2. Selvage, Nancy. "ART
VERSUS CRAFT: THE ISSUE OF CRAFTSMANSHIPIN TWENTIETH CENTURY ART." Garth
Clark ed. Ceramic Millennium: Critical Writings On Ceramic History, Theory and Art. 2006
In his writing, Towards
a Standard of Beauty (1954), Yanagi emphasized warm humanity as the value of
handwork and extended this question into ethics and spiritual realm. Yanagi
presented his “standard of beauty” in hand-made crafts for people’s ordinary
use made by unknown craftsmen and developed his theory in spiritual and
religious level through Buddhist Zen aesthetics. The formation of his theory
was triggered by the trip to Korea and encounter with Korean crafts which were made
in simple design and evaluated in terms of “beauty of naturalness” and “beauty
of unity” by Yanagi. As Yanagi was known to search the harmony between ‘dry’
science and the mind of human being, he suggested that “handwork and machine should
cooperate and supplement each other’s shortcomings.”
However, Selvage wrote
that since industrialization provided artist with “personal command over a
powerful machine,” handcraft had been strongly denounced in early 20th
century. Comparing to Arts and Crafts Movement that “rejected industry in the
name of people,” Russian Avant-garde had incorporated industrial forms with
pure geometry. “In the meantime, pottery probably provided an acceptable
utilitarian medium in which artist could explore abstract principles.” On the
other hand, German Bauhaus emphasized handcraft as an important “learning by
doing” discipline and provided new setting of craft discipline within the fine
art curriculum for education.
As Selvage noted how
the relationship between craft and art evolved in the modern atmosphere in early 20th century, potters worked
towards beyond functional needs – self expression and began to use abstract
vocabulary. Interested in modern psychology, primitive mentality, and unpremeditated
gestures, abstract expressionism tried “a gestural attempt to gain access to
and express a consciousness below the level of appearance” and challenged craft’s
functional as well as formal values. Like Miro and Shaw’s approach, ready-made
objects as elements in art questioned the traditional view of craftsmanship. Zen
philosophy was also adapted to western concerns with self-expression. The abstract
expressionism involved process art that explore the material in conjunction
with time. Eventually, Duchamp’s parody questioning the value and meaning of
the bourgeois object showed an aggressive perspective on forming process.
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