Everything Japanese is delicate, exquisite, admirable…Curiosities and dainty objects amaze you by their very multitude: On either side of you, wherever you turn your eyes, there are countless wonderful things as yet incomprehensible. But it is perilous to look at them…The shopkeeper never asks you to buy; but his wares are enchanted, and if you once begin buying you are lost. Cheapness means only a temptation to commit bankruptcy; for the resources of irresistible artistic cheapness are inexhaustible. The journalist Lafcadio Hearn (1850- 1904) wrote these comments in an essay reflecting on his first day in Japan in 1890. They encapsulate the continued attraction of Japanese arts and crafts for Westerners, from his time to the present day.
Japanese Design | Modern And Minimalistic Qualities
