International studio (45.1912)

Old Japanese Folding Screens


SIX-PANEL SCREEN

PAINTED BY UNKOKU TOGAN (SIXTEENTH CENTURY)
( Owned by Kimura Choshichi, Esq. )


SIX-PANEI. SCREEN I 1
“RECREATION UNDER CHERRY-TREES” PAINTED BY KANO KYUHAKU (1577-1654)
( Owned by Hara Kokzt.ro. Esq.)

that while each screen could stand by itself as a
complete decoration, a pleasing balance was ob-
tained when the pair were placed side by side.
Sometimes a design was made to run through both
members of the pair. As Mr. Morrison, an
eminent authority on Japanese painting, has well
remarked, “ it was the ever-present problem of the
painter to make each screen a complete design in
itself, so that it might be used alone, and, more
than that, a screen was not regarded as well
decorated unless any adjoining two or more leaves
by themselves made a full and pleasing composi-
tion, since it was often required to use a screen
partly closed and partly open. The almost magical

mastery of the science of composition possessed
by the old Japanese masters is testified by their
unfailing success in this difficult problem.”
In choice of subject and mode of treatment, the
pictures on the byobu bear a striking resemblance
to those on the fusuma, the screens or doors that
slide in grooves to partition one room from
another in the Japanese house; byobu and fusuma
fulfil somewhat si miliar functions, and offer some of
the largest surfaces for decorative painting. But it is
only natural that the various influences that made
themselves felt in the painting of screens should
be the same as those manifested in the technique
and execution of the paintings that are admired in
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