Cipango - French Journal of JapaneseStudiesEnglish Selection
1 | 2012

The Invention of “Folk Crafts”: Yanagi Sōetsu andMingei

The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies
Mouvement des Arts populaires et études folkloriques
Damien Kunik

Electronic version
URL: https://journals.openedition.org/cjs/218
DOI: 10.4000/cjs.218
ISSN: 2268-1744
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Damien Kunik, “The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies”, Cipango - French Journal of JapaneseStudies [Online], 1 | 2012, Online since 23 May 2013, connection on 08 July 2021. URL: http://
journals.openedition.org/cjs/218 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/cjs.218

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The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies

The Folk Crafts Movement and
Folklore Studies
Mouvement des Arts populaires et études folkloriques
Damien Kunik

EDITOR'S NOTE
Original release: Damien Kunik, « Mouvement des Arts populaires et études
folkloriques », Cipango [En ligne], 16 | 2009, mis en ligne le 18 novembre 2011, DOI:
10.4000/cipango.374.
1

When in 1941 Yanagi Sōetsu (or Muneyoshi) 柳宗悦 wrote an article entitled “Folk
Craft Studies and Folklore Studies” for the journal Kōgei 工藝 (Crafts), 1 the Folk Crafts
Movement (mingei undō 民藝運動) he was largely responsible for establishing was at its
height.2 The Japan Folk Crafts Association ( Nihon Mingei Kyōkai 日本民藝協会), themovement’s governing body set up seven years earlier, was experiencing a peak in its
membership with several thousand supporters. Circulation figures for the association’s
two journals, Crafts and Folk Crafts Monthly (Gekkan Mingei 月刊民藝), were at theirhighest. The Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Nihon Mingeikan 日本民藝館), which
spearheaded the group’s activities, was celebrating its fifth anniversary in the Komaba
駒場 neighbourhood of Tokyo. As for Yanagi, he had already written the movement’s
corpus of founding texts.3 During this period members of the movement ceased theiractivities promoting its aesthetic theories in favour of a politically committed activism
conducted on a wider national scale. Yanagi thus entered the debate over theprotection of the dialect and culture of the Ryūkyū Islands. Yoshida Shōya 吉田璋也
(1898-1972) and Shikiba Ryūzaburō 式場隆三郎 (1898-1965), two leading figures in the
Folk Crafts Association, invested considerable energy in Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan, 4
where they notably sought to extend the Association’s influence.

2

The Folk Crafts Movement’s success is most clearly measured by the way the aesthetic
it advocated permeated many areas of urban culture. In the 1930s, for example,

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The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies

department stores – led by Mitsukoshi and Takashimaya – held regular temporary
exhibitions to promote the objects endorsed by Yanagi and his followers. Given theimportance of these establishments and their influence on consumer tastes, it seems
almost certain that the Folk Crafts Movement would have been perceived moregenerally at that time as a decorative arts movement for the wealthy rather than amarginal intellectual or avant-garde aesthetic movement.
3

Nonetheless, the rural Japanese handicrafts that appeared in department stores, andwhich were designed to be modern consumer goods, proudly asserted their local colour
and popular origins. In fact, their style originated in the nation’s most remote andpreviously rather discredited regions (San’in, Tōhoku), rediscovered thanks to Thuir“high degree of Japaneseness”. Finally, these craft wares were presented as the visible
expression of a social and aesthetic theory developed a few years earlier by people whosought to promote Japan’s tangible heritage, which was waning under the triple impact
of industrialisation, modernisation and westernisation.

4

This may explain the confusion that exists over the theories of the Folk Crafts
Movement and those of another movement born in the same period and which tackled
a closely related subject: the folklore studies (minzokugaku 民俗学) of Yanagita Kunio 柳
田國男 (1875-1962), which will be the focus of this article. This confusion, which
outside of specialist circles persists in Japan today, is not recent; on the contrary, itarose during the early years of these two movements which are at times similar, attimes complementary, and at times diametrically opposed.

5

That these movements emerged simultaneously and that their common centre ofinterest was influenced by the times is undeniable. Let us not forget that othercontemporaries of Yanagi and Yanagita, such as Yamamoto Kanae 山本鼎 (1882-1946)
in the field of the arts and Miyazawa Kenji 宮沢賢治 (1896-1933) in literature, also
developed a passion for promoting Japan’s rural folk culture. This interest in thesubject during the first half of the twentieth century thus provides a link between
individuals who did not necessarily move in the same circles at the time. Their common
use of the character min 民 (people, nation) has fuelled confusion further. Lastly,
Yanagi and Yanagita shared a common cause: their desire to fight for the preservationof a tangible and cultural heritage that was regional, national and, above all, Asian.

6

At the time of writing “Folk Craft Studies and Folklore Studies”, a short 15-page essaythat will be analysed here, Yanagi was well aware that this confusion existed. He thus
quite naturally felt the need to compose a text that would allow him to clarify thesimilarities and differences between his ideology and that of Yanagita. This necessity
was further heightened by the fact that 1941 marked a new chapter in the population’s
collective contribution to the war effort. The arts and sciences were also called upon,
more so than in the previous decade, and underwent an extensive reorganisation andcentralisation of their activities, which previously had been allowed to exist in parallel.
Yanagi, just like Yanagita, was most certainly forced to justify the independence of his
movement and the institutions it had generated.

7

At the same time, “Folk Craft Studies and Folklore Studies”, which crystallised five
years of reflections on the relationship between science and folk crafts, concluded a
dialogue launched in 1936 between Yanagi and several key figures in Japanese folklore
studies, including Shibusawa Keizō 渋沢敬三 (1896-1963), Miyamoto Tsuneichi 宮本常一 (1907-1981) and Yanagita Kunio himself.5

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The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies

8

It should be noted that the two movements, which still exist today, have never sinceshown a desire or need to meet with each other. Consequently, while it may be
tempting to compare Yanagita and Yanagi for their efforts to preserve Japan’s culturaland tangible folk heritage, the truth is that a polite silence divides Japanese folklorists
and followers of the Folk Crafts Movement.

9

So while hastily associating the Folk Crafts Movement with folklore studies is a risky
enterprise, it would appear just as simplistic to confine Yanagi’s movement to thehistory of decorative arts, as some Western and Japanese researchers, as well as thecurators of recent exhibitions on the subject,6 have tended to do. Of course, given thecurrent trend to lend an exotic flavour to the term mingei,7 one could consider the Folk
Crafts Movement to be no more similar to folklore studies than naturalistic painting is
to biology or botany. Where Yanagi had a Japanese-inspired aesthetic from a bygone
era, Yanagita had science, so to speak. Admittedly this interpretation is not entirely
unfounded if we consider the Folk Crafts Movement to be an art movement of the past.
However, it is important that we go beyond such a simplistic reading of the movement
by giving due weight to its founders’ explicit intentions. Yanagi set them out in the
opening line of his essay:8
The aim of this text is to clarify the Folk Crafts Movement’s nature as a scientificdiscipline. It would seem appropriate, in order to get straight to the heart of thematter, to propose a comparison of the Folk Crafts Movement and folklore studies,for the two approaches have as many similarities as they do differences. Drawing
parallels between these two sciences is both necessary and enriching. It is thus
useful to understand that these two approaches are destined to work together andhelp each other in the future.
The most striking similarity between folk craft studies and folklore studies is thatboth place the everyday life of the common people at the heart of their concerns.

10

Thus while for reasons that I hope to explain, the Folk Crafts Movement and folklore
studies are often studied by specialists hailing from different disciplines, and while theterm mingei is traditionally associated with Japanese decorative arts, it must beconceded that Yanagi himself wished to establish a link between his movement andscholarly ambitions such as those of Yanagita and his disciples. Here, if only in theory,
Yanagi asserted his desire to promote a discipline rather than a new aesthetic form.

11

By conducting a detailed analysis of the text “Folk Craft Studies and Folklore Studies”,
this article proposes to lift the veil on a lesser known face of the movement, that of its
theoretical reflections and questioning, far from the famous achievements of Mingei
champions such as Kawai Kanjirō 河井寛次郎 (1890-1966), Hamada Shōji 濱田庄司
(1894-1978) and Munakata Shikō 棟方志功 (1903-1975).

Folk crafts (mingei) and folk tools (mingu)
12

The first written indication of a reflection on the similarities and differences between
folk crafts and folklore studies came from Shibusawa Keizō, in the form of an article
written in 1933 entitled “The Development of the Attic Museum”. 9

13

The grandson of the famous economist Shibusawa Eiichi 渋沢栄一 (1840-1931),
Shibusawa Keizō is known primarily for having taken up the baton inherited from his
illustrious ancestor. His personal commitment to the world of finance, his position as

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The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies

Governor of the Bank of Japan and stint as Finance Minister immediately after theSecond World War often conceal his leading role in Japanese folklore studies.
14

Shibusawa is evidently not as famous in the field as Yanagita, something doubtless
explained by his primary focus being on an aspect of Japanese folklore that was of little
interest to the discipline’s most orthodox branch: collecting and analysing everyday
objects (toys, tools, votive plaques and crockery). Fifteen years before the Japan Folk
Crafts Museum was created, Shibusawa made his collections available to the public via
a small museum he opened in 1921, in the loft of his home in Mita (Tokyo), and which
he aptly named the Attic Museum アチック・ミュゼアム. This event would not fail toinspire Yanagi. The bulk of this now defunct museum’s collections was later acquiredby the National Museum of Ethnology (Kokuritsu Minzokugaku Hakubutsukan 国立民族学博物館) upon its creation in Osaka in 1974.10

15This interest in Japan’s tangible heritage can also be seen in the name Shibusawa gave
his field of research, “the study of folk tools” (mingugaku 民具学), and provides a simple
explanation for Shibusawa’s interest in Yanagi’s work on Japanese crafts, a field which
at first glance closely resembled his own. The two men met on two occasions, 11 the firstbeing a visit by Yanagi to the Attic Museum, and the second a field trip 12 to the flower
festival (hana matsuri 花祭) of Shitara District (Shitara-gun 設楽郡) in Aichi Prefecture,
which was jointly organised by the Folk Crafts Association and a handful of folklorists,
including Shibusawa.

16

For the purpose of making an initial distinction between folklore studies and the Folk
Crafts Movement, it may be useful to examine the specificities of these two terms:
mingei 民藝 (folk craft/art), as it was employed by Yanagi, and mingu 民具 (folk tools),
as conceived by Shibusawa.
When giving these objects [mingu] the name getemono or mingei ,13 the main purpose
is to underline their individual beauty. Conversely, at the Attic Museum we seethem as an integral part of everyday life and strive to reveal the nature of those
who created them. In other words, the items presented here form a whole andprovide a glimpse into the souls of our ancestors. It is here that we find beauty. 14

17

There are several issues to note here. Firstly, logic dictates that the term mingu refers
to tools (gu 具) of the people (min 民), in other words purely utilitarian objects, whilemingei refers to a popular art (gei 藝) whose aesthetic dimension, even reduced to its
simplest form, must be taken into account. Yet if we are to believe the above extract,
the terms mingu, getemono and mingei – since they appear to be interchangeable – areprimarily labels reflecting different interpretations of similar objects. This observation
serves to underline a basic similarity between the two approaches: their study of acommon field.

18

These objects, to which members of the Folk Crafts Movement and folklorists alikeattach the same importance and heritage value, do not, however, play the same role in
the formation of their respective theories. As Shibusawa pointed out, the Folk Crafts
Movement was primarily concerned with highlighting the specific beauty of each craft
ware. Folklorists, on the other hand, had no interest in aesthetics and sought to use theobjects to understand the nature of the Japanese community through an analysis of its
tangible heritage.

19

This provides us with an initial definition of folklore studies and the Folk Crafts
Movement. The former focuses on mingu, or functional objects, and describes the

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The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies

nature of those who use them, while the latter is concerned with the aesthetic value ofthese same objects.

Tangible things and intangible things
20

Despite the validity of this initial distinction between the Folk Crafts Movement andfolklore studies, which establishes Yanagi as an observer of beauty and Shibusawa as ananalyst of the character of the Japanese people, it is far from enabling us to summarise
the two movements’ respective characteristics. Shibusawa in fact represented an
extremely marginal area of folklore studies, for the use of tangible heritage to describe
popular cultural phenomena was a somewhat unorthodox method within the field.
Yanagita, who made a more lasting impression in the discipline, was always moreconcerned with studying folklore through religious rites and festivals, or the oral
traditions and vocabulary of rural Japan.

21

Perhaps his encounters with Shibusawa made Yanagi aware of this, for in 1936, in anarticle entités “Tangible Things and Intangible Things”, 15 Yanagi proposed a second
distinction between the two approaches, which he later clarified with even greaterconcision and pertinence in “Folk Craft Studies and Folklore Studies”. He suggested
that while both disciplines were indeed concerned with popular culture and “the daily
life of the people”,16 the Folk Crafts Movement focused on objects and Japanese crafts,
which he termed mono, or “tangible things”, while folklore studies were moreinterested in analysing social, ritual and religious phenomena, or “intangible things”(koto).
Folk craft studies inevitably take tangible objects as their subject; whilst in folklore
studies objects serve as complementary material. We often use the example ofceramics in particular, while folklorists make little reference to these objects,
despite them being an extremely common feature of everyday Japanese life […].
Conversely, folklore studies take a much keener interest in religious rituals. 17

22This pertinent argument reflects a perception that still exists today on the nature of
the two movements. Thus, while Yanagi’s movement continues to be characterised byits clear interest in tangible folk heritage, folklore studies focuses instead on Japanesepractices and what they tell us about Japanese culture.

23

Yanagi even attempted to re-evaluate Shibusawa’s work from this new perspective: 18
In light of research on folk tools [民具 mingu] it should be possible to say thatfolklore studies also take an interest in concrete objects [具体的なもの gutaitekinamono]. However, upon closer inspection it appears that rather than discussing folk
objects themselves, these wares are collected in order to discuss the events [koto]that surround them. Rather than observing tangible things [mono], folklorists lookat the intangible things around them. Rather than observing concrete folk objects,
they observe the abstract world that surrounds folk tools.

24

While demonstrating that in this case the two approaches differ in the focus of theirstudy, Yanagi nonetheless acknowledges that folklorists and proponents of the folk
crafts method study “elements that always end up blending into one another”. 19
Nevertheless, Yanagi believed that the Folk Crafts Movement was not intended to be adescriptive science of tangible heritage. On the contrary, he reflected on ways toextricate the object from the context of its use. His approach differed in that it aimed
not to understand the object in its factual context but rather to identify an element

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5

The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies

that transcended its environment and era: in other words, beauty, which gave theobject its true value. He explained this position in the following terms: 20
Take the following example. Imagine presenting a teabowl to a customer. Two typesof reaction may be observed. Some will say: “What is the name of this bowl? Where
does it come from? When was it made? Who made it?” This type of customer ismore interested in the elements surrounding the bowl than the bowl itself. Others,on the other hand, will exclaim admiringly: “This bowl is magnificent!” or “What aremarkable style!” And since their eye is drawn to the aesthetic value of the bowl, it
is only at a later stage that they take an interest in the events surrounding theobject. On the one hand there are those who make their judgments based on thefactual world, and on the other, those who, by looking at the objects directly,
search for their true value, in other words their beauty.
25

In this way, although they focus on tangible Japanese heritage, folk craft studies areprimarily concerned with the aesthetic value of such objects. They deviate fromfolklore studies not only in their subject matter – tangible culture versus cultural
phenomena – but also on the question of the object’s intrinsic value and do not hesitate
to take the object out its context, leaving nothing but its essence.

26

The decontextualisation of Japan’s craft heritage remains a core issue within the “folkcrafts method”. A visit to the Japan Folk Crafts Museum today confirms that the objects
displayed are classed neither chronologically nor geographically, but rather by theindigenous craft technique used to create them: pottery, lacquerware or woodworking,for example. The object is thus separated from its era and place of origin and serves
merely to illustrate its aesthetic value and the skill of the anonymous artisan who
created it.

The axiological approach and the descriptive approach
27

This observation constitutes the main argument of the essay “Folk Craft Studies andFolklore Studies” and, for reasons that will be explained here, gives meaning to theterm mingeigaku, or “folk craft studies”.21

28

In order to understand the scope of this term it should be pointed out that Yanagi’s text
draws heavily on the theoretical framework of the neo-Kantian philosopher Wilhelm
Windelband (1848-1912), who was widely translated in Japan at the time, 22 and his
theory on the complementary nature of judgments of fact and judgements of value. In
his 1894 book History and Natural Science (Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft), Windelband
stated that the distinction between the natural sciences and the human sciences
stemmed not from the object studied but rather the method employed by both to arriveat their conclusions. It was using this exact same concept that Yanagi planned toestablish the Folk Crafts Movement as a science which, by adopting its own method,
could offer a similar scientific credibility to folklore studies. The real distinction
between his approach and Yanagita’s was based on the fact that while folklore studies
were a descriptive science, just like physics or biology, Mingei, much more than asimple aesthetic movement, resembled an axiological science, in other words a scienceof values (Wert), a kind of ethical and normative tool for establishing the value of folk
crafts:23
We classify sciences that describe reality as empirical sciences [経験学 keikengaku],
and sciences that deal with what ought to be, normative sciences [規範学Cipango - French Journal of Japanese Studies, 1 | 2012

6

The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies

kihangaku].24 Folklore studies fall into the former category, folk craft studies, thelatter.
Let us take another example. Botany belongs to the realm of the real; it refers to thereal world. Conversely, ethics deals with concepts that tackle a world of ideals.
There is a fundamental difference between the two. Biology must be a descriptive
science, while ethics must strive to establish norms. […] Botany is not the science ofthe beauty of plants. Ethics is not the science of man, it is the discipline concernedwith proper human behaviour […].
The overriding objective of folk craft studies is to establish a norm for value
critique.
29

Thus while Yanagi considered the subject matter underpinning his science to be thesame as that which interested folklorists, he planned to use it as a normative tool forestablishing a new national aesthetic. This concept of “normative science”
characterised mingei research and, as the following example will illustrate, would serveas the dogmatic foundation of the movement’s mission to reappraise Japan’s tangible
folk heritage during the 1930s and 1940s.

From normative science to shop displays
30

The Folk Crafts Movement is today too often reduced to a handful of names whose
importance is admittedly indisputable (Kawai, Hamada, Yanagi), but whose efforts areperhaps the least representative of mingei activism during the immediate pre-war
years. The record number of members joining the Folk Crafts Association during the1940s has already been mentioned. And while Yanagi will forever remain the
movement’s theoretician, and Kawai and Hamada the stars of exhibitions on thesubject, in reality it was the Association’s army of supporters who lent the movement
its weight, importance and ability to establish a new aesthetic.

31

Among these supporters, one example chosen among many, a man utterly devoted to
Yanagi’s cause, perfectly illustrates the practical application of the movement’s
theories. Yoshida Shōya 吉田璋也 (1898-1972), an ear nose and throat specialist
originally from Tottori Prefecture, met Yanagi for the first time in 1919. Captivated by
the man himself, from that moment on he devoted his free time to collecting folk wares
and promoting the nascent mingei doctrine, which at the time had not yet been named.
After moving back to his home town of Tottori in 1931, he transformed and restoredsome former granaries he had acquired. In June 1932 he opened the first museum ofJapanese folk crafts25 as well as a shop that quickly occupied the majority of his time.

32

Yoshida primarily wanted to revive the craft industry in his region, which had been
hard hit by the recession of the period. With this in mind, he contacted several Tottori
craftspeople and promised them an outlet for their merchandise through his shop,
Takumi たくみ (Craft). Equally concerned by the disappearance of certain traditional
craft techniques, he guaranteed the sale of any objects produced by artisans choosing
to return to such techniques.26 Delighted by Yoshida’s determination, Yanagi devoted
several articles to him in the journal Kōgei.

33

Yoshida’s efforts appear to have been a success. The money made from pottery
production in turn enabled investments to be made in textile production. Yoshida set
up weavers in his home and presented them with examples of fabrics from his own
collection.27 Having rediscovered these techniques the weavers went on to train others,
generating a multiplier effect by which textile production enabled investments in

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7

The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies

woodworking, lacquerware, metalworking, basketry, papermaking and, finally, theproduction of ink stones.
34

After a while, the Tottori region ceased to be sufficient to distribute the burgeoning
production of the craftspeople associated with Takumi. Thus, in December 1933 asecond branch of Takumi was opened in Ginza in the heart of Tokyo. This branchcontinues today to follow the same method by placing orders with Japanese
craftspeople whose work is inspired by objects and techniques inherited from the past.
It then sells their creations in order to provide financial support to the Association andcontribute to the survival of manual trades that, at least in theory, are representativeof a national heritage.28

35

A visit to the Takumi store in Ginza is intriguing in that the goods displayed there differ
considerably from the items presented during Mingei exhibitions. Rather than thevases by Kawai, bowls by Hamada and large dishes by Bernard Leach (1887-1979) thatare usually associated with the movement, it is forks, neckties, cushions and hats that
crowd the shelves of the Ginza store. And let there be no mistake, it was undeniably
such modest consumer goods that set the Folk Crafts Movement on the path to successin the 1940s. Nothing could be more misguided than believing that the Mingei
movement consisted merely of theories and museum pieces. Without the support of theconsumers who flocked en mass to Takumi and the department store Takashimaya, theaesthetic dogma developed by Yanagi and his associates would certainly never havegone beyond the circle of intellectuals to which he belonged. The translation of the
discussion between Yanagi and Yanagita found in this issue of Cipango speaks volumes
on this point, for it illustrates the movement’s two major preoccupations during the1940s: defining itself (legitimising its existence) on the one hand, and promoting its
products (ensuring its survival) on the other.

36

In fact, this was how the aforementioned concept of a normative approach took shape.
Hinted at behind the objects sold at Takumi or during the exhibitions held in certain
department stores is a theory by which Japan’s tangible folk heritage should serve as anorm for the production – according to beauty criteria set out by Yanagi for almost
twenty years – of consumer goods that would in turn disseminate these criteria
throughout the entire Japanese population.29 It is without doubt this point that mostclearly sets folklore studies apart from the Folk Crafts Movement. Whereas the former,
as we saw earlier, is a descriptive science, the latter sought to promote an aesthetic
ideal that, while admittedly drawing inspiration from the same source, aimed togenerate a new marketable mingei production. This no doubt explains why since 1941,
folklorists and Mingei followers have never again felt the need to develop ties or work
together to create a joint science: their objectives are simply too different.

Conclusion
37

The aim of this article was to give serious consideration to Yanagi’s “scientific” stance.
To do so I examined the links between the Folk Crafts Movement and folklore studies inorder to understand the similarities and differences between these two approaches
which are inspired by the same folk heritage and a growing interest in the ‘people’ atthe time of their emergence. Although both simultaneously took an interest in thetangible and cultural productions of the working classes – or more precisely, the ruralclasses – of Japanese society, I established that it was the intrinsic value ascribed to the

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The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies

object studied that provided the fundamental distinction between the two movements.
Whereas folklore studies seek to understand and determine the character of theJapanese people by cataloguing popular practices, the Folk Crafts Movement aims toreassess the beauty of the objects produced by this same people and establish thisexpression of Beauty as a new norm. This leads me to recall Yanagi’s proposal thatfolklore studies be understood as an empirical science and folk craft studies as anormative science.
38

This article presented two aspects of the Mingei movement, among many others, which
are still rarely mentioned in books on the subject. Firstly, as I pointed out, the Folk
Crafts Movement sees itself as a science and accordingly has striven to establish aconsidered and normalised system whose structure has still yet to be studied. Secondly,
Mingei sees itself as a commercial movement. Despite this dimension being clearly
asserted by Takumi and in the Folk Crafts Museum’s store in Tokyo, it is regularly
sidelined in discussions on the topic. And yet the movement has a real desire to revive
regional craft production according to a redefined aesthetic norm, and is actively
committed to finding new outlets for the hats, cushions and slippers produced,
whether in Japan or overseas.

39

This desire to establish a new beauty norm and concerns over the commercial viabilityof new crafts are both pertinent elements helping to distinguish the Folk Crafts
Movement from folklore studies. It is nonetheless tempting at this point to turn theseelements around and reassess folklore studies through the prism of Mingei. If we
accept that the Folk Crafts Movement established a norm and consumer goods, is it notequally possible to consider that folklore studies also constituted a normative system,
defining what Japanese “tradition” ought to be by producing idealised cultural forms
from a past considered to be “proper”?

40

Although the issue no longer concerns the Folk Crafts Movement directly, it illustrates
just how desperately an in-depth study of the subject is called for and how enriching it
could be for many closely-related topics. To my great regret, the consensual approach
adopted by the majority of Mingei exhibitions neglects several essential aspects of the
movement, which in turn could provide a new perspective on the emergence of thehumanities and social sciences in Japan during the first half of the twentieth century.

NOTES
1. “Mingeigaku to minzokugakuv 民藝學と民俗學 (1941), reprinted in Yanagi Sōetsu zenshū (YSZ)
柳宗悦全集 (The Complete Works of Yanagi Sōetsu), Tokyo, Chikuma Shobō, 1981, vol. 9, pp.
272-287.
2. Mingei 民芸 or 民藝 is a relatively standard term in Japan today. When written with thecharacter 芸 it refers, through improper usage, to the regional folk crafts sold in local souvenir
shops. For this reason Japanese specialists prefer to use the character 藝 (used during Yanagi’stime) when referring to the Folk Crafts Movement, in order to make a clear distinction. I haverespected this use here.

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The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies

3. In particular “Getemono no bi” 下手ものの美 (The Beauty of Everyday Objects, 1926), YSZ, op.
cit., vol.8, pp. 3-14; “Kōgei no michi” 工藝の道 (The Way of Crafts, 1928), Tokyo, Kōdansha,“Kōdan gakujutsu bunko” collection, 2005.
4. On this subject see the chapter “Renovating Greater East Asia”, Kim Brandt, Kingdom of Beauty.
Mingei and the Politics of Folk Art in Imperial Japan, Durham, Duke University Press, 2007,
pp. 173-222.
5. See my translation in this volume of Cipango.
6. Such as with the Musée du Quai Branly exhibition The Mingei Spirit in Japan, held in Paris from30 September 2008 to 11 January 2009, the Arts & Crafts from Morris to Mingei exhibition, held at
the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (Tōkyō-to bijutsukan 東京都美術館) from 24 January to
5 April 2009, and before these the International Arts & Crafts exhibition, held at the Victoria &Albert Museum, London, from 17 March to 24 July 2005.
7. See the article by Coralie Castel in this volume of Cipango.
8. “Folk Craft Studies and Folklore Studies”, op. cit., p. 272, emphasis is my own.
9. Achikku no seichō アチックの成長 (The Development of the Attic Museum) in Miyamoto
Tsuneichi 宮本常一, Nihon minzokugaku taikei 3: Shibusawa Keizō 日本民俗学大系３・渋沢敬三(Compendium of Japanese Folklore Studies 3: Shibusawa Keizō), Tokyo, Kōdansha, 1978.
10. Yoshida Kenji, “Tōhaku and Minpaku within the History of Modern Japanese Civilization:
Museum Collections in Modern Japan”, Senri Ethnological Studies no. 54, Osaka, National Museumof Ethnology, 2000, pp. 91-92.
11. Kanetani Miwa 金谷美和, “Bunka no shōhi: Nihon mingei undō no tenji o megutte” 文化の消費 — 日本民藝運動の展示をめぐって (The Consumption of Culture. On the Exhibitions of theJapan Folk Crafts Movement), Jinbun gakuhō 人文学報 no. 77, Kyoto, Kyōto Daigaku Jinbunkagaku
Kenkyūjo, 1996, p. 80.
12. An account of the event appears in “Zazechi” no koto” 「ざぜち」のこと (On “Zazechi” Paper
Decorations), YSZ, op. cit., vol. 11, pp. 424-432.
13. Until the 1940s Yanagi used both terms indiscriminately.
14. Achikku no seichō, op. cit., p. 168.
15. ‘“Mono’ to ‘koto”’ 「もの」と「こと」 (“Tangible Things” and “Intangible Things”, 1936),
YSZ, vol. 9, pp. 170-181.
16. “Mingeigaku to minzokugaku”, op. cit., p. 272.
17. Ibid., p. 279.
18. Ibid., p. 279.
19. Ibid., p. 278.
20. Ibid., p. 278.
21. It would be amusing to cobble together a translation of mingeigaku as “folk craftology”. While
such a translation obviously lacks credibility, it certainly captures the strangeness of theJapanese term.
22. Over a dozen of his books were translated between 1902 and 1941.
23. “Mingeigaku to minzokugaku” op. cit., p. 274 and p. 276.
24. This distinction between Sein, “what is”, and Sollen, what “ought to be”, is highly
characteristic of Windelband’s thought.
25. Ogyū Shinzō 尾久彰三 (ed.), Yanagi Muneyoshi no sekai. “Mingei” no hakken to sono shisō 柳宗悦の世界 — 『民藝』の発見とその思想, (The World of Yanagi Muneyoshi. His Discovery andTheory of “Folk Crafts”), Tokyo, Bessatsu Taiyō, Heibonsha, 2006, p. 171.
26. Kikuchi Yuko, Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory: Cultural Nationalism and Oriental
Orientalism, New York, Routledge Curzon, 2004, p. 74.
27. Kim Brandt, op. cit., p. 95.
28. http://www.ginza-takumi.co.jp/top.htm

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The Folk Crafts Movement and Folklore Studies

29. Although in reality, new folk craft products were only within the reaches of the relatively
wealthy urban classes.

ABSTRACTS
At about the same time as mingei appeared Yanagita Kunio’s Folkloristics (minzokugaku). Often
confused, the two differ in many ways.
À la même période que le mingei de Yanagi apparaît le mouvement des études folkloriques(minzokugaku) de Yanagita Kunio. Souvent associés, les deux entretiennent toutefois nombre dedifférences.

INDEX
Subjects: anthropologie, ethnologie
Mots-clés: arts populaires, culture populaire, outils, mingei – mouvement artistique, Yanagi
Sōetsu (1889-1961), folklore, études folkloriques
Chronological index: Shōwa
キーワード: minshū geijutsu 民衆芸術, taishū bunka 大衆文化, mingu 民具, mingei undō 民芸運動, Yanagi Sōetsu 柳宗悦 (1889-1961), minzoku 民俗, Shibusawa Keizō 渋沢敬三 (1896-1963),
jinruigaku人類学, minzokugaku 民族学, Shōwa jidai 昭和時代 (1926-1989)
Keywords: anthropology, ethnology, folk art, material culture, Mingei, popular culture, mingu,
utensils, Yanagi Sōetsu (1889-1961)

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