The founder of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Nihon Mingeikan), Soetsu Yanagi (1889-1961), was a collector and philosopher who had been attracted to Korean crafts since his youth. Recognizing the beauty of folk craft, he strove for its recognition both in Japan and abroad.
The museum has drawn from its founder's own collection of Korean folk art for the current exhibition, "Yi Dynasty Korean Craft," which ends this year's season and is the last display before the Mingeikan closes from Dec. 17 to April 8 for renovation.
Particularly notable among the 300 pieces on display -- which include ceramics, furniture, stone objects and metalwork made during the Yi Dynasty (1392-1910) -- are Yanagi's Korean paintings. These represent the category of art for which Yanagi devised the Japanese term "minga (folk painting)." Minga is one part of the larger field of mingei, folk art, from which the Mingeikan derives its name. The coinage was part of Yanagi's attempt, in the 1950s, to claim a place for folk art in the canon of true artistic genres.