Mingei
Description
The concept of mingei (民芸), variously 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 urbanization. In some ways, therefore, mingei may be seen as a reaction to Japan's rapid modernisation processes. Read more ↗
Key Artists
Yanagi Sōetsu
Philosopher, aesthetician, and founder of the Mingei (Folk Craft) movement who coined the term in 1925 and established the Japan Folk Crafts Museum to celebrate anonymous, functional beauty.
Shōji Hamada
Master potter and co-founder of Mingei who built his kiln in Mashiko, creating functional, warm-toned stoneware glazed with ash and iron that earned him the title of Living National Treasure.
Kanjirō Kawai
Co-founder of Mingei and master ceramicist in Kyoto who rejected individual artistic vanity, famously refusing the title of Living National Treasure and leaving his vibrant pottery unsigned.
Bernard Leach
British potter and lifelong friend of Yanagi and Hamada who co-founded the Leach Pottery in St Ives and served as the vital bridge bringing Japanese Mingei philosophy to Western studio pottery.
Keisuke Serizawa
Master textile designer of the Mingei movement who invented the katazome stencil-dyeing technique using Okinawan bingata methods, producing folk tapestries, kimonos, and illustrated calendars.
Shikō Munakata
Woodblock printmaker championed by Yanagi Sōetsu as the visual embodiment of unpretentious, spiritually pure folk craft, whose raw woodcuts bridged Mingei and Sōsaku-hanga.
Famous Artworks
Fun Facts
The word 'Mingei' was a hybrid neologism coined in 1925 during a trip to Wakayama by Yanagi Sōetsu, Shōji Hamada, and Kanjirō Kawai, combining 'minshū' (common people) and 'kōgei' (crafts) to mean 'folk craft' or 'art of the people.'
↗ Source: en.wikipedia.org
Kanjirō Kawai and Shōji Hamada famously refused to sign their pottery, believing that true Mingei beauty stemmed from anonymous communal tradition rather than individual artistic ego; Kawai even turned down Japan's highest honor, Living National Treasure, to maintain this folk purity.
↗ Source: en.wikipedia.org