The Thammasat University Library has newly acquired a book that should be useful for students interested in art, Japan, history, sociology, anthropology, and related fields.

Mingei: Art Without Heroes is a study of the evolution of the Japanese Mingei (folk art) movement.

Originating in Japan in the 1920s, the Mingei movement was based on the principle that beauty is inherent in handmade, everyday objects created by anonymous craftspeople.

The movement sought to elevate the status of folk craft in a rapidly modernizing society.

This book covers a range of objects associated with Mingei, from ceramics and furniture to textiles and toys, alongside a series of profiles of leading designers working in Japan today.

The TU Library collection includes a number of books about different aspects of Japanese folk art.

The concept of mingei, translated into English as folk craft, folk art, or popular art, was developed from the mid-1920s in Japan by a philosopher and aesthete, Yanagi Sōetsu (1889–1961), together with a group of craftsmen, including the potters Hamada Shōji (1894–1978) and Kawai Kanjirō (1890–1966).

As such, it was a conscious attempt to distinguish ordinary crafts and functional utensils (pottery, lacquerware, textiles, and so on) from “higher” forms of art – at the time much admired by people during a period when Japan was going through rapid westernisation, industrialisation, and urban growth.

In some ways, therefore, mingei may be seen as a reaction to Japan’s rapid modernization processes.

Yanagi’s main focus was on beauty.

The beauty of folk crafts, he argued, lay in: the use of natural materials and “natural” hand-made production; traditional methods and design; simplicity and functionality in form and design; plurality, meaning that folk crafts could be copied and reproduced in quantity, leading to inexpensiveness.

Beauty was also found in the fact that folk crafts should be made by anonymous – or “unknown” – craftspeople, and not by well-known named artists.

Finally, there was the “beauty of health”, whereby a healthy attitude during the manufacture of folk crafts led to healthy crafts.

In other words, beauty and folk crafts were the product of Japanese tradition – a tradition which he emphasized by saying that mingei should be representative of the regions in which they were produced and make use of natural materials found there.

According to the website of the Mingei International Museum,

The Meaning of “Mingei”

The word mingei, meaning art of the people, was coined by a revered Japanese philosopher named Sōetsu Yanagi. As a young man living in Korea in the early 1920s, he was taken with the timeless beauty of Yi dynasty (1392-1910) pottery—a simple, rustic type made in numberless quantities over the centuries. Used for everything from tea cups to kimchi jars, the pottery was everywhere and taken for granted.

Yanagi, however, saw Yi dynasty pottery with fresh eyes, and he considered it among the most beautiful of manmade objects—equal to renowned scroll paintings of the East and paintings and sculptures of the West. His writings, lectures, and conversations opened the eyes of Koreans to their long-dismissed and anonymous artistic legacy. In 1921, Yanagi opened a folk museum in a small building in the old palace in Seoul, filled with Korean pots and other crafts. It was the first museum of mingei in the world.

Returning to his homeland, Yanagi began to collect Japanese crafts, believing that his own people, too, needed to discover and preserve anonymous objects of truth and beauty that they had lived with and used over the ages. In 1936, with potters Kanjiro Kawai and Shoji Hamada, he opened the first Japan Folk Craft Museum (Nihon Mingei-kan). It stands for arts of the people returned to the people. Yanagi explains the concept of mingei in his seminal work, The Unknown Craftsman:

“It is my belief that while the high level of culture of any country can be found in its fine arts, it is also vital that we should be able to examine and enjoy the proofs of the culture of the great mass of the people, which we call folk art. The former are made by a few for the few, but the latter, made by the many for many, are a truer test. The quality of the life of the people of that country as a whole can best be judged by the folkcrafts.”

• THE UNKNOWN CRAFTSMAN – A Japanese Insight into Beauty by Sōetsu Yanagi

Another related website explains:

The Mingei Movement challenged society’s narrow definition of art. Traditionally, many people think of art as something produced only by artisans, separate from functional items produced by craftsmen. Mingei instead focuses on everyday objects produced by average people, as opposed to highly refined works of art produced by professional artists.

Mingei can also be seen as a response to Japan’s rapid industrialization, as it elevates things made in large quantity by the hand’s of the common people, rather than in a factory. In this way, it can also be seen as a method of cultural and historical preservation. Every item you see in a Mingei exhibition 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 was occurring in Europe at this time, leading to the Arts and Crafts Movement in England, meant to preserve traditions of handmade functional objects. Soetsu Yanagi synthesized these ideas with Buddhist principles of simplicity to form the Mingei Movement. 

The Principles of Mingei

There are a few principles and characteristics that define what types of folk arts and crafts Mingei deals with, mostly proposed by founder Soetsu Yanagi himself.

Mingei art should be produced in large quantities by hand. The hand-made nature of this art is at the core of the Mingei Movement, and the fact that it is produced in large quantities is related to the utilitarian aspect of Mingei.

Mingei art should be inexpensive, simple, and practical in design. Unlike ornate luxury items, the simplicity and inexpensiveness is what should give this art its charm. An expensive, complex item would not be readily accessible to the masses, betraying the fundamental ideas behind the movement. The design should also have arisen naturally over time to best suit the needs of those using it.

Mingei art should be not only functional, but also actually used by the masses. Yanagi argued that the beauty of these objects comes from their actual usage, not simply being admired. Their use also gives them their cultural and regional authenticity.

Mingei art should represent the region in which it was produced. This reflects Japanese culture’s appreciation for regional variation, and indeed Mingei art often has distinguishing characteristics unique to specific regions of Japan. Each object represents a small cultural legacy that gives it a value beyond its aesthetics.

Traditionally, Mingei art is anonymous, and individual artists should not expect recognition. However, modern attitudes have changed on this principle. The idea is that they should be appreciated as objects of the masses, not attributed to specific artisans.

However in modern times, many people agree that society should embrace and celebrate the artisans and craftspeople who help keep traditions and culture alive and that this should be reflected in how the government designates certain people as Living National Treasures.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)