Harrod 1999, 193–208, 241–243; Watson 1993 (1990), 15. Coleman 1976, 40. Maltby 1986. Frayling/Snowdon 1982b, 24. Hill 1990, 18.

272 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143

144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162

Notes Wakeﬁeld 1974, 16. Frayling/Snowdon 1982b, 25. Berger 1953; Fennemore 1953; Harrod 1989. Frayling/Snowdon 1982d, 12. Finnish universities, pioneering in academic study of craft, set up a formal academic discipline called ‘Craft Science’ to study philosophy and theory of craft in 1984. Ihatsu’s book 2002, for example, is her doctoral thesis in Craft Science. Ihatsu 2002, 6–12. Frayling/Snowdon 1982c. Frayling/Snowdon 1982d. Frayling/Snowdon 1982a. Pye 1995 (1968), 52. Ibid. Ibid., 25–29. Ibid., 18. Ibid., 89–90. Ibid., 52; Leach also put forward an objection to Yanagi’s ﬁrm belief in the nexus between beauty and use/function, saying: ‘It is true that pots exist which are useful and not beautiful, and others that are beautiful and impractical . . . the normal is a balanced combination of the two’, Leach 1976(1940), 18. Ibid. Ibid., 32, 66, 68, 76. Dormer 1993. Dormer ed. 1997, 229. Polanyi 1958, 1967. Dormer 1994, 14, 17. Ibid., 14. Ihatsu 2002, 54–77. Peter Dormer, ‘The salon de refuse?’ in Dormer ed. 1997. Frayling/Snowdon 1982b. Rhodes 1978, 21. Dormer 1994, 47. Britton 1983; Britton in Crafts Council 1981, 16; Britton 1991. Ibid. Britton 1983, 18. Stair 1988. Harrod ed. 1997; Journal of Design History 10–4,1997; 11–1, 1998. Frayling 1989. Harrod 2000.

Conclusion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Bhabha 1994, 172. Bhabha 1990, 210. Ibid., 211. Ibid., 220. Clark 1998, 73–74. Koplos 1989a; 1989b. Nakatani 2003. Clark 1998.

Notes

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Chapter Title

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Index

Note: page numbers in italics denote illustrations Abiko 15, 29 Adachi, Genichiró 36 aesthetics: Buddhism xv, 7, 129, 137, 198–201; Christianity 25; colonialism 138; medieval 44; Modernism 5, 8, 175; nature 24–5; Occidental 201; tea ceremony 40–2, 58, 61, 202–5; Yanagi 136–7; Zen Buddhism 7, 155; see also beauty; Mingei theory Ainu: colonialism 124, 157; craft exhibitions 157; history 156–7; imperialism 162; Japanisation 156; atsushi/attush 159; kimono 159–60; Leach 160; Oripera weaving tool 157, 158; savage art 20–1; shito pera spatula 160, 161; studies of 91, 157; Tomimoto 160; Yanagi 157–60 Ajioka, Chiaki 3, 46, 208 Alcock, Sir Rutherford 89 anthropology 91, 142, 150, 164–5 Aota, Goró 63, 65 Aota, Shichiró 63 Arabia Ceramic 231 architecture 93–4, 95–100 Arishima, Takeo 29, 30 art: artisans 47, 57; Buddhism 44, 143–4; class 52–3, 81; classical 148; folk 18–19, 21; kustar 32, 35, 85; lesser 52–3; marginal 36–7, 38; medievalism 47; Modernism 11–12; morality 7, 59; national 48; religious 44–6, 158; savage

20–1; society 58–9; tóyó 92–3; universality 48–9; see also ﬁne art; peasant art art educational establishments 81–2 art of the people 24–7, 35, 36, 58, 212–13 artisans 47, 57 artist/craftsman 52, 211 Arts and Crafts movement: craft guilds 67; ﬁne art/crafts 80, 238–9; as inﬂuence 9, 62–3; Leach 14–15; Mingei theory 1, 3, 53–4, 232; Morris 1, 14–15; Ruskin 1, 14–15 Asakawa, Noritaka 126, 129 Asakawa, Takumi 126, 129 Ashbee, C. R. 67 ashtrays 219, 229 Asia/Japan 123 assimilation 124, 125, 137, 156, 164, 180–1 Atarashiki Mura (New Village) 29–32 automation 236 Awano, Dennojó 164 Awashima, Masakichi 230 bamboo 168–9; furniture design 173–4, 185, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225; Hamada 170; Japanese Modern 223–5; Kawai 173–4; Modernists 169–74; Orientalism 168–9; Perriand 169–70, 172–3; substitute products 115–16, 175; Taut 169–72; Yan 188–9 bamboo basket 178, 186

300

Index

bamboo crafts training 175, 182 Barron, Phyllis 233 Bauhaus 171, 239 beauty: crafts 54–5, 59–60; feminine 134–5; ‘function’ 18, 47–8, 53, 55, 86, 89, 97–8, 115–16, 136, 166, 173, 178, 195, 201, 209, 218–19, 228, 236–40, 245; getemono 150; grotesque 58, 144, 157; health 55–6, 173, 178; inexpensiveness 58; innate/original 148–50; intimacy 55; irregularity 58; Japaneseness 109; marketable 76; materials 56–7; medievalism 168; Mingei theory xv, 41–2, 49–59, 72, 234; mokujikibutsu 46; morality 6, 46; naturalness 56–7, 137; Nature 57; no-mindedness 60, 61, 176, 209–10; Orient 153–4; primitive 192; quality 104; religious art 44–6, 158; sadness 131–7, 138, 140, 193; selﬂessness 58–9; simplicity 57, 116, 192; sincerity 58; supreme 50, 61, 67, 173; tradition 57; unity 137; utility 48, 55; Yanagi xvi, xvii, 8–9, 41–2, 51, 61, 62, 91; Zen Buddhism 54; see also aesthetics Beethoven, Ludwig van 59 Behrens, Peter 98 Bell, Vanessa 14 Benton, Charlotte 106–7 Bergson, Henri 7–8, 195 Bhabha, Homi xvi, 194, 243 bijutsu: see ﬁne art bijutsu kógei: see studio craft movement Blake, William 8, 127, 235 Blavatsky, E. P. 5 book design 73 Brandt, Lisbeth 3, 191 Britain: Council for Industrial Design 223, 226; crafts 236–7; Japanese Modern 226–8; Orientalism 225; Society for Psychical Research 4, 5; studio crafts 233–5; see also Arts and Crafts movement; Leach Tradition Britton, Alison 239–40 brooches 214 Buckle, Henry Thomas 92 Buddhism: aesthetics xv, 6–7, 129,

137, 198–201; architecture 96–7; art 44, 143–4; Confucianism 135; copyright issues 211; Enlightenment 60; tradition 200; see also Zen Buddhism bunka seikatsu (culture life) 67–8 Camberwell Collection 226–8, 230, 232 cane furniture 223, 224, 225 capitalism 58–9 Cardew, Michael 234, 240 Carpenter, Edward 32 Casson, Michael 234 ceramics 128, 129, 131–3, 228, 231, 239–40; see also Chosön ceramics; pottery Cézanne, Paul 12, 70, 148 Chamberlain, B. H. 142, 157 chanoyu: see tea ceremony Chelsea Crafts Fair 235, 241 Chiang, Shao-ying 175, 188 Chikuha Tei 68 Children’s Free Drawings 32–3 China Incident 113 Cho, Sonmi 138 Ch’oe, Harim 138 Chosön ceramics 127, 260–1n10; Asakawa 126; exhibition 129; jars 134–6; Kógei (Crafts) magazine 135; Shirakaba magazine 129; Yanagi 131, 134–6 Christianity 8, 25, 77 Chuang, Po-ho 175 Clark, John 244 class 52–3, 81 Clifford, James 76 coffee set 213 colonialism: aesthetics 138; Ainu 124, 157; anthropology 142; Korea 124–6; male gaze 135; Okinawa 91, 124, 156; Taiwan 163–4, 189; Yanagi 193 colour symbolism 133, 138 community, local 113–14 Confucianism 135 Coper, Hans 235 copyright issues 210–11 Council of Industrial Design (COID) 223, 226

Index Craft Centre Japan 220 craft guilds 62, 66–7, 74, 208 crafts 100–1; beauty 54–5, 59–60; Britain 236–7; companies 82–3; for export 82–5, 88, 98, 103–4, 175; ﬁne art 80–1, 88, 235–6, 238–40; free-born 187; function 240; indigenous 165–6, 187; Kaneko 218–19; mass production 171; morality 63; politics 88–91, 175; promotion of 114–15, 208; skill 236–8, 240; tacit knowledge 239; trade 74–8; welfare 191; see also folkcrafts; studio craft movement craftsmen 52, 58–9, 63, 200, 210–17 cultural identity 8, 244–5 cultural institutions 167 cultural nationalism: see nationalism cultural pluralism 152, 193 culture: morality 59; politics xvii, 183; reinvention 76 daughters, selling of 113 Davis, Fred 145–6 design movement 83 Ditzel, Nanna 225 Dormer, Peter 238, 239 Dresser, Christopher 95 Duckworth, Ruth 231 Dürer, Albrecht 70 Eckhart, Meister Johann 8 education for crafts: institutions 35, 81–2, 83–4, 181–2; Leach 12–13; Tomimoto 17 embroidery 33 emushikutsu textile bands 160 English Arts and Crafts movement: see Arts and Crafts movement Enlightenment 60 Erigena, Johannes Scotus 8 ethnic identity 92, 181 ethnology 164–5 exhibition poster 117 Existing Crafts Arts Society 88 Fenollosa, Ernest F. 89–90, 95 Fergusson, James 93–4

301

ﬁne art: craft 80–1, 88, 89–91, 235–6, 238–40; decoration 52–3; Taiwan 184–5 folk art 18–19, 21 folkcrafts: capitalism 58–9; classiﬁcation 29, 49, 50, 52–3; craftsmen 63; ethical element 75–6; individualism 206–7, 210–17; Nazi Germany 182, 187; objects of desire 68; peasants 88; Perriand 107; polticised 184; Tóhoku region 110; trading 74–6; see also kabazaiku folkcrafts museums 208 Folkcrafts Pavilion 62, 63, 65, 66 folklore studies 183; see also Minzoku Taiwan Frayling, Christopher 236, 239 Frederickson, George M. 194 Freer, Charles 202 Fry, Roger 5, 8, 12, 14, 233 Fujishima, Takeji 125, 134 Fukuzawa, Yukichi 92 Funaki, Michitada 72, 208 function 18, 47–8, 53, 55, 86, 89, 97–8, 115–16, 136, 166, 173, 178, 195, 201, 209, 218–19, 228, 236–40, 245; furniture design: bamboo 173–4, 185, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225; cane 223, 224, 225; Hamada 63, 65, 67; hybridity 15, 65; institutions 84; Leach 15, 16, 21; Perriand 101, 104, 105, 106, 108; Tomimoto 21; Tottori 75 Gaugin, Paul 12, 148 Gekkan Mingei (Folkcrafts Monthly) 74 Gelson, Hilary 225 getemono: beauty 150; class 53; Mingei theory 2–3; Tomimoto 212; Yanagi 50, 52, 56, 60, 81, 88 Gill, Eric 63 Góhara Kotó 185 Gothic arts 43–4, 50, 52, 58 Gotthelf, Jeremias 27 Great Kantó earthquake 129 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 124, 162, 167, 180 Grolier, Jean 73

302

Index

grotesque 58, 144, 157 Guanmiao village 169, 178 guild socialism 25–6, 67 Guizot, François 92 Guth, Christine 40, 204 Hall, Basil 142 Hamada, Shóji 209; bamboo 170; copyright 210; craft guilds 66–7; furniture 63, 65, 67; interior design 68; Kawai 217; Korea 129; Manchuria 191; Mingei 2; Okinawa 142–3; Perriand 106; Sweden 70–1 Hanamaki Agricultural School 38–9 handicrafts: see crafts hanga (woodblock prints) 32–6, 179, 210 Harrod, Tanya 240–1 Hasegawa, Kiyoshi 181, 184 Hattori, Tanosuke 4 Hazelius, Artur 36, 70–1 health/beauty 55–6, 173, 178 Hearn, Lafcadio 13, 14, 80, 139, 193 Hind, C. Lewis 11, 12 Honami, Kóetsu 62 Honma, Hisao 24 Hoppó Bunka Renmei 110, 112 House & Garden magazine 223 household products exhibition 188 Howard, Ebenezer 17 Hóya Glass Company 230 humanitarian aid 129, 138–9 hybridity: Bhabha xvi, 243–4; furniture design 15, 65; Mingei theory xvi–xvii, 4–9, 53–62, 91, 100, 194–5, 197, 200–2, 243–6; mokujikibutsu 43–4, 45, 49; national identity 194–5; Orientalism/ Occidentalism 8, 201 Idekawa, Naoki 3, 60, 137, 138, 208 Ihatsu, Anna-Marja 236 Ikeda, Toshio 176, 180 Imperial Arts Exhibition 85 Imperial Craft Society 84 Imperial Rule Assistance Association 181 imperialism 125, 162, 164

Impressionism 243 individualism/unknown craftsmen 206–7, 210–17 IAI 218, 223 Industrial Arts Research Institute: exhibitions 115–16, 188, 218; Perriand 107; revitalisation of rural economy 113; Taut 84, 95, 97; wartime 175 Inge plate 186 Inó, Kanori 164, 165 Inoue, Shóichi 95 insight: see intuition interior design 63, 68, 69, 84 intimacy 55 intuition 8, 9, 60–2, 131, 199 Ise Shrine 96, 97, 183 Ishida, Kiyoshi 37 Ishii, Hakutei 32 Ishikawa, Kinishiró 179, 185 Itó, Chúta 93–5, 123 Itó, Yukio 229 Iwamura, Tóru 17, 25 Izuhara, Eiichi 87–8 James, William 7, 195 Japan 141 (map), 155–6; aesthetics 3; Christianity 77; Korea relations 124–6, 139; Leach 139; Morris 25–6; as Other 123; territorial boundaries 91 Japan Art Association 90 Japan Arts and Crafts Control Association 175 Japan Craft Art Association 85 Japan Craft Design Association 219–20 Japan Craft Museum 208 Japan Crafts Society 208 Japan Folk Crafts Museum 43; Ainu crafts 157; archives 26; kabazaiku 110, 112; Manchurian folkcrafts 191; model rooms 68, 69, 70–1, 71; nationalism 116; Perriand 104; research trip to Taiwan 168; resignations from 208; rural crafts promotion 114–15; Taiwanese crafts 157; tea ceremony 202–4

Index Japan Folkcrafts Association 72, 114, 115, 122, 220 Japan Peasant Art Institute 33, 34 Japanese Modern: bamboo 223–5; Camberwell Collection 226–8, 230, 232; designers 173, 220–3; Kawai 174; kurafuto tableware 232–3; Mingei movement 218–20; Taut 109 Japaneseness 193; beauty 109; marketing of 205; Mingei movement 109–10; national identity 153; Perriand 218; Taut 99–100, 103, 218 Japanisation 141, 156 Japanocentrism 91, 124, 192, 194 Japonisme 89 Jarrett, O. P. Bede 44, 47, 48–9 Jitsuzai Kógei Bijutsukai (Existing Crafts Art Society) 88 John, Augustus 70 jótemono (reﬁned objects) 81, 88 journals 24, 32, 164 Jugaku, Bunshó 3, 26, 208 Jugendstil art 9 kabazaiku 110, 112, 113, 115–16; see also folkcrafts Kagami Crystal Glass Company 230 Kamigamo Mingei Kyódan 63 Kanaseki, Takeo 168, 176, 178, 180, 183, 185 Kanatani, Miwa 68 Kaneko, Kenji 218–19 Kanó school of painting 90 Karatani, Kójin 194 kasuri textile 153, 154 Kató, Kazuo 24 Katsumi, Masaru 107, 108–9 Katsura Detached Palace 96, 101, 103 Kawabata, Yasuo 37 Kawada, Tokiko 14 Kawai, Kanjiró: bamboo furniture 173–4; copyright issues 210–11; exhibitions 63; Hamada 217; interior design 68; Japanese Modern 174; Korea 2, 129; Okinawa 142–3; Perriand 106; style 215–17 Kawai, Takeichi 191

303

Kawakami, Hajime 25 Kawamura, Minato 179–80 Keeler, Walter 234 Kelmscott Press 26 Kenmochi, Isamu 107; furniture 221; Japanese Modern 173, 174, 218, 220; Noguchi 222 kettle 98 Kim, Hyeshin 135 Kim, Talsu 138 Kim, Yanggi 138 kimono 148–9, 152, 159–60 Kimura, Sóta 32 Kinoshita, Naoyuki 81 Kinoshita, Seigai 179, 185 Kishida, Ryúsei 22 Kitagawa, Kenzó 112, 115–16 Kitazawa, Noriaki 81 kitsch 96, 98 Klinger, Max 79–80 Ko, Yusop 138 Kóbu Bijutsu Gakkó 81 Kóetsu village colony 62 kógei 82: see crafts Kógei (Crafts) magazine 72–4, 129, 135, 157 Kógei Nyúsu magazine 223 Kógei Shidósho: see Industrial Arts Research Institute Kojima, Usui 24–5 Kokuga Sósaku Kyókai 213 Kómin Kógei 191 kóminka policy 164, 175, 179, 180–1, 182, 189 Konoe, Fumimaro 113–14, 164 Koplos, Janet 245 Korea: artefacts 2–3; beauty of sadness 131–7, 138, 140, 193; ceramics 128, 129, 131–3; colour symbolism 133, 138; crafts 22, 77–8, 126, 131–8; history 124–6; humanitarian aid 129, 138–9; and Japan 124–6, 139; Kawai 2, 129; Leach 126–7; nostalgia 134; Occidentalism 127–8; politics 126–7; pottery 22, 154, 155; Yanagi 22, 77–8, 126–7, 137–8 Korean Folk-arts Gallery 70, 77–8, 127, 128–9, 130, 138–9

304

Index

Kósaka, Masaaki 77 Koyama, Shótaró 90 Kropotkin, Pyotr 30, 62 Kudara Kannon 59 Kuki, Ryúichi 89, 90, 93 kurafuto (art/craft/design) 218–19, 228–9, 232–3 Kuraya, Mika 125 Kuroda, Tatsuaki 63, 64 kustar art 32, 35 Kwanghwamun, Kyongbok-kun Palace 128 Kyoto Manjudó 102 labour: degradation 26–7, 37; manual 31, 39; Morris 37–8; Ruskin 31–2; Yanagi 60 Lamb, Henry 70 Leach, Bernard: Ainu crafts 160; Arts and Crafts movement 14–15; copyright 210; education 12–13; furniture design 15, 16, 21; as inﬂuence 144; interior design 63, 68, 69; Japan 139; Korea 126–7; Minami 21–2; Mingei theory 15, 206; Orientalism xvii, 14, 193; A Potter’s Book 198, 233; pottery 13–14; savage art 20–1; Shirakaba group 13; studio crafts 86; Tomimoto 13, 17–18, 23; The Unknown Craftsman 50, 198; Yanagi 13–14, 43–4, 80 Leach Tradition xvi, 86, 206, 233–5, 239, 240–1 Lee, Chinhui 138 Lethaby, W. R. 67 Liao, Hsin-tien 185 Liu, Shu-qin 181, 184–5 Living Museum 68–70 local colour concept 185 Lodge, Sir Oliver 4 Lombroso, Cesare 4 London International Exhibition 89 London School of Art 13, 15 London Working Men’s College 39 machinery 54–5; see also mass production MacKenzie, John 195 Mackmurdo, A. H. 67

Maeterlinck, Maurice 4 magazines: crafts and design 74, 84, 85; Mingei 74, 115; national identity 78–9; see also Kógei (Crafts); Shirakaba Mairet, Ethel 63 Mâle, Emile 44, 46–7, 144 male gaze 134–5 Manchuria 190–1 Manchurian folkcrafts 191, 192 Manet, Édouard 12 Manshú Tóki Kaisha 191 Marute (Hand Project) 218 mass production 84, 171 Masuda, Takashi 40–1 materials 48, 56–7 Matisse, Henri 12, 148, 160 Matsugaoka Bunko 199 Matsuhashi, Keiko 129 Matsushima, Chógi 143 Matsuyama, Kenzó 179 Maurice, Frederick 39 medievalism: aesthetics 44; art 47; beauty 168; guild system 62–3, 66–7; idealised 59–60; nostalgia 143–4; Ruskin 58 Meier-Graefe, Julius 12, 14 Meiji Restoration 76–7 Metchnikoff, Elie 5–6 Michelangelo 59 Mifune, Chizuko 5 Minagawa, Masu 53, 54 Minami, Kunzó 17, 21–2 Mingei magazine 74, 115 Mingei movement 115; apologists 137; attitude 245; criticisms 108–9, 208–9; Japanese Modern 218–20; Japaneseness 109–10; modern crafts movement 87–8; Tomimoto 213 Mingei theory: Arts and Crafts movement 1, 3, 53–4, 232; beauty xv, 41–2, 49–59, 72, 234; cultural nationalism xv–xvi; discrepancies 206–7, 208; getemono 2–3; hybridity xvi–xvii, 4–9, 53–62, 91, 100, 194–5, 197, 200–2, 243–6; ideology 246; Kanatani 68; Leach 15, 206; materials 48; Modernism 1; museums 71; mystiﬁcation

Index 198–202, 209–10; national identity 62, 197; objects of desire 76; Occidentalism 1, 2, 43; Orientalism 95, 244–5; politicisation 160, 162, 163, 194; studio crafts 205–6; Taut 100; tea aesthetics 202–5 Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce Exhibition 84 minkan geijutsu: see folk art Minzoku Taiwan (Taiwanese Folklore) 176, 177, 178, 179–80, 183 Miyagawa, Jiró 165 Miyake, Chúichi 160, 208 Miyake, Yonekichi 92 Miyazaki, Yúzen 149 Miyazawa, Kenji 36–40 Mizoguchi, Ryúbundó 98 Mizuo, Hiroshi 3, 72 model rooms 62, 66, 68–70, 71 modernisation 101, 103, 146, 204 Modernism: aesthetics 5, 8, 175; art 11–12; bamboo 169–74; Mingei theory 1; Occidentalism xvii, 23–4; Orient 175, 195; Perriand 195; Taut 195; tea sets 231; see also Japanese Modern Moeran, Brian xvi, xvii, 3, 14, 197 Mokujiki Shónin 2, 3, 43, 44, 45, 46, 49 mokujikibutsu 16; beauty 46; hybridity 49; Mokujiki 2, 3, 43, 44, 45, 46 morality 6, 7, 46, 59, 63 Morita, Tsunetomo 32 Morris, William 2; art of the people 35; art/society 59; Arts and Crafts movement 1, 14–15; biographies 25; health of craftsman 56; humanity of craftsmen 200; as inﬂuence 2, 40; Japan 25–6; labour 37–8; lesser arts 52–3, 88; machinery 55; Miyazawa 37; Nature 57; Orientalism xvii; printing 73; Red House 17, 18, 65; socialism 24–5; Tomimoto 25; tradition 57 Morris & Co. 67, 75–6 Morris-Suzuki, Tessa 124 Morse, Edward 202 Moscow Kustar Exhibition 85

305

Mukei (Formless) group 86, 88 multiculturalism 123–4, 184, 194 Munakata, Shikó 209–10 Murai, Tomoyoshi 24, 25–6 Muraoka, Kageo 191 Murata, Jukó 40 Murobuse, Kóshin 25–6 Murray, Staite 211, 233 Mushanokóji, Saneatsu 29–32 mysticism 6, 8 mystiﬁcation: Mingei theory 198–202, 209–10; tea aesthetics 204 Nagashima, Naoki 32 Nagata, Kenichi 195 Naitó, Toyoo 31 Naka, Michiyo 92 Nakamura, Akira 183 Nakatani, Ayami 246 national bodies 175 national identity: hybridity 194–5; Japaneseness 153; magazines 78–9; Mingei theory 62, 197; Occidentalism 193–4; Okinawa 152, 153; regionalism 150–1, 152 nationalism 6, 41, 116, 122, 162–3, 201; cultural xv–xvi, 76–80, 88, 90, 91–2; ethnic 181 Natsume, Sóseki 25, 78–9 natural disasters 113 naturalness 56–7, 137 Nature 24–5, 57, 107–8 Naylor, Gillian 170–1 Nazi Germany 182, 187 New Daimyó 40 new mingei 72, 74, 115, 202–4, 208 New Order 164, 175 New Village 29–32 Newland, William 235 Nezu, Masashi 179–80 Nihon Bijutsu Kyókai 90 Nihon Kógei Bijutsu Kai 85 Nihon Kógei Kyódan 208 Nihon Kógeikan 208 Nihon Mingei Kyókai: see Japan Folkcrafts Association nihonga (Japanese-style painting) 89 Niinomi, Takamasa 17 Nippon Bijutsu oyobi Kógei Tósei Kyókai 175

306

Index

Nishida, Kitaró 6, 7 Nishikawa, Tomotake 107 Nobe, Keizó 181, 182 Noguchi, Isamu 220, 222–3 Noh drama 148–9, 154 no-mindedness 60, 61, 176, 209–10 non-individuality 211–14 Nordiska Museet 70–1 nostalgia 112, 134, 143–4, 194, 225 Nóten 84 Nótomi, Kaijiró 83 objects of desire 68, 76, 235–6, 240–1, 246 Occidentalism: aesthetics 201; Japanese cultural identity 244–5; Korea 127–8; Mingei theory 1, 2, 43; Modernity xvii, 23–4; national identity 193–4; Orientalism xvi–xvii, 8, 53, 88–9, 123, 154, 195, 201, 244–6; philosophy 7–9; Shirakaba Art Gallery 70; Shirakaba group 79–80; Zen Buddhism 198 occultism 5 Oguma, Eiji 124 Óhara, Magosaburó 71 Okakura, Tenshin 89, 90–1, 92–3, 123, 204–5 Okamura, Kichiemon 3 Okinawa 140–3, 155; Akae 153–4, 155; colonialism 91, 124, 156; language 150–3; Noh drama 148–9, 154; prejudice 151–2; bingata 143, 149, 150; stencil-dyeing 142–3; shísá 144, 145; women with jars 147 Ókuma, Nobuyuki 1, 26 Onda, Itsuo 37 Orient 91–2, 153–4, 155–6, 175 Orientalism xv, xvi, xvii; bamboo crafts 168–9; Britain 225; Leach xvii, 14, 193; Mingei theory 95, 244–5; non-individuality 211–14; Occidentalism xvi–xvii, 53, 88–9, 123, 154, 195; Oriental 8, 123–4, 193–5, 197, 201, 244–6; Other 244; religious art 44; Reverse 197, 232, 243, 245; Yanagi 91, 123, 193–5 Ósawa, Sannosuke 17

Ósugi, Sakae 24 Otake, Kazue 19 Other 193, 195, 244 Owen, Robert 25 Paiwan textiles 168, 169 Pak, Chonghong 138 Paris International Exhibition 82, 99 paternalism 139, 152, 182–3, 194 patronage 52 Pavitt, Jane 228 peasant art 16, 24, 32, 35–6, 70–1, 88, 165 peasant life 26–7, 34–7, 39, 88, 113 Penty, Arthur J. 62, 67 perception: see intuition Perriand, Charlotte 95; bamboo 169–70, 172–3; chaise longue 101, 105; critics of 107–8; cushions 104; design advice 185; exhibitions 100–1, 104, 106; export crafts 103–4; folkcrafts 107; Hamada 106; IARI 107; Kawai 106; Modernism 195; Nature 107–8; table 101, 106, 108; tradition 101, 103, 108–9 philosophy 7–9 Picasso, Pablo 160, 235 Polanyi, Michael 238 politics: crafts 88–91, 175; culture xvii, 183; folkcraft 184; Korea 126–7; Mingei theory 160, 162, 163, 194 post-colonialism 244 Post-Impressionists 11–12, 148, 157 pottery: class 52–3; ethical 234; Korea 22, 154, 155; Okinawa 155; Song China 153–4, 155; spiritual approach 234; Taiwan 185; Tomisen-marked 231–2; Tsuboya 146–8, 153–4; see also ceramics; Hamada; Leach Powell, Alexander 139 Power, Other/Given/Self 200, 209–10, 217 Powers, Alan 233 print-making 32–6, 165, 179, 209–10 printing 73 Pugin, A.W. 50 Pye, David 237–8

Index quality 97, 104 rain cape 103, 111 Raphael 59 Rasu Chijin Kyókai 36–7, 39 Read, Herbert 8, 233 Red House 17, 18, 65 regionalism 150–1, 152 religious art 44–6, 158 restaurants 68, 70 retail shops 74–6, 190 revitalisation of locality 113–16, 122, 208, 220 Rhodes, Daniel 239 Rie, Lucie 231, 235, 240 Riess, Ludwig 92 Robertson, Jennifer 112 Rodin, Auguste 22, 70, 79–80 roof lions 143, 144, 145 Rosalto, Renato 194 rural crafts promotion 114–15, 208 Ruskin, John: Alcock 89; art of the people 26–7, 35; Arts and Crafts movement 1, 14–15; culture/morality 59; Guild of St George 67; humanity of craftsmen 200; as inﬂuence 2, 40; labour 31–2, 39; life/art 38; London Working Men’s College 39; machinery 55; medievalism 58; Nature 57; socialism 24–5, 29 Russia 32 Russo-Japanese War 84, 124, 190 Rutter, Frank 11, 12, 14 Ryúkyú: see Okinawa Said, Edward xvi–xvii St George’s Guild 27–8, 59, 67 St George’s Museum 28–9 Saitó, Bunichi 37 Sakai, Naoki xvi, 123 Sakakura, Junzó 173, 220, 221 sansui dobin (tea/soup pot) 53, 54 Sasaki Glass 228–9, 230 Sató, Dóshin 80–1 savage art 20–1 savage textiles 165, 168, 182 Scandinavian folkcrafts 70–1 Sekino, Tadashi 125–6 self-discipline 60

307

Sen no Rikyú 40, 131 Seyei Ceramic 228, 230–1 Sharf, Robert 201 Shaw, Richard Norman 17 Shefﬁeld 28 shibui 41–2, 58, 204 Shiga, Naoya 29 Shikiba, Ryúzaburó 70–1, 129, 191 Shimazaki, Tóson 24 Shiotsuki, Tóho 185 Shirakaba Art Gallery 70 Shirakaba group 4, 13, 29, 79–80 Shirakaba magazine 10, 29–30; Buddhist art 44; Chosön ceramics 129; Morris 22; Occidental art 77–8; Tomimoto 22; Yanagi 9 Shiratori, Kurakichi 92 Shuri castle 146 Sino-Japanese War 84, 163 skill/crafts 236–8, 240 Snowdon, Helen 236, 239 Social Darwinism 91, 92, 93, 155–6, 195 social injustice 30 socialism 24–5, 29, 31–2; guild socialism 25–6, 67 society/art 58–9 sósaku hanga (prints) 32–6, 165, 179, 210 South-East Asian crafts 245–6 South Kensington Museum 17–18, 20 spatula 160, 161 spiritualism 6 spirituality 5, 234 Stair, Julian 233, 240 Steiner, Rudolf 5 stencil dyeing 142–3, 149–50 studio craft movement: Leach Tradition 86, 233–5, 240–1; magazines 85; Mingei theory 205–6; Mukei 86; objects of desire 235–6; Tomimoto 86 substitute products 115–16, 175 Suﬁsm 8 Sugiyama, Sueo 157, 160, 165 Suiko period 45–6 supernaturalism 4–5, 6 Suzuki, Daisetz 6, 7, 199, 201, 204–5 Suzuki, Minoru 63 Sweden 36, 70–1

308

Index

tableware 191, 228–9; see also tea sets Tada, Yukimasa 37 Taguchi, Ukichi 92 Taihoku Imperial University 164 Taisei Yokusan Kai 181 Taishó period 23–4, 76–7 Taiwan: academic journals 164; anthropology 164–5; assimilation 164, 180–1; colonialism 163–4, 189; cultural institutions 167; ethnic nationalism 181; ﬁne art 184–5; history 163–4; Hórainuri (Formossan lacquerware) 185, 187; kóminka policy 164, 175, 179, 180–1, 182, 189; literary movement 184–5; local colour concept 185; pottery 185; studies of 164, 167; savage textiles 165, 168, 169, 178, 182; Taiwan/Oriental Panama 185; textiles 168, 169; vernacularism 184–9; see also Taiwanese folkcrafts Taiwan Bijutsu Hókó Kai 181 Taiwan Exhibition 164, 165, 185 Taiwan plates 187 Taiwan Seikatsu Bunka Shinkókai 187 Taiwanese folkcrafts 165–6; Japan Folkcrafts Association 157; proﬁts for Japan 175; vernacularism 184–9; Yan 185, 187; Yanagi 164, 168–9, 176, 185, 189 Taiwanese Folklore 164, 176, 177, 178, 179–80, 183 Takamura, Kótaró 13, 22 Takamura, Toyochika 86, 87 Takasaki, Sóji 3, 137, 138 Takashimaya department store 68, 117, 172–4, 188 Takeno, Jóó 40 Takumi shop 74–6, 190 Tanaka, Stefan xvii, 92 Tanaka, Jun 11 tarikidó (Way of Other Power) 200 Tateishi, Tetsuomi 176, 179 Taut, Bruno: architecture 95–7; bamboo 169–72; design advice 185; IARI 84, 95, 97–9; Japanese Modern 109; Japaneseness 99–100, 103, 218; Mingei theory 100; Modernism 195

tea ceremony: aesthetics 40–2, 58, 61, 202–5, 253n207; intuition 61; Japan Folk Crafts Museum 202–4; Zen Buddhism 205 tea masters 40–2, 126, 234 tea sets 102, 231 tea utensils 202–4 Teikoku Kógeikai 84 Tenisheva, Princess M. K. 35 Tenpyó period 143–4 textiles: kasuri 153, 154; Paiwan 168, 169; savage 165, 168, 182 ties, homespun 74 Tóhoku region 110, 112–13, 116, 122 Tokutomi, Sohó 24 Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkó 91 Tokyo Kótó Kógei Gakkó 84 Tokyo Ruskin Society 25 Tokyo School of Art 91 Tolstoy, Leo 29, 30, 31, 32 Tomimoto Kenkichi: Ainu crafts 160; art of the people 212–13; education 17; folk art 21; getemono 212; individualism 211–14; as inﬂuence 144; interior design 63; jar 20; Kokuga Sósaku Kyókai 213; Korea 129; kurafuto 228–9; Leach 13, 17–18, 23; Morris 25; Shirakaba magazine 22; split from Mingei movement 213; studio crafts 86; table cloth 19; water colour 18; Yanagi 22–3, 213–14; Yasaka Crafts 231–2 Tomisen-marked pottery 231–2 Tonaki, Akira 143 Tonomura, Kichinosuke 3, 72, 191, 208 toriawase (assortment) 204 Tottori Folk Crafts Museum 74, 190 Tottori Mingei Guild 190 Tottori Mingei Kyódan 66–7 Tóyó Bijutsu Kokusai Kenkyú Kai 168 tóyó (Orient) 91, 92–3, 123–4, 144, 153–6 Toyoguchi, Katsuhei 173 tradition: awareness of 114; beauty 57; Buddhism 200; modern crafts 101, 103; modernisation 204; Morris 57; Perriand 101, 103, 108–9

Index Tsuboya pottery 146–8, 153–4 Tsurumi, Shunsuke 3, 5, 36–7, 137–8 Ubukata, Naokichi 137 Ueda, Kóichi 191 Umehara, Ryúzaburó 22 utility 48, 55 utopian society 27 Utsushikawa, Nenozó 164 Van Gogh, Vincent 12, 70 vases 86, 87, 215, 216 Venus Club Gallery 22 vernacularism: education 181–2; kóminka policy 180–1; Minzoku Taiwan 183; multiculturalism 184; Taiwan 184–9; Taiwanese folkcrafts 184–9 vessel school of ceramics 239–40 Victoria and Albert Museum 235 Vienna International Exhibition 81, 82–3 Vlastos, Stephen 122 Vogeler, Heinrich 9–11 de Waal, Edmund 14 Wagener, Gottfried 82–3 war-time products 175, 187–8 Watson, Oliver 234 weaving tools 157, 158 Webb, Philip 17 Westernisation 77, 146 woodblock prints 210 woodcarvings 33, 165 Woolf, Virginia 5 Wright, Russel 218 Wu, Mi-cha 179–80, 181, 189 Xiaomei, Chen xvi Yamamoto, Kanae 167; Children’s Free Drawings 32–3; kustar art 32, 35; peasant art 35–6, 165–6; sósaku hanga 165, 179; Taiwanese crafts 165–6 Yamamoto, Tamesaburó 65 Yamawaki, Iwao 107 Yan, Shui-long 176, 179, 185, 187, 188–9

309

Yanagi, Kaneko 9–10, 126–7, 129 Yanagi, Sóetsu xv, 1–4, 62–3, 156; aesthetics 136–7; Ainu 157–60; beauty xv, xvi, xvii, 8–9, 41–2, 51, 61, 62, 91; ‘Chósen no Bijutsu’ 131–2; Chósen to sono Geijutsu 128–9; Chosön ceramics 131, 134–6; colonial government associations 139–40; colonialism 193; critics 3, 208–9; cultural pluralism 152, 193; emotional empathy 152–3; getemono 50, 52, 56, 60, 81, 88; Kógei Bunka 2; Kógei no Michi 50, 115, 129; Korean crafts 22, 77–8, 126–7, 137–8; Leach 13–14, 43–4, 80; lecture tours 197–8; Orientalism 91, 123, 193–5; paternalism 139, 152, 182–3, 194; philosophical inﬂuences 7–9; self-discipline 60; Taiwanese folkcrafts 164, 168–9, 176, 185, 189; Tójiki no Bi 128; Tomimoto 22–3, 213–14; see also Japan Folk Crafts Museum; Mingei movement; Mingei theory; Okinawa Yanagi, Sóri 106, 173, 220 Yanagita, Kunio 183 Yang, Yun-ping 180, 183 Yasaka Crafts 231–2 Yasaka Kógei 228–9 Yen, Chuan-ying 185 Yoshida, Shóya: folkcrafts exhibitions 190–1; Japan Folkcrafts Association 72; Kómin Kógei 191; Living Museum 68, 69; new mingei 74; Tottori Mingei Guild 190, 208 Yoshitake, Mosuke 219 Young, Louise 190 Zen Buddhism: aesthetics 7, 155; beauty 54; Mingei theory 9; national cultural discourse 204; nationalism 201; no-mindedness 60, 61, 176, 209–10; Occident 198; tea aesthetics 205, 253n207; unconscious 8 zuan (design) 83–4