{{Short description|Japanese art critic and philosopher (1889–1961)}} {{family name hatnote|Yanagi|lang=Japanese}} {{Infobox artist | name = Yanagi Sōetsu | image = Soetsu.JPG | caption = Yanagi in 1950 | movement = Mingei (Folk craft) | birth_date = {{birth date|1889|03|21}} | death_date = {{Death date and age|1961|05|03|1889|03|21}} | known_for = Founder of the ''mingei'' (folk craft) movement | awards = Order of Cultural Merit (South Korea), 3rd grade | alma_mater = University of Tokyo }} {{nihongo|'''Yanagi Sōetsu'''|柳 宗悦|lead=yes|extra=March 21, 1889 &ndash; May 3, 1961}}, also known as '''Yanagi Muneyoshi''',<ref>Sōetsu and Muneyoshi are alternate readings (pronunciations) of the same Chinese characters.</ref> was a Japanese art critic,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Cotter |first1=Holland |title=ART REVIEW; From Japan, Paintings To Go, but With Charm |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/16/arts/art-review-from-japan-paintings-to-go-but-with-charm.html |access-date=23 July 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=16 December 1994}}</ref> philosopher, and founder of the ''mingei'' (folk craft) movement in Japan in the late 1920s and 1930s.

==Personal life== Yanagi was born in 1889 to Yanagi Narayoshi, a hydrographer of the Imperial Navy and Katsuko.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book|last=Rawsthorn|first=Alice|title=Design as an Attitude|publisher=JRP {{!}} Ringier|year=2018|isbn=978-3037645215|location=Zurich, Switzerland}}</ref>

His son, Sori Yanagi, was a renowned industrial designer.<ref name=":02"/> His great grandnephew Shinya Yanagi is a renowned weaver, and the third generation of the Yanagi family of weavers.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.motoji.co.jp/blogs/information/mingei-energy-embodied-in-handicrafts-with-shinya-yanagi | title='Mingei; Energy Embodied in Handicrafts' with Shinya Yanagi }}</ref>

== Career == In 1916, Yanagi made his first trip to Korea out of curiosity about Korean crafts. The trip led to the establishment of the Korean Folk Crafts Museum in 1924 and the coining of the term ''mingei'' by Yanagi, potters Hamada Shōji (1894–1978) and Kawai Kanjirō (1890–1966).

Yanagi was not an artist or craftsman himself.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aso |first1=Noriko |editor1-last=Tansman |editor1-first=Alan |title=The Culture of Japanese Fascism |date=13 April 2009 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-9070-1 |page=139 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d__1ryAnmFkC&pg=PT151 |chapter=Mediating the Masses: Yanagi Sōetsu and Fascism}}</ref>

His theory of the {{Nihongo|"beauty of sorrow"|悲哀の美}} in Korean art has been said to have influenced the development of the Korean idea of ''han''. Following the March First Movement, Korea's independence movement in which thousands of Koreans died at the hands of the Japanese police and military, Yanagi wrote articles in 1919 and 1920, expressing sympathy for the Korean people and appreciation for Korean art.

Yanagi cautioned against the Korean independence movement.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nakami |first1=Mari |title=In Pursuit of Composite Beauty: Yanagi Soetsu, His Aesthetics and Aspiration for Peace |date=2011 |publisher=Trans Pacific Press |isbn=978-1-920901-34-9 |page=116 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eWN_rGKu78IC&pg=PA116}}</ref>

In 1926, the Folk Art Movement was formally declared by Yanagi. He rescued lowly pots used by commoners in the Edo and Meiji periods that were disappearing in rapidly urbanizing Japan. In 1936, the Japanese Folk Crafts Museum (''Nihon Mingeikan'') was established.

He was also working together with Onta ware.

===''Mingei'' theory=== The philosophical pillar of ''mingei'' is {{nihongo|"hand-crafted art of ordinary people"|民衆的工芸|minshū-teki kōgei}}. Yanagi Sōetsu discovered beauty in everyday ordinary and utilitarian objects created by nameless and unknown craftsmen. According to Yanagi, utilitarian objects made by the common people are "beyond beauty and ugliness". Below are a few criteria of ''mingei'' art and crafts:

*made by anonymous crafts people *produced by hand in quantity *inexpensive *used by the masses *functional in daily life *representative of the region in which it was produced.

Yanagi's book ''The Unknown Craftsman'' has become an influential work since its first release in English in 1972. It examines the Japanese way of viewing and appreciating art and beauty in everyday crafts that include pottery, lacquer, textiles, and woodwork.

Yanagi was editor of ''Kōgei'' ('Crafts'), the journal of the Japanese Folk Arts Association, issued between 1931 and 1951.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qclOb70JnpgC&pg=PA77 |title=Asian Treasures: Gems of the Written Word |author=Gosling, Andrew |publisher=National Library of Australia |year=2011 |page=71 |isbn=978-0-642-27722-0}}</ref>

Yanagi was an honored lecturer in the Pottery seminar at Black Mountain College in 1952 in the USA, attended by many younger and later prominent potters.

== Legacy == In 1984, Yanagi was posthumously awarded the ''Bogwan'' Order of Cultural Merit, the first to be awarded to a non-Korean.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jungle.co.kr/exhibit/5702|website=jungle.co.kr|publisher=Design Jungle|language=ko|script-title=ko:야나기 무네요시 전|access-date=29 September 2018}}</ref>

Yanagi was a considerable influence over the likes of potter Bernard Leach, sculptor Isamu Noguchi, and architect Bruno Taut.<ref name=":02"/>

==References== *{{cite book | author= Yanagi, Soetsu | title= ''The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty'' | location=New York | publisher=Kodansha International | year=1989}} *{{cite book | author= Yanagi, Soetsu | title= ''Soetsu Yanagi: Selected Essays on Japanese Folk Crafts'' | location=Tokyo | publisher=Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture | year=2017 | url=https://www.jpicinternational.com/books/artanddesign/001824.html}} *{{cite book | author= Yanagi, Soetsu | title= ''The Beauty of Everyday Things'' | location=London | publisher=Penguin |isbn=9780241366356 |year=2019}} {{reflist}}

==External links== {{Commons category|Yanagi Sōetsu}} * [http://www.mingeikan.or.jp/english/ Nihon Mingeikan (Japanese Folk Crafts Museum)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081221195921/http://www.mingeikan.or.jp/english/ |date=2008-12-21 }}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Soetsu, Yanagi}} Category:20th-century Japanese philosophers Category:Japanese art collectors Category:Shirakaba-ha Category:University of Tokyo alumni Category:People from Tokyo Category:1889 births Category:1961 deaths Category:Mingei Category:Recipients of the Order of Cultural Merit (South Korea)