Things Japanese. Nicholas Bornoff
of older houses.
Katori senkō is burned mainly by traditionalists, the kind of people who also put up yoshizu (marsh-reed screens) against their windows and open doors to provide shade from the harsh summer sun. Traditional restaurants generally put up yoshizu too, notably specialists in soba noodles—a year-round Japanese staple popularly eaten cold in a variety of ways in summer. Sōmen, white noodles so thin and translucid that they look ethereal, are often served in bowls floating with ice cubes. They're not exactly substantial, which is just as well, as Japan's sweltering canicular season is very debilitating and causes a loss of appetite. The term natsuyase (summer thinness) has been used to identify the effect for centuries.
Some believe the antidote lies in eating eels. Folk legend has it that the custom was initiated by a wily 18th-century scholar, who was really in cahoots with the eel merchants. Behind the yoshizu of today's traditional eel restaurants, plenty of people still seek this high-protein fish as a summer treat. Meanwhile, yoshizu go up too to provide shade as well as partitioning in beer gardens. Situated often on the roofs of department stores, one finds adepts here quaffing tankards of chilled brew from tumbler to bucket size.
Yoshizu are erected in front of traditional dessert shops too, where kids eat shaved ice topped with syrups coming in an amazing array of garish colours. There are inumerable fairs and festivals all around Japan in summer; one to look out for is Obon, the Buddhist festival of the dead. Obon is the time for lantern festivals, when families pay respect to deceased relatives and light fireworks outside their homes. In downtown Tokyo in Ueno, summer finds families dressed in yukata (see page 55) strolling through evening plant markets, the stalls being partitioned with (what else?) yoshizu. Along here too they sell insects. The lovely firefly, now vanished from polluted cities, blinks brightly in little bamboo cages along with the suzumushi (bell crickets) whose enchanting, high-pitched ringing sound can turn even the most sultry night idyllically cool. You find too the kind of insects children stalk with butterfly nets in the daytime, especially rhino beetles and, later in the season, semi (Japanese crickets).
The shrill whirring of the semi in fact heralds summer's end—stifling as it still is in late August. Everyone moans about the heat but once the insect orchestra falls silent and it's all over, most people are looking forward to saying "atsui desu ne?" again next year. And bringing out the yoshizu.
Byōbu
屏風
painted screens
No one knows when byōbu first appeared, but 8th-century Japanese historical records report that they had been presented to the emperor by a Korean ambassador in 686. Like most continental novelties, byōbu were at first used exclusively by the aristocracy. In pre-medieval times, the aristocratic dwelling was large, single-storied and, as now in the Japanese house, featured sliding panels to divide the rooms. The Japanese predilection for screens was a result of the hot, humid summer weather; sliding panels allowed air to circulate, but also provided shelter from drafts (byōbu translates as 'wind shelter'). They also provided privacy if needed.
Minimalism has always been of the essence in Japanese art, but if the walls of a dwelling were to remain pristine, one could instead decorate panels and partitions, thus several different kinds of screen developed. One was the byōbu; they served as canvasses in a kind of painting called shōheki-ga.
Mainly religious, but in some cases secular as well, early Japanese art had always been executed in the Chinese style. Then because of the increasing popularity of emaki (picture scrolls) during the Heian period, narrative, historical and naturalist themes developed relatively free of outside influences. This style was known as Yamato-e (Japanese pictures), and the Chinese style came to be known as kara-e (outside pictures). Both were used on byōbu, but in the relatively austere Kamakura era (1185-1333), byōbu were mainly decorated with Chinese-style ink paintings.
During the strife-torn Muromachi period (1333-1568), lavishly painted and gilded byōbu became fashionable among shoguns eager for ostentatious trimmings in their new villas and castles. The master of the Kanō school, notably Motonobu (1476-1559) and Eitoku (1543-1590), brought shōheki-ga to its zenith, blending elements of kara-e and Yamato-e together. Consisting usually of two, three, four, or six panels, byōbu often came in pairs; a landscape or scene with figures ran continuously from one screen to the next.
Byōbu became more common during the Edo period (1603-1868), when the Rimpa school founded by Sōtatsu and exemplified by Ogata Kōrin (1658-1716) came to the fore. It emphasized decorative composition, further developed in the 18th century by Itō Jackuchō with his remarkable animal and bird designs. In the 19th century, shōheki-ga generally became formulaic, mainly comprising pallid emulations of late medieval masterpieces. Painters working on byōbu today are scarce.
Shōji
障子
sliding paper screens
One of the most defining things about the Japanese traditional home is the shōji. Either a paper sliding door or a sliding paper screen, it shouldn't be confused with the fusuma—a sliding paper door of a different kind. Covered with thick paper, the fusuma are opaque and their function is as room dividers or cupboard doors. Often magnificently adorned by master painters in the past, today they are still often quite prettily decorated.
The shōji on the other hand are absolutely plain. Consisting of panels of latticed wood covered on one side with thin white paper, the shōji slide in grooves and are placed immediately behind the windows of a house. A traditional Japanese room thus requires no curtains. Fitted with solid wooden panels at the bottom, shōji are also used as doors to rooms facing a corridor with windows; many traditional Japanese houses have a corridor running around the front and sides of the house both upstairs and down. The shōji date back to a time when there were no window panes, so having the rooms set back from the windows via a corridor ensured one could stay dry in all but the most severe weather.
In fact, until glass came to be adopted increasingly from the end of the 19th century, the shōji were what would be described in the west as windows. The Japanese word mado (window) really refers only to the window cavity. The shōji were placed inside or just behind it; the windows along the corridor would thus be fitted with shōji just like the doors facing them. To prevent getting the outer shōji wet if it rained hard, one had to slide the amado, a solid wooden shutter, closed in front of the window. The pre-modern Japanese must have spent a lot of their rainy days in semi-darkness.
In fairer weather, the shōji imbue a room with a lovely diffuse light as white as that reflected from snow. Even after window glass had become widely adopted, frosted glass was often used in the outer shōji to achieve the same effect. Window glass in traditional Japanese houses is otherwise perfectly transparent, the window frames frequently being shaped exactly like the shōji of old.
Tending to yellow fairly quickly, the paper used in these screens ideally needs replacing about once a year. Shōji are also notoriously fragile and are forever being torn—especially in households with small people with busy little fingers. If one can't be bothered to replace the entire panel, the alternative is to stick a little square of shōji paper over the hole. About a century ago the repair was a little more elaborate; people would often cut out the replacement piece in a variety of shapes—often birds or animals for the amusement of the perpetrators of the mishap.
Travelling around Japan in 1905, British photographer Herbert Panting aroused great curiosity in children in country inns. "Not only do Japanese rooms have ears," he commented about the flimsy walls, "but they have eyes as well. It is quite a common occurrence to see a human one peeping through some small hole in the shōji. Occasionally you may detect a finger