Netsuke

23 October ’19

Today I would like to post a video of Edmund De Waal who wrote a book, The Hare with Amber Eyes which talked about his journey to Japan which led him to discover a Netsuke collection at his great uncle apartment in Tokyo. He pointed out the quality of being 3 dimensional of the item and how we experience it through touching and holding it in our hands. Since I only found this miniature in a museum, I don’t get a chance to hold it. It’s interesting to think what would it feel like however.

Also, he mentioned with wonder about the signature of the maker onto each piece. For me, that is also interesitng in terms of how we add more value into an object by incorporate ourselves or our names onto it.

7 October ’19

Today I’m going deeper into Netsuke again to further understand its quality and also the possible reasons of why I feel fascinated by this object.

I’m listing here about what fascinated me from the Netsuke,

  • The Size : The small scale of the piece draws my attention to it. It makes me also curious.
  • The Details : The details really make each piece a work of art although its original purpose was for solving dressing issue. The details also could make us to slow down to observe and appreciate the is beauty.
  • The Materials and Colour : The netsuke are made from natural materials like wood or ivory. This produces natural colour that I found really comforting to look at. It is as if they were picked from Nature somewhere.
  • The Variety : From everyday objects like a Tea bow and a whisk or a toy dog to animals like a spider on an aubergine and to historical legend like the depiction of a fight between Yoshitsune and Benkei, I found the variety of subjects very exciting to explore the possibilities from the makers’ imagination.
  • The Character : Each piece has a distinctive design to it resulting in its personality. Like the Daruma, a founder of Zen Buddhism was carved in a yawning expression.
  • The Function : It’s interesting to see such delicate design as if it is a sculpture to be shown in a gallery but actually it was used as a counterweight of a container hung from men’s kimonos.
  • This collection from the V&A shows various subjects of possible Netsuke.
  • The name given to each of the piece built up its characteristics.
  • The Yawning Daruma. From a collection from the V&A.

2 October ’19

So far, I’ve been narrowing down objects that could be my catalyst in developing my work to Netsuke, the Japanese toggle from the Edo period that was used as a stopper to male Kimono, the traditional outfit.

The quality that I tried to extract from the objects after some time spent thinking over and over developed from ‘symbolic’ to ‘detailed’ to now about the attribute of being ‘hidden’.

What I thought of before about the question of ‘How we make meanings’ might be considered too big. It could be more about how we discover hidden meanings.

Details could be something you discovered within the hidden, and also ‘Beauty’, ‘Meaning’ or even attribute such as ‘Individuality’ or ‘Character’.

My research images and also notes from the thinking and making process.
‘DNA’ is also a word to be related to since for me, it is like a hidden code that is unique in each of us.

However, I’m still curious about the context and stories behind Netsuke and would further research onto its history.