“Wabi” and “Sabi” are terms describing the sense of beauty in Japan. In general, they refer to simplicity and serenity. Originally, Wabi and Sabi were two different concepts.

Shibui (渋い) (adjective), shibumi (渋み) (noun), or shibusa (渋さ) (noun) are Japanese words which refer to a particular aesthetic of simple, subtle, and unobtrusive beauty. Like other Japanese aesthetics terms, such as iki and wabi-sabi, shibui can apply to a wide variety of subjects, not just art or fashion.

Wabi sabi is an ancient aesthetic philosophy rooted in Zen Buddhism, particularly the tea ceremony, a ritual of purity and simplicity in which masters prized bowls that were handmade and irregularly shaped, with uneven glaze, cracks, and a perverse beauty in their deliberate imperfection.

Originating in Taoism during China’s Song dynasty (960-1279) before being passed onto Zen Buddhism, wabi-sabi was originally seen as an austere, restrained form of appreciation.

The Japanese practice that perhaps most exemplifies the spirit of wabi-sabi is kintsugi. Kintsugi is the art of golden joinery, in which broken objects – usually ceramics – are mended with gold-dusted lacquer. As the story goes, a Japanese shogun sent a one-of-a-kind chawan – or tea bowl – back to China for repairs.

In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” in nature.

16th-century

To practice wabi-sabi, pause for a moment and ease off the pedal; soak in the bustling world around you. Take things slow instead and find enjoyment in the menial everyday. In other words, learn to celebrate the art of doing and not the result. That means living in the moment and finding enjoyment in everything you do.

Many terms used in tea ceremony are hard to define. It is often times a feeling or a knowing and must be experienced by the person rather than learned about. In Japanese, the word wabi initially spoke of the loneliness experienced when living in nature, while sabi could mean chill, lean or withered.

Repairing a teapot kintsugi will cost over $100, especially if you are employing a trusted master. Whether or not you should use the kintsugi repair method boils down to how much the piece means to you.

Miyabi (雅) is one of the traditional Japanese aesthetic ideals, though not as prevalent as Iki or Wabi-sabi. In modern Japanese, the word is usually translated as “elegance,” “refinement,” or “courtliness” and sometimes to a “sweet loved one”.

An ostracon (Greek: ὄστρακον ostrakon, plural ὄστρακα ostraka) is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeological or epigraphical context, ostraca refer to sherds or even small pieces of stone that have writing scratched into them.

Ashikaga Yoshimasa

Phonetic spelling of kintsukuroi

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gold mending

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold — built on the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art.

Kintsugi (金継ぎ, “golden joinery”), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, “golden repair”), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-e technique.

Traditionally kintsugi involves mixing a lacquer (gold, silver, copper) with a binding rice flour. It sounds simple, but nailing down that ratio is incredibly difficult. For some, repairs can take up to two months! People spend years learning this technique.

How to Make Kintsugi Pottery Art

1. Step 1: Choose your Kintsugi object. Choose the ceramic you wish to apply the Japanese gold repair to.
2. Step 2: Prepare the adhesive. If you are using mica powder, mix equal parts mica powder and epoxy resin on scrap paper.
3. Step 3: Glue your ceramics together.
4. Step 4: Create gold lines.

Most of our kintsugi work is not real gold and uses instead a blend of brass, copper and zinc creating a durable realistic gold effect. We developed this process of the gold effect due to the high demand for the lower cost product which is virtually indistinguishable from real gold.

Kintsugi proposes that repair can make things better than new. Kintsugi is a technique of repairing broken porcelain, earthenware pottery and glass with resins and lacquers that come from trees. The kintsugi artist carefully repairs the broken vessel with a sticky resin that hardens as it dries.

Sacai Nike Waffle LDV Design Kintsugi | Complex.

500 year old

Kintsugi (or kintsukuroi) is a Japanese method for repairing broken ceramics with a special lacquer mixed with gold, silver, or platinum. The philosophy behind the technique is to recognize the history of the object and to visibly incorporate the repair into the new piece instead of disguising it.

The philosophy behind kintsugi is to value an object’s beauty, as well as its imperfections, focusing on them equally as something to celebrate, not disguise.

A potter simply cannot refire a broken pot and make it whole again. The first step to fix broken pottery or a ceramic object is by mending the pieces with two-part epoxy adhesive. With modern adhesives, fillers, paints and cold glaze, it’s possible to perform seamless repairs to damaged ceramic and pottery objects.