Cracked Bowl Filled With Gold

But the cracks are filled with gold.

Cracked bowl filled with gold. The japanese art of kintsugi teaches that broken objects are not something to hide but to display with pride. From then on japanese collectors sometimes would break perfectly ceramics. So now every old scar shows from every time i broke and anyones eyes can see im not. The shogun had taken something broken and ugly and turned it into something beautiful.

According to louise cort the curator of ceramics at the freer gallery of art and arthur m. Kintsugi uses lacquer resin mixed with powdered gold silver platinum copper or bronze resulting into something more beautiful than the original. Thats what they used back then when they had a bowl to mend it did not hide the cracks it made them shine instead. Kintsugi is said to have originated in the 15th century when a japanese shogun broke a favorite tea bowl and sent it back to china to be fixed.

Ars electronia flickr the image is accompanied by a few lines about kintsugi the japanese art of fixing broken pottery with gold imbued resin. The potters decided to fill the cracks with the lacquered resin and powdered gold. An image has been surfacing persistently of late in my facebook world. The broken ceramic had become a work of art.

By the 17th century kintsugi has become common practice in japan. By repairing broken ceramics its possible to give a new lease of life to pottery that becomes even more refined thanks to its scars. Sackler gallery it was during this time that a japanese warrior infamously purchased broke and repaired standard tea bowls in order to make a profitthat seems to indicate that by the beginning of the 17th century kintsugi was a. Im like one of those japanese bowls that were made long ago i have some cracks in me they have been filled with gold.

As a philosophy it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object rather than something to.