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The ‘Marriage of East and West’ of Bernard Leach's Pottery

  • The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art
  • Abbr : JASA
  • 2020, 59(), pp.3-32
  • DOI : 10.17527/JASA.59.0.01
  • Publisher : 한국미학예술학회
  • Research Area : Arts and Kinesiology > Other Arts and Kinesiology
  • Received : December 15, 2019
  • Accepted : February 1, 2020
  • Published : February 28, 2020

So-Rim Yoon 1

1국립현대미술관

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This thesis is about the value of the “marriage of East and West” that led to the contemporary studio craft of the English potter Bernard Leach (1887-1979). He established a modern sense of self-reliance by interacting with Yanagi Sōetsu and members of the magazine Shirakaba. Leach found the value of Asian ceramics within the view of Yanagi's Mingei theory, which led to the “marriage of East and West” as a key to solving the problems of modern capitalist society. Leach Pottery, which Leach founded in St. Ives in England, produced traditional European slipware and stoneware. In his article “Towards a Standard,” he presented the values of “standard” and “norm” in Eastern and Western handcrafts, which became the cornerstone of Standard Ware. However, in industrialized Western society, Leach thought of Mingei as a “total force beyond individualism” that was not able to be realized through the activities of individual artists. Therefore, he suggested the “artist-craftsman” that emerged from cultural roots based on an individual background. Leach intended that the “marriage of East and West” would create a communal production style based on Mingei's intuitive attitude and liberalism. Its scope was the art within a community that practices humanity, the “communal good,” on a historical basis, and its application was a social sharing system.

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