Mingei Movement’s Decline and the Disappearance of Living Craft
Challenges That Led to the Struggles and Decline of Mingei
Recently, I visited the Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Nihon Mingeikan) in Tokyo. Despite being a weekday and located far from the nearest station, I was surprised by the constant stream of Japanese visitors. It seemed to reflect the contemporary condition of people searching for “lost passion.”
The concept of “mingei (民藝)” was proposed in 1926 by Yanagi Sōetsu (1889-1961). It emerged as a reaction against the expanding industrial goods market of the time.
According to Sōetsu’s definition, mingei refers to handcrafted items used in daily life by ordinary people—practical objects deeply connected to human life. These were traditionally referred to as “zakki (雑器)” (miscellaneous wares).
However, visiting the Japan Folk Crafts Museum nearly 100 years later reveals the profound failure of the mingei movement. What went wrong in Sōetsu’s mingei theory? I believe the root of the issue lies in the conflation of bunka and culture.
Sōetsu, who learned from D.T. Suzuki, applied Daisetsu’s Zen philosophy to his mingei theory, frequently emphasizing the significance of craft objects born from “mushin (無心)” (no-mind) and “musō (無想)” (non-conceptual thought). The problem, however, was Sōetsu’s insistence on applying professional aesthetic evaluations to mingei.
Mingei originates from the localized environments and living spaces of people. In other words, mingei is born in deeply “specific places” and cannot be reduced to a unified space called “Japan.” It reflects the bunka of distinct places rather than the culture of a homogenous national identity.
As suggested by the term musō, mingei lacks a definitive subject or intention. In the predicative realm of the Japanese language, mingei has been created without explicit subjects. This is the essence of bunka, not culture.
Bunka is never complete; it exists perpetually in an eternal moment.
There is no spatio-temporal concept of past, present, or future defined by subjectivity in this framework. Life happened here and now, and in that process, what was lost was lost. This reflects the spirit of “wabi-sabi.”
As a part of bunka, mingei holds no meaning in being subjected to expert aesthetic judgments or being ranked superior to already established concepts like “crafts.”
Nonetheless, Sōetsu categorized crafts as follows, placing them in a dichotomy that brought the concept of modernity into bunka:
●Aristocratic Crafts: Aristocratic – Individual – Exceptional – Conceptual – Discerning
●Mingei: Folk – Communal – Ordinary – Non-conceptual – Unpretentious
Behind Sōetsu’s aspiration for equal relationships between aristocracy and commonality through mingei lay the influence of Taishō Democracy, a significant ideological current in Japan from 1912 to 1926, precisely the period during which Sōetsu formulated his mingei movement.
When the fervor of the Taishō era cooled, Japan marched toward wartime nationalism. Sōetsu, while defining mingei items, attempted to reduce them to a unified space of centralized control. Eventually, he declared mingei “the finest of crafts.”
By doing so, Sōetsu himself erased the essence of mingei, its connection to specific places, unwittingly paving the way for the extinction of bunka.
This issue was not unique to Sōetsu; it was emblematic of the flawed perspectives of many early 20th-century Japanese thinkers with partial Western orientations.
They appeared to be traditionalists, but the truth was quite the opposite. The concept of “tradition” itself in Japan is a relatively new term that gained currency in the 1920s and has no direct connection to bunka.
Although Sōetsu is celebrated as a key figure in the mingei movement, it was, ironically, his actions that suffocated mingei and, by extension, bunka. Sōetsu disregarded the lives of people rooted in specific places and instead pulled them into the framework of a nationalized Japan.
Why did Sōetsu’s ideals result in such unintended consequences? The reason lies in his uncritical application of the concept of culture to bunka. By framing mingei alongside aristocratic crafts in the context of culture, Sōetsu inadvertently undermined bunka.
Tragically, this foundational flaw in Sōetsu’s mingei theory caused mingei to be quickly absorbed into the commodity market. Consequently, contrary to Sōetsu’s original vision, mingei items became museum exhibits, distanced from people’s touch by glass showcases. They lost their practicality in daily life, reduced to mere “nameless” artifacts, stripped of their original vitality.
A century later, the mingei movement has achieved little lasting effect. From the perspective that mingei is now displayed in museums alongside—or as a derivative of—aristocratic crafts, it becomes clear that Sōetsu’s theory completely overlooked the true essence of mingei.
This limitation was where Sōetsu faltered, and it was instead overcome by figures like the textile artist Serizawa Keisuke (1895–1984), who was close to Sōetsu.
Sōetsu failed to see bunka, nor the places or the lives of people. What he saw was a unified vision of Japan and its people, into which mingei was forcibly situated.
What kind of existence can mingei have without the marks of use or the warmth of human touch?
What vitality does mingei possess when severed from the lives of people?
In the modern age, mingei should have held the potential to restore individuals—who have become highly social agents in contemporary society—from their alienation through direct experiences.
Regrettably, that opportunity has been lost. As a result, people are left adrift, searching for “lost passion.”
Figures like Yanagi Sōetsu, Yanagida Kunio (in folklore studies), and D.T. Suzuki (in Zen) are often globally acclaimed. Yet, in reality, they contributed to the destruction of the bunka of daily life and facilitated the rise of nationalism.