• Gift set of a pale green bowl repaired with Kintsugi, a traditional Japanese technique, and a paulownia wood box.
  • Pale green bowl repaired with Kintsugi, a traditional Japanese technique.
  • Pale green bowl repaired with Kintsugi, a traditional Japanese technique, presented in a paulownia wood box.
  • Tokyo, Japan
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Taku Nakano

Kintsugi Bowl "Four Color Yohenyu" with a Paulownia Wood Box

Kintsugi Bowl "Four Color Yohenyu" with a Paulownia Wood Box

$650 USD
$650 USD
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The Four Color Yohenyu Kintsugi Bowl is characterized by a fantastical interplay of four colors that naturally emerge during the firing process, resembling the transient and gentle beauty of swirling water. This bowl serves not merely as a container, but as a symbol of overcoming difficulties and imperfections, symbolizing life's resilience. The gold seams represent the overcoming of scars and challenges, transforming them into a new form of beauty.

This bowl has been meticulously restored using natural lacquer and pure gold powder, proving the transformative beauty of kintsugi that highlights the vessel’s original cracks. It reflects the principles of wabi-sabi, celebrating imperfection and antique charm.

Safely packaged in a paulownia wood box inscribed with kintsugi characters, these pieces are perfect as gifts. They symbolize the overcoming of adversity and its transformation into beauty, making them an unparalleled gift for anyone who values resilience and transformation.

Kintsugi

Originating from Japan's distinctive historical and cultural context, Kintsugi is a traditional technique for elegantly repairing broken ceramics. In Japan, a land frequently struck by natural disasters like earthquakes and typhoons, the practice of Kintsugi has evolved, symbolizing the people's resilience in overcoming challenges and emerging stronger and more beautiful. This philosophy is not just about repairing but also enhancing objects, making them stronger and more attractive than before.

Kintsugi embodies the aesthetic of "Wabi-Sabi," appreciating the beauty in imperfection and the passage of time. The "Mottainai" ethos, promoting recycling and respect for objects, has been a part of Japanese culture since the Edo period. This belief, that everything deserves a second chance and that overcoming difficulties leads to greater strength and beauty, is deeply interwoven with the Kintsugi technique and culture.

More than just a repair method, Kintsugi represents the synergy of Japanese spirit and culture, offering not only physical restoration but also therapeutic benefits and underscoring the profound bond between objects and people. As a symbol of Japan's history, culture, and spiritual fortitude, Kintsugi adds new value to broken items, making them significant in our sustainable modern world.

Product Details

  • Quantity: 1
  • Dimension: Diameter 21.0 cm (8.7 in) × Height 3.7 cm (1.5 in)
  • Material: Ceramic
  • Origin: Made in Tokyo, Japan
  • Brand: Taku Nakano

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Kintsugi Pottery Collection

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Elegant black kintsugi bowl with golden joinery

Kintsugi: The Art of Embracing Imperfection and Creating Timeless Beauty

Kintsugi is a traditional Japanese restoration technique that involves repairing broken ceramics with lacquer and adorning the repaired areas with gold. Originating in the 15th century, this craft reflects the Japanese spirit of cherishing objects and embodies the aesthetics of wabi-sabi, which finds beauty in imperfection and transience. Far from being mere repair, kintsugi creates new value, and its philosophy and artistry continue to captivate people around the world today.

Side View of Kintsugi Bowl "Vermilion Crackle"

The Philosophy and Meaning of Kintsugi: Embracing Beauty in Imperfection

Kintsugi is an art form and philosophy that embraces imperfection and the damage caused by the passage of time, treating them as elements of beauty and intrinsic value. This technique teaches us that, much like a piece of pottery, human lives also encounter hardships, sustain scars, and sometimes break. However, these scars are proof of the challenges we have overcome, and imperfections are a unique form of beauty that belongs to each individual. Kintsugi invites us not to strive for perfection but to accept imperfection, discovering new beauty and value within it. This resonates with the modern need for self-acceptance and emotional healing—an essential concept often forgotten in today’s world.

A Kintsugi master creates exquisite Kintsugi art.

Taku Nakano: The Kintsugi Master of Japan

Taku Nakano is a ceramic and kintsugi artist based in Omotesando, Tokyo, with over 2,000 students. Utilizing uncommon materials and techniques in the ceramics field—such as pure gold, platinum, titanium, colored slip glazes, and the art of retsu (crack decoration)—he creates kintsugi pottery that embodies the philosophy symbolized by kintsugi: "stronger and more beautiful than before it broke" and "second chances for both objects and life." Through kintsugi, Nakano conveys not merely the restoration of vessels but also an aesthetic that embraces the history and imperfections of objects, along with a philosophy of regeneration and hope.

Jet-black Japanese tea bowl with Kintsugi box

The Meaning Behind Gifting Kintsugi: Celebrating Recovery and Resilience

People from around the world visit Taku Nakano's studio in Tokyo, seeking his kintsugi ceramics as gifts for loved ones who have overcome illness, injury, or hardship, or as mementos to reconcile with a partner or deepen bonds with someone special. For those who have faced challenges or pain, kintsugi ceramics symbolize resilience and strength.

Due to the nature of kintsugi, which involves repairing broken vessels with authentic lacquer and gold, it is exceedingly rare in Japan to find ceramics restored in this traditional manner available for purchase. However, Nakano, both a ceramicist and kintsugi artist, creates his works by first crafting vessels from clay, intentionally breaking them, and then repairing them with genuine lacquer and gold to produce his kintsugi pieces.

Each of Taku Nakano's kintsugi creations is a one-of-a-kind work of art, available exclusively through his studio or online via Millennium Gallery Japan.

Jet-black Japanese tea bowl, adorned with the exquisite golden repairs of kintsugi,

Taku Nakano

Taku Nakano is a potter who runs a ceramics studio in Tokyo. He creates unique ceramic pieces with a focus on cosmic motifs, crafting artworks in his own distinctive style. He also works as a Kintsugi master and was commissioned by the Georgian government to repair a wine jar, which was displayed as a symbolic object representing the meeting of Georgian wine culture and Japanese Kintsugi culture at the Georgian Wine Exhibition.

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