Aesthetics; Beauty; Craft; Zen Buddhism; Yanagi, S.; Toshimitsu, Isao
摘要
Soetsu Yanagi (1889-1961), who was the founder of Japanese folkcraft movement, defined Mingei (=folkcraft) as the following ; 1. things made for the domestic life of the people, 2. things made to be used, not to be looked at, 3. things made in quantity, 4. things made as cheap as possible, 5. things made by anonymous unlettered craftsmen. It is nothing but a traditional ordinary handicraft, and to see its beauty, following him, we must reject the criterion of beauty of the pure art which is based on the individualism. The beauty of folkcraft is born of use, simple, healthy, and common. Then Yanagi insists that the true beauty is not the antithesis of ugliness, but the non-dual beauty which transcends the duality of beauty and ugliness. That is just the idea of beauty from the standpoint of Buddhism or Zen. This paper is an attempt to criticize his theory.
