Japan Uses Gold To Fix Broken Ceramic

This lesson shows only the highlights of the.

Japan uses gold to fix broken ceramic.

It s called kintsugi 金継ぎ or kintsukuroi 金繕い literally golden kin and repair tsugi. This traditional japanese art uses a precious metal liquid gold liquid silver or lacquer dusted with powdered gold to bring together the pieces of a broken pottery item and at the same time enhance the breaks. Poetically translated to golden joinery kintsugi or kintsukuroi is the centuries old japanese art of fixing broken pottery rather than rejoin ceramic pieces with a camouflaged adhesive the kintsugi technique employs a special tree sap lacquer dusted with powdered gold silver or platinum. In addition to kintsugi their skills may have included maki e a technique for painting fine gold or silver florals and landscapes onto decorative objects as well as crafting lacquer trays.

See more ideas about kintsugi japanese art ceramics. Kintsugi is a centuries old japanese art of repairing broken pottery and transforming it into a new work of art with gold the traditional metal used in kintsugi. However purists believe that kintsugi should only be used to repair extremely valuable antique ceramic works. We restore ceramic objects implementing the japanese art of broken pottery repair kintsugi kintsukuroi using 23 5k gold and lacquer or our proprietary developed process and materials with encapsulated gold effect metals this lesson is intended to show the difference between the two kintsugi implementations methods and to learn how it is done.

This has become a point of contention as many potters worldwide use this method to repair newly made goods that come out flawed or cracked using cheaper alternatives to real gold of course. The name of the technique is derived from the words kin golden and tsugi joinery which translate to mean golden repair. As a philosophy it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object rather than something. Nothing is ever truly broken that s the philosophy behind the ancient japanese art of kintsugi which repairs smashed pottery by using beautiful seams of gold.

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. 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.