I would like to have a room, an empty room.
In a cloudy day of spring, I would turn my back to the uncertain sky to search, among my Chiyogami sheets, something colored and happy to bind my notebook, something fresh and vaporous like the spring blossoms of a cherry tree.
In Japanese, Chiyo means “thousand generation” and Gami “paper.” Chiyogami is a type of Japanese paper developed during the Edo period (1603-1868) in imperial Kyoto and later spread to Tokyo and Osaka. Its origins are probably connected to the court, where noble women used refined sheets of paper to write letters and poems and to wrap gifts. Other sources trace them back to a princess, Princess Chiyo, known for her insane passion for coloured papers. During the eighteenth century, however, this beautiful decorate paper lost its exclusive use becoming a requested souvenir among countryside people who visited Kyoto and Tokyo. Once back in the country, they used Chiyogami to decorate the interior of their homes, creating wall panels, covering small boxes and tea tins, or making kimonos for paper dolls. Countryside papermakers printed this paper with wood blocks in bright colours and fine patterns inspired by the designs of the sumptuous silk kimonos worn by the elegant ladies in towns. Geometric shapes, elements from everyday life, from the theatrical tradition and classical literature provided the themes elaborated in the Chiyogami patterns, returning an interesting portrait of the life in Japan of those years. Nature was an endless source of inspiration. Over the centuries, images of flowers, leaves, animals, and other natural elements were selected for their beauty and codified in symbolic meanings. Cranes represent longevity, carps perseverance, peonies goodfortune, turtles happiness. The ethereal cherry flowers that announce spring after the long winter are associated with the transient nature of life and mortality, the delicacy of their petals with innocence and simplicity.
I would bind my notebook using a precious sheet of Chiyogami with spring cherry blossoms to remind me of this spring.
Photos:
In Japanese, Chiyo means “thousand generation” and Gami “paper.” Chiyogami is a type of Japanese paper developed during the Edo period (1603-1868) in imperial Kyoto and later spread to Tokyo and Osaka. Its origins are probably connected to the court, where noble women used refined sheets of paper to write letters and poems and to wrap gifts. Other sources trace them back to a princess, Princess Chiyo, known for her insane passion for coloured papers. During the eighteenth century, however, this beautiful decorate paper lost its exclusive use becoming a requested souvenir among countryside people who visited Kyoto and Tokyo. Once back in the country, they used Chiyogami to decorate the interior of their homes, creating wall panels, covering small boxes and tea tins, or making kimonos for paper dolls. Countryside papermakers printed this paper with wood blocks in bright colours and fine patterns inspired by the designs of the sumptuous silk kimonos worn by the elegant ladies in towns. Geometric shapes, elements from everyday life, from the theatrical tradition and classical literature provided the themes elaborated in the Chiyogami patterns, returning an interesting portrait of the life in Japan of those years. Nature was an endless source of inspiration. Over the centuries, images of flowers, leaves, animals, and other natural elements were selected for their beauty and codified in symbolic meanings. Cranes represent longevity, carps perseverance, peonies goodfortune, turtles happiness. The ethereal cherry flowers that announce spring after the long winter are associated with the transient nature of life and mortality, the delicacy of their petals with innocence and simplicity.
I would bind my notebook using a precious sheet of Chiyogami with spring cherry blossoms to remind me of this spring.
Photos:
TravelinaGarden
Chiyogami paper: Shepherds London
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