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.