截金

December 22, 2023 5:35 PM

"The only artist in the world to embed gold leaves in glass, Kirikane." Yamamoto Akane: 'Making Beauty'. (slyt) [via The British museum]
posted by clavdivs (9 comments total)

To make such works, with the investment of time and craft, also requires a culture that values them...
posted by jim in austin at 6:51 PM on December 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

This just leaves me speechless.
posted by njohnson23 at 6:52 PM on December 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

That looks like an artifact from a distant, better future.
posted by mhoye at 7:19 PM on December 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

What a stunning amount of work is conveyed in those few minutes; given the failure rate, that single object must represent months of careful effort. How many of us could bear to start from scratch again and again when firings go awry?

That's the thing about the artworks in the great museums and galleries of the world: so many of them represent a comparable amount of painstaking and patient work, and are the result of years of learning, developing or—as here—inventing one's craft. And most of us take them in in an instant during a visit and move on to the next.

Thanks, clavdivs—this is one of my favourite links on the blue in a long while.
posted by rory at 2:11 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Gold leaf is so delicate, you breathe on it and it floats away in a million pieces. That she can cut it into fine lines is amazing in itself.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 4:44 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Did you leave the video, like me, wishing you could have seen some of the failed pieces she talks about? I'd love to know, with something this beautiful, what might count as failure.
posted by mittens at 6:01 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

When I saw the title, I thought she was doing something with gilded leaves from plants. No, she's working with gold leaf (very thin sheets of gold foil)-- wonderful work, but not the same thing.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:37 AM on December 23, 2023

More of her works can be seen here:

Akane Glass

[The linked video only discusses and shows one work, 'Leaf Boat' which is an acquisition of the British Museum.]
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 3:20 PM on December 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

More of her works can be seen here

Breathtaking. I want them all to keep in a display cabinet in my secret hideaway. (Viewings by appointment.)
posted by rory at 2:18 AM on December 26, 2023