Metamorphosis of "Arts and Crafts" and "Kogei"

Abstract

Yanagi Muneyoshi (1889-1961), leader of the Folk-Craft movement of Japan, felt sympathy for William Morris (1834-1896) as the central figure of the Arts and Crafts movement of England. Yanagi's sympathy was not for Morris' aesthetics of crafts but for his life and activities. Yanagi felt that Morris' work and idea of craft was too much art-oriented and suggested that it was Morris who divided the arts into fine arts and crafts, mainly based on his misunderstanding that the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society was formed and named by Morris. Yanagi asserted that there was no precedent of the combination thus separation of these two words or ideas "arts and crafts" before 1888 when it was established. But, its prime movers were some of Morris' followers such as Walter Crane or W. A. S. Benson, and the term "arts and crafts" was coined by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. "Arts" of the "arts and crafts" meant "design" rather than "fine art, " while "crafts" meant "handicraft, " judging from the catalogue of its first exhibition and some other related materials. Realizing new movements in rapidly industrializing Europe in the mid-1910's, a group of younger members of the society moved to form the Design and Industries Association. The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society kept its name until 1959 when it was renamed the Society of Designer-Craftsmen. If it were Morris who divided the arts into fine arts and crafts in England, it was Yanagi who separated them into bijutsu (fine arts) and kogei (crafts) in Japan. The fact is that Morris was worried about the arts fallen apart from one another. Yanagi was also concerned about it. This seems to be a kind of "Oedipus effect, " a term introduced by Karl Popper to describe the influence of a theory or expectation or prediction upon the event which it predicts or describes. Lost in Europe, unity of the arts was also going to be lost in industrializing Japan. It was the time of Japan's occupation of the Korean Peninsula. As Morris had started his lectures on the decorative arts from his activities in the Eastern Question Association mainly dealing with the Balkan Peninsula issues and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, Yanagi started writing simultaneously on crafts and the protection of historic Korean buildings threatened by Japan's demolition scheme. Though different in their aesthetics, times and places they lived, Morris and Yanagi shared ethics or social ideals, rebellious and activist spirit, as well as the age of worldwide industrializaion and colonization.