✳︎Title: 《Letters of Yamamoto Kanae》 ✳︎Author: Taro Yamamoto ✳︎Published: First edition, 1971 ✳︎Size: A5 ✳︎Pages: 450p ✳︎Condition: Cover has stains and edge tears. 【Table of Contents】 • Part 1: Free Painting Education • Preface • Children's Drawings • The Aim of Free Painting Education • The Evils of Copying (Model) Education • The Joy of Creation • The Social Significance of Art Education • Part 2: Peasant Art • Advocacy of Peasant Art • Attempts at the Peasant Art Training Center in Ueda • Winter and Handicrafts in Rural Areas • Peasant Art as Crafts • Wooden Dolls and Embroidery • The Unity of Production and Art • The Future of Peasant Art "Yamamoto Kanae and Peasant Art" for folk toy and Mingei fans. Around the same time that Yanagi Sōetsu defined "Mingei," there was a man in Shinshu who tried to fundamentally change "the life and beauty of peasants." That man was Yamamoto Kanae. This book is a collection of the essence of the "Peasant Art Movement" to which he devoted his passion. Resonance with Mingei's "Beauty of Use = Beauty for Life." Yamamoto Kanae advocated that peasants not only gain cash income during the off-season but also gain spiritual richness by creating beauty with their own hands. This is deeply connected to Yanagi Sōetsu's "Use is Beauty" and the anonymous perspective of beauty created by nameless craftsmen. The birth story of "wooden dolls," which are still known as a specialty of the Ueda region, is recorded. While taking hints from Russian wood-carved dolls, the process of elevating them to forms rooted in the Japanese climate offers folk toy enthusiasts the excitement of reliving the moment when a "new tradition" is born. In an age of advancing mechanization, Yamamoto preached the importance of "seeing with your own eyes and creating with your own hands." The designs for wood carvings and embroidery he advocated are simple yet powerful, and are filled with the "heta-uma" (deliberately crude but skillful) and "primitive vitality" that we find in folk toys today. The interesting aspect of knowing the "vivid differences" from the Mingei movement. While Yanagi Sōetsu emphasized "traditional craftsmanship," Yamamoto Kanae emphasized "individual creativity." His philosophy of "peasants, who are amateurs, carving with their own sensibilities" illuminates the essence of "the beauty of the masses" that is close to us from a different angle than the Mingei movement. The warm beauty of form born in the winter of Shinshu. In the winter, when the snow closes in, they carve wood and spin thread by the hearth. ◎⤵︎Search terms below #PeasantArt #Mingei Bernard Leach #Woodcarving Kijishi (woodturner) #FolkToys #YanagiSōetsu #YamamotoKanae #KoppaNingyo (wooden dolls) #ChiharuOzawa #KippaNingyo (wooden dolls)