Book review: The Beauty Of Everyday Things
“That which is profound never lends itself to logical explanation: it involves endless mystery.”
I honestly had no inkling of the purchase I had made when I began reading this book. Upon initial research, I learnt that Yanagi’s writings had been compiled as a collection in a previous publication - The Unknown Craftsman. This book was seen as the sequel to that first compilation which has influenced many designers, artists and sustainability scientists alike. The first book had been the book that helped countless people define beauty, folk arts and crafts, and the importance of functionaility in them.
This book is a collection of essays written by him. Soetsu Yanagi made his first trip to Korea out of a curiosity for their crafts. This trip led to him making observations about the intuitive beauty held by everyday objects because they were forms that evolved out of pure functionaility. These were objects and products that didnt have a single creator, rather, they were created by the ever evolving needs of generations and the changing nature of the tasks. In 1962, he declared the Folk Art movement which led to the creation of the Japanese Folk Arts Museum.
The book begins with a brief introduction into the concept of beauty that he sees in the objects as he travels. He is the creator of the word Mingei which translates to the ‘craft of the people’. The word min stands for ‘the masses’ and the word gei stands for ‘the craft’. This is the central guiding principle of the concept of mingei - it is the hand crafts of the ordinary people. He finds beauty in objects created by unknown craftsmen over a large timespan. This is reminiscent of the lota understanding by Charles and Ray Eames quite starkly. The objects that convey a sense of simplistic beauty thats build around the central pillar of usability and ease would be clothing, furniture, utensils and stationery. The essays force us to develop a deeper relationship with the objects around us by making one question the actual need for the embellishments we notice on them.
The first few essays define folk crafts, mingei, the meaning of mingei and the importance of functionality over the modern notion of beauty. Further, it goes on to explore the basic craft methodologies used by folk people such as dyeing, resist-dyeing, woodblock printing, clothing, pottery and handicraft making. It explores the history of these methods, the past and their forms that exist in Japan.
Yanagi Soetsu’s aesthetic philosophy had several key components - One, there is no such thing as perfect: objects used in everyday life are a product of countless people working with it, hence each object is bound to be unique in the way its been handled. Two, Gestalt: you cannot isolate the form of an object from the ease with which it serves its purpose. Three, Simplicity. Fourth, Functionality and Fifth, Musō: the unchanging formlessness behind all objects and events (Buddhist term).
Earthen wares from a tribal market in Gurgaon, India.
The book is a breath of fresh air. It reads like the mind-fodder for anyone looking to live a sustainable life by changing the thing that rests at the core of it - one’s own mindset. Every product that would classify as a Mingei product conveys everything thats the opposite of capitalism. The timelessness, simplicity and functionality of a design are paramount. One realises that the kind of beauty brought about by keeping a products’ usability as its main design parameter helps create products that can last longer. A product with less to no embellishments focusses purely on the task assigned to it - the Japanese tea bowl is an example of this cited by Yang quite often. I also realised that this is why I preferred Muji products - they are reminiscent of the purest form of Mingei philosophy in the capitalist world.
If our possessions are built around the principles of Mingei, they’re bound to be designed in a way that warrants a greater degree of care from us. That is the secret to sustainability that echoes throughout the book - for us to cure consumerism, we’re to increase the amount of attention we pay to the objects we own - and that begins with choosing objects we value.
The objects that lend itself to honest beauty are often those with simple forms, built to serve its purpose. Objects broken can be rebuilt into objects of beauty with the art of Kintsugi (joining broken objects with gold). This is a book that will change the way you look at sustainability, it will breathe sustainability into the fabric of your everyday thought which will eventually lead to the reader creating a more sustainable life for themselves.
Yanagi Sōetsu (柳 宗悦, March 21, 1889 – May 3, 1961), also known as Yanagi Muneyoshi, was a Japanese art critic, philosopher, and founder of the mange (folk craft) movement in Japan in the late 1920s and 1930s. His son, Sori Yanagi, is a renowned industrial designer. His first trip to Korea, out of curiosity about the Korean Crafts led to the establishment of the Korean Folk Crafts Museum in 1924 and the coining of the term mingei by Yanagi.
Further Reading for Sustainability and Materialism:
https://www.amazon.in/Life-Less-Throwaway-Lost-Buying/dp/0399582517
Sar: The Essence of Indian Design
