The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) said that people not drawing on 3,000 years of tradition are living on the edge of extinction. How, then, did Japanese craftsmen recover from the trauma of World War II, when their proud traditions, seemingly tainted by recent history, were thrown into question?

An exhibition of Kyoto crafts from 1945 to the present, now at the National Museum of Modern Art, Crafts Gallery, in Tokyo's Kitanomaru Koen, reveals the way textile, lacquer and ceramic artists responded to the postwar crisis of national confidence and identity.

Though Kyoto, with its temples, gardens and elegant lifestyle, has been the cultural capital of Japan for 1,200 years, the focus of wealth and power shifted to Edo (present-day Tokyo) in 1603 when Tokugawa Ieyasu established the shogunate there. In some ways, this probably helped preserve the "other-worldliness" and purity of Kyoto crafts. Artisans were able to pass on traditions from generation to generation relatively undisturbed by passing cosmopolitan fads.

But even Kyoto felt the shock of modernization when, in 1869, the Emperor Meiji moved his court to Tokyo. Finally, the city had to look beyond its ring of mystical mountains -- and it did so with some success. By the mid-1920s, for example, its avant-garde craft artists were embracing Art Deco from Paris, helped by the greater ease of international communications.

But the war changed almost everything. Although the Allies spared Kyoto from bombardment, its fashioners of fragile beauty entered a changed world in 1945. It is not fanciful to see craft artists, in their postwar works, as searching for a new heaven -- and a new earth.

Some, such as the potter Sango Uno, plunged far beyond painful recent memories to the perceived purity of the Kofun Period (late third to seventh centuries). Vases such as his "Wooden Figure" of 1950 were directly inspired by the ancient haniwa grave figurines that, before the war, had been seen as objects of superstition rather than art.

Others searched for new direction by returning to the raw materials of their craft. The "Wall" of sieved red earth by Kazuo Yagi (1964) is an example of this urge to rediscover the fundamental properties and truths of the material in hand, as are the kimono of Fukumi Shimura. These evoke timeless, fully abstract landscapes of snow and mist using only homely, unsophisticated threads of tsumugi silk.

Some may have found comfort in continuity, but even these felt the urge to experiment. For instance, two kimono by Kako and Kunihiko Moriguchi, father and son yuzen (resist-paste) dyers, both exhibit the quiet elegance that is the hallmark of Kyoto crafts. But in the son's case, things fall apart: His tight geometric patterns do not hold together, but gracefully unravel.

In such works, the surface designs are changing even as the classic form of the kimono stays the same. However, other dyers, such as stencil master Toshijiro Inagaki, also produced work for hanging on walls. This was symptomatic of a major shift in all craft fields, from producing objects of utility to objets d'art.

For many artists, questioning the limits of tradition led to radical experimentation with entirely new forms, functional and otherwise. This is most obvious in the field of ceramics, where we see epoch-making works such as Kazuo Yagi's "Walk of Mr. Zamza" (1954). But liberated lacquer artists also produced novel work. The panels made by Shogo Ban'ura in 1963 and 1969 are stunning examples of visual rhythm, magnifying the abstracted rivers and skies of the 17th-century Rinpa school; likewise, the minimal, gently curved lacquer cabinet (1986) or two-fold screen (1973) of Shunsho Hattori. The works of both artists display a brilliant blend of traditional and bold new colors, and rich decoration combined with formal restraint.

Emotions also comes to the fore as the creator pours more individuality into the work. There is the irony, for example, of Osamu Suzuki's cracked-clay "Mask" (1963), covered with numbers; the obscure fumbling of Junkichi Kumakura's "Perplexity" (1964); and the humorous challenge of Munemi Yorigami's huge jars, shattered and patched together again (1993).

The idea that craft-arts need not be functional is now so well-established that the pendulum has perhaps swung too far, and the focus on exhibition pieces has hastened the separation between art and life. Yet a wonderful suspended fabric-flower (1981) by Toshiko Takagi shows that a great tradition -- here, the outstanding Japanese sense for textiles -- can fruitfully transmute into fresh forms.

After the postwar doubts and convulsions, pieces from recent decades reveal the rebirth of harmony, quiet confidence and the spiritual dimension that distinguishes great work from the merely good-looking. See, for example, the inspired use of colors and reflected light in the embroidered wall-hangings (1993 and 1999) by Tetsuo Fujimoto.

The dizzying perfection of Sueharu Fukami's celadon ceramics (1993 and 1994) or depth of Kichizaemon Raku XV's black raku tea wares (1992 and 1999) reveal a new balance of forces. These are true to tradition; true to the maker's individuality; and true, as the Zen practitioner might say, to the eternal now.