The Philosophical Craftsmen

Notes: This is an article translated by me. The original article was written in Chinese by Wang Feng 王锋, the Chief Editor in GQ China, back in 2012. It talks about the relationship between philosophy and craftsmanship. Its title could mean Philosophy AND Craftsmanship, or a kind of people to be described as Philosophical Craftsmen. I chose the latter but I believe the pun was deliberate.

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Recently architect Wang Shu won Pritzker Prize, the most premier prize in architecture world. The jury highlighted his "unique ability to evoke the past, without making direct references to history” and called his work “timeless, deeply rooted in its context and yet universal”.

When the news arrived, Want Shu, with his students, was at the construction site of his new project. The big words from the jury such as “history”, “timeless” or “universal” seemed unrelated to this construction worker whose hands were covered by dust and mortar. Yet he accepted the award at ease: “Architects think as a philosopher, with proficient execution techniques.” That was the “Philosophical Craftsmen” in his mind.

As the head of the Department of Architecture in China Academy of Art, Wang Shu requires entry-level students to firstly master the techniques such as mortar, bricks and carpentry, etc. At the start, the students who can barely carry boiled water back to their rooms have to endure calluses and bloodstains on hands. They kept planting and experimenting wheat growing that according to Wang Shu’s philosophy, are essential hands-on “craft”. Students should start with understanding houses instead of architecture. Wang Shu does not want them to get obsessed with the artistic concepts but lose the foundational skills to handle the essence and functions. It is his academic objective as well as methodology to raise“philosophical craftsmen” that excel in artistic thinking as well as practical execution skills.

This reminds me of Phoenix by Xu Bing. The two 30 metres long and 6 metres wide Phoenixes were made with reclaimed urban construction waste. Robust top of excavators formed their heads. Machine arms became their simple yet powerful necks. Steel coils and red safety helmets formed their spines. Rusted shovels were welded into wings. Mouths and sharp claws were made of discarded faucets and metal pipes. All kinds and sizes of metal plates were transformed into gracefully flowing tails…

This completely subverted our conventional impression of the phoenix being colourful and auspicious. Instead, what we saw were determined, scarred, barbaric, brutal, struggling and uncompromising. Materials were rough and cheap, yet exuded pride and almost divinity. What a magnificent and peculiar scene it would be to see the two 12-ton metal birds flying above Beijing’s CBD.

However, in a subsequent interview with Xu Bing, I learned about the level of hard work and technical support required to realise such extraordinary and splendid imagination. In order to obtain the construction wastes needed, Xu Bing and his team travelled to hundreds of construction sites in cities across China. Then they filtered, cut, polished and processed thousands of materials in pre-defined logic and rhythm to assemble. To guarantee absolute security for setup suspended in the air, they welded, bundled and screwed countless connection points, with different security standards established and enforced. To achieve Xu Bing’s original attempt to keep the “constructional feeling”, the team applied rusting or derusting treatments to the materials respectively. It took three years, through Beijing Olympics, the financial storms, doubts, abandonments and changes from investors. All of these had nothing to do with the philosophical significance of the work. They were the complex labour and craft techniques hanging beyond the metaphysical meanings. They were not visible in the final works, yet without them, art would be nothing more than a mere daydream.

This relationship between philosophy and craftsmanship exists in almost any form of art. Art requires inspiration, philosophical thinking and romanticism. But the realisation of art requires complex and disciplined hands-on work. When chancing upon a piece of music, we would touch our hearts with the beauty and the soul-shaking melody and imagination. However, in a recent interview with Liu Sola, she stated 90% of a composer’s work is technical execution. “A simple leitmotif can be turned into pop, jazz, rock, symphony or even Beijing Tune Drum (京韵大鼓). That is technique, like laying bricks, not so romantic.”

Once a composer friend told me it was almost impossible to solely rely on inspiration to develop a leitmotif into a large and complex composition. Inspiration is sudden, intermittent and unsustainable. It comes for a moment, then fleets instantly. Beethoven's Op.135, for example, was only started as "Es muss Sein!" (It must be!). It would not be a complete piece with just this one phrase. Beethoven's technical ability lies in his ability to use compositional techniques—such as sequential progression, downward major second, counterpoint with upward semitone, and subsequent expansion of tonal ranges—to create a string quartet. It sounds rather exhausting and far from beautiful.

Instead of using the word “technique”, we Chinese prefer using the term “craftsmanship”. It describes the sense of precise operation and execution developed through long-term hands-on work on a specific object. It's like the story “Pao Ding carving beef”, where the butcher sees no cows in his eyes, but in his mind. It's not the knife that does the work, but the craftsmanship to sense the bone gaps and carve according to the laws of nature. After 19 years of carving, his knife still looks brand new.

Last year in Kyoto near Kiyomizu Dera, I chat with an elderly man working on pottery at a teaware workshop called Asahidō. In his 70s, the craftsman has rotated countless pottery pieces in his life. He mentioned that a good piece of pottery is not judged by looking but by touching. He understood from his younger days that all craftsmanship is about repetition, repetition and repetition. He shared that at the age of 12, his master asked him to make 50 replicas of the same sample, only to smash them all afterwards. He had no right to keep any of his work for a whole year. The master told him two reasons for this: firstly it was to remove any possible obsession with his own creation. Secondly, it was to for him to truly understand that craftsmanship is the foundation of everything. Everyone wants to make a masterpiece fully of beauty and interest. But it’s only an empty talk without excellent execution skills and sense of materials on his hands.

His hands, when I looked at, showed me what palmistry truly means. The back was filled with coiled tendons and bones but with ivory-like flesh colour. It’s like an ancient relic that has been fully polished by usage, showing the owner’s dignity and pride. Seeing them knead, shape, wheel throw, slip cast, turn, extrude, flip with freedom, it was as if the hands were in a ultimate trusting relationship with his brain. Thousands upon thousands of repetitions completely freed his hands to create delicate and exquisite art pieces. Is this philosophy or craftsmanship? Is this technique or art?

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References

Original article

Wang Shu in Wikipedia

Phoenix by Xu Bing in Google Arts & Culture

Xu Bing in Wikipedia

Liu Sola in Wikipedia

Beethoven String Quartet Op. 135 in F Major by Ariel Quartet

Asahidō Teaware Workshop