旦暮庁 TANBO-CHŌ

Purple Bar

A purple colored bar with undulating borders runs horizontally across the center of our silk scrap. The edges of the bar wander back and forth similarly to what European heraldic experts might call a nebuly/nebulee line shape.This pattern is common in Japanese art and design where it represents the edge of a cloud or some mist. The area revealed behind the mist is usually a scene or design of some kind. In this way, these clouds function like the gutters of a comic book, where they separate visual areas but suggest some connection between them. This is commonly seen in pieces like painted folding screens. In the present piece, the wavy lined bars create borders between various scenes which have similar thematic elements, as we will discuss more below.

In fact, if we look to the bottom of the scrap, we can see the very top of another undulating bar.

We can presume that whatever piece of clothing this fabric was originally part of was organized into several wide tableaus with evenly spaced purple bars between them. We can see that the place where one bar undulates upward is vertically aligned with the same undulation on the next bar. This means that any two bars match with each other in their up and down rhythm, rather than being offset or randomly placed. This would give the larger garment a steady sense of evenly spaced bars rather than a constant expanding and contracting feel that might happen with an offset rhythm.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, having exact measurements on the piece means that we can determine the space and arrangement of various elements on the scrap. The below graphic gives measurements for several elements of the bars on this scrap. We can see the overall bar width, the space between bars, and the horizontal space between upward and downward undulations.

Gridded Squares

All along the bar a field of squares arranged in a diagonal grid provide significant visual interest and prevent the purple bar from being overpowering to the rest of the design. These squares are interspersed with a few larger white spots meant to represent five petalled flowers. These small squares, meant to visually evoke the spots on the fur of young deer, are only about the size of a pencil eraser. Measuring from center to center of these squares shows that they are only about 5 mm apart from each other, diagonally.

Although these squares are arranged into a general grid shape, we can see that that grid wanders about fairly significantly. The technique for making these squares is a kind of tide-dye called kanoko shibori. We will discuss the method in greater detail below, but for now we will say that this lazy grid look is a result of (purposefully) not planning out the exact positions of dots ahead of time. The artisan who bound these squares did so in an ad hoc series of diagonal lines in order to fill up the space inside the bar and move the design around the flower motifs. The below image shows more clearly how the grid spacing wanders around throughout the design.

It may seem odd that a design which could be so easily planned for ahead of time would be left to, essentially, the vibes of the artisan making the work, but it is apparent from the final product that the final product does not lack any display of skill in either design or execution. In fact, these sorts of purposeful and positive aberrations are part of the reason that Tsujigahana styles remain compelling 400 years after the fact. The story of Sen no Rikyuu’s son sweeping a garden path perfectly clean and then scattering a few leaves around reminds us of the theory of wabi sabi aesthetics where a little bit of natural happenstance can make a design all the more beautiful.

Bōshi Shibori

Bōshi shibori is a method of tie-dyeing where sections of fabric are tied off and resisted with some kind of covering, or “cap” (JPN: 帽子/ bōshi) before dyeing. The resisted areas don’t take any dye and remain the color they were before the dyeing. For both the line edges and the flowers on this scrap, the edges of the resist areas were sewn with a simple running stitch. Then the running stitch is cinched up and the resist areas are covered. Historically, we would expect that the resist coverings would be made of something like bamboo sheaths, the leaf-like growths around young bamboo shoots, or kelp. More modernly, stretchy vinyl sheeting is often used. However, even something simple like pieces cut from sandwich bags, plastic grocery bags, or cellophane/plastic wrap can serve as a great resist cap. The cap material gets put over the resisted section and secured on by further thread wrapping and tying. The area around the border cinch needs to be very tight on both the fabric and the cap so that no dye seeps into the resisted area.

Historically, the thread used to sew the border running stitches would be made of hemp. The hemp thread is doubled up for sewing to ensure the strength of the thread when it is being cinched tightly. Hemp is particularly useful in this regard, because when it gets wet, such as when the fabric is washed before dyeing and in the dye bath itself, hemp will contract and further tighten the seal around the resisted sections.

Often, the length of a line of resist border is simply too long to allow just cinching to create enough of a seal to stop dye from spreading where it is not wanted. In these cases, the resist edge is cinched around a plug to stop dye from entering. Modern plugs can be made from rolled up paper, but historical ones were probably made from wood. Some of the supplementary videos at the end of this article show how fabric might be wrapped around a disk shaped plug for larger sections of fabric.

It is interesting to see the ingenuity with how resisted areas are planned in the case of this scrap. For the bars themselves, a line of stitching would be sewn at the edge of the bars and then it isn’t the bars which get bound up, but the area between the bars. Then the flowers are cinched and bound into little bulges within what will later be the purple ground of the bars. This kind of back and forth thinking between negative and positive space is central to bōshi shibori dyeing.

The book Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing, by Yoshiko Wada gives a highly detailed set of instructions on bōshi shibori on pages 88-97, including even more information than is discussed here.

Kanoko Shibori

Kanoko (JPN: 鹿の子/ kanoko/ young deer) shibori is a method of creating many small resisted squares on a diagonal grid. While bōshi shibori is made by sewing lines to border the resisted areas, kanoko spots are created by folding the fabric and wrapping it very tightly with thread. When the thread is removed after dyeing, what looked to be a solid area of color is revealed to be a field of texture and pattern.

Individual squares of kanoko are made quickly and simply. First, a small section of fabric is folded in half along the bias grain of the fabric and then folded in half again on the other grain bias. This creates a little folded pucker of fabric which is wrapped several times (usually 3-5 times) with the binding thread. These threads are placed very closely together so that no dye will penetrate between them. Then, a simple knot, called a kamosage knot, is tied with one hand around the wrapped section. Then, the next small pucker is folded and wrapped, and so on. Many repetitions of this process creates the large fills of gridded squares.

The artisan who makes the squares works in successive diagonal rows. The first row of a pattern will be at the bottom right of a filled area and will go from the bottom left of that row to the top right. After all the squares from one row are tied, the artisan moves to the next row, which is to the upper left of the previous one. Because the exact positions of the squares are not marked out beforehand, a lot of skill is required in making fairly parallel rows with consistently sized squares. However, one of the advantages of not planning exact squares ahead of time is that an artisan can “nudge” the direction of a line around to allow space for it to interact with other design elements. We can see how natural variation in the squares of this scrap allow it to subtly wrap around the flower motifs. In this way, an artisan can create a visually pleasing design that fills an entire space, even if it doesn’t live up to mathematically perfect ideals of placement.

When dyeing is finished shibori needs to have its threads removed to reveal the resisted design. While bōshi shibori and various sewing resist methods require snipping the threads themselves, kanoko shibori can simply be pulled apart. The wrappings around the resisted sections are only kept on by tension and when the fabric is pulled apart diagonally, it slips out of the wrappings. This process is simultaneously nerve wracking and incredibly satisfying as a chorus of little pops of fabric shows the full result of an artisan’s painstaking work.

Wada’s Shibori book gives instructions for kanoko shibori, under the heading “Dots Within Squares”, on pages 58-62.

Hydrangea and Lily Flowers

For now, though, let us consider the scenes on our scrap in particular. Above the bar we see a collection of several hydrangea branches with a lily flower off to the left of the fabric. The main flowers here can be a little difficult to identify but we can be confident that they are indeed hydrangeas, given that the CHO listing for this piece identifies the design as “ajisai” flowers (JPN: 紫陽花/ ajisai-bana/ big leaf hydrangea). These flowers are all drawn in ink and lightly shaded. The drawing looks fairly realistic, with the leaves of these flowers showing their veins and the edges having a wobbly quality to communicate their delicate structure. These are not quickly drawn lines meant to suggest a run of the mill “leaf”. Instead, these are supposed to be identifiable as hydrangea leaves specifically. Although, incidentally, these leaves are probably smaller than we might expect on a sprig of the “big-leaf” variety. The bunches of flowers on these hydrangeas are arranged into oval shaped groupings, instead of face-on circles. There is a differentiation between large and small blossoms within these groupings. Large blossoms have five petals delicately shaded in a pentagonal pattern. Smaller blossoms are collections of dots with one central dot surrounded by five or six others. These are interspersed between the large blossoms to fill out the space and suggest the overall ovular shape.

On the left side of the scene we can see the delicate shape of the lily flower with its long, bent back petals. Oblong leaves just barely peak over the ragged left edge of the scrap. Perhaps there were more flowers there originally.

It is very hard to pick out on the Joshibi image, but some spidery thin lines between the lily and the hydrangeas denote some bent over grass. It is likely that we are meant to conceive of these flowers as growing in a field or garden. They are not just abstract flower patterns floating in empty space. The scenes on this fabric, both this scrap and the other, are meant to be grounded, even given the ample negative space in each of them.

Mountain Huts

Below the bar our eyes are drawn into an isometric-view scene of several huts scattered among mountainous terrain. In the foreground of the drawing we see a pair of simply constructed huts. Perhaps they are meant for mountain hermits or bamboo cutters. The roofs of these huts are drawn with hatched lines to indicate straw thatching. On either side of this group of huts is a tree of indeterminate type. We can only tell that it generally reaches upward and is filled with foliage. Little black dots up and down the trunks probably indicate moss. Interestingly, it is the outside of the tree foliage which is shaded here. To the left of the huddled huts and trees, a small rural road forms an arch filled with cross hatching. Two little squiggly lines on the top of the arch stand in for some saplings.

Behind the huts is a “mountain range” with three peaks and gently descending slopes. These mountains reveal behind them another two buildings and several of the same kinds of trees as we saw before. These buildings are probably not the same kinds of huts as in the foreground. One has a roof drawn with rows of dots giving the impression of a proper tiled roof. The roof of the other building is harder to identify. It is neither the rows of tiles, nor the rough thatching of the hermit huts.

Finally, farther back in the distance we see another few slopes giving way to another copse of trees. Looking at both sets of mountains for comparison, we see that the closer mountains have darker lines along their silhouettes than the more receded ones. This greying out of the farther mountains serves as a basic atmospheric perspective, where the farther mountains are slightly obscured by mist. This misty erasure of forms is a common occurrence in both Japanese art and Japanese life. Japan’s high humidity and mountainous terrain are an excellent recipe for large cloud banks which seem impenetrable one minute and are gone as soon as the sun comes over the peaks.

We can look at some heavy comparison and contrasting points between this mountain scene and the hydrangeas above. While the hyndrangeas are rendered almost as if they were meant for a textbook illustration, the mountain scene is much rougher in its execution. The lines of the huts are not at all straight and the mountain peaks are simply smooth rolling lines. The trees are not identifiable as any particular type and the shading is much less about realistic description of forms. Overall, this is clearly a more iconographic scene. It is meant to evoke the feelings of misty mountains and isolated hermits than actually show them. Still, because both scenes are drawn with this limited palette of colors (just grey) and simple shading techniques, they still maintain a good visual harmony. Neither one severely dominates over the other.

Fabric Preparation

While the fabric to be decorated should be flat, the individual step of pressing fabric may not be entirely necessary. The application of liquid sizing, either by brush or in a vat may accomplish this task on its own. However, shibori dyeing can leave a fabric with significant wrinkles and folds. Generally, these should be taken care of before the painting process begins.

A new coat of sizing does need to be applied to the fabric to prepare it for painting. As mentioned previously, sizing will help the stiffness of the fabric. Along with this, the new sizing must be of a kind that will react with the ink itself to make it permanent on the fabric. Sizing made of soy milk serves this dual purpose very well.

Ink Painting

Japanese sumi ink is what is called a “lamp black” or “carbon black”. This kind of pigment is made by harvesting the soot or charcoal produced by burning plant matter and mixing it with a binder, such as animal fat or gum arabic. When sumi ink is made, it is pressed into a stick of dry ink which is stored until it is ready for use. Then the ink stick is ground on an ink stone and mixed with water. Different shades of grey can be achieved based on the ratio of ink to water in a mixture.

For this kind of fabric decoration, layers of shading are built up by laying down progressively darker layers of shading. The final lines are emphasized by painting blacklines over the grey work. While clean sharp lines are created by using fude (JPN: 筆/fude) style brushes, soft edge areas are filled in with small hake (JPN: 刷毛/ hake) brushes. These soft areas can be done freehand but are often also done using stencils. The value of stenciling is that one side of an area can have soft, blurred edges while the other has a sharp cut off. The explanatory videos below show an example of this kind of stencil being used. Modernly, we see artisans using clear plastic stencils, but historically paper soaked with smoked persimmon tannins would be used.