kintsugi I
Stoneware, porcelain, molten ash, copper oxide and gold.
Wheel thrown. Wood fired.
23cm x 16cm
“Here, more important than what the intellect understands is what the feelings seize upon.”
Immanuel Kant: Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (1764)
Pieces fired in a wood-kiln for several days and nights, which either broke during the firing, through some kind of knock, or because of one of the many slip-ups that life has in store for us.
The fragments were kept for years due to their intrinsic beauty. Now, with kintsugi, they are reborn into a life that is enriched by the scars of their past. The scars become fountains, rivers, golden landscapes that write their own meanings in the context of the piece that houses them.
kintsugi II
Stoneware, porcelain, molten ash and gold.
Wheel thrown. Wood fired.
22cm x 13cm
kintsugi III
Stoneware, porcelain, molten ash and gold.
Hand built. Wood fired.
12cm x 12cm
kintsugi IV
Stoneware, porcelain, molten ash and gold.
Wheel thrown. Wood fired.
36cm x 31cm
The pieces’ obvious scars give them a strong and transcendent beauty: an aesthetic sensitivity that is typical of the Eastern tradition, whose gaze discovers deep and moving qualities in aspects that are considered defects in the West: signs of aging, stains or imperfections.
This piece was made with thick porcelain walls, and cracked and deformed during the firing. It was the second time it had gone into the wood-fired kiln and it did not withstand the many hours of sustained high temperatures. The flames gradually transformed it, but without breaking it. The tear in it became the central element in the object’s metamorphosis, and it went from being a beautiful porcelain vase to a piece with manifold poetic interpretations.
“Night is sublime, day is beautiful.”
Immanuel Kant, op.cit
kintsugi V
Porcelain, molten ash and gold.
Modelled. Wood fired twice.
38cm x 25cm
kintsugi VI
Wild clay, stoneware, porcelain, molten ash and gold.
Wheel thrown. Wood fired.
46cm x 18cm
“Beauty with an implicit meaning is not that beauty that the creator shows the observer, but that which provokes an expression of inner beauty in those who admire the work. In this sense, beauty turns the observer into an artist.”
The Unknown Craftsman
Sõetsu Yanagi (1889-1961)
kintsugi VII
Stoneware, porcelain, molten ash, copper oxide and gold.
Wheel thrown. Wood fired.
25cm x 12cm
“The sublime moves, the beautiful charms”
Immanuel Kant, op.cit.
There is a delicate balance between the immaterial and material qualities of pieces repaired with kintsugi: their visual aspect cannot be separated from their emotional resonance. They will never return to their former state, but their meaning is now far deeper than ever.
The passion caused by the great and the sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it. Hence arises the great power of the sublime, that, far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force.
Edmund Burke: Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas about the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757)
kintsugi VIII
Stoneware, porcelain, molten ash and gold.
Wheel thrown. Wood fired.
70cm x 44cm
kintsugi K.IX
Stoneware, porcelain, molten ash and gold.
Hand built. Wood fired.
12cm x 14cm
Kintsugi became popular in Japan in the 16th century, along with the development of the aesthetic principles of wabi-sabi and wabi-cha, linked to the tea ceremony. All through this period, great importance was attached to the types of containers used. They had to be simple, humble and show qualities with deep meaning.
Transforming misfortune into happiness, into harmony, into magnificence. The repaired piece conveys the poetry of the passage of time and the changing flow of life. At the same time, kintsugi is the promise of a richer, more complex future: the past can never be so beautiful.
kintsugi X
Porcelain, iron and gold.
Hand built. Gas fired.
Alt. 65cm
kintsugi XI
Stoneware, porcelain, molten ash and gold.
Wheel thrown. Wood fired.
64cm x 48cm
A piece of kintsugi is a silent teacher. In times of difficulty, it reminds us of the beauty of life, and when the path is smooth, it reminds us about the impermanence of that state and speaks of the existence of the sublime.
Una peça de kintsugi és un mestre mut: en els moments difícils ens recorda la bellesa de la vida, i durant el camí planer ens parla de la impermanència d’aquest estat i de l’existència del sublim.
kintsugi XII
Stoneware, porcelain, molten ash and gold.
Wheel thrown and modelled. Wood fired.
52cm x 19cm
kintsugi XIII
Stoneware, porcelain, molten ash and gold.
Wheel thrown. Wood fired.
34cm x 40cm
The shell is one of the most recognizable visual elements of wood firing. Used to prevent the pieces from getting stuck together by molten ash, they mark the support points and often become the centre of the landscape sketched on their surfaces by the fire. Matter disintegrates, but ash fossilizes its silhouette. Using it as an element of kintsugi emphasizes the value of this extreme firing process.
Nothing lasts forever. This was a value that was revered in ancient Japan: a flower was exquisite because it would soon die, a woman was sublime because her beauty would fade. The Japanese admired the glorious nature of the passage of time. In the same way, the fact that a piece of ceramic was fragile made it that much more precious.
“The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty”
Yoshida Kenko (1283-1340)
kintsugi XIV
Stoneware, porcelain, molten ash and gold.
Wheel thrown. Wood fired.
52cm x 39cm
kintsugi XV
Porcelain, molten ash, iron and gold.
Hand built. Wood fired.
64cm x 40cm
I learned kintsugi in Osaka in 2012, in a small workshop, from a traditional master of lacquer work. From him I understood that kintsugi is far more than what we merely see: it is an intimate, evolving art, bursting with unavoidable metaphors. It is a rebirth that turns an object into an icon, one that brings together rupture and continuity, fragility and resilience.
“The truly sublime elevates our soul, as if it were something instinctive, and exults dignity”
Longino (siglo I): On the sublime
Kintsugi transforms ceramic pieces into metaphors that cross the frontier of the beautiful and break into the territory of the sublime. Transcendent and moving, they have a profound meaning beyond the intrinsic nature of material and form.
kintsugi XVI
Stoneware, porcelain, molten ash and gold.
Wheel thrown. Wood fired.
31cm x 32cm