The art of golden joinery
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| More beautiful for being broken? (Etsy) |
- A crack in a vessel is not a mistake, not an error, but rather a means of allowing light in.
- "NO-MIND" (Japanese mushin, Chinese 無心, wúxīn, Sanskrit acitta, acittika, acintya, nirvikalpa) is a mental state that is important in East Asian religions, Asian culture, and the arts. The idea is discussed in classic Zen (Chan) Buddhist texts and has been described as "the experience of an instantaneous severing of thought that occurs in the course of a thoroughgoing pursuit of a Buddhist meditative exercise" [1, 2].
- It is not necessarily a total absence of thinking, however. Instead, it can refer to an absence of clinging, conceptual proliferation (cycling through an endless hamster wheel), or being stuck in thought [1].
- Chinese Buddhist texts also link this experience with Buddhist metaphysical concepts, like Buddha-nature and Dharmakaya. The term is also found in Taoist literature, including the Zhuangzi. This idea eventually influenced other aspects of Asian culture and the arts. Thus, the effortless state of "no mind" (flow state) is one cultivated by poets, artists, craftspeople, performers, and trained martial artists, who may not even think it is associated with Buddhism or Taoism [3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. More: No-mind
The method is similar to the maki-e technique [2, 3, 4]. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object rather than something to disguise [5] or hide.
History
Kintsugi became closely associated with ceramic vessels used for chanoyu (Japanese tea ceremony) [3].
On the one hand, one theory is that kintsugi may have originated when Japanese shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent a damaged Chinese tea bowl back to China for repairs in the late 15th century.
When it was returned, repaired with crude metal staples, it may have prompted Japanese craftsmen to look for a more aesthetically pleasing means of repair [2].
On the other hand, according to Bakōhan Saōki (record of tea-bowl with a "large-locust" clamp), such "ugliness" was considered inspirational and Zen-like, as it connoted beauty in broken things.
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| Goryeo ewer with gold repair spout/handle (20th cent) |
The bowl thus became highly valued due to the large metal staples, which looked like a locust, and the bowl was named 'bakōhan ("large-locust clamp") [6]. Collectors became so enamored of the new art that some were accused of deliberately smashing valuable pottery so it could be repaired with the gold seams of kintsugi.
It is also possible that a pottery piece was chosen for deformities it had acquired during production, then deliberately broken and repaired, instead of being discarded [2].
The technique of kintsugi was also applied to ceramic pieces with origins outside of Japan, including China, Vietnam, and Korea [7].
Wabi-sabi, philosophy of embracing flaws and imperfections
(T&H Inspiration & Motivation) What is the most skillful art? Noninterference, flowing, surfing
As a philosophy, kintsugi is similar to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect [8, 9]. Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear from the use of an object.
- WABI-SABI (侘び寂び) in traditional Japanese aesthetics centers on the Buddhist acceptance of transience and imperfection [2]. It is often described as the appreciation of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" [3]. It is prevalent in many forms of Japanese art [4, 5]. Wabi-sabi combines two interrelated concepts, wabi (侘) and sabi (寂). According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, wabi may be translated as "subdued, austere beauty," and sabi as "rustic patina" [6]. Wabi-sabi derives from the Buddhist teaching of the Three Marks of Existence (三法印, sanbōin), which states that ALL things are impermanent (無常, mujō), unsatisfactory (苦, ku), and impersonal (or empty, shunyata, devoid of self-nature, 空, kū) [7].
This can be seen as a rationale for keeping an object around even after it has broken. It can also be understood as a justification of kintsugi itself, highlighting cracks and repairs as events in the life of an object, rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage [10].
The philosophy of kintsugi can also be seen as a variant of the adage: "Waste not, want not" [11].
Kintsugi can relate to the Japanese philosophy of "no-mind" (mushin, 無心), which encompasses the concepts of non-attachment, acceptance of change, and fate as aspects of human life [12].
Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated...a kind of physical expression of the spirit of mushin....often literally translated as "no mind," but carr[ying] connotations of fully existing within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing conditions. ...The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject. This poignancy or aesthetic of existence has been known in Japan as mono no aware, a compassionate sensitivity, or perhaps identification with, [things] outside oneself.
— Christy Bartlett, Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics
Materials and types of joinery: There are a few major styles or types of kintsugi:
- "Crack" (ひび), the use of gold dust and resin or lacquer to attach broken pieces with minimal overlap or fill-in from missing pieces
- "Piece method" (欠けの金継ぎ例), if a replacement ceramic fragment is not available and the entirety of the addition is gold or gold/lacquer compound
- "Joint call" (呼び継ぎ), the use of a similarly shaped but non-matching fragment to replace a missing piece from the original vessel creating a patchwork effect [13]. More: kintsugi
- CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit
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