Japanese Gold Repair Ceramics

Poetically translated to golden joinery kintsugi or kintsukuroi is the centuries old japanese art of fixing broken pottery rather than rejoin ceramic pieces with a camouflaged adhesive the kintsugi technique employs a special tree sap lacquer dusted with powdered gold silver or platinum.

Japanese gold repair ceramics. The origins of kintsugi are uncertain but it s likely that the practice became commonplace in japan during the late 16th or early 17th centuries noted louise cort curator of ceramics at the smithsonian s freer gallery of art and arthur m. This lesson shows only the highlights of the. The history of kintsugi. Copy the japanese and fix it with gold nothing is ever truly broken that s the philosophy behind the ancient japanese art of kintsugi which repairs smashed pottery by using beautiful seams of gold.

Kintsugi or kintsukori dates back to the 15th century when according to legend shogun ashikaga yoshimasa broke his favorite chawan a chinese ceramic tea bowl and sent it back to china for repair it was returned and fixed but bound by ugly metal staples. The translation from japanese of kintsugi or kintsukuroi means golden joinery or repair with gold where the gold powder is applied on lacquer some refer to it as kintsugi art with a metaphor of kintsugi life re birth or wabi sabi philosophy this technique transforms broken ceramic or pottery into beautiful. We restore ceramic objects implementing the japanese art of broken pottery repair kintsugi kintsukuroi using 23 5k gold and lacquer or our proprietary developed process and materials with encapsulated gold effect metals this lesson is intended to show the difference between the two kintsugi implementations methods and to learn how it is done. Sackler gallery in washington d c.

Japanese kintsukuroi chawan. As a philosophy it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object rather than something. 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. The meaning of kintsugi kintsukuroi gold repair art.

Its beginnings are often associated with the famed tale of a 15th century japanese military ruler whose antique. This inspired him to find an elegant way to amend the ceramic and as a result kintsugi was born.