The Beauty of Everyday Things

It would not be entirely amiss to describe Yanagi’s position in Japan as comparable to that of Ruskin and Morris in England … He left as a legacy an aesthetic and religious creed of vital importance to men and women all over the world – Bernard LeachWhat impresses me most in Yanagi is the strength of his vision, his direct eye for beauty. His was an immediate and intuitive faculty of an extraordinary kind – Shoji HamadaRadical and inspiring … Yanagi’s vision puts the connection between heart and hand before the transient and commercial – Edmund de WaalSoetsu Yanagi’s unerring eye has influenced generations of makers. His notion of Zen and the art of design continues to inspire all those involved in shaping our everyday world – Jasper Morrison

Soetsu Yanagi (1889 - 1961) was a philosopher, art historian, aesthete and poet. He evolved a theory of why certain objects made by unknown craftsmen were so beautiful, and became the founding father of the Japanese folk crafts (‘mingei’) movement. He helped establish, and was the first director of, the Japanese Folk Crafts Museum.