Kawai is a master of pottery. But he is, even more, a master of "receiving." Whether meeting a person, watching a film, or gazing at an object, the way he receives its value is extraordinary. From what seems like nothing to others, he draws out something. Even if it truly is nothing, he receives it as something. No — he does not receive it passively; he actively draws it in and makes it his own.
— Excerpt from the opening passage
The author, Soetsu Yanagi (1889–1961), was the founder of the Mingei (Japanese folk craft) movement — he coined the very word "mingei" — and served as the first director of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Nihon Mingeikan) in Tokyo. This slim volume is Yanagi's essay on his close friend and fellow founder of the movement, the potter Kanjiro Kawai (1890–1966), discussing both his character and his work in ceramics.
