The scar is the place where light can come trought – Rumi
Kintsugi is the concept of highlighting and emphasizing imperfections in broken objects. The mends are a way to celebrate the life of the object rather than his absence.
Nowadays artist experiment with this ancient tradition as an improvement of the idea of loss and rebirth.
Kintsugi translation is literally golden joinery. Actually is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.
As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise or to be tossed apart.
Japan has one of the longest traditions of lacquerware. And kintsugi came with repair techniques to this. But it existed in all Asia. Specially in China and Vietnam.
One of the theories of its creation is that once Japanese shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent a damaged Chinese tea bowl to China for repairs. The repair comes back as an ugly metal staples and the shogun send it to some Japanese craftsmen to create a more aesthetic repair.
It was such a trend in that time that some people deliberately smash pottery so it could be repaired with the gold seams.
It became a philosophy. To be a craftsman of kintsugi became popular but not all had the talent. There are different techniques and styles and sometimes take months to get the piece together in perfect shape again.
Kintsugi comes close to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi that is the embracing of the imperfect through patience and care. Given highlight to the cracks and repairs the life of an object allowing his service to continue.
Remember the scars normally are the largest virtues that someone can have. And as Hemingway said: The world can break everyone and after that some will get stronger on the broken places.
I came to all this because I always had some envy of the patience that a craftsman has to have to get all this objects to life again. And the beauty of it with all his cracks highlighted by the metal. But the other day I found this:
Seletti – Art de la Table – KintsugiIt’s
It’s the work of a company from Italy that created a set of unique plates from different broken porcelain.
Can it be more original and non-perfect?
Is Kintsugi for the ones with no patience like me, or for someone that wants to embrace the different imperfections!
Also they have the Hybrid collection:
To all that have trouble deciding the kind of tableware they want.
For more information or to buy the products you can find here
The Seletti webpage and their Instagram acount
And for more information over the mind behind this you can visit Marcantonio Raimondi Malerba webpage and his Instagram acount.
