Kintsugi金継ぎ, "golden joinery"), also known
as kintsukuroi ( 金繕い, "golden repair"), is
the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of
breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or
platinum, a method similar to the maki-e technique. As a
philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the
history of an object, rather than something to disguise.
Kintsugi can relate to the Japanese philosophy of
mushin (無心, "no mind"), which encompasses the
concepts of non-attachment, acceptance of change, and fate as aspects of
human life.
"
Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is
literally illuminated... a kind of physical expression of the spirit of
mushin. Mushin is often literally
translated as "no mind," but carries connotations of fully existing
within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing
conditions. ...The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all
humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the
knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject. This
poignancy or aesthetic of existence has been known in Japan as mono no
aware, a compassionate sensitivity, or perhaps identification with,
[things] outside oneself.
— Christy Bartlett,
Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics
"
Types of joinery
There are a few major style or types of Kintsugi:
Crack (ひび): the use of gold dust and resin or lacquer
to attach broken pieces with minimal overlap or fill-in from missing
pieces;
Piece method (欠けの金継ぎ例): where a replacement
ceramic fragment is not available and the entirety of the addition is
gold or gold/lacquer compound;
Joint call (呼び継ぎ): where a similarly shaped but
non-matching fragment is used to replace a missing piece from the
original vessel creating a patchwork effect.
