Why read The Unknown Craftsman?

Book cover of The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty

Book description

craftsman working in a set tradition for a lifetime? What is the value of handwork? Why should even the roughly lacquered rice bowl of a Japanese farmer be thought beautiful? The late Soetsu Yanagi was the first to fully explore the traditional Japanese appreciation for objects born, not made.' Mr.…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Unknown Craftsman as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Strother Purdy

Author

They say that travel opens the mind in ways that staying home doesn’t. Books can take you places you can’t otherwise go. So with Yanagi, I got to visit the mind of an early 20th-century Japanese craft connoisseur who looked at thousand-year-old (plain and unassuming) tea bowls and wondered why they’re utterly beautiful and treasured (the best fetch huge sums at auctions–$25million recently for one). Yanagi’s exploration of how the hands of craftsmen can unknowingly and unintentionally create objects of great beauty was both fascinating as it was challenging. It made my shop work a hundred times…

From Strother's list on The best books on working with your hands.

Kevin Nute

Author

Yanagi argues that wabi and sabi are actually expressions of shibusa, and finds the essence of all three in directness and authenticity. Despite Elizabeth Gordon devoting two entire issues of House Beautiful to shibui in 1960, it remains largely overlooked today.

From Kevin's list on The best books on Japanese aesthetics.