The Kintsugi Moon

About this work

A huge full moon rises over a dark, calm sea. Its surface is cracked, and every crack has been healed with a glowing seam of gold. The water below is still enough to mirror that light, so the gold appears twice: once in the sky and once on the sea. It is a quiet picture, with all its drama held in those thin lines.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, a practice usually traced back to the fifteenth century. Rather than hiding the damage, the repair makes it visible, and the object is valued for its history. The idea sits close to wabi-sabi, an appreciation of things that are imperfect and impermanent. Applied to the moon, the craft becomes an image: what was broken becomes more beautiful, not less.

This is a moving picture for a bedroom or a meditation corner, and a thoughtful gift after a hard year. Dark blue, grey-green or soft charcoal walls suit it, with low, warm light. It belongs to the set Kintsugi in Gold, with The Kintsugi Muse and Blossoming Gold; hung as three, the moon sits well in the middle. The file prints sharply to roughly 76 cm on the long edge at 300 dpi.