Japanese Art Broken Pottery Gold

Kintsugi is a centuries old japanese art of repairing broken pottery and transforming it into a new work of art with gold the traditional metal used in kintsugi.

Japanese art broken pottery gold. Kintsugi is the ancient art of fixing broken pottery with gold. Kintsugi uses lacquer resin mixed with powdered gold silver platinum copper or bronze resulting into something more beautiful than the original. The origins of kintsugi are uncertain but it s likely that the practice became commonplace in japan during the late 16th or early 17th centuries noted louise cort curator of ceramics at the smithsonian s freer gallery of art and arthur m. Kintsugi golden joinery is the japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold silver or platinum a method similar to the maki e technique.

According to lakeside pottery. Nothing is ever truly broken that s the philosophy behind the ancient japanese art of kintsugi which repairs smashed pottery by using beautiful seams of gold. Kintsugi is the japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold built on the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections you can create an even stronger more. The name of the technique is derived from the words kin golden and tsugi joinery which translate to mean golden repair.

The technique consists in joining fragments and giving them a new more refined aspect. To celebrate bbc four s japan. 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. Sackler gallery in washington d c.

This traditional japanese art uses a precious metal liquid gold liquid silver or lacquer dusted with powdered gold to bring together the pieces of a broken pottery item and at the same time enhance the breaks. Poetically translated to golden joinery kintsugi or kintsukuroi is the centuries old japanese art of fixing broken pottery rather than rejoin ceramic pieces with a camouflaged adhesive the kintsugi technique employs a special tree sap lacquer dusted with powdered gold silver or platinum. Lacquerware is a longstanding tradition in japan at some point it may have been combined. As a philosophy it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object rather than something to disguise.

Its beginnings are often associated with the famed tale of a 15th century japanese military ruler whose antique.