Folding screens (byōbu)
屏風
A folding partition of wooden frames covered with paper or silk, set up to block wind, divide a room, and carry pictures, often as a left–right pair.
01About
A byōbu is a wooden frame covered with paper or silk, joined in two, four, six, or eight panels so that it folds. The oldest record of one reaching Japan dates from 686: the Nihon Shoki lists screens among gifts from Silla. It blocks wind, divides a room, and decorates it, and from the Middle Ages screens were made as left–right pairs with related pictures. A pair of six-panel screens is a rokkyoku issō; a single one is an isseki. In the Muromachi period screens carried ink landscapes and flowers and birds; the Momoyama period added colorful genre scenes and city views, and the screen became a main format for large paintings. The Kanō school devised a gold-ground, colored style for flower-and-bird paintings, and Sōtatsu of the Rinpa school left many fine ones. Later came small pillow screens and, for tea gatherings, the furosaki screen.
02In the gallery
Look at the two halves of a pair one after the other, moving your eyes from one end to the other; what is drawn may change along the way.
Wall label terms in Japanese
- 屏風
- Folding screen (byōbu)
- 六曲一双
- Pair of six-panel screens (rokkyoku issō)
- 右隻・左隻
- Right and left screens (useki / saseki)
- 風炉先屏風
- Furosaki screen
03Notes
On gold-ground screens, the gold shimmers as you move, and the picture seems to move with you.
As your eyes go from one end of the picture to the other, what do you see change?