Mingei: The Folk Craft Movement That Changed Pottery

A piece kept in a museum vitrine, and the tea bowl you pick up every morning. Which is genuinely the more beautiful? One thinker spent his life with that question. His name was Yanagi Muneyoshi (Sōetsu), one of the great seekers of beauty Japan has produced. He said, again and again, that beautiful things are not inside museums but on the kitchen shelf. The beauty of a piece that settles into the hand through daily use and grows more luminous the more it is used — he called this Yō-no-bi (beauty through use), and spread it to the world under the concept of mingei, folk craft.

In Japan the culture of mingei went on to flourish, and tens of thousands of makers are at work across the country today.

This article unpacks, slowly, what mingei is, how Yanagi discovered its beauty, and what the spirit of mingei means for our lives now. Knowing the beauty that lives in an everyday piece will surely make your own days richer.

What Is Mingei?

Short for "Craft of the People"

The word mingei is a contraction of minshūteki kōgei, "craft of the people." It is a concept proposed in 1925 by Yanagi Muneyoshi together with the potters Hamada Shōji and Kawai Kanjirō, and it refers to the beauty that lives in everyday objects made by anonymous craftspeople for daily life.

Crafts that fall under mingei share several characteristics. First, they are not made by a particular famous artist but by unnamed craftspeople. Second, they are made not to be displayed as art but to be actually used. And third, they are made by hand rather than mass-produced.

Tea bowls, cups, plates, sake flasks, storage jars. Everyday pieces of this kind are typical of mingei. None carries a special maker's name; each was made by craftspeople working at a regional kiln, the same way yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And yet Yanagi found in them a beauty far deeper than that of art objects.

What Lies Between Craft and Art

How do craft and art differ? Art foregrounds the individuality and expression of the maker. It is displayed in museums, made to be contemplated. Craft, by contrast, is made to be used. It has function, and it exists within daily life.

Within craft, mingei refers specifically to what sits closest to the lives of ordinary people. Earthiness, plainness, the feel of daily living — quite unlike the loftiness of art — are precisely its appeal. Believing that beauty lives within daily life, Yanagi used the word mingei to define a territory of nameless beauty lying between art and craft.

The beauty of mingei lies in beauty that arose without being intended. The craftsperson is not trying to make something beautiful. They are only trying to make something sturdy and easy to use. Beauty settles in naturally as the result of that honest work — and that is the essence of mingei.

Yanagi's Discovery

The Beauty in Everyday Objects by Anonymous Makers

Yanagi Muneyoshi was born in Tokyo in 1889. He studied philosophy and psychology at Tokyo Imperial University — today's University of Tokyo — and made his name young as an intellectual in literature, religion, and art. But his true mission was to discover the beauty living in everyday pieces, and to convey it to the world.

In the Japan of his day, the concepts of "fine art" imported from the West had become dominant, and everyday objects made by craftspeople were not regarded as art. Even in national arts policy, "craft" was placed beneath "art." Yanagi doubted that hierarchy.

"Why does this tea bowl I hold every day move me more than a painting in a museum?" Feeling this, Yanagi began to look for the source of that feeling. What he realised was that a piece made by an anonymous craftsperson carries no ego and no calculation — only the purity of work concentrated on a single point: the person who will use it.

Precisely because there is no desire to leave a name or to be praised, a craftsperson's work is completely clear. That clarity produces beauty naturally. Yanagi described this discovery as an experience close to religious awakening. The answer to "what does it mean to be beautiful" came to him not from philosophy or aesthetics but from the top of a kitchen shelf.

Meeting Korean White Porcelain: The Moment Yanagi Woke to Beauty

The decisive role in Yanagi's awakening to beauty was played by his encounter with Korean craft. Around 1914 he came into contact with Korean white porcelain and Joseon-dynasty ceramics, and was profoundly struck by their beauty.

Korean white porcelain has neither the splendour of Chinese white porcelain nor the delicacy of Japanese ceramics. It is plain, unadorned, and carries a beauty tinged with melancholy. Even when the form is slightly distorted, even when the flow of the glaze is not perfect — or rather, precisely within that imperfection — an inexpressible beauty resides.

Yanagi wrote of this encounter that he "felt a kind of trembling of the soul." Something entirely unlike the work then valued in the Japanese art world, yet unmistakably beautiful, stood in front of him. That experience made him question, from the ground up, what beauty is.

Korean craft was made by nameless people for daily life. If it could be this beautiful, then the conditions of beauty were not "a famous artist," "expensive material," or "perfect technique." Yanagi became certain of it. That certainty was the starting point of mingei thought.

The Birth of the Concept of Yō-no-bi

The concept Yanagi arrived at after his encounter with Korean craft was Yō-no-bi (beauty through use). Yō means using, practical use. Yō-no-bi is the beauty that lives within being used — the beauty proper to a piece made for a practical purpose.

Yanagi says: "A beautiful piece is completed only by being used." A piece protected inside a museum case is certainly preserved, but it could also be said that it cannot exercise its original beauty. A piece is held in the hand, filled with food, set on the table, washed, and used again. Within that repetition, its beauty truly comes alive.

Yanagi also argued that ease of use and beauty are not separate things. A genuinely easy-to-use piece naturally takes a beautiful form. A shape that settles into the hand, colouring that lets food shine, a rim that meets the lips well — these are demanded as function, but they are simultaneously elements of beauty. Use and beauty are one, and cannot be prised apart.

This concept of yō-no-bi is not merely a matter of aesthetics. It is also a philosophy of living: of living each day attentively. Valuing the pieces you use daily, deepening your relationship with them by continuing to use them — that is the core of a mingei way of life.

The Three Figures of the Mingei Movement

The mingei movement spread across Japan through the work of three men.

Yanagi Muneyoshi: Thinker and Theorist

Yanagi Muneyoshi (1889–1961) was the founder of the mingei movement and its intellectual pillar. He began as a philosopher and art critic, and later established the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Komaba, Tokyo. His many books include The Way of Craft and The Dharma Gate of Beauty.

His thought does not stop at aesthetics; it is deeply bound up with religious philosophy. Zen thought in particular — the subject of Zen and Japanese Ceramics: Where the Aesthetic Began — and the Jōdo Shinshū concept of reliance on other-power exerted a great influence on his sense of beauty. The idea that "beauty is born when a nameless craftsperson makes without ego" overlaps with the Zen state of mushin, no-mind.

Yanagi also believed in a universality of beauty crossing ethnicity and culture. He valued Korean and Okinawan craft highly, and showed a stance opposing the Japanese colonial rule of his day. He was a man who sought, through beauty, to overcome discrimination and prejudice.

Hamada Shōji: Master of Mashiko Ware

Hamada Shōji (1894–1978) was a potter based in Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, and a practitioner of the mingei movement. In 1955 he was designated a Holder of Important Intangible Cultural Property — a Living National Treasure.

Hamada's ceramics embody the spirit of mingei. The plain character of the clay, the flowing pattern of the glaze, the generous, warm forms — none of these were intended as things "to be made." They arose from leaving the work to the natural behaviour of clay and glaze.

He was also a close friend of the English potter Bernard Leach, and the two worked together to spread mingei. For continuing to embody Yanagi's thought in the practical arena of ceramics, Hamada is called the father of mingei ceramics.

Mashiko, the place where Hamada spread mingei, is today home to a great many working artists and one of Japan's major ceramic regions. → Mashiko Pottery: Where Japanese Folk Craft Still Lives

Kawai Kanjirō: Kyoto's Living National Treasure

Kawai Kanjirō (1890–1966) was a potter based in Kyoto and one of the central figures of the mingei movement. He advanced the movement alongside Yanagi and built a world of form entirely his own.

Kawai's work is characterised by rich glaze expression and bold form. Studying traditional technique deeply while combining it with a contemporary sensibility, his pieces reached an artistic height beyond the frame of mingei. In his later years he also made sculptural work, leaving a large mark on the history of modern Japanese craft.

Kawai's home is open to the public as the Kawai Kanjirō Memorial House, preserving his living and working spaces exactly as they were. It is a valuable place, conveying the form of a mingei home and workshop to the present day.

Yō-no-bi in Practice

Mashiko Ware: Practical Beauty from the Plainness of Clay

Mashiko ware, made in Mashiko in Tochigi Prefecture where Hamada worked, is the leading example of mingei. Its red clay is high in iron, and the pieces made from it are plain, solid, and warm.

The beauty of Mashiko ware lies in the strength of the clay itself. Glaze flows naturally, and the expression born as chance accumulates inside the kiln makes every piece one of a kind. It is a beauty born where clay, fire, and the breath of the craftsperson meet — the opposite pole from the uniformity of mass production.

Mashiko ware is often used as a rice bowl, and holding it every day produces subtle changes in the glaze. A piece "grows" through continued use. This is yō-no-bi at its finest.

Tamba Tachikui Ware: Mingei Pieces That Let Food Shine

Tamba Tachikui ware, made in Tamba-Sasayama in Hyogo Prefecture, is a historic ware counted among Japan's six ancient kilns. It is characterised by plain clay character and the flow of natural ash glaze, and has outstanding presence when food is placed on it.

Tamba Tachikui pieces show their true worth in combination with cooking. The green of vegetables, the white of soup, the red of sashimi — the capacity of these pieces to receive and lift any dish is yō-no-bi in practice. Because there is no showy decoration, the food can take the lead. This is how mingei pieces are meant to be used. → Tamba Ware Guide: Japan's 800-Year Ash-Glazed Pottery

Okinawan Yachimun: The Vitality of the Islands

The Okinawan ware called yachimun is a distinct ceramic culture continuing from the era of the Ryukyu Kingdom. Vivid colour and bold painting characterise it, and it carries a particularly individual presence even within mingei.

The appeal of yachimun lies in its vitality. Painting that uses the colours of the tropics boldly — blue, green, white, red — makes the viewer feel the land and culture of Okinawa. Yanagi valued yachimun highly and positioned Okinawan craft as an important part of mingei.

Eating from yachimun makes an ordinary table lively at once. Pieces whose expression changes with what is placed on them, amplifying the pleasures of daily life — this too embodies yō-no-bi.

What the Mingei Movement Changed

Its Influence on Japanese Design Thinking

The mingei movement brought a revolution to Japanese design thinking. Until then, "expensive, beautiful art objects" and "cheap, functional everyday goods" were held to belong to entirely separate categories in Japan. The movement removed that wall and worked the value "everyday things are what is beautiful" into society.

The influence of mingei remains strong in post-war Japanese design. "Functional beauty," "design that draws out the character of materials," "beauty stripped of unnecessary ornament" — at the base of these Japanese design philosophies lies the sensibility the mingei movement cultivated. That brands pursuing simple, functional beauty are valued worldwide can be said to sit on the same line the movement rooted in Japan.

The movement also played an important role in protecting regional traditional crafts. That Mashiko ware, Tamba ware, and Okinawan yachimun continue today, when modernisation was on the point of extinguishing them, is precisely because mingei turned a light on them.

The Role the Folk Crafts Museums Played

In 1936 Yanagi opened the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Komaba, Tokyo — the base of the movement, and a facility for exhibiting and preserving the folk craft he had collected from Japan and abroad.

The museum is not simply a museum. It is designed as a place where "beauty within daily life" can be felt directly. The pieces on display are not surrounded by heavy explanatory text as in an art museum; they stand quietly within the space. Visitors look at them and are able to question anew their relationship with the pieces in their own daily lives.

Folk craft museums have also been established across the country. The Matsumoto Folk Craft Museum in Nagano, the Kurashiki Folk Craft Museum in Okayama, the Toyama Folk Craft Museum and others collect and exhibit their regions' folk craft, contributing to the preservation and transmission of local craft culture.

A folk craft museum is at once "a place to go and see beautiful things" and "a place that gives you cause to look again at the pieces in your own life." Meeting craft at a distance close to daily living, quite unlike an art museum, is what makes these museums appealing.

Mingei and Contemporary Life

The Affinity Between Slow Living and Mingei

In recent years the lifestyle called slow living has drawn attention worldwide. Rather than pursuing efficiency and speed, it means living each day attentively and with meaning. Cooking with good ingredients, choosing things made from natural materials, using handmade things carefully — this way of living is spreading, particularly among younger generations.

The spirit of mingei accords with slow living to a surprising degree. Using pieces made carefully by anonymous craftspeople; continuing to use them, valued, over a long time; enjoying the process by which a piece grows through use. All of these overlap with slow living's core values.

The "beauty of everyday pieces" Yanagi proposed a century ago is being rediscovered within the contemporary slow-living movement. When you want to practise a more attentive life, choosing handmade pieces may be the simplest and surest first step.

From the standpoint of sustainability, too, mingei carries contemporary significance. Choosing quality that lasts rather than what is disposable. Choosing what local craftspeople made from local materials. These accord with the contemporary value of reducing environmental load. Mingei can be called a forerunner of sustainable consumption — choosing genuinely good things and using them for a long time.

Contemporary Makers Carrying the Mingei Spirit Forward

The spirit of the movement has been passed to potters working today. In the mingei regions — Mashiko, Tamba, Okinawa and others — artists are at work who protect tradition while taking in a contemporary sensibility. Even as they put their individual names forward as "known artists," they value the essence of mingei: ease of use, the character of materials, a beauty that dissolves into daily life.

Young potters based in Mashiko, for instance, study Hamada's techniques while making pieces suited to the contemporary table. Matte texture, settled colouring, a comfortable size — all of them pieces that stay close to how people live now. That posture of inheriting tradition while answering the present is a living embodiment of the mingei spirit.

Through social media such as Instagram, younger makers are also spreading the mingei sensibility. One-of-a-kind pieces made with care, a plain beauty that draws out the feel of the material — sympathy for such things is spreading worldwide online. In media utterly unlike those of Yanagi's own era, the spirit of mingei still lives.

Beauty Completed by Use Is the Essence of Japanese Ceramics

What Yanagi spent his life trying to convey is simple. "Beautiful things are not within the special; they are within daily life." That is all. And yet many people have not noticed this simple truth.

A piece seen in a museum may be beautiful. But that is a protected beauty. The beauty of a mingei piece is a beauty born through use. Held every day, a piece absorbs your body's warmth. Each time food is placed on it, you discover an affinity of colour and form. Through continued washing, the glaze slowly changes its expression. A piece used for years in this way carries something it did not have when purchased: the accumulation of a relationship with you.

Yanagi wrote: "Beauty does not exist; it is discovered by people." The one who finds beauty in a plain piece made by an anonymous craftsperson is you — the person who picks it up and keeps using it. Your eye and your sensitivity call awake the beauty living in a piece. In that sense, a piece's beauty is a collaboration between you and it.

If you acquire a mingei piece, please do not put it in a glass case. Please do not only set it on a shelf. Use it every day. Serve your favourite dish on it. Bring it out when friends gather at your table. The more you use it, the more it will answer you. The core of yō-no-bi that Yanagi spent his life trying to convey can only be experienced through use.

Living so as to value the pieces of daily life is living attentively. A morning drinking tea from a Mashiko bowl, a dinner served on a Tamba plate, a weekend enjoying coffee from a yachimun cup. Small accumulations of this kind slowly enrich your life from the inside.

Mingei is not a movement of the past. It lives today, in the pieces waiting to be used on your own kitchen shelf. When you pick one up, you too will be able to touch the "beauty of daily life" that Yanagi saw.

Related Articles

Japanese Ceramic Culture and History

• A Short History of Japanese Ceramics, Jomon to Now
• Reading Wabi-Sabi in a Single Bowl
• Zen and Japanese Ceramics: Where the Aesthetic Began
• Ichigo Ichie: Why No Two Handmade Pieces Repeat
• Keshiki: How to Read the 'Landscape' on a Pot
• Pottery That 'Grows': How Ceramics Change With Use

Japan's Kiln Regions

• Japanese Pottery by Region: A Buyer's Map
• Mashiko Pottery: Where Japanese Folk Craft Still Lives
• Yachimun: Okinawan Pottery, Clay of a Southern Island
• Kasama Ware: Japan's Most Free-Spirited Pottery Town
• Tamba Ware Guide: Japan's 800-Year Ash-Glazed Pottery
• Japan's Six Ancient Kilns: All 6 Regions Compared

How to Choose Japanese Ceramics

• Why Japanese Pottery Is Worth Buying (and Keeping)
• Buying Pottery That Lasts a Lifetime, Not a Season
• Japanese Tableware: The Complete Beginner's Guide

How to Buy Japanese Ceramics

• About Us｜Japanese pottery & culture
• Buying Japanese Pottery Online: What to Check First
• New Arrivals