An Analysis of the Aesthetic Theories of Immanuel Kant and Soetsu Yanagi
in Relation to Contemporary Craft
Anastasia Simmons
ST09001162
ADC320
Contents
Introduction
3
The Concept of the Aesthetic
5
Introduction to The Aesthetic Theories
9
- Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment
9
- Soetsu Yanagi’s Unknown Craftsman
11
Analysis of the Theories
14
- Function
14
- Nature
16
- The Maker
18
The Relevance of the Aesthetic Theories in Craft Today
23
- Are Craftworks Aesthetic Objects?
23
- How can one capture a subtle juxtaposition between an aesthetic
24
approach and a functional one in one’s work?
Conclusion
26
Bibliography
27
Cover Illustrations
left: Immanual Kant. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant)
right: Soetsu Yanagi. (http://lacepeacock.blogspot.com/2009/01/unknown-craftsman.html)
2
Introduction
The promotion and celebration of craft as an alternative to industrial
manufacture has brought numerous potentials into the field of design and
decorative arts. This transformation began with the Arts and Crafts movement in
the United Kingdom spreading to the United States, Europe and Japan. Such
theories may have provided a “reactionary” response to industrial capitalism but
also helped to focus attention on craft as a way of thinking across the spectrum
of art and design.
With its strong traditions of functionality, ornamentation and ceremony, craft
has always reflected human skill but, in a highly technological society, we no
longer need to prove our technological status through our craft. Craft’s function
within the industrial world has changed; work is now created that demonstrates
our humanity and unique sensibilities. Craft is now intentionally created to fulfil
a dual-purpose; whilst makers still refer to historical forms, materials and
techniques to often produce functional objects, at the same time they hope
provide an aesthetic experience.
It is this concept of the aesthetic experience that I wish to explore throughout
this dissertation, in order to achieve a greater understanding of aesthetics to
inform my own work. By looking at aesthetic theories, I also hope to explore the
main questions such as; how best can we understand what an aesthetic value
and/or experience is? Can craftworks be aesthetic objects? And if so, how can
one capture a subtle juxtaposition between an aesthetic approach and a
functional one approach in one’s work? Throughout this paper, I will analyse
both Immanuel Kant’s and Soetsu Yanagi’s aesthetic philosophies, in relation to
the aforementioned questions.
Born in 1724, in Königsberg, East Prussia, Immanuel Kant is still one of the most
central figures in modern philosophy. Kant brought together the ideas of
rationalism and empiricism to establish and investigate the limits of human
knowledge. His approach had an enormous impact on philosophy as well as the
3
fine arts and literature and still influences modern ideas. Kant provides a
broader theory of aesthetics, referring to aesthetics regarding art, and therefore
may introduce new aesthetic ideas otherwise unthought-of of in the craft world.
In contrast, Yanagi provides a more focused theory on aesthetics of craft. Born in
1889, Soetsu Yanagi had a strong enthusiasm for Korean pottery, in particular Yi
Dynasty wares, and was interested in the way that they had been made by
nameless craftsman. Yanagi believed that there ought to be a similar sort of
approach to the Korean pottery in craft and art in Japan. The Japanese Folk Craft
Movement was predominantly focused upon Yanagi’s writings, although in the
early days Yanagi appeared to be primarily concerned with beauty, his folk craft
ideal was a combination of philosophical, religious and aesthetic elements.
By comparing and contrasting these two theories I hope to outline an aesthetic
for craft, which in turn will aid my own practice as a maker.
4
The Concept of the Aesthetic
In order to best understand what an “aesthetic” is; I am going to look into the
history behind the concept of the aesthetic and provide a brief explanation of the
different schools of thought.
In the late eighteenth century the concept of the aesthetic and the issue of beauty
began to enter philosophical theories. Descending from the concept of taste, the
term ‘aesthetic’ became to be used to designate a certain value in objects,
judgments and experience. Many of these values, defining the concept of the
aesthetic, have resulted from a development of the immediacy and disinterest
theories descending from the concept of taste.
Rationalism about beauty is the view that we judge things to be beautiful
through reason; this reason may arise from deducing from principles or applying
concepts. The immediacy theory arose to counter this rationalist theory of
beauty, stating that judgments of beauty are not primarily judged through
applying principles or concepts but rather arise through straightforward sensory
judgments. In other words, we do not reason things to be beautiful, but rather
“taste” that they are.
The theory of disinterest is presented to counter the theory of “egoism about
virtue”, the view that we take pleasure in and judge an object purely because it
serves an interest to the onlooker. The disinterest school of thought, therefore,
states that the pleasure we take in an object is not self-interested; we judge
objects to be beautiful whether or not the object serves an interest to ourselves.
However, it is important to note that disinterestedness does not mean that the
viewer is detached or unconcerned with whether looking at an object provides
them with delight or not, it just means that their pleasure cannot be reduced to
any sensual, practical or theoretical interest.
5
Aesthetic Objects
Both the immediacy and disinterest theories of taste discuss whether the
artistically relevant properties of an artwork are just formal, where formal
properties are regarded as properties understandable by sight or by hearing.
The immediacy theory implies that such qualities are formal, stating that there is
‘artistic irrelevance of all properties whose grasping requires the use of reason’ 1.
In contrast, the disinterest theory implies that such qualities are also formal but
states that there are so through an ‘artistic irrelevance of all properties capable
of practical import’2.
Aesthetic Judgment
Since the eighteenth century, the main debate over the judgment of an aesthetic
object is related to the immediacy theory; whether we judge objects to be
beautiful by simply applying principles of beauty to them. After much debate,
the term ‘aesthetic judgment’ has recently become re-defined and now refers to
any judgment in which ‘an aesthetic property is predicated of an object’3.
However, some philosophers have issues with the application of this definition,
as it requires being able to say, without being directly clear, what an aesthetic
property is. Perhaps, a better definition of an aesthetic judgment refers to ‘any
judgment in which any property of the class exemplified by beauty is predicted
of an object’4.
Aesthetic Experience
The theories relating to aesthetic experience can be placed into two groups
according to the features that are referred to in the explanation of what makes
the aesthetic experience; internalist and externalist. The internalist theories
refer to features that are internal to experience, characteristically with a more
phenomenological approach. According to Monroe Beardsley’s theory of
1James
Shelly, ‘The Concept of the Aesthetic’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2009
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2009/entries/aesthetic-concept/ (date assessed
05/12/2011)
2 Ibid.
3Ibid.
4Ibid.
6
internalism, all aesthetic experiences have four features in common; focus5,
intensity, coherence6 and completeness7. In contrast, the externalist theories
refer to the external features that make such experience, how one experiences
the features of an object.
Beauty
Aesthetics is defined as ‘a set of principles concerned with the nature and
appreciation of beauty’ in the Oxford dictionary. It is therefore important to
define beauty.
There are two main opposing traditional judgments of beauty, rationalist and
empiricist. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the rationalist view of
beauty was the most popular opinion in Europe. A rationalist view of beauty
argues that judgments of beauty are judgments of reason; judgment consists in
the ‘cognition of an object as having an objective property’8. James Shelley
demonstrates this point, writing that in order for a judgment of beauty to occur
within an object:
Much reasoning should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just
conclusions drawn, distant comparisons formed, complicated
relations examined and general facts fixed and ascertained. Some
species of beauty, especially the natural kinds, on their first
appearance command our affection and approbation; and where
they fail of this effect, it is impossible for any reasoning to redress
their influence, or adapt them better to our taste and sentiment. But
in many orders of beauty, particularly those of the fine arts, it is
‘an aesthetic experience is one in which attention is firmly fixed upon [its object]’ Ibid.
‘one thing leads to another; continuity of development, without gaps or dead spaces, a sense of
overall providential pattern of guidance, an orderly cumulation of energy toward a climax, are
present to an unusual degree’ Ibid.
7 ‘the impulses and expectations aroused by elements within the experience are felt to be
counterbalanced or resolved by other elements within the experience, so that some degree of
equilibrium or finality is achieved and enjoyed. The experience detaches itself, and even insulates
itself, from the intrusion of alien elements’ Ibid.
8HannahGinsborg, ‘Kant’s Aesthetics and Teleology’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2005
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-aesthetics/ (date assessed 05/12/2011)
5
6
7
requisite to employ much reasoning, in order to feel the proper
sentiment.9
The empiricist theory of taste, which mainly British philosophers worked with,
was developed in juxtaposition to the rationalist theory of beauty. The
fundamental idea behind this theory is that judgments of beauty are an
expression of feeling without cognitive content and have the immediacy of
straightforward sensory judgments. An early expression of the ideologies of the
theory is that of Jean-Baptiste Dubo’s Critical Reflections on Poetry, Painting and
Music:
Do we ever, in order to know whether a ragoo be good or bad; and
has it ever entered into any body’s head, after having settled the
geometrical principles of taste, and defined the qualities of each
ingredient that enters into the composition of those messes, to
examine into the proportion observed in their mixture, in order to
decide whether it be good or bad? No, this is never practiced. We
have a sense given us by nature to distinguish whether the cook
acted according to the rules of his art. People taste the ragoo, and
tho’ unacquainted with those rules, they are able to tell whether it be
good or no. The same may be said in some respect of the productions
of the mind, and of picture made to please and move us.10
Having provided a brief history and introductions to the theories behind the
concept of the aesthetic, I am now going to proceed to introduce and analyse
Kant’s Critique of Judgment and Yanagi’s Unknown Craftsman.
9James
Shelly, ‘The Concept of the Aesthetic’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2009
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2009/entries/aesthetic-concept/ (date assessed
05/12/2011)
10Ibid.
8
Introduction to the Aesthetic Theories
Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment
Kant established the main outlines to the theory of aesthetics as it is known
today with the publication of his Critique of Judgment in 1790. His fundamental
aim primarily was to analyse how natural beauty is perceived, but his theories
also raised questions relating to aesthetics in art.
Kant regarded an aesthetic judgment to be based upon feeling, in particularly the
feeling of pleasure or displeasure. According to Kant, there are three types of
aesthetic judgment; judgments of the agreeable, judgments of beauty and
judgments of the sublime. The most distinctive and relevant part of Kant’s theory
to this dissertation is his judgments of beauty, although when he refers to nature
he discusses the idea of judgments of the sublime.
At the beginning of the Critique of Judgment, Kant discusses four particular
unique features of aesthetic judgments on the beautiful in the ‘Analytic of the
Beautiful’. Calling them ‘moments’, he tries to capture what is characteristic of
judgments of beauty. He presents the moments in terms of four logical functions
of judgment, exploring the judgment of taste in terms of quality, quantity,
relation and modality.
In the first moment Kant writes about a judgment of beauty being based upon a
feeling, most particularly the feeling of pleasure. This pleasure is of a
disinterested nature, meaning that it does not depend on one having a desire for
the object, nor does it generate such a desire. Kant claims that an aesthetic
judgment must concern itself only with form (shape, arrangement…) in the
object, not sensible content (color, tone…), this is because the sensible has a
connection to the agreeable and thus to interest. By considering objects in such a
manner, judgments of beauty become based upon feeling rather than ‘objective
sensation’ and it distinguishes them from cognitive judgments based on
perception.
9
The second moment discusses the “universality” or “universal validity” of
judgments of beauty. In making a judgment of beauty about an object one
believes that others regard the object in a similar nature; one only perceives an
object as beautiful if everyone also perceives it in the same manner and shares
one’s pleasure in it. Kant however writes that this universality is not ‘based on
concepts’11 and that judgments of beauty cannot be proved; there are no
guidelines by which to judge beauty. Throughout the second moment, Kant’s
philosophies contradict the contemporary cliché of ‘beauty is in the eye of the
beholder’; Kant argues that such a belief cannot account for our experience of
beauty itself and it cannot account for the social behavior of our claims about
what we find beautiful.
The third moment introduces the problem of purpose and purposiveness. Kant
discusses that judgments of the beautiful do not presuppose an end or purpose
that the object is taken to satisfy. He describes purposiveness as being perceived
both in the object itself and in the activity of imagination and understanding in
their engagement with the object.
In the fourth moment, Kant continues to show that aesthetic judgments involve
the idea of necessity. Kant writes that objects must pass the test of being
‘necessary’ or ‘universally valid’, which effectively means that everyone who
perceives this object in front of me will share my pleasure in it and agree with
my judgment of it. However, this concept of the universally valid is not based on
a concept or rules but rather it is ‘exemplary’, suggesting that one’s judgment
itself serves as an example of how everyone ought to judge an object.
The four moments can be placed into a dichotomy of two opposing sets of
features. On the one hand, judgments of beauty are based on feeling and they do
not depend on considering the object under a concept, the first and the third
moment fall into this category. In contrast the second and fourth moment deal
with universality and necessity, suggesting that they conform to objective
cognitive judgments. Kant believed that alone the moments do not provide
11
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, United States, Oxford University Press Inc., 2007. p. 50
10
strong enough conditions for an aesthetic judgment, but when presented
together, working on these two different levels he believed that they created an
aesthetic experience separate from other modes of experience. In claiming that
judgments of beauty were both based on feeling and make claim to universal
validity, Kant created an aesthetic which reacted against the two main opposing
traditional theories - empiricist and rationalist. However, Kant’s insistence with
this progressive theory presented him with the problem of merging the two
features of the argument. As Kant writes: “how is a judgment possible which,
merely from one’s own feeling of pleasure in an object, independent of its
concept, judges this pleasure as attached to the representation of the same object
in every other subject, and so a priori i.e without having to wait for the assent of
others”12.
In order to answer his own question, Kant argues that pleasure in the beautiful
depends on “free play” or “free harmony”. Kant believes that aesthetic cognition
does not have a ‘determinate’ concept that pins down an intuition of what is
beautiful; instead intuition is allowed some “free play”. In Kant’s terms, free play
therefore expresses “lawfulness without a law”.
Soetsu Yanagi’s Unknown Craftsman
The ideologies of the Mingei movement, lead by Soetsu Yanagi, flourished in the
late 1920s, around 40 years after the Arts and Crafts movement, it was almost
equivalent to, and in many aspects directly inspired by, these western parallels.
The Unknown Craftsman is an extensive selection of writings by Yanagi and
translated by Bernard Leach. Its underlying aim was to preserve and revitalise
the Japanese rural folk crafts and through them help establish the Mingei
movement as an aesthetic in modern crafts. Yanagi’s folk craft ideal was based
upon a combination of philosophical, religious and aesthetic foundations,
initially though, his opinions were predominantly concerned with the concept of
beauty.
Yanagi’s idea of ‘beauty’ was found in everyday objects, often ‘made by a poor
12HannahGinsborg,
‘Kant’s Aesthetics and Teleology’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2005
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-aesthetics/ (date assessed 05/12/2011)
11
man; used carelessly by its owner; bought without pride’13. These utensils had
not been made by famous artists, but were the work of an ‘unknown craftsman’,
creating cheaply and in quantity giving them a ‘free’ and ‘healthy’ beauty.
Originally Yanagi used the term ‘getemoto’ to describe such common items, a
word used at time by the stall operators in the markets meaning ‘vulgar thing’.
However, it was picked up by journalists and critics and sometimes connected
with the concept of 'vulgarity '. In order to over come this misunderstanding,
Yanagi had to come up with a new term for the ‘people’s art’. In 1925, after
considerable discussion between Yanagi and two potter friends, Shoji Hamada
and Kawai Kanjiro, the phrase that was created to describe the craftsman's work
was ‘mingei’. This was a hybrid term, formed from ‘minshu’, meaning 'common
people', and ‘kogei’, 'craft '.
Yanagi himself emphasized himself that he did not intend to start an ‘art
movement’, he did not began with a preconceived theory of art. Instead the
Mingei theory was developed through Yangi’s personal experience in ‘just
looking’ at crafts without regard to any aesthetic ideals. He called this experience
of looking at such objects, ‘direct perception’, which he referred to as the ‘selfless
footrule’ and by which to determine beauty. He writes: ‘When you look at things,
your eyes can be clouded by knowledge, by habit or by the wish to assert
yourself. But this is not the way to look at things. There should be nothing
coming between the person who is seeing and the thing that is seen. A thing
should be seen for what it is. This is 'direct perception' - just seeing things. You
enter into the thing; the thing communicates with your heart. When the two
become one, you have direct perception. To know about something, without
seeing it directly gives rise to pointless judgment.’14
Yanagi believed direct perception was ‘beyond the self’ and therefore provided
an opportunity to see crafts without subjectivity and prejudices. In his
observation of Japanese Folk Craft he aimed to put aside all concepts of what
constituted beauty and allowing an object to be seen for what it was and to speak
for itself. Yanagi argued this was a type of aesthetic appreciation that was
13Soetsu
Yanagi,The Unknown Craftsman, London, George Allen &Unwin Ltd., 1972, p. 223
14Ibid.
12
accessible to anyone and through direct perception all can recognize the ‘good’
and ‘beautiful’.
13
Analysis of the Theories
Both Kant’s and Yanagi’s theories refer to a large range of different subjects and
within the bounds of this dissertation it would be impossible to analyse all of it.
Instead I am going to focus on three subjects: function, nature and the maker.
These three subjects will be the most relevant in order to try to establish an
aesthetic theory for contemporary craft.
Function
Kant and Yanagi hold opposing opinions on the aesthetic of functional objects.
Kant shifted the meaning of the aesthetic towards a ‘transcendental study of
objective preconditions of judgments of taste concerning the beautiful’15 leading
to an ideology stating that an aesthetic object was one whose primary function
was to produce an aesthetic experience of beauty without regard to practical use.
As Kant writes, ‘beauty is the form of purposiveness in an object so far as this
form is perceived in it without the concept of a purpose’16. Unfortunately, his
arguments have become so ensconced in some people’s thinking that a
functional object cannot be judged aesthetic or expressive but only ‘right or
consistent’17, this way of thinking has helped formalise the separation between
function and art.
In contrast, Yanagi believed in a strong concept of beauty deriving from function.
The main principle of Yanagi’s aesthetic of craftsmanship is where ‘beauty and
use are perfectly equated’18. Yanagi argued that beauty came from the use of the
utilitarian objects of the folk crafts; apart from use he felt that there was no
beauty in craft, writing, ‘things made that do not stand up to use or that ignore
utility can barely be expected to contain this kind of beauty’ 19. The ‘use’ Yanagi
writes about is not just in the materialistic sense, he believed it had to embrace
both mind and matter. Objects are to be both touched and looked at with the
responsive feeling of pleasure. Arguing that, if an object was only judged on a
Howard Risatti, A Theory of Craft, United States, The University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
p. 72
16Ibid. p. 216
17Ibid. p. 219
18 Yanagi, The Unknown Craftsman, p. 212
19Ibid. p. 197
15
14
utilitarian point of view, then pattern, for example, is uncalled for. But Yanagi felt
that ‘good pattern adds to the function of that utensil’20, in that, if an object was
to completely satisfy on the utilitarian aspects but causes a feeling of ugliness, it
detracts from total service.
The special beauty of crafts, Yanagi considered, was the beauty of intimacy with
the object through use. Writing that ‘people hang their pictures up on walls, but
they place their objects for everyday use close to them and take them in their
hands’21. It is only through interaction with the object that you can gain a greater
sense of the object’s beauty and therefore, Yanagi continues to argue throughout
the Unknown Craftsman, that it is important that things that work and serve us
from day to day are not things kept in a glass case merely to be looked at.
Kant seemed to envisage the demands of function as so all-encompassing that no
space is left for the free play of the maker’s imagination: the maker is simply
unable to manipulate the object’s form for ends other than function. Kant
believes that there is no option for aesthetic expression in the production of
functional objects whereas with works of fine art, complete freedom of
imagination is offered to the maker. In fine art there are no formal or material
limitations to the artist therefore the maker is offered complete aesthetic
freedom.
Again, Yanagi contradicts this opinion, seeing the ultimate aim of craft ‘not [as]
expression of the self but to see true beauty’22, Yanagi felt that the production of
folk-craft in comparison to artist-craft was the right direction into achieving this
true beauty, he writes that, ‘utility does not permit unsoundness or frailty’23.
Kant believed that function demands a faithfulness in objects that does not
condone human self-indulgence. When making a functional object, Yanagi
believed, the folk-craftsman does not push himself to the foreground thus selfassertion and error are reduced to a minimum, making functional objects
20Ibid.
21Ibid.
p. 198
p. 202
23Ibid. p.143
22Ibid.
15
beautiful. Without self surrender, Yanagi believed that there would be an
intrusion of the craftsman's 'self' into his work which would in turn lead to high
prices, 'artification' and an emphasis on decoration rather than on function.
Nature
It is when referring to nature that Kant’s and Yanagi’s theories are most
profoundly different. Kant refers mostly to nature within the notion of the
sublime; the sublime is the name Kant gives to what is ‘absolutely great’24. Kant
distinguishes two notions of the sublime, the mathematically sublime and the
dynamically sublime. In both notions, the experience of the sublime consists of a
feeling of the superiority of our own power of reason over nature. However,
Kant’s theory of the sublime is a very comprehensive concept and I believe that
his theory of the aesthetic experience of nature is not as relevant as his theory of
the aesthetic judgment of nature. Within his aesthetic judgment of nature,
although it is much shorter than his aesthetic experience of nature, he refers
more to the relationship between art and nature; which is of greater relevance to
establishing an aesthetic for contemporary craft and provides more of a
comparison with Yanagi’s theory.
Kant felt that when dealing with aesthetic judgments of both beauty of art and
nature, we make the common assertion that ‘this is beautiful which pleases in the
mere judging of it (not in sensation or by means of a concept)’25. He implies that
beauty from nature arises from an objective purposiveness on the part of nature,
rather than a subjective purposiveness that rests on ones play of the imagination
in nature’s freedom. Where Kant felt ‘it is we who receive nature with favour,
and not nature that does us a favour’26. He believes that this principle of the
ideality of purposiveness is even more apparent in fine art and it is the lack of
‘aesthetic realism of purposiveness’27 that makes art beautiful instead of merely
agreeable, similarly to the beautiful in nature.
24Kant,
Critique of Judgment, p. 78
p. 136
26Ibid. p. 137
27Ibid. p. 178
25Ibid.
16
Yanagi frequently writes about ‘nature’ throughout the Unknown Craftsman,
believing that all craftwork should be ‘focused on nature’ and that beauty can
only be born of the natural in the unconscious man. Initially it appears he is
referring to the environment, believing that ‘material provided by nature is
nearly always best’28, Yanagi felt that crafts are best born near to where the
necessary raw materials can be found, stating that the ‘closer to nature, the safer
we are’29. Yanagi preferred the unspolit character of raw materials believing that
they were richer than the man made. However, Yanagi's concept of 'nature' in
fact included two meanings: one referred to the environment, the other to the
inner self.
When discussing the inner self, Yanagi directly links nature, beauty and
selflessness, and it is this thought that differs most fundamentally from Kant’s
theory and shows close affinity to Buddhist ideas. Beauty, to Yanagi, was born
through nature, in the unconscious man. Thus a craftsman had to leave nature to
do the creating; by surrendering his self to nature he could attain a ‘pure land of
beauty’. No craftsman had within himself the power to create beauty; the beauty
that came from 'self surrender' was incomparably greater than that of any work
of art produced by 'individual genius'.
Yanagi frequently refers to getemono objects, objects that are ‘representations of
nature itself’30. These objects are created with “no-thought” and therefore are
likely to satisfy the highest developed perception of beauty. Because the works
derive from nature, they may look rough and primitive, yet, Yanagi believed they
contain an honest, simple, humble beauty. In contrast to getemono objects,
Yanagi writes about products that are made in the “realm of thought”, a process
in which he believed nature is destroyed and the objects created ‘run towards
opulent display and drown in individualism’31.
The idea of creating objects that are representations of nature itself opposes
Kant’s opinion that a product of art must be recognised as art and not as nature.
28
Yanagi,The Unknown Craftsman, p.215
29Ibid.
30Ibid.
p. 214
31Ibid.
17
Kant writes that, ‘nature proved beautiful when it wore the appearance of art;
and art can only be termed beautiful, where we are conscious of its being art’32,
however he does also contradict his own opinion, believing that ‘purposiveness
in [an objects] form must appear just as free from the constraint of arbitrary
rules as if it were a product of mere nature’33.
Kant mostly saw the beautiful in nature as a question of the form of the object
and links this with the development of the aesthetics of art rather than purely
making objects that are representations of nature itself. He writes that plants
and animal formations are ‘unnecessary for the discharge of any function on
their part, but chosen as it were with an eye to our taste’34 believing that they
had been designed entirely with the view to outward appearance using an
example of the harmony and variety of colours in pheasants and insects to back
up his argument.
The Maker
Throughout the two theories there are similarities between Yanagi and Kant as
to what a maker should pursue. Both refer, in parts, to the maker as a genius.
Kant writes that genius ‘is the talent (natural endowment) which gives the rule
to art’35 and that it is the innate mental aptitude in the maker through which art
is created, this talent, Kant believes, belongs itself to nature. Yanagi also saw role
of artist as not only as a ‘proper appreciator of beauty, [but] also its creator, and,
in a word a genius’36. Yanagi believed that a large number of conscientious
individual artists in the handcrafts are especially needed. The role of these
individual artists is to protect beauty, believing that ‘our life would be
abominable if we had no artists in this world’37.
However, although they both see the maker as a genius, their concepts of the
maker are still fundamentally different. Kant idolises his idea of the genius,
32Kant,
Critique of Judgment, p. 135
33Ibid.
34Ibid. p. 175
35Ibid.
p. 136
36Yanagi,The
Unknown Craftsman, p. 218
37Ibid.
18
believing that originality of talent is an essential factor that goes into make up
the character of the genius. Writing, ‘genius is a talent for producing for which no
definite rule can be given’38, Kant suggests that the skill of the genius cannot be
learnt and originality of products is its primary property. He continues to say
that products, of the genius, must be ‘exemplary; and, consequently, though not
themselves derived from imitation, they must serve that purpose for others’39.
Yanagi doesn’t hold his genius in such high regard, he felt that ‘the artist has
been kept locked up in his ivory tower of individualism and is out of touch with
the people’40 and that artist craftsman’s products are ‘so few and expensive’41.
However he did see the importance of the genius, believing that it was only
though the work of the artist craftsman, or genius, that there could be a
possibility of the return of craftsmanship.
Believing that the ultimate aim of craft is not of ‘expression of the self but to see
true beauty’42, Yanagi held little regard for the artist or artist-craftsman and
instead held a greater value for the craftsman. He felt that it was cold comfort to
confine beauty in the hands of a few artists; rather the ‘people’s art’ should be
created through the unlettered craftsman by the theoretical concept of 'self
surrender'. It was only through this concept and 'direct perception' that Yanagi
felt that beauty could be understood and created by anyone in Japanese society,
regardless of his or her rank or education.
Yanagi uses an example of Sung pottery to support his idea that the greatest
crafts are born of the nameless masses and that work of the individual artist will
not stand the time. Writing, ‘when others admire the Sung pot, they wish to be
makers of similar beautiful wares. Yet everyone knows that Sung pottery is
without signatures’43. Yanagi believed that one of the essential causes of these
pots’ beauty was in their autonomy; he felt that the objects themselves are
38Kant,
Critique of Judgment, p. 137
39Ibid.
40Yanagi,The
Unknown Craftsman, p. 204
41Ibid.
p. 203
42Ibid. p. 202
43Ibid. p. 223
19
‘better assurance than any signature could give’44. Yanagi therefore frequently
writes that work should not bear the signature of its maker, as when the work
has developed properly, Yanagi felt that ‘[one] need not worry about recognition
by others … naturally his work will not need his signature’45. He felt that placing
a signature on work was wrong and showed a sign of attachment with the work,
illustrating that the craftsman is too self-conscious.
There is also a difference in both Kant’s and Yanagi’s ideas about the state in
which a maker creates. Kant believed that a genius ‘cannot indicate scientifically
how it brings about its product’46; they won’t necessarily know how the ideas
have entered into his head. Kant believes that such a talent is ‘bestowed upon a
human being at birth’47 and it’s through this talent that original ideas are
obtained. Whereas, Yanagi believed that, only when the maker has become the
work itself and creates the work, does ‘true work become possible’48. In other
words, the maker must stop being self-consciousness and become one with the
work in a state of fusokufuri49.
The Buddhist idea of beauty strongly influenced the ideologies behind the Mingei
movement leading to many of the values of Yanagi’s craftsman. According to
Buddhism and Yanagi such phrases as “I am now painting a picture” or “I am
now weaving a cloth”, ‘express a dualistic relationship from which no true
picture or cloth can result’50 instead, the word “I” must be removed from such
phrases until the stage where “picture draws picture” or “cloth weaves cloth”.
In contrast to the genius, Kant refers to the “block-head”, a maker who can never
do more than merely learn and follow a lead. The work produced by a blockhead
is never greater than what could have been learned and it never breaks free from
44Ibid.
45Ibid.
p. 222
Critique of Judgment, p. 137
46Kant,
47Ibid.
48Yanagi,The
Unknown Craftsman, p. 146
English: “unattached and detached”.
50Yanagi,The Unknown Craftsman, p. 145
49in
20
the ‘natural path of investigation and reflection according to rules’ 51, suggesting
that Kant perhaps has little regard for the learning of a skill. Kant’s theory of the
“block-head” opposes much of Yanagi’s philosophy in terms of the maker.
Throughout his theory, Yanagi holds a high regard for traditional manual work,
and although tradition is dying out, he felt ‘it is necessary for individual artists to
work in place of the tradition… [in order to] … prepare the way to make a new
tradition’52. He thought that this new tradition was best conceived through a
base of a good technical grounding, which would enable the true character of the
unknown craftsman to shine and ‘beautiful unsigned goods are produced’53.
Kant, however, does proceed to write that in ‘all free arts something of a
compulsory character is still required, or, as it is called, a mechanism, without
which the spirit, which in art must be free, and which alone gives life to work,
would be bodiless and evanescent’54, suggesting that, in part, he does see the
validity of a traditional, focused approach to making, much like Yanagi. This is
also supported by Kant’s statement that a ‘genius can do no more than furnish
rich material for products of fine art; its elaboration and its form require a talent
academically trained, so that it may employed in such away as to stand the test of
judgment’55.
Yanagi also writes about the maker in relation to industrialization, machine
production and profit. These are all subjects that Kant excludes in his Critique of
Judgment, however they are still vital in understanding in order to try to
establish an aesthetic for contemporary craft.
Yanagi refers to the intense co-operation needed between individual artists and
industrialists of machine production. Yanagi believed that machines, in
themselves, are not bad but thought it is a disaster when they are used to an
excess, in a completely mechanised age. Writing that ‘where mechanisation can
51Kant,
Critique of Judgment, p.136
52Yanagi,The Unknown Craftsman, p. 220
53Ibid. p. 223
54Kant,
55Ibid.
Critique of Judgment, p. 134
p. 139
21
dovetail with handwork it is of obvious benefit to man, but where it destroys the
values in the work of the human hand it is down right stupid’56. Yanagi urges that
craftsmen don’t become enslaved to the machine, but rather use them freely so
that the machine doesn’t become master and man, slave. He felt that the best
way to utilise the machine was in moderation, using power in the preparatory
stages and hand in the finishing. In this order, the objects produced could still
naturally accord to his concept of beauty and in prevents the handwork being
‘too wasteful’57, in reference to preparation, and the ‘machine finish [being] too
destructive of quality’58 in the final product.
Yanagi further argued about the close connection between incentive for profit
and the quality of work produced under a capitalist system of wage labour
relations, writing; ‘a craftsman had to feel love for his work and this is
impossible when he made things merely for sale’59. He felt that a greed for profit
is destructive of both use and beauty, ‘love of profit robs a work of its beauty’ 60.
Yanagi’s strong opinions that folk crafts should never be made for anything other
than use, lead to his belief that a craftsman’s product should be inexpensive and
free from the ailments arising from ‘artfulness’ due to the repeated practice in
their technique from being produced in quantity. In order to achieve this, Yanagi
felt we had to develop a non-capitalist society that could recognize truth and
beauty and, as for the craftsman, they should continue to make beautiful goods
that are ‘used as a matter of course in daily life’61.
56Yanagi,The
57Ibid.
Unknown Craftsman, p. 207
p. 206
58Ibid.
59Ibid.
60Ibid.
61Ibid.
p. 223
22
The Relevance of the Aesthetic Theories in Craft Today
Are contemporary craftworks aesthetic objects?
Traditional aesthetics, such those developed by Kant, are primarily a philosophy
of fine art, and although craft is now closely linked with fine art, these writers
main concerns are with painting, poetry and music. Although contemporary craft
can now be defined as a type of art, it is fundamentally different to other types of
art; it has a closer link with history, materials, technique and function and
therefore, undoubtedly, it has a different value of aesthetics. Contemporary art
often depends heavily on aesthetics whereas contemporary craft is separate
from this and often depends on a much more subtle type of expression and
aesthetic.
The overriding feature of most contemporary craft objects is in regard to their
function, so when viewing a craft object they are often identified and judged in a
cognitive and instrumental manner, which is to say, as Kant writes by their
function and how well they carry out their function. However, the works of a
contemporary craftsman also go beyond the making of a strict utilitarian object,
in such objects, function shouldn’t determine the object. Our response to
functional objects is not solely objective and therefore our response can also be
subjective and relate to Kant’s judgments of taste. When regarding the aesthetic
qualities of a craft’s object, it is important to separate them from its function, as
the judgments of how well a function may be carried out by an object should be
separate from the physical object itself.
Howard Risatti in his Theory of Craft supports the idea that contemporary craft
objects have both objective, functional, and subjective, aesthetic, features. He
uses an example of three chairs to illustrate that all craft objects are not
deterministic62 and therefore have qualities of expression:
Deterministic objects according to Risatti are ‘objects 100 percent determined in their physical
characteristics by the demands of function’ Risatti,A Theory of Craft, p. 220
62
23
Consider three identical chairs. If someone paints one of these chairs
yellow and the other red, are they any less functional than the
unpainted chair? And could we say that the yellow chair is more or
less functional than the red chair? One may prefer the unpainted
chair over wither of the painted chairs, but this is a matter of
personal preference, of subjective judgments of taste, not a
quantitative and objective judgment of “right or consistent”
performative function.63
In this statement, Risatti claims that colour is autonomous, subjective and
expressive. However, it is not just colour that is autonomous, subjective and
expressive and his theory can be applied to other qualities of expression such as
mark making. Although functional objects will often have the same traits and
constraints, such as a teapot will always have a spout, body and lid, it is
important that makers are expressive with in these limitations, as this is what
creates the understated aesthetic within craft. If this theory is applied to
contemporary craft, a better way to judge functional items is not just by its
functionality, but by whether or not it allows the maker complete freedom to
manipulate its form within the free play of the imagination.
How can one capture a subtle juxtaposition between an aesthetic and functional
approach in one’s work?
Having studied both Kant’s and Yanagi’s theories in depth, I have explored some
areas which I believe enables a contemporary craftsman to create an aesthetic in
their work, whilst maintaining a functional approach.
I feel that in order for aesthetic qualities to exist within a functional object, the
object’s formal demands must be such that they allow for manipulation on the
part of the maker in the name of expression and the maker must intentionally
exploit this allowance for expression. The objects created don’t necessarily have
63Risatti,
63Kant,
A Theory of Craft, p. 226
Critique of Judgment, p. 133
24
to blatantly express something; a subtler, more subjective expression is as
equally as valid.
In order for the allowance of this manipulation, craft’s dependence on manual
skill, materiality and technical knowledge are not problems to overcome but
principles to be examined and put into use, in order to aid the creative process.
The cotemporary craft maker should no longer feel tied to one material or
making process, but instead feel free to experiment with a choice of materials,
techniques and forms, in a state of Kant’s “free-play”. Being provided with this
freedom, I believe will allow the maker a chance to further their technical,
material and formal knowledge, leading in turn to the possibility of further
creativity and a greater development of the maker’s sense of being.
Yanagi’s notion of developing an anti-capitalist society in order to aid with the
production of beautiful and useful objects is an extreme view and highly unlikely
scenario in a modern society. However, I believe, in parts, it is a valid point;
without the worry of money and profit it would be considerably easier for a
maker to enter a sense of Kantian free-play, enabling new and otherwise
undiscovered qualities to emerge in their work. Therefore, I feel, it is vital for
craftsmen to allow themselves a period of experimentation and play alongside
their everyday work, as it can only aid and deepen their underlying principles of
making.
However, whilst I believe it is important to apply these points to one’s making
philosophy in order to create an aesthetic in craft works, it is vital to understand
that an aesthetic of craft will always be separate from an aesthetic of
contemporary art. A craftsman should always acknowledge this. It is important
to understand and respect the fact that craft objects celebrate our ancient human
relationship to formed matter, delving into historical techniques and materials
that reflect human forms of living that originated in prehistory. Creating an
aesthetic in craft, though has much in common with creating an aesthetic in
other types of art, must take this into consideration.
25
Conclusion
Through analyzing both Kant’s and Yanagi’s theories I have not only gained a
deeper knowledge of concept of the aesthetic but it has also led to a development
of a greater value in my own practice and a heightened awareness of how to
achieve expressive qualities in my work. I have discovered that by combining the
two philosophies, a juxtaposition of skill and expression can be created; I have
learnt that it is not only through mastering the technique of throwing that I can
achieve a more spontaneous and creative approach to making but also I have
realised that free-play can play a vital part in the aesthetic development of my
work. It is only though this combination of the two philosophies that I will be
able to create a more subjective expression, that I believe is required in
contemporary work.
In order to develop my philosophy behind my own practice further and gain a
deeper understanding of contemporary aesthetics of craft I aim to read, in more
detail, Howard Risatti’s A Theory of Craft and Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman.
This would not only help in understanding and valuing contemporary craft in
relation to art, but also help further articulate an aesthetic role for craft in
contemporary society. As a result of my exploration of the themes of my
dissertation I aim to further my study by looking at aesthetics in relation to
phenomenology. Phenomenology is the study of the conscious experience and by
researching it in relation to aesthetics it would help to understand the conditions
for the content of conscious experiences of aesthetic objects in relation to
judgment and experience.
26
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