茶屋辻 | Chayatsuji | Waterside Indigo | Patterns #12T

Chayatsuji is a pattern which traditionally depicted waterside scenes in summer kimono which are dyed in indigo and complemented by orange-yellows. The term Chaya, refers to Chaya-zome (Chaya dyed) after its origins from the Chaya family (active circa 1575) member Chaya Munekiyo (1593-1627).[4][5] It is guesstimated that this process of going from a dye to design process, helped to inspire Miyazaki Yuzen (1654-1736) in the creation of his fan paintings on Kosode.[1]

Chaya-zome dye with Indigo designs (c1986, CC4.0) Wikimedia Commons 

The Chaya family were an influential Daimyo family in the late Sengoku Jidai (1568-1600).[5] During the early Sengoku Jidai, they adopted a wandering Ronin (  浪人 | clan-less warrior ) from the Nakajima family whom they designated as Chaya Shirojiro ( しろじろきよのぶ | 1545-1596 ) I. Shirojiro I became a Komin, setting up a shop in Kyoto selling fabric to his wealthy friends who introduced him to more Komin pursuits like lacquerware and making tea ceremony paraphenalia.[4] During this time, he befriended people like Honnami Koetsu ( 本阿弥 光悦 | 1558-1637)[4] and Matsudaira Hirotada ( 松平 広忠 |1526-1549).[6] This proved useful later when Matsudaira's son, Tokugawa Ieyasu ( (徳川家康 | 1543-1616) needed a squire for which Shirojiro I, sent Shirjiro II to fill the job vacancy.[6]

In this way, Shirojiro I became very wealthy very quickly, becoming what is known as a Fudai ( 譜代 | Insider of the Tokugawa circle ) samurai by 1573 making all of Ieyasu's clothes and being a spy for the Tokugawa family. They even went to war together! Shirojiro I first acquired a Shuinjo ( 朱印船 | Foreign Traders Licence ) during Hideyoshi's rule by the 1580s, trading silks with South Vietnam. This carried on until his death, when his son Kiyotada (1584-1603) took over the family workshop and fought at the battle of Sekigahara (1600). In 1603, the business was taken over by Kiyotsugu (1584-1622) who began a silk trade monopoly and overseeing the Nagasaki trade port to prevent Christianisation in Japan. In 1612 the Chaya workshop was issued a Shuinjo for Vietnam again resuming their monopoly officially in the new Tokugawa administration.[6]

During this golden period for the Chaya business, Kiyotsugu's successors Kagayoshi and Munekiyo (active 1630-1639) opened two new branches under the silk monopoly income. However, it was during this time that the Bakufu established Sakoku trade policies to enforce the ban on foreign elements gaining ground with the Heimin, plummeting Chaya's profit margins.[6] During this decade (1630-1640), the Komin Chaya Munekiyo (1593-1627) invented the Chaya-zome technique of using indigo dyes to decorate Katabira by the second half of the 1630s.[4] 

It is likely these designs made use of easily accessed indigo in light of the rising cost of importing other fabrics and dyestuffs by 1635. It is perhaps likely influenced by the avant garde aesthetic world of the Kyoto elites and Komin who resided there at the time, who sought out 'Wamono' in their work to get around the new Sumptuary Laws and used new techniques like direct painting which Machi-Eshi in their untraditional splendour were apt to take up to make sales. It was this 'Shari' ( Witty design ) environment forged by Sengoku Jidai Daimyo excess from the 1590s - 1610s and patriotic Machi-Shu Wamono Yamato-E Shari culture from 1620-1660 which came before the Ukiyo world of the Kambun era.[4][7] This shift from Daimyou to Chonin patronage may be the catalyst for the switch to indigo designs, eventually being the source of fame for the Chaya wholesaler, who became popular with the masses for their Chaya-zome Katabira by 1640.

The origins of the Chaya-tsuji motif comes from the Kambun era (1661-1673) when the design was first printed on Hemp Katabira (帷子) Kimono. Katabira being the predeccessor of Hitoe Kimono and Yukata. The first text appearance of the motif is in the On-Hiinakata (first Kosode pattern book; 1667) which uses the dye Chaya-zome as a ground colour for the Kosode. It is thought the Chaya wholesale store made popular Kosode with waterside motifs using indigo dye, which is how the Chayatsuji motif came to be born at least by the beginning of the Enpo period (1673-1681), during which time this referred to a graduated dye pattern of indigo and light oranges or yellow-greens worn by women.[1][4] By the Genroku period (1688-1704) a technique called Noribosen (two sided resist paste stencil) was created. After this time the stencil depicted delicate patterns, often related to water or fans, and Chayatsuji was born.[1] 

With the introduction and popularity of Yuzen-zome, the fad of Chaya-zome and Chayatsuji waned as Yuzen designs took over by 1705.[1] These were changes driven by the wealthier Chonin classes though as: 

when the Sankin Kotai was enacted [...] from 1635 [this lead to] the rise of the new Chonin class. This changed [...] by 1685 in reaction from the Bakufu by their growing rich people disgust of the merchant classes spending said money. This came in the form of the sumptuary laws, and saw the rise of more covert expenditure, and eventually this meant the start of hierarchical fashion laws (and their cultural reaction of 'Iki') [...] in a bid to curb the outragerous spending habits of Osaka merchants and Edo Chonin in the creation of GKTC (1688-1704).[2]

During this bout of sumptuary laws, one of these such initiatives to keep the Bakufu afloat and I quote 'Yoshimune found it necessary to shelve certain Confucian principles that were hampering his reform process.'[3] In other words, he threw out centuries old principles because he was cash strapped, but is still ordering his subjects to go without and lecturing them on their spending habits. Some things never do change do they? Either way, Yoshimune enacted the Kyoho reforms ( 享保の改革 |1736 sumptuary and rice-as-money restructuring reforms), and Chaya-zome Kosode, which was an expensive Kosode to own and have made, were dropped by the Chonin inline with more Iki styles. Samurai ladies though had other ideas and began wearing them, and down the years the patterns became smaller and smaller until it was accepted by the cultural elites as a motif rather than a whole design by 1711.[1] 

By 1850, the design was considered so bourgeois that it was part of the domestic court dress of Edo castle for the ladies in waiting to wear. It was at this point, that the motif became fixed as it is known today. Today the pattern is worn mostly on Houmongi (formalwear Kimono) and Tomesode (black formalwear Kimono).[1]

Bibliography

[1] https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/culture/Chayatsuji.html 

[2] See A man of Yoshiwara in Bijin #12

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%8Dh%C5%8D_Reforms#Purpose_of_the_reforms

[4] Japanese Art, Aesthetics, and a European Discourse: Unraveling Sharawadgi, Wybe Kuitert, 2014, No.27, p.86, Japan Review

[5] Japan Encyclopedia, Louis Frederic, 2002, p.109

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaya_Shir%C5%8Djir%C5%8D

[7] See The Town Painter in Bijin #15

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潜水燕主題 | Sensui tsubame shiken | Diving Swallow Motif | Patterns #11

This time we will focus on a personal guilty pleasure of mine,  Meiji era textiles in the west,  specifically in Britain. I know I said Kara-Ori, but I wanted to work on this one now. So I did. The linked kimono in question (see [1]) being the Indigo Kimono acquired by the V&A in 1891 from Liberty's department store. This particular Kimono has a pattern of 'birds' which may have likely been the Diving Swallow motif popular with the Aesthetics Movement (1868-1900).

The pattern of embroidered water, bamboo and swallows are all said to bring auspicious luck to its wearer.  There are also what seems to be some kind of bird, maybe the diving swallow (it certainly does not resemble a plover, which are normally more rounded) which looks like another perhaps western hand helped out. The diving swallow was a popular 'Far Eastern' motif during the 1890s at the time under the Japan Cult which was popular between from 1862 on in the design world,  and from 1870-1910 on with the general public in and on domestic arts.

The Happy Prince Cover (1888, PD) Oscar Wilde, Charles Robinson

The diving swallow originates as a motif found in Chinese Art, recognisable for its distinctive tail feathers. It seems to have originated in the Ming dynasty in Beijing as a motif of good luck because swallows appearing meant that they had left their nest in the crevices of Beijings many ornate roof architecture and that spring was coming. Think Pagodas. Then also think how Snowdrop flowers relate to the coming of spring sort of thing.[2]

Swallow on Flowering Peach Branch (1368-1644) Cleveland Museum of Arts

The diving swallow motif gradually comes into Japanese art around this time as fashionable as well, under the influence of the Wamono vs Chinese classical appreciation groups operating in the world of the art literati and artists in the Edo fine art worlds.

Swallows Kakemono (c1668-1732) Sekkei Yamaguchi

The Happy prince, Page 22 Illustration (1888, PD) Charles Robinson

Bamboo is a symbol of good luck, and perpetual growth. Water is a symbol of purification and the living, as well as being a popular aesthetic popularised by Ogata Korin. This gives us a clue as to the intention of the Kimonos producer, perhaps for a young person. If you zoom in to the Kimono (cant display  here due to copyright issues),  you can see the base which is in graduated shades of the handmade base dye,  indigo on rinzu silk. Across these varied striped panels,  you can see also a series of arabesque nature motifs. Indigo as a base dye was thought to help ward of sickness, and the auspicious nature of all these motifs in wishing tthem a long life.

Historically this kimono was made in the second half of the 19th century,  most likrly assembled in Japan and perhaps either made for the Western market,  or was embroidered by a Western sewer later on.  Either way,  this Kimono was on sale in Liberties by 1891, eventually landing in the Japan collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The acquisition was no doubt influenced by the tea gown craze which saw kimono repurposed as overmantles for teagowns from 1890 to 1910.[3] The dress reform movement, coinciding with the late aesthetic movement, also saw the Kimono as part of a wider reform of women's dress into more open and less form fitting garments, and would have also influenced how dress reform with its baggy oversized styles became part of the fashionable 1890s and Edwardian silhouette.[1][3]

Returning to the diving swallow motif though as we see was used first in China during the Ming dynasty, moving onto Japan by the Kambun period into Art, and then eventually into the Aesthetics movement by around the 1880s in Britain. For a wider discussion of how Japan influenced British art, see Essay #7, and the Anglo-Japanese style (1855-1930).

Happy Prince, Page 21 (1888, PD) Charles Robinson

This particular kimono is not to my taste I must admit, it is more like one of those ugly buildings we conserve becuase it was distinctively important for its progression to the history of dress as a pivotal feature piece. I do love it though, becuase it distinctly allows us to see that Kimono were sold in Britain during the Meiji period and how and why Kimono were recieved as they were. It lets us know they were regarded as fashionable items, worn by wealthy ladies who shopped in department stores, also places which unwittingly promoted womens suffrage when women went there 'to shop'; organise protests and talk about suffrage over tea; and how they were a part of Victorian society in whatever capacity. The Kimono's most recent venture out was for the mostly virtual Kyoto to Catwalk Exhibition in 2020.[1] 

Bibliography

[1] https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O87849/kimono/

[2] https://www.chinasage.info/symbols/birds.htm#XLXLSymSwallow

[3] See Essay #6

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