the stillness of a chinese jar

 

青花瓷" 剑江
...工匠把心爱的江南女子
粘贴在瓷器的皮肤上
烧制成自己

Blue-and-White Porcelain" by Jiàn Jiāng
A craftsman's love of his southern lady
Painted onto the glaze
His soul fired in the kiln

The other day on facebook, my little sister Ting-Jen reminded me of the scene in an old Zhang Yimou film, The Road Home, when a traveling potter arrives in the heroine's village. Asking whether anyone has something needing repair, he is asked to mend a broken ceramic bowl. Even though it would cost less just to buy a new one-- and hey money was tight-- still in those days people knew that tending memories and taking care of things was a virtue（美徳). And so he skillfully repairs the bowl. That scene had struck me too, and I told my little sister that in Japan, I thought the spirit of craftsmanship is still alive and well. Having a heart to take good care of things (物を大切にする心) is related to concepts of divinity in things and to a natural piety. My best friend’s husband, for example, is really adept at repairing ceramics using gold lacquer and the repairs he lovingly labors over add to the interest or fascination of the the ceramic pieces themselves. 

After all, once upon a time ceramic vessels were not just things for storing water or for putting food and flowers in, but they were places where people could put their dreams and shared imaginings. Vessels were places for storing memories and in which to put your metaphors. They were even places were great jars were used in which to bury the dead. Like in Borneo, the dragon jars had characters and destinies like any Greek hero. They had charisma.

Craftsmanship is something Hubert Dreyfus (my intellectual hero) has written about for twenty years. Contrasting craftmanship with technology, he says:

To the extent that technology strips away the need for skill, it strips away the possibility for meaning as well. To have a skill is to know what counts or is worthwhile in a certain domain. Skills reveal meaningful differences to us and cultivate in us a sense of responsibility to bring these out at their best. To the extent that it takes away the need for skill, technology flattens out human life. (All things shining)

I think it is true that if technology aims to make things easier more convenient and efficient; craftsmanship--in contrast-- generates embodied skills, discernment and care; all things which used to be very central to the way people lived their lives. This still can be found in japan where 職人文化 (craftsman culture) is alive and where people continute perhaps to value quality. The existentialist--like the Confucian or daoist-- prioritisizes embodied know-how, and this is predicated on a worldview that does not emphasize a mind-body divide so that-- (as the brilliant Wang Yangming suggested) to know is to do and to do to is to know. This is what Dreyfus called embodied know-how. And he is bringing forth heidegger's old concept--borrowed from the Greeks-- of Poiesis, which itself harkens back to a world where sophia means both wisdom and skill and where poetry was thought to be a form of craft or a practiced skill which not only warms the heart but sheds a special radiance on the subjects it celebrates (Bowra) 

Steven posted on facebook, I wonder who will repair the stuff we have now, if they will repair it, and how they will do it.

I really think, sadly, the stuff we have today is not meant for repair--it is 使い捨てる (totally disposable). And, in the end, this is what Dreyfus--following Heidegger-- has been concerned with--as he frets that in the end, we begin to treat even our own selves as resources to be used and consumed, instead of being grounded in those things that really matter.

***

--Translation above with Jan Walls on FB (last line probably inaccurate due to my own 不足)

All the images from Andrew Baseman's amazing blog, Past Imperfect: The Art of Innovative Repair.

 

T.S Elliot below:

Only by the form, the pattern, / Can words or music reach / The stillness, as a Chinese jar still / Moves perpetually in its stillness. / Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts, / Not that only, but the co-existence, / Or say that the end precedes the beginning, / And the end and the beginning were always there / Before the beginning and after the end. / And all is always now. .
-T. S. Eliot Four Quartets

 

Comments

[Sterling Price]

The Dreyfus quote will stay with me forever. It puts a light on my own dim-edged thoughts about technology. And I fret right along with him that we will use our selves as resources to be used and consumed. That door, I fear, is already open with much activity inside. Much to ponder here. Another thoughtful post Leanne. Thank you.

[Peony]

Athena sends these two quotes on beauty (for Ting-Jen):

THE GREEK EXPERIENCE
C.M. Bowra
Chapter 7: Imagination & Reality

"The primary impulse in the arts is to give permanence to the fleeting moment, to bid it stay because we cannot bear to lose it, to defy mortality by creating something which time cannot harm. The Greeks expressed this by comparing poetry to such inanimate objects as pillars or temples or gold or ivory or coral. Beyond this they saw something else which they could express
only in the imagery of fire & light.

Poetry not only warms the heart,but it sheds a special radiance on the subjects it celebrates.The Idea of the Beautiful was a Greek discovery. They knew as well as we do that it cannot
be defined, & Plato reflected that when he said 'BEAUTY SLIPS THROUGH & EVADES US.' [Lysis 216 c].
If we try to analyze what they meant by it, it is clear that it was not a subjective feeling
which varies from person to person, but something PERMANENT IN THE NATURE OF THINGS.
A universal quality which poets and artists interpret & EMBODY & which is in reach of anyone who
has EYES TO SEE & EARS TO HEAR.

They assumed that Beauty~~
so mysterious a power has its own existence & is revealed through sudden illuminations
when something catches and enthralls the attention.
The metaphor of light ~~~Just as light transfigures the whole terrestrial world, so Beauty transfigures, shapes actions, & gives a new significance. It was the task of the poet to catch the beauty which lurks in things both visible & invisible.
To perpetuate in words the moments of rapturous illumination & share them with others."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ON BEAUTY & BEING JUST
Elaine Scarry
p.46

"Beautiful things have a forward momentum they way they INCITE THE DESIRE
TO BRING NEW THINGS INTO THE WORLD:
INFANTS, epics, sonnets, drawings, dances, laws, philosophical dialogues, theological tracts.
But soon we found ourselves also turning backward for the beautiful faces and songs keep calling out
to us as well, inciting us to rediscover them in whatever gets made.
THE VERY PLIANCY OR ELASTICITY OF BEAUTY HURTLES US FORWARD & BACK,
requiring us to break new ground, but obliging us also to bridge back not only to the ground
we just left, but to still earlier ancient ground..is a model for pliancy of consciousness in education."
~~~~~~~~~

[Robert Lennon]

I think the attention to craftsmanship is important, and it's necessary that we not lose completely that kind of pride in our work, but we also shouldn't lose sight that the world of mechanized production has made whole Everests of goods available (or at least reasonable facsimiles thereof, as Chesterton wrote) not just to the princess, but to the maid as well. And I think that is a good thing, definitely not without its drawbacks, but something we should keep in mind, even as we praise the old methods of craftsmanship.

Robert Lennon (Poor Jeremiah)

[Abdias DeMarin]

It almost seems novel to me, the idea of cultivating the virtue of non-attachment, while simultaneously having a reverence for the material. I felt as if it was almost too worldly, the manner in which I have been holding to the plaster remnants of an elaborately foliated and curved Rococo mirror that met it end thanks to a passing vehicle that inadvertently used Kanye's bassline as sort of weapon. Now my failure to accept impermance has been vindicated by your article! You have rendered my vice a virtue, and my fiance will thank you for furnishing us with such an elevated motive for repairing it!