This book is an attempt to fix in photographs the forms of some of the objects that the Japanese people of the past devised from natural materials and passed on to us. Although the basic ideas for many of these objects came from China or elsewhere, Japanese hands re-worked and altered them to suit the geographic setting, the climate, the customs, and the ways of living our islands. Many of the things of the thing shown the book originated in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when the increasing wealth of the urban merchant class was undermining the ancient social structure. They therefore reflect the tastes and talents of a vigorously active level of urban society.

Obviously a finished craft product or art object differs from the natural materials of which it is made. But the craftsman's attitude toward his material exerts a great influence on the result of his work. The Japanese craftsman traditionally believes that he and his materials work in cooperation. Unlike the Western craftsman, who works on his materials, the Japanese craftsman prefers to work with his materials. He loves to take advantage of the natural qualities and to reveal them. Sensing no duality between man and nature, he allows the colors and textures of his materials to find frank expression the completed work.

The outcome of this attitude has been a multitude of ordinary objects of extraordinary beauty. In earlier books of mine I have presented photographs of some these things, but looking back on those books, I am not entirely satisfied with the selections I made for them. Still, in my preface to one of them I found a statement that it in complete harmony with the opinions I hold today: "In the rapidly developing modern society of Japan, demands for rationalism and functionalism together with advances in scientific technology, are steadily altering the forms of the things we use. Some of the things our forefathers made and used in time gone by are no longer popular, and some of the have already vanished. Perhaps their loss is an inevitable consequences of the changing times, but I do not want to standby idly by while much that is valuable is being lost."

This book represents and and effort to be something more than an idle bystander.

(An excerpt from one of books by Iwamiya entitled "Forms, Textures, Images : Traditional Japanese Craftsmanship In Everyday Life")