Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings

by Edward Sylvester Morse

Fig. 102.—Attitude of woman in sitting.

At meal-times the food is served in lacquer and porcelain dishes on lacquer trays, placed upon the floor in front of the kneeling family; and in this position the repast is taken.

At night a heavily wadded comforter is placed upon the floor; another equally thick is provided for a blanket, a pillow of diminutive proportions for a head-support,—and the bed is made. In the morning these articles are stowed away in a large closet. Further reference will be made to bedding in the proper place.

A good quality of mats can be made for one dollar and a half a-piece; though they sometimes cost three or four dollars, and even a higher price. The poorest mats cost from sixty to eighty cents a-piece. The matting for the entire house represented in plan [fig. 97] cost fifty-two dollars and fifty cents.

Reference has already been made to the sliding screens, and as they form so important and distinct a feature in the Japanese house, a more special description of them is necessary. In our American houses a lintel is the horizontal beam placed over the door; this is cased with wood, and has a jamb or recess corresponding to the vertical recesses into which the door shuts. For the sake of clearness, we may imagine a lintel running entirely across the room from one corner to the other, and this is the kamoi of the Japanese room. The beam is not cased. On its under surface run two deep and closely parallel grooves, and directly beneath this kamoi on the floor a surface of wood shows in which are two exceedingly shallow grooves. This surface is level with the mats; and in these grooves the screens run. The grooves in [pg 126] the kamoi are made deep, in order that the screens may be lifted out of the floor-grooves and then dropped from the upper ones, and thus removed. In this way a suite of rooms can be quickly turned into one, by the removal of the screens. The grooves are sufficiently wide apart to permit the screens being pushed by each other. From the adjustable nature of these sliding partitions one may have the opening between the rooms of any width he desires.

Fig. 103.—Section through verandah and guest-room.

There are two forms of these sliding screens,—the one kind, called fusuma, forming the partitions between rooms; the other kind, called shōji, coming on the outer sides of the rooms next to the verandah, and forming the substitutes for windows ([fig. 103]).

The fusuma forming the movable partitions between the rooms are covered on both sides with thick paper; and as it was [pg 127] customary in past times to use Chinese paper for this purpose, these devices are also called kara-kami,—“China-paper.” The frame is not unlike the frame used for the outside screens, consisting of thin vertical and horizontal strips of wood forming a grating, with the meshes four or five inches in width, and two inches in height. The outside frame or border is usually left plain, as is the case with most of their wood-work. It is not uncommon, however, to see these frames lacquered. The material used for covering them consists of a stout, thick, and durable paper; and this is often richly decorated. Sometimes a continuous scene will stretch like a panorama across the whole side of a room. The old castles contain some celebrated paintings on these fusuma, by famous artists. The use of heavy gold-leaf in combination with the paintings produces a decorative effect rich beyond description. In the commoner houses the fusuma are often undecorated save by the paper which covers them; and the material for this purpose is infinite in its variety,—some kinds being curiously wrinkled, other kinds seeming to have interwoven in their texture the delicate green threads of some sea-weed; while other kinds still will have the rich brown sheaths of bamboo shoots worked into the paper, producing a quaint and pleasing effect. Often the paper is perfectly plain; and if by chance an artist friend comes to the house, he is asked to leave some little sketch upon these surfaces as a memento of his visit: others perhaps may have already covered portions of the surface with some landscape or spray of flowers. In old inns one has often pointed out to him the work of some famous artist, who probably paid his score in this way.