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Japan Handicrafts
The many and varied traditional handicrafts of Japan
enjoyed
official recognition and protection and, owing to the folk
art
movement, were much in demand. Each craft demanded a set
of
specialized skills. Textile crafts, for example, included
silk,
hemp, and cotton, woven (after spinning and dyeing) in
forms from
timeless folk designs to complex court patterns. Village
crafts
evolving from ancient folk traditions also continued in
weaving and
indigo dyeing in Hokkaido by the Ainu peoples, whose
distinctive
designs had prehistoric prototypes, and by other remote
farming
families in northern Japan. Silk-weaving families can be
traced to
the fifteenth century in the famous Nishijin weaving
center of
Kyoto, where elegant fabrics worn by the emperor and the
aristocracy were produced. In the seventeenth century,
designs on
textiles were applied using stencils and rice paste, in
the
yuzen or paste-resist method of dyeing. The
yuzen
method provided an imitation of aristocratic brocades,
which were
forbidden to commoners by sumptuary laws. Moriguchi Kako
of Kyoto
has continued to create works of art in his
yuzen-dyed
kimonos, which were so sought after that the contemporary
fashion
industry designed an industrial method to copy them for
use on
Western-style clothing. Famous designers, such as Hanae
Mori,
borrowed extensively from kimono patterns for their
couturier
collections. By the late 1980s, an elegant, handwoven,
dyed kimono
had become extremely costly, running to US$25,000 for a
formal
garment. In Okinawa the famous yuzen-dyeing method
was
especially effective where it was produced in the
bingata
stencil-dyeing techniques, which produced exquisitely
colored,
striking designs as artistic national treasures.
Lacquer, the first plastic, was invented in Asia, and
its use
in Japan can be traced to prehistoric finds. Lacquer ware
is most
often made from wooden objects, which receive multiple
layers of
refined lac juices, each of which must dry before the next
is
applied. These layers make a tough skin impervious to
water damage
and to resist breakage, providing lightweight,
easy-to-clean
utensils of every sort. The decoration on such lacquers,
whether
carved through different colored layers or in surface
designs,
applied with gold or inlaid with precious substances, has
been a
prized art form since the Nara period (A.D. 710-94).
Papermaking is another contribution of Asian
civilization; the
Japanese art of making paper from the mulberry plant is
thought to
have begun in the sixth century A.D. Dyeing paper with a
wide
variety of hues and decorating it with designs became a
major
preoccupation of the Heian court, and the enjoyment of
beautiful
paper and its use has continued thereafter, with some
modern
adaptations. The traditionally made paper called Izumo
(after the
shrine area where it is made) was especially desired for
fusuma (sliding panels) decoration, artists'
papers, and
elegant letter paper. Some printmakers have their own logo
made
into their papers, and since the Meiji period, another
special
application has been Western marbleized end papers (made
by the
Atelier Miura in Tokyo).
Metalwork is epitomized in the production of the
Japanese
sword, of extremely high quality. These swords originated
before
the first century B.C. and reached their height of
popularity as
the chief possession of warlords and samurai. The
production of a
sword has retained something of the religious quality it
once had
in embodying the soul of the samurai and the martial
spirit of
Japan. For many Japanese, the sword, one of the "three
jewels" of
the nation, remained a potent symbol; possessors would
treasure a
sword and it would be maintained within the family, its
loss
signifying their ruin
(see Ancient Cultures
, ch. 1).
Data as of January 1994
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