著者

入江 繁樹

出版者

美学会

雑誌

美學 (ISSN:05200962)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.59, no.2, pp.16-29, 2008-12-31

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This paper focuses on the production theory which was presented by YANAGI MUNEYOSHI (1889-1961), the leader of the Japanese Mingei movement. Analysing the contradiction of this theory, I indicate his unique view on the modern civilisation. In the 1920's, he insisted on the revaluation of Japanese traditional folk-crafts, and renamed them Mingei. According to him, the essential aesthetic quality of Mingei is the unconscious beauty (mushin-no-bi), and this beauty can not be created any more by modern artist-craftsmen who are too self-conscious. But, in the meantime, YANAGI demanded that these artist-craftsmen supervise Mingei production and conduct folk-craftsmen who are actual producers of Mingei. Is this YANAGI's methodological fallacy? Rather, we should think that this is an unavoidable paradox on the Mingei production. In YANAGI's view, aesthetic appreciation should be based on the modern consciousness and the latter is indispensable even when we appreciate the unconscious beauty of Mingei. Therefore, he could not help placing the modern artist-craftsmen as leaders in the Mingei production. In short, he thought that the "nonmodern" beauty of Mingei should be paradoxically realised in the gaze of the "modern" men.