Is kintsukuroi an authentic Japanese concept? What are other cool words?
March 18, 2013 1:02 PM   Subscribe

From Wikipedia, "Kintsukuroi is a Japanese technique of repairing broken ceramics with metal lacquer, usually gold or silver. The word in Japanese means to “to repair with gold”.The concept also includes the understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken." However, I've not been able to find much more on the word beyond Pinterest and blogs. What other words (from any language) are similar, in that they are not just a specific term but can also have a philosophical meaning applied to them?
posted by ghost dance beat to Writing & Language (8 answers total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm not sure if your question is both for info on kintsukuori and the "other words" thing or just the latter but here is a whole lot of info on it courtesy of a museum exhibition.
posted by griphus at 1:14 PM on March 18, 2013 [1 favorite]


Also, Wabi-sabi is a little more on the abstract end (rather than a physical process) but encompasses both an aesthetic sensibility and a philosophical concept. The concept of mono no aware is even further removed from the crafting of physical objects, but you may find it interesting as well.
posted by griphus at 1:17 PM on March 18, 2013 [3 favorites]


And there's modern artists who do this as well.


Freer Exhibit

posted by Ideefixe at 1:18 PM on March 18, 2013


There are about 2 million Google results for "kintsukuroi", including numerous blogs and Amazon results.

I couldn't tell you if it is a Thing in Japan, though. I have noticed that old electronics tend to pile up in Japanese homes, but are not regarded as being particularly beautiful because they are broken.
posted by KokuRyu at 1:41 PM on March 18, 2013


Response by poster: Thanks griphus! My question is for both, and thanks for the interesting document. KokuRyu - that's odd, I get less than 25,000 results when I google it, and I'm not really comfortable using just blogs as information sources. Keep the answers coming!
posted by ghost dance beat at 2:00 PM on March 18, 2013


Yes, the English/romaji word is something like 23k results, but if you Google 金繕い you get several million Japanese results.

Another terms (apparently) is "Kintsugi" (金継ぎ), apparently a technical/artisanal term that comes from the production of traditional lacquerware - kintsugi is the process of adding gold dust to lacquer products, but not a way to fix the lacquerware.

Anyway, this kintsugi page has some nice examples of the the technique.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:55 PM on March 18, 2013


Reminds me of this FPP.
posted by aniola at 6:08 PM on March 18, 2013


What other words (from any language) are similar, in that they are not just a specific term but can also have a philosophical meaning applied to them?

Bricolage.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:14 PM on March 18, 2013


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