Craft Movements
Movements that argued for the worth of anonymous handwork sit beside the village crafts they pointed at, so England and Japan share a shelf with Mexico and Ukraine.
Dictionary entry
- Arts and Crafts 1860s–1910s / Style
Returns material and handwork to the center of design, joining every detail of daily life under one conviction.
- Papel Picado 19th century– / Technique
For Mexican festivals dozens of sheets of tissue are chiseled through at once. The delicate openings let light and wind pass, and they carry celebration and remembrance of the dead with the same lightness.
- Jianzhi (Chinese Paper Cutting) 6th century– / Technique
Chinese paper cutting works red paper with scissors and knife. As window flowers it dresses the windows at the New Year, weaving auspicious patterns and stories out of connected line alone, a positive-negative figure design still transmitted as intangible heritage.
- Mingei 1926– / Style
Yanagi Sōetsu and his circle found 'the beauty of use' in the everyday wares of unnamed craftsmen. By making anonymity, repetition and utility the measure of healthy form, the movement became the bedrock of Japanese design thought.
- Pysanky prehistory– / Technique
Ukraine's Easter eggs are dyed by wax resist. Lines of hot wax and repeated dye baths build geometry and the tree of life in layers across the curved shell, where motif and color carry a whole system of prayer in miniature.