# Kintsugi (金継ぎ)

> Kintsugi is the Japanese craft of repairing broken ceramics with urushi lacquer and gold or silver, so the mend is shown rather than hidden. The Getty vocabulary files it under repairing, as a restorative process rather than a style. The break decides where the metal lines run, so one vessel can never produce the same drawing twice.

- IndexStyle No.518 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/kintsugi
- Kind: Technique · Family: Vessel and Craft Techniques · Era: 15th century–
- Mood: Calm, Intimacy, Technique
- What this family collects: Techniques that inlay, lay on, or pour another material into the body of a vessel, where the process of finishing became a look of its own in each region.

## Defining characteristics

- Thin gold or silver lines that follow the break exactly
- Line width that varies, widening into filled areas where a chip was lost
- A trace of dark lacquer showing at the edge of the metal
- Metal lines crossing the vessel's original painted decoration without regard for it

## Best used for

- Building a display where broken prototypes or stock are shown mended instead of discarded
- Leaving a visible record of repair or revision on a product or a screen

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Add no lettering, and let the metal lines share the surface with whatever marks the vessel already carries.
- Layout & structure: The break dictates the lines, so fit the fragments first and then decide how much metal each seam takes.
- Material & texture: Urushi lacquer joins and hardens the pieces, then gold or silver powder is laid over the seam.

## Colour

Read off the reference works below, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.

- Ground: #E6DDCC
- The colour it is remembered by: #C9A227
- Text and outlines: #1B1815

## What to avoid

Designing the gold lines before anything breaks places them where no stress runs, and the piece looks patterned rather than mended.

## Application checklist

Work through this before calling a piece an application of this style.

- [ ] Visible in the piece: Thin gold or silver lines that follow the break exactly
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Line width that varies, widening into filled areas where a chip was lost
- [ ] Visible in the piece: A trace of dark lacquer showing at the edge of the metal
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Metal lines crossing the vessel's original painted decoration without regard for it
- [ ] The layout follows: The break dictates the lines, so fit the fragments first and then decide how much metal each seam takes.
- [ ] The lettering follows: Add no lettering, and let the metal lines share the surface with whatever marks the vessel already carries.
- [ ] The material and surface follow: Urushi lacquer joins and hardens the pieces, then gold or silver powder is laid over the seam.
- [ ] The colour relation holds: #E6DDCC as ground, #C9A227 carrying the style, #1B1815 for text and outlines
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Mingei (民藝)** — 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. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/mingei
- **Glitch (グリッチ)** — Refuses to hide error and corruption, exposing the fragility of the digital medium itself. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/glitch

## Often mistaken for

- **Maki-e (蒔絵)** shares enough of the surface to be mistaken for it. Side by side: https://indexstyle.org/compare/kintsugi-vs-maki-e

## Compose it with something else

The dictionary can put this entry in a structural role and another in an accent role, and report where the two fight: https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=kintsugi+mingei

## Further study

- where the Getty places kintsugi, registered as a repairing process
- the situations in which the alternative name kintsukuroi is used
- the order of joining with urushi lacquer and then sprinkling the gold powder

## Reference works

- Ko-Karatsu tea bowl repaired with kintsugi — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bol%20%C3%A0%20th%C3%A9%20(Maison%20de%20la%20Culture%20du%20Japon%2C%20Paris)%20-%20Flickr%20-%20dalbera.png
- Goryeo celadon ewer repaired with kintsugi, c. 1100–1150 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 UK — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BLW%20Wine%20pot%20with%20gold%20lacquer%20repair.jpg
- Teapot lid repaired with kintsugi — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kintsugi%20on%20broken%20Ky%C5%ABsu%20lid-top%20PNr%C2%B01257.jpg

## Source of record

- Getty Research Institute — Art & Architecture Thesaurus: kintsugi (300445653) — https://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300445653

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/kintsugi
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/kintsugi/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compare_styles, compose_styles, find_related_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)