Kintsugi (Japanese: 金継ぎ, romanized: "golden joinery"), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, "golden repair"),[1] is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with urushi lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. 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]
Lacquerware is a longstanding tradition in Japan[6][7] and, at some point, kintsugi may have been combined with maki-e as a replacement for other ceramic repair techniques. While the process is associated with Japanese craftsmen, the technique was also applied to ceramic pieces of other origins including China, Vietnam, and Korea.[8]
Kintsugi became closely associated with ceramic vessels used for chanoyu (Japanese tea ceremony).[3] 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 simple 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. 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").[9]
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.[2] 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 trashed.[2]
As a philosophy, kintsugi is similar to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect.[10][11] Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear from the use of an object. 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.[12] The philosophy of kintsugi can also be seen as a variant of the adage, "Waste not, want not".[13]
Kintsugi can relate to the Japanese philosophy of mushin (無心, "no mind"), which encompasses the concepts of non-attachment, acceptance of change, and fate as aspects of human life.[14]
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....Mushin is often literally translated as "no mind," but carries 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
There are a few major styles or types of kintsugi:
The key materials of kintsugi are: ki urushi (pure urushi), bengara urushi (iron red urushi), mugi urushi (a mixture of 50% ki ururshi and 50% wheat flour), sabi urushi (a mixture of ki urushi with two kinds of clay), and a storage compartment referred to as a furo ("bath" in Japanese) where the mended pottery can rest at 90% humidity for between 2 days to 2 weeks as the urushi hardens. Traditionally, a wooden cupboard and bowls of hot water were used as the furo. Alternatively, thick cardboard boxes are sometimes used as the furo as they create a steady atmosphere of humidity or large vessels filled with rice, beans, or sand into which the mended pottery is submerged.[12][16]
Staple repair is a similar technique used to repair broken ceramic pieces,[17] where small holes are drilled on either side of a crack and metal staples are bent to hold the pieces together.[18] Staple repair was used in Europe (in ancient Greece, England and Russia among others), South America,[19] and China as a repair technique for particularly valuable pieces.[18]
Yobitsugi (meaning "invite connection"[20]) is similar to kintsugi, except that pieces from visibly different broken objects are put together, patchwork-style, to form one whole one, e.g., a blue plate and a white plate.[21] Tomotsugi, by comparison, uses broken pieces taken from matching objects, e.g., if two matching plates have been broken, and the pieces can be combined to form a single plate.[22]
Kintsugi is the general concept of highlighting or emphasizing imperfections, visualizing mends and seams as an additive or an area to celebrate or focus on, rather than absence or missing pieces.
Modern artists and designers experiment with the ancient technique as a means of analyzing the idea of loss, synthesis, and improvement through destruction and repair or rebirth.[23] Through an artistic lens, a Kintsugi object is permanently both evidence of crisis and cure. [24]
While originally ignored as a separate art form, kintsugi and related repair methods have been featured at exhibitions at the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art.[2][8][11][25]
Examples of contemporary artists and designers who incorporate kintsugi techniques, aesthetics, and philosophies in their work include:
