The Beauty of Everyday Things (Penguin Modern Classics)

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This parallels the views of Kakuzo Okakura outlined in “The Book of Tea,” where Japan’s militarism and “Manchurian killing fields” are disparaged as being worthy of pride or basing national identity on. Still, the book is a fine introduction to a philosophy of the everyday that I found enriching, and that I think is sorely needed in our throwaway consumer culture. The Beauty of Everyday Things collects several of his essays into one volume celebrating the simplicity and anonymous artistry of Japanese handicrafts. It is said that someone living in proximity to a flowering garden grows insensitive to its fragrance.

After the coming of tea, when deformation came to be consciously sought, common everyday beauty disappeared and unnatural manipulation began. Through the medium of art, an exploration and appreciation of mutually intelligible metaphysical principles from different traditions could be undertaken, in the spirit of the Qur’anic dictum in Surah Al-Hujurat elucidating the purpose of diversity in His creation of Man: to come to know one another.Alongside supporting the efforts of artisans to preserve traditional techniques, Yanagi also founded the Japan Folk Crafts Museumin 1936, which is still open and active today. Inspired by the work of the simple, humble craftsmen Yanagi encountered during his lifelong travels through Japan and Korea, they are an earnest defence of modest, honest, handcrafted things – from traditional teacups to jars to cloth and paper. But it is now, in our age of feeble, quick and cheaply made things, that we see a growing longing for high quality objects, made with care.

Yanagi praises some of the Scandinavian things of the same nature, so I think I could learn from this book to look towards the objects of folk craft even in my own home country and Scandinavia. I found the title slightly misleading, but as I kept reading the book I began to enjoy it; it gave me a new view on certain objects, and information on the various corners of Japanese Folk Craft (with a little side nod towards such art in Korea, which the author valued highly, as he tells in one text). There is much here that overlaps with Islamic spirituality and Sufism, and as a result, is easily understood. To illustrate, I would be particularly interested in seeing the Mingeiapproach applied to textile production from my ancestral city of Hama in Syria. For the author, the humble beauty of well made household things is more important than the showy beauty of fine arts, because we encounter it every day.Great resource for handicrafts in Japanese history and how to appreciate objects created for utility. Just as faith appears of its own accord fro ardent belief, beauty naturally appears in works unconsciously created. The results of intuition can be studied by the intellect, but the intellect cannot give birth to intuition.

Or it might be more correctly said that the perception of good paper as a precious commodity has dwindled. Even when mass produced, the objects he describes are created with skill and pride, made to last, and appreciated for what they are. A notable observation is made as to how the participation of a multitude in art and the creation of beauty, even in mundane objects, is akin to that of religion, which requires the practice of ordinary adherents, and not just of masters of doctrine or practice such as priests or saints.If you are still wondering how to get free PDF EPUB of book The Beauty of Everyday Things by Soetsu Yanagi. This is but one example, and the vast array of Islamic arts and crafts that exist would provide ample basis for a series of spiritually-based aesthetic studies that might point the reader toward the Transcendent whilst also safeguarding such traditions from obscurity and oblivion.