Kurashiki Museum of Folkcraft, filled with Tonomura Kichinosuke’s passion
Near the Ohara Museum of Art’s Craft and Oriental Art Gallery is the Kurashiki Museum of Folkcraft, the second folkcraft museum to open in Japan, after the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, whose construction was supported by Ohara Magosaburo.
We spoke with Yanagisawa Hideyuki, assistant director of the Kurashiki Museum of Folkcraft and senior adviser to the Ohara Museum of Art Foundation, as he showed us around the museum, and asked him about Kurashiki folkcraft.
Is there an exhibition room that gives you an overview of Kurashiki folkcraft at a glance?
Yanagisawa (honorific omitted)
If you take a good look at the first room you enter at the Kurashiki Museum of Folkcraft, you’ll find clues to understanding “What is folkcraft?”
During the Edo period, Kurashiki was an area that had been under the sea. As the land was reclaimed, cotton cultivation flourished because cotton plants are resistant to salt.
One textile made from cotton is Sanada-himo cord.
When barley stalks are woven together into a continuous length, they are made into straw hats and bags, which are still produced today in places such as Kasaoka City.
Folkcraft items are made using materials unique to a particular place.
They are not just old things from the past, but one of the industries that continues to this day.
Of course, the powerful and wealthy gathered fine materials from distant places and used tools made by renowned specialist craftspeople.
If such items are considered high-quality wares, then the items made from local materials—probably by farmers for their own use during the off-season—are low-quality wares. Naturally, the names of their makers were not passed down.
Before the folkcraft movement, high-quality wares were considered the best, but the folkcraft movement found value in low-quality wares.
In other words, the Kurashiki Museum of Folkcraft displays many items that could be called low-quality wares. But these are sturdy, long-lasting tools that brighten people’s everyday lives.
Why is “Kurashiki Glass,” the work of a particular artist, on display?
Yanagisawa
Kurashiki Glass was created by Kotani Shinzo and has now been passed on to his son, Eiji.
In other words, since the end of World War II, works by known artists have also come to be treated as folkcraft items, as long as they are sturdy, long-lasting objects that brighten people’s everyday lives.
This room is characterized by the fact that it displays things that were considered “good” in Kurashiki in each era and used in everyday life.
There are lots of baskets from overseas too, aren’t there?
Yanagisawa
Baskets are practical items through and through.
Their shapes are determined by their function, so there is little room for individual artistic expression.
For that reason, their distinctive feature is that they reflect the plants found in a particular place and the way of life there. These items were collected by the museum’s first director, Tonomura Kichinosuke.
Now that we’ve toured the Kurashiki Museum of Folkcraft together, do you think the works on display here could be used in modern life?
The furniture is also large, piece by piece, and it seems difficult to fit into modern apartments and condominiums.
Yanagisawa
That’s true.
The period from the Kurashiki Museum of Folkcraft’s founding in 1948 through the years when Tonomura Kichinosuke devoted himself to collecting was also a time when our lifestyles changed dramatically. Today, many homes have no tatami rooms, and we spend more time sitting on chairs. Clothing has changed, and so has the structure of industry.
Our lives change little by little with the times, don’t they?
Along with that, I think we need to reconsider, little by little, the definitions of “What is folkcraft?” and “What are folkcraft items?” But fundamentally, I think they remain items for everyday use in people’s daily lives.
In the Bikan Historical Area, there are many shops selling tableware and tools for everyday use, whether or not they count as folkcraft, so do take a look around. Each shop has a different feel, which makes it very interesting.
What would you like to know about Kurashiki?
Enter a keyword and we'll search the articles on this site
