- Born: 1889
- Died: 1961
- Sons: Yanagi Sôri (1915-2011)
- Other Names: Yanagi Muneyoshi
- Japanese: 柳宗悦 (Yanagi Souetsu)
Yanagi Sôetsu, also known as Yanagi Muneyoshi[1], is widely regarded as the father of the mingei (folk arts) movement of the 1910s-40s, which sought to promote appreciation of craft, of the handmade, of the local, rural, anonymous craftsman and his work, the product of a long tradition. The movement was a reaction to rapid modernization & Westernization in Japan, and held up Okinawa, Taiwan, Korea, and the Ainu as peoples/places where a stronger sense of the traditional, and the beauty of the handmade, which had been lost in Japan, could be found.
Early Life
Yanagi was born in Tokyo into a wealthy aristocratic family. His mother was from the family of a Navy official, and his father, a member of the House of Peers, was likewise a veteran rear admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy. His father, who died less than two years after Sôetsu was born, was known for his expertise in hydrographic mapping, and for botany, poetry, and a number of other pursuits.
Yanagi attended the elite Gakushûin Peers' School and Tokyo Imperial University.
When visiting Okinawa, he compared the skyline and architecture of the royal capital of Shuri, and the main commercial & port town of Naha, to that of Heijô-kyô (Nara) in the Tenpyô period (729-765), i.e. at its height; in other words, he saw in Okinawa a classical, ancient, aesthetic greatness that modern Japan had long-since moved past, and lost.[2]
References
- Kikuchi, Yuko. Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory. Routledge Curzon, 2004.