, also known as, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-e technique. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.
Origin
is a longstanding tradition in Japan, and at some point kintsugi may have been combined with maki-e as a replacement for other ceramic repair techniques. While the process is associated with Japanese craftsmen, the technique was also applied to ceramic pieces of other origins including China, Vietnam, and Korea. Kintsugi became closely associated with ceramic vessels used for chanoyu. One theory is that kintsugi may have originated when Japanese shōgunAshikaga Yoshimasa sent a damaged Chinese tea bowl back to China for repairs in the late 15th century. When it was returned, repaired with ugly metal staples, it may have prompted Japanese craftsmen to look for a more aesthetic means of repair. Collectors became so enamored of the new art that some were accused of deliberately smashing valuable pottery so it could be repaired with the gold seams of kintsugi. On the other hand, according to Bakōhan Saōki, such "ugliness" was inspirational and Zen in a way as it connotes beauty in broken things. The bowl became valued even more highly because of these large metal staples, which looked like a locust and the bowl was named Bakōhan.
Philosophy
As a philosophy, kintsugi can be seen to have similarities to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect. Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear by the use of an object. This can be seen as a rationale for keeping an object around even after it has broken and as a justification of kintsugi itself, highlighting the cracks and repairs as simply an event in the life of an object rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage, and can be seen as a variant of the adage "Waste not, want not". Kintsugi can relate to the Japanese philosophy of "no mind", which encompasses the concepts of non-attachment, acceptance of change, and fate as aspects of human life.
Types of joinery
There are a few major styles or types of kintsugi:
Crack, the use of golddust and resin or lacquer to attach broken pieces with minimal overlap or fill-in from missing pieces
Piece method, where a replacement ceramic fragment is not available and the entirety of the addition is gold or gold/lacquer compound
Joint call, where a similarly shaped but non-matching fragment is used to replace a missing piece from the original vessel creating a patchwork effect
Related techniques
Staple repair is a similar technique used to repair broken ceramic pieces, where small holes are drilled on either side of a crack and metal staples are bent to hold the pieces together. Staple repair was used in Europe and China as a repair technique for particularly valuable pieces.
Kintsugi is the general concept of highlighting or emphasizing imperfections, visualizing mends and seams as an additive or an area to celebrate or focus on, rather than absence or missing pieces. Modern artists experiment with the ancient technique as a means of analyzing the idea of loss, synthesis, and improvement through destruction and repair or rebirth. While originally ignored as a separate art form, kintsugi and related repair methods have been featured at exhibitions at the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art.
