INTRODUCTION ORIGIN OF JAPANESE FURNITURE NAMBAN PERIOD ( 1549 – 1639) HEIAN PERIOD ANCIENT JAPANESE CHEST DESIGN TATAMI FLOORS REOPEN OF JAPAN HOW WESTERN STYLE FURNITURE PRODUCED IN JAPAN FOR DOMESTIC USE ? KURUMA DANSU PLYWOOD SIMLICITY CONCLUSION Introduction Historically, furniture has never been a focal point of the Japanese decorative arts. In contrast to the West, houses in Japan up to the Meiji era (1868-1912) utilised little furniture. They were designed in a module system based on the standardised tatami mat, with the size of rooms indicated by the number of tatami , when various styles of Western architecture and interiors were introduced, ordinary homes still remained largely traditional. It was not until after the eight-tatami-room, for instance the interior of a traditional house of the Edo period (1603-1867): there were no chairs because people sat on the tatami floors; there were no beds because they slept on futon mattresses placed directly on the floor, and these mattresses were put away in built-in cabinets when not in use. These traditions survive widely to this day. A few items of furniture were mostly portable so that rooms could be multifunctional sleeping room, dining room, and reception room, for example. Even during the Meiji era, Second World War that furniture of Western origin, such as chairs and beds, penetrated into Japanese society on a large scale. This fact alone probably explains why a major study of Japanese furniture has not been undertaken. A recent pioneer scholar in this area of research is Kazuko Koizumi. She has published many books concerning the history of Japanese interiors and furniture, among them, Traditional Japanese Furniture (1986), the first thorough research in this area written in English. Also, in 1995, she published Shitsunai to Kagu no Rekishi (The History of Interior and Furniture) in Tokyo, which discusses in detail, not only the history and the social context behind traditional Japanese furniture, but also Westernised objects that emerged in modern times to facilitate foreign visitors’ homes and newly built Western- style public architecture. However, there is one area that is hardly mentioned: this is export furniture, especially that of the Meiji era. Furniture in both Japanese and Western tastes was produced extensively during this period. Japanese export furniture was virtually unknown at home even in the Meiji era, because it was all sent abroad and was also at odds with the traditional Japanese interior. Moreover, within thirty years of the end of the Meiji era, a major earthquake and the Second World War destroyed what little furniture of this type may have been in Japan. As a result, such peculiar objects were either unknown or almost completely forgotten by the Japanese. Today, people in Japan and abroad have started to pay more attention to the Meiji arts, though it is still not unusual to find books referring to Meiji export furniture as Chinese or ‘colonial’.1 In my paper, therefore, I will present further discussion of this rather ignored area. PRE-MEIJI EXPORT FURNITURE AND ITS HISTORICAL CONTEXT Namban Period (1549-1639) Japan was riven with territorial disputes between feudal lords, who welcomed the missionaries, less from religious fervour than as a force to rival the politically strong Buddhist monasteries. Thereupon, the missionaries were ordered to leave Japan; Japanese believers were severely persecuted; the Catholic Spanish and Portuguese were expelled from Japan in 1624 and 1639 respectively. Japan, then, entered a 200 year period of seclusion (sakoku), retaining the Dutch as the sole Western trading agent. Apart from Japanese chronological eras, this time is often referred to as the Christian (till 1613) or Namban (Southern Barbarians, till 1639) period, which features, if briefly, the very first Westernization and the fusion of Japan and the West. In the course of this trade, various Western products were introduced to the Japanese. A few of the novelties included Western clothes, mirrors, carpets, glasses, foods, and wine. Naturally, such commodities appeared extremely exotic to the Japanese and a fad for things Portuguese was soon established. The powerful lords like Nobunaga Oda received numerous Western gifts not only from the Portuguese but also from other feudal lords currying Nobunaga’s favour. The Jesuit Father Louis Frois visited Nobunaga in 1569 and was amazed by the foreign treasures accumulated in his castle: Another item of furniture brought by the Portuguese was a Chinese folding chair called kyokuroku in Japanese. The Portuguese took these easily portable chairs to Japan for their own use and some paintings testify that not only Japanese feudal lords but also even kabuki theatres used them to create an exotic air. Although production centres have not been identified, it is believed that some of them were produced in Japan. Turning to Japanese exports, besides silver, another item which attracted the Portuguese was lacquer. Japan was producing elaborate lacquer wares already in the early Heian period (794-1192), separating from the originator’s (Chinese) design towards the end of that era. Maki-e (sprinkled picture) is a Japanese original technique, where gold and silver powders are sprinkled on a wet lacquer surface to make decorative designs. Lacquer became commonly used for the furnishings of the aristocracy and in objects for religious ceremonies. In the Kamakura era (1185-1333), Japan even started exporting lacquer to China.( JAPANESE CHEST DESIGN Due to the rapid increase of Japanese converts, there was an urgent need for ritual objects (lecterns, shrines, and sacrament boxes) (Fig. 4). Some of them, originally intended for churches in Japan, were brought back to Portugal by missionaries. It is suggested that this production coincided with the first sacred images to be painted in Japan around 1563. furniture of Western-origin like a bed and a chair had never found a firm place in Japanese culture The contrary, Japanese influence on European culture, was negligible. The Dutch traded with Japan as the sole European agent at the tiny artificial island called Dejima in Nagasaki until the end of the sakoku period, 1854. This period is sometimes referred to as the Komo (red hair) era after the nickname the Japanese gave to the Dutch These decorative art objects were an insignificant part of the entire Dutch business with Japan, whilst their impact on European arts was vigorous. TATAMI FLOORS A tatami is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. Traditionally made of rice straw to form the core (though nowadays sometimes the core is composed of compressed wood chip boards or polystyrene foam), with a covering of woven soft rush (igusa) straw, tatami are made in uniform sizes. Usually, on the long sides, they have edging (heri) of brocade or plain cloth, although some tatami have no edging.[1] The Reopening of Japan Japan, which had remained in self-imposed isolation for over two centuries, was ruled steadily, on the surface at least, by the Tokugawa government. The Japanese are the only nation in the history of the world that has ever taken five centuries at a stride, and devoured in a decade all the space dividing feudalism and despotism from constitutional government and the other developments, commercial and municipal, of modern life. In the course of such dramatic modernisation, various institutions of Western origin were introduced into Japan. For example, the first railroad from Tokyo to Yokohama was opened in 1872, much European and American literature was translated, and a new coeducational schooling system started. In addition, there was a rapid transformation in people’s life styles, chiefly in the urban societies: men cut their long hair which had traditionally been worn in a topknot; meat-eating habits started; Western clothing for men and women became more common. Western Style Furniture Produced in Japan for Domestic Use One reason why traditional furniture producers did not deal with Western style furniture lies in the fundamental difference between Japanese and Western furniture. Whilst the former is basically shaped in straight contours to be fitted into module system architecture, the latter is more three-dimensional and often rounded in shape, and thus different manufacturing techniques were required. Another reason is that there was still enough demand for traditional Japanese furniture at that time, therefore they did not have to change their business Although the Japanese were quick to adapt to the majority of Western manners, ordinary people’s homes during the Meiji era remained more or less the same as these of the Edo era. The reason for this is not the concern of this paper, however it is important to recognise that this fact demonstrates the eccentric position of Western furniture in Japan, which found no place in ordinary people’s homes. MODERN JAPANESE FURNITURE Western Style Furniture Exported from Japan The third distribution channel was retailers located in the West. Numerous shops specialising in Japanese art were set up by the Japanese as well as by Westerners since the 1870s. In England, the most influential was Liberty & Co., established by Arthur Lasenby Liberty in 1875. Yamanaka also opened a branch in 1900. In America, New York and Boston became the centres of Japanese art. The export of furniture significantly increased in the 1880s. However, it was also a time when the quality of Japanese export crafts in general declined noticeably and faced difficulties in meeting the demand from abroad. The Japanese government and some wholesalers sensed the risk and strove to improve the situation. From the middle of 1880s, craft exports increased again. Lacquer Furniture The 1880s was the time when more Japanese entrepreneurs emerged and furniture export increased significantly. Instead of Nagasaki wares, a new type of lacquer that can be regarded as a direct descendant of Namban and Komo wares emerged in the Meiji export market: Shibayama lacquer.