What Is Mingei? 5 Things to Know About Japanese Folk Crafts
by Anne Walther | CRAFT
© The Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Onta Ware collected by Soetsu Yanagi
Although Japanese designers are among the world’s most renowned, Japan actually has a long tradition celebrating the unsung heroes of everyday craftspeople. Mingei, Japanese folk art, in particular is the most influential and its unique design ethos is a huge inspiration for contemporary designers, both in Japan and around the world. Take a look at how the Mingei movement came to be, what exactly is mingei, and where you can enjoy it today!
1. What is Mingei?
The first ideas of this artistic movement emerged in the early 1920s around the personality of Soetsu Yanagi (1889–1961). Born in Tokyo, Yanagi spent much of his childhood and teenage years in the swiftly industrializing Meiji period (1868-1912). He took an interest in art and philosophy from a young age, especially in Korean Yi Dynasty (1392-1910) ceramics.
© The Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Soetsu Yanagi
In 1910, he formed, with other members, a literary society named Shirakabaha (The White Birch Society). The group began printing Shirakaba magazine in 1913. This publication preceded the birth of the Mingei movement and allowed its members to learn more about European artists and writers and immerse themselves in the Western thoughts of returning to craftsmanship.
Cover of Shirakaba Magazine, Volume 13, 1922, by Ryusei Kishida
During his first trip to Korea in 1916, Soetsu Yanagi collected pottery items manufactured by local craftsmen. In 1924, he established the Korean Folk Craft Museum in Seoul.
Understanding that the Korean wares he gathered had been made by unknown craftsmen, Yanagi became interested in Japan’s own cultural heritage and started collecting craft items made by nameless Japanese artisans: lacquer ware, pottery, textiles, and woodwork.
In 1925, Soetsu Yanagi, with his friends Shoji Hamada and Kanjiro Kawai, coined the term Mingei to describe this new intellectual and aesthetical movement. Formed from minshu (民衆common people) and kogei (工芸craft), Yanagi translated its meaning in English into “folk crafts”.
In order to educate the public about Japanese crafts, Yanagi wrote articles, books and held lectures. He published his first book, Kogei no Michi (The Way of Crafts), in 1928 and started Kogei (Crafts) magazine with a close circle of friends in 1931. The same year, the Nihon Mingei Kyokai (Japan Folk Craft Association) was founded. In 1936, Yanagi set up the Nihon Mingeikan (Japan Folk Crafts Museum) and launched Mingei magazine in 1939.
2. What is the Mingei Movement’s Philosophy?
© Inshu Nakai Kiln, Two-Tiered Container with Lid by Sori Yanagi
The aesthetical, philosophical and theorical aspects of Mingei is summed up in "ordinary people's crafts" (minshuteki na kogei). In Soetsu Yanagi’s opinion, beauty could be found in common and utilitarian everyday objects made by nameless and unknown artisans, as opposed to higher forms of art manufactured by named artists.
He claimed that the beauty of folk crafts laid in the usage of natural and local materials, handmade production, traditional design and methods, functionality, simplicity in design and form, multiplicity (items replicated in quantity) and inexpensiveness. The objects should be created by unnamed craftsmen, demonstrating a healthy attitude during the production process, and feature regional crafts, representative of the area where they were manufactured.
The Unknown Craftsman by Soetsu Yanagi, Available at Amazon
The Unknown Craftsman, by Soetsu Yanagi, has become a reference book since its first publication in English in 1972. Yanagi outlined the Japanese way of viewing and understanding art and beauty in everyday crafts. Mingei was not simply an intellectual movement based on aesthetics, but a spiritual movement in which artisans should work according to ethical and religious principles if beauty was to be aimed.
Mingei focuses on everyday objects produced by average people, as opposed to highly refined works of art produced by professional artists. It can also be understood as a response to Japan's rapid industrialization, as it elevates objects made in large quantity by ordinary people, rather than in a factory. In this way, it can also be perceived as a method of cultural and historical preservation. Every item has its own story from a certain region of Japan, and each one was threatened by obsolescence with the rise of factory production in Japan.
A similar process of industrialization occurred in Europe at this time, leading to the Arts and Crafts Movement in Europe and North America (ca. 1880-1920), meant to preserve traditions of handmade functional objects.
The Beauty of Everyday Things by Soetsu Yanagi, Available at Amazon
First translated and published in 2017 in paperback by Penguin Classics, The Beauty of Everyday Things (English translation edition) allows the reader to dig deeper in Soetsu Yanagi’s perspective and in the Mingei movement concept of beauty.
Of course, by curating and promoting a particular selection of craft products, the Mingei Movement is not just celebrating a style, but creating one. Just as the rustic tea bowls of the early Edo period became today’s expensive and highly sought after rakuware and other ceramic art, the ‘people’s art’ of Mingei has become another type of costly object of desire for collectors.
To learn more about Japanese ceramics, check out The A-Z of Japanese Pottery: 32 Most Popular Ceramic Styles.
3. Artists and Craftspeople of the Mingei Movement
Soetsu Yanagi has collected around himself a strong group of craftsmen:
Tea Bowl by Shoji Hamada, 1960, Gardiner Museum, Toronto
The ceramist Shoji Hamada (1894-1978) studied in Tokyo and then spent three years in London before setting up his own studio in Mashiko. He only used local clay or glazes and produced his own brushes to apply the varnishes. Hamada was appointed Living National Treasure in 1955 and succeeded Soetsu Yanagi as head of the National Museum of Folk Art in 1961.
Tea Bowl by Kanjiro Kawai, 1960s, Ginza Kuroda Touen, Tokyo
Kanjiro Kawai (1890-1966), also a ceramist, embodied the ideals of the movement by using natural varnishes. Particularly known for his brown, cobalt blue, and red glazes, he did not sign his works and refused the prestigious title of Living National Treasure that could thus change the nature of his creations.
Bowl by Bernard Leach, 1932-1938, Gardiner Museum, Toronto
Bernard Leach (1887-1979) was the only foreign founder of the Mingei movement. He trained for ten years in Japanese ceramics, particularly in the raku technique. His productions feature pure and utilitarian forms. Leach lived in England, China, Korea, and Japan and wrote two treatises to promote the role of the craftsman: A Potter's Outlook (1928) and A Potter's Book (1940).
Childbirth by Shiko Munakata, Woodcut Reworked with Brush and Black Sumi Ink, 1959, Cincinnati Art Museum
The engraver Shiko Munakata (1903-1975) developed simplified forms and contrasting colors in xylography, the most famous process of traditional Japanese printmaking.
Keisuke Serizawa (1895-1984), a textile craftsman, brought back to life traditional dyeing techniques, such as katazome and bingata, which consist of applying decorations on textile with a stencil. He received the title of Living National Treasure in 1956.
Hiragana Furoshiki by Keisuke Serizawa, Available at Japan Objects Store
A hand printed signature furoshiki cloth by Keisuke Serizawa is available at our Japan Objects Store. This hiragana furoshiki wrapping cloth is adorned with the sinuous Japanese script and rustic, Mingei-style everyday objects. A must-have for any Mingei aficionado!
4. Where to See Mingei Around the World?
© Time Out Tokyo, The Japan Folk Crafts Museum
Soetsu Yanagi spent ten years to create the Nihon Mingeikan (Japan Folk Crafts Museum – see map), established in Tokyo in 1936. If the idea of the Mingei movement represents the written manifesto, the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo embodies a visual manifesto and demonstrates the whole aesthetics of the movement. The items displayed are divided into nine rooms: basketry, ceramics (with a special focus on Korean production), glass, lacquer, metal, painting, sculpture, stone, textiles, woodwork, and varia. Visitors can thus immerse themselves in Mingei aesthetics and beauty.
© The Japan Folk Crafts Museum, by Tadayuki Minamoto
The museum allows to preserve certain productions and testimonies that were otherwise condemned to disappear in a world in perpetual modernization. The Mingeikan collection comprises 17,000 objects. Together with the permanent collection, there are four temporary exhibitions a year, as well as concerts and lectures.
The Nihon Mingeikan is located in a beautiful traditional Japanese building with tiled roof and wooden interior, designed by Yanagi. His family home in which he lived for three decades is across the street and open to the public several days a month.
Opened in 1949, the Tottori Minkeikan (Tottori Folk Crafts Museum) was established by Shoya Yoshida, a local medical doctor who was highly active to promote Tottori prefecture’s folk crafts. The museum’s building was recognized as Tangible Cultural Property in 2012.
Located in the cultural quarter of the Expo ’70 Commemorative Park, the Osaka Mingeikan (Osaka Folk Crafts Museum – see map) was originally established in 1970 as one of the pavilions of the Japan World Exposition, Osaka. Its first director was Shoji Hamada.
If you’re traveling in Japan, you should also add these 6 Best Japanese Ceramic Towns to your itinerary!
© Afar, The Mingei International Museum, San Diego
The Mingei International Museum of World Folk Art was founded in 1974 and opened in 1978 by Martha Longenecker in San Diego (see map). As a craftsman who studied ceramics in Japan, she learned from the founders and leaders of the Mingei movement. The collection comprises 17,500 artefacts from 141 countries. The museum is closed for renovation through fall 2020.
5. Mingei in Contemporary Japanese Design
Soetsu Yanagi kept his interest in Buddhist philosophy and Japanese tea ceremony and continued to cultivate the concept of Mingei until his death in 1961. The Mingei movement evolved too, thanks to his son Sori Yanagi (1915-2011), who pursued a career in industrial design, where he instilled mass-manufactured products with the modesty, unpretentiousness, and effectiveness he and his father cherished.
© Tendo Mokko, Butterfly Stool by Sori Yanagi
The Butterfly stool, one of the most famous twentieth-century furniture design, reflects an inheritance from the Japanese Mingei movement. In his most famous creation, Sori Yanagi combined the western structure of the stool with a shape that evoked Japanese architecture (Shinto shrines’ portals), calligraphy and the wings of a butterfly.
© Another Country, Kettle by Sori Yanagi
Sori Yanagi also designed stainless-steel cooking utensils: a kettle, tongs and set of sieves. Each product has been used for years in many Japanese homes. By creating these objects, Sori Yanagi firmly confirmed that the Mingei movement’s values could be updated and reinterpreted in a contemporary way. He was appointed head of the Nihon Mingeikan (Japan Folk Crafts Museum) in 1977.
Yanagi also had a deep impact on his peers: the French designer Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999), for whom he was the assistant and translator, and the Japanese sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). As early as 1928, the latter showed interest in light and sculpture. He visited the traditional lantern manufacturers in Gifu and conceived in their technique a series of lamps that transformed his concept of light sculpture into an object of daily use to be recognized worldwide.
© Isamu Noguchi Shop, Akari 1A Lamp by Isamu Noguchi
Noguchi’s collection of Akari lamps, which in Japanese means "light and lightness", combines the traditional Japanese technique of mulberry paper lamps with the organic shapes of his sculptures.
“Mingei: Are You Here?” at Gallery Pace, London, 2013
In 2013, the exhibition ‘Mingei: Are You Here?’ held at Gallery Pace in London explored the heritage of Mingei and questioned the existence of craftsmanship in contemporary art.
Historical works by Japanese Mingei craftsmen were displayed in dialogue with works by modern and contemporary artists and designers inspired by Mingei. This exhibition featured ceramics, paintings, sculptures, and textile works by Isamu Noguchi, Charlotte Perriand, Hiroshi Sugimoto (1948-), and head designers at Muji, Naoto Fukasawa (1956-) and Jasper Morrison (1959-) among others. Almost one century later, the Mingei spirit is still alive and continues to inspire craftsmen and designers around the world.
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LIFESTYLE | July 28, 2023