Dan Wilson on fri 5 jul 96
"A condensed and paraphrased extract from an essay on popular, or folk,
arts and crafts by Soetsu Yanagi, the intelectual leader of the Japanese
craft movement of to-day:"
"To me the greatest thing is to live beauty in our daily life and to crowd
every moment with things of beauty. It is then and only then that the art
of the people as a whole is endowed with its richest significance. For its
products are those made by a great many craftsmen for the mass of the
people, and the moment this art declines the life of the nation is removed
far away from beauty. So long as beauty abides in only a few articles
created by a few geniuses,the Kingdom of Beauty is nowhere near
realization."
Bernard Leach. A Potters Book. Trans Atlantic Arts Inc.;Second edition,
Eleventh American impression. 1967.
Is Yanagi's view impractical, even unattainable in a culture whose 'art'
has been separated from the idea of beauty?
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