The unknown craftsman

is an excellent book by Sōetsu Yanagi (isbn 0-87011-948-6). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:
The good artist or craftsman has no personal pride.
Seeing relates to the concrete, knowing to the abstract.
To divine the significance of pattern is the same as to understand beauty itself.
A pattern is both true to nature and artificial.
If the material is poor the pattern will suffer.
By and large, good pattern is of communal parentage.
Beauty must have some room, must be associated with freedom.
The Theologica Germanica, written in the fourteenth century, tells is: "He would know before he believeth cometh never to true knowledge". Applied to the perception of beauty, this means that if a man employs the function of knowing before seeing, his power is impaired.
Intuition is the power of seeing at this very moment.
The thing shines, not the maker.
They are made without obsessive consciousness of beauty; thus we catch a glimpse of what is meant by "no-mindedness", whereby all things become simplified, natural, and without contrivance.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with your outlook! Code is a craft of our time and bringing these classic concepts of elegance to attention elevates the work and our attitude toward it. Thank you.

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