This post will be slightly different, more of an essay than Bijin post only due to the nature of the difference in thought between Western and European Art. The post endeavours to explore the fluid relationship between Japanese mediums, across different formats and styles of Japanese Fans. Also how the Human Figure came into this crossroads in Japanese Art and Miyazaki's lasting influence on KTC.
Miyazaki (1654-1736) was a prolific fan painter and creator of the Yuzen dying technique. His painting style was immensely popular and featured on a number of Kosode from the Genroku, Hoei, Shotoku and Kyohu periods (1688-1736). Miyazaki's fan designs or Yuzen-zome designs directly onto the surface of Kosode were popular with Kyoto Chonin by 1690.[1][2] This design process is now a staple design motif found on Kimono today.
Fans
The concept of the fan originates in Ancient Egypt 4000 years ago. Eventually these became widespread in China which in turn influenced Japanese fans. The first known use of Japanese fans ( Sensu | Fan | 扇子) comes from 600 CE, being greatly influenced by Chinese flat hand fans at the time made of feathers or paper in a flat oval shape, inspiring Uchiwa fans. In 800 CE, Japan invented the first folding fan, the Akomeogi ( 衵扇 ), named after the courtly attire of Akome ( Cover-over Layer | 袙 ).[3] The oldest existing Hi-ogi dating from 877 CE, which at the time was used by Shinto priests and male courtiers.[7] According to Chinese lore, the Japanese monk Chōnen ( ちょう然/奝然 | 938-1016) offered Hi-ogi ( 20 Hinoki strip folding fans | 桧扇) and 2 Kawahori-ogi ( Paper fans | 蝙蝠扇) to the Song emperor Zhao Jiong (939-997) in 988. In the 10th century, Folding fans were once again taken by Korean envoys to the Chinese to use to pay tribute to the Middle Kingdom.
By this time, Sokutai and Junihitoe had become the fashionable Wamono dress style in the Japanese court, and Heian women popularised the painted folded fan as Akomeogi by taking the name from their skirts 4th dress layer.[7] Eventually by the late Heian and Kamakura period in Japan, folding fans were regulated by sumptuary legislation much like later Tokugawa sumptuary legislation on fabric imports, until by the 15th century when they became used by the Japanese public.[4][7] During the 1400's, Japan began to export Folding fans due to their popularity on the asian mainland, and presumably further afield with the arrival of Portuguese traders during the Nanbanjin trading period from the 1560's onwards.[6] Edo period (1600-1868) fans were made by one Komin, and decorated on one-side, mass market fans included both sides.[7] By the Meiji period, folding fans were a staple global fashion accessory and the height of European fashion between the Tudor and Victorian periods in the English courts to own one, with a particular resurgence amongst the Victorian middle classes after Japan opened up from Sakoku in the 1860's. In the modern day, it can take up to 87 craftspeople to make a single fan.[7]
The earliest folding fans or Hiogi, were made by combining together 5-20 multiple thin strips of Hinoki wood at 30 cm long called Mokkan ( [orig.] Wood Recording Tablets | 木簡 ) with tightly bound silk string, afixed to a paper background.[4][7] Highly decorative fans included many layers of decoration such as fans made by Komin and adorned with tassels. The flat design was often made by artist for a specific purpose or to reference a literary text for example onto paper and layered onto the wooden sticks. Some fans in the Heian era though were made to convey Waka poetry, as seen in the Tale of Genji, and was regarded as something of a feminine artform. According to legend, the shape was inspired by a Heimin who saw a bat unfurl its wings.[5]
Fans held many uses, including to show taste, send messages to other courtiers, signal warfare in battle, as weapons, toys, decorative art and to engage in court ritual. Shinto priests still use folding fans today in their ceremonies, and many performing arts such as Geisha and Kabuki still use folding fans as part of traditional ritual dances, using ivory, bone, mica, mother of pearl, sandalwood, or tortoise shell.[4] Folding fans are today considered a traditional Japanese handicraft by the goverment, such as the Hyakudate ( 100 Bamboo stick Fan ) made by Aiba of Kyoto, who have made their Uchiwa fans for 300 years.[6]
Figures in Fans
Human figures appeared on Fans in Japan in the same way as they appeared on Screens, Lacquerware and other decorative items, due to the backdrop gargantuan shifting financial geo-social politics of the Edo period, and the Japanese understanding of Art in contrast to its Western Counterpart.
"[A]rt and crafts are one in the same process, unlike in the West when during the Renaissance [Art & Craft] split under secularisation during the Enlightenment period through the rationalism (in the art world, nature) vs empiricism (mechanised) debates into Art (divine works of nature) and the lesser crafts (mechanical and hand labour work) in the Occident."[8]
In the century before Miyazaki, the human figure underwent vast changes in Japanese Art, including being included in public Japanese art full stop. This was mostly down to the fact that Japan went from being a Rice-Economy, to a Currency Economy from 1590-1660. As such, most art in the late Sengoku period was made for wealthy Kyoto Kuge who had different tastes, desires and needs than the Heimin who consumed Bijin-ga in the 1670s would have, the Kuge wanted devout Tosa depictions of good Buddhist figures, the Heimin of the 1590s to feed their children, so very little Azuchi-Momoyami art even carried human figures in them. This came from Classical Buddhist notions of beauty imported from the Asian mainland, which held that portraiture was a vain venture, such as idolatry in some Christian and Muslim traditions.[12] However Bijin-ga can be held to a be a classical Chinese genre begun in the 6th century by Chinese painters depicting women who wrote love poetry.[13]
Back to Japan, between 1598-1615, Tokugawa Ieyasu craftily devises his Stabilisation Policies to bring an end to the Sengoku Jidai, using stability to consolidate control over the patchwork fiefs and warlords of Japan and ensuring its continuation by creating a stable Japanese society and economy. This changed the nature of power structures in Japan. Suddenly, Kyoto was no longer the aspiring culture everybody looked up, but instead, Edo culture was the new rising popular culture. One such policy being Sankin Kotai (1635) which saw warlords uproot to Edo, Ieyasu's new defacto capital for 6 months annually, bringing all their money and retinue with them, which turned Edo from a fishing port into a wealthy city.[11]
Setting the stage for Bijin-ga (1624-1673)
By the Kambun period, early Bijin-ga as it is known had become an acceptable format to paint the human figure in, as Shikomi-E were deemed Ga ( Refined ) icons of Dancing Artisans (Geisha). Most production done for and by Chonin who increasingly merged High Brow Art (The Iwasa family, Tang China, Tosa, Kano) with Low Brow Content (Vanity Pictures), under the permissive nature of the times ; Shunga had begun to become explicit and was widely read for example.[14] These were simple Kosode which carried usually 2-3 colours max, and were displayed in the S-Shape Silhouette, often holding Mai-Ogi ( Dancers Fans ). The 1670's saw the widespread acceptance of Bijin-ga, extolled by Komin like Hishikawa Moronobu and Sugimura Jihei and their wealthy Chonin patrons who bought and commissioned these prints, paintings and Ogi designs commerating these beauties.
Fans on figures
The religious figure had existed therefore for a longer time than pop culture iconography depicting human figures. This figure accompanied Buddhist texts as a pastime for the monks and writers who created Buddhist scriptures and texts and to allow the reader deeper connection with the subject material by placing human figures in the narrative. Over time, it became acceptable to have human figure Kakemono displayed in wealthy peoples homes as a sign of their devout faith by the early 17th century. [... T]he depiction of Heimin came in with the Tosa School and their Yamato-E Fuzokuga [... and in] Kyoto scenes depicting harmonious scenes of nature, Chinese philosophers and a whole lot of gold were more the Kano aesthetic in this pre-Sankin Kotai world. Pop culture as print media, simply did not have the demand required to profligate the idea of an established common beauty until the 1650s, as all demand was in the hands of the elite who required and expected different outcomes in their commissioned art pieces [of which the majority were E-maki]".[11]
"[After popular culture moved to Edo under] the enforcement of Sankin Kotai a brand new Japanese society with new expectations had formed as younger generations had more leisure time and greater stability than their elders."[11]
This popular culture is similar to Fans becuase fans were originally held by the Kano school to be venerable art objects. They went alongside the development of Bijin-ga as they were considered refined art objects, so from the Kanei-era they added credence to the Refined nature of the Wa Bijin ideal. For Heimin, Yamato-E allowed an 'in' for their presence and worlds to be depicted on fans as socially acceptable, as many Heimin although certainly aware of Confucius if they did well in Terakoya ( Heimin School | 寺子屋), were not themselves Chinese philosophers. The development of fans from the Kano school, who used Classical Chinese lore, may be considered due to the fact that a common motif of the Pining Chinese Beauties was to be found holding a hand fan, such as in Du Fu's (712-770) Ballad of the Beauty.[12][14]
"This meant that classical, conservative and traditional appraoches to how beauty, vanity and inevitable human behaviour were codified to meet social and class structures of their day saw to it that the human figure in early 17th century western Kano depictions, whether on fans, screens or lacquer, were rare."[11]
As such, this was the world of fans which depicted Beauty and Beauties, before 1650. After 1650, fans had begun to made by the lower class Komin, again due to the shift in popular culture from Kyoto to Edo and with it the power of the Samurai-Komin relationship to the Chonin-Komin relationship to dictate popular culture on art.[11] This shift by 1661 was towards the Chonin world of worldly pleasures and we can pair this with the overall development of the Bijin from there directly to the Shikomi-E, which used fans as a way to bring the High Brow, to the Low Brow.[14]
Komin Codifying the Genroku Wamono Bijin
When in the Jokyo and Genroku era (1684-1704) Miyazaki contributed his Yuzen-zome technique, he often did this by painting on a number of fan designs as well, just the paper component though. This was done under the widespread acceptance and proliferation of wholly Komin Wamono that spread due to necessity under Sakoku which celebrated Japanese domestic art manufactures and handicrafts by the 18th century.[15] When Miyazaki began to add fan designs to his Kosode designs, including in his 1688 Yuzen Hinagata book on Kosode design, he popularised the Ogi in both ode to past aesthetical ideals and towards the tolerant and exciting new climate around him which Kosode design was undergoing. Whilst fans in particular had been used before Miyazaki, he popularized the trend for fan designs on Kosode after 1690, which after 1639 had taken on on the overtones of Sakoku necessity to redefine 'Japaneseness' or by undergoing a Wamono reappraisal.[15]
Miyazaki therefore whilst not depicting the Bijin, contributed to Bijin-ga and KTC by creating the clothes which Beauties were seen in. His High-Brow-Low-Brow Harkening was a major component of Komin practice, which realistically was more Yamato-E than the Kuge could ever hope to be in their ivory and gold castles, for they repersented trends felt and worn by the Heimin and Chonin, or commonfolk and townspeople themselves as products of the new Tokugawa Japan.[2][11][14][15] Thus Miyazaki codifies JKTC fashion in a more succinct way, as the Machi-Eshi did in the early 17th century before him, codifying what it meant to be a Wamono Bijin instead of the Chinese derived equivalent pushed by the Kano school, or the Classcial Heian depictions of the Tosa.[14][15] In context therefore, we see how as cultural markers, Komin like Miyazaki Yuzen contributed more to the 'Japaneseness' of the Wamono Bijin, than most courtiers of his time ever did among the masses.
Bibliography
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyazaki_Y%C5%ABzen
[2] See Essay #8
[3] For the Akome Layer see https://www.iz2.or.jp/english/fukusyoku/wayou/index.htm
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_fan#Japanese_hand_fan
[5] https://japan-avenue.com/blogs/japan/japanese-folding-fans-history
[6] https://japanobjects.com/features/japanese-fans
[7] https://becos.tsunagujapan.com/en/kyo-sensu-fans/
[8] See The Artisans in Essay #8
[9] See Essay #9
[10] See 17th century in Appreciation Timeline
[11] See Bijin #8
[12] See The Changing Japanese Figure in Bijin #6
[13] See Bijin #7
[14] See Bijin #1
[15] See Phases of popularity in Essay #9 and Essay #8
Bijin Series Timeline
8th century
- Introduction of Chinese Tang Dynasty clothing (710)
- Sumizuri-e (710)
- Classical Chinese Art ; Zhou Fang (active 766-805) ; Qiyun Bijin
15th century
- Fuzokuga Painting schools; Kano (1450-1868) and Tosa (1330-1690)
16 century
- Nanbanjin Art (1550-1630)
- Byobu Screens (1580-1670)
- End of Sengoku Jidai brings Stabilisation policy (1590-1615)
17th century
- Land to Currency based Economy Shift (1601-1655)
- Early Kabuki Culture (1603-1673) ; Yakusha-e or Actor Prints
- Sumptuary legislation in reaction to the wealth of the merchant classes (1604-1685)
- Regulation of export and imports of foreign trade in silk and cotton (1615-1685)
Iwasa Matabei (active 1617-1650) ; Yamato-e Bijin
- Sankin-Kotai (1635-1642) creates mass Urbanisation
- Popular culture and print media production moves from Kyoto to Edo (1635-1650); Kiyohara Yukinobu (1650-1682) ; Manji Classical Beauty
- Shikomi-e (1650-1670) and Kakemono-e which promote Androgynous Beauties;
Iwasa Katsushige (active 1650-1673) ; Kojin Bijin
- Mass Urbanisation instigates the rise of Chonin Cottage Industry Printing (1660-1690) ; rise of the Kabunakama Guilds and decline of the Samurai
- Kanazoshi Books (1660-1700); Koshokubon Genre (1659?-1661)
- Shunga (1660-1722); Abuna-e
Kanbun Master/School (active during 1661-1673) ; Maiko Bijin
- Hinagata Bon (1666 - 1850)
Yoshida Hanbei (active 1664-1689) ; Toned-Down Bijin
- Asobi/Suijin Dress Manuals (1660-1700)
- Ukiyo-e Art (1670-1900)
Hishikawa Moronobu (active 1672-1694) ; Wakashu Bijin
- The transit point from Kosode to modern Kimono (1680); Furisode, Wider Obi
- The Genroku Osaka Bijin (1680 - 1700) ; Yuezen Hiinakata
Sugimura Jihei (active 1681-1703) ; Technicolour Bijin
Miyazaki Yuzen (active 1688-1736) ; Genroku Komin and Wamono Bijin
Torii Kiyonobu (active 1688 - 1729) [Coming Soon]
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