Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings

by Edward Sylvester Morse

In my remarks on house-construction I made mention of the plaster walls, and of the various colored sands used in the plaster. There are many ways of treating this surface, by which curious effects are obtained. Little gray and white pebbles are sometimes mixed with the plaster. The shells of a little fresh-water bivalve (Corbicula) are pounded into fragments and mixed with the plaster. In the province of Mikawa I saw an iron-gray plaster, in which had been mixed the short fibres of finely-chopped hemp, the fibres glistening in the plaster; the effect was odd and striking. In the province of Omi it was not unusual to see white plastered surfaces smoothly finished, in which iron-dust had been blown evenly upon the surface while the plaster was yet moist, and, oxidizing, had given a warm brownish-yellow tint to the whole.

In papering plaster-walls rice-paste is not used, as the larvae of certain insects are liable to injure the surface. In lieu of this a kind of seaweed similar to Iceland moss is used, the mucilaginous portion of which forms the cement. This material is used in sizing paper, and also in the pasteboard or stiff paper which is made by sticking a number of sheets together.

Plastered rooms are often papered; and even when the plaster is tinted and the plastered surface is left exposed, is customary to use a paper called koshi-bari, which is spread on the wall to a height of two feet or more in order to protect the clothes from the plaster. This treatment is seen in common rooms.

Simple and unpretending as the interior of a Japanese house appears to be, it is wonderful upon how many places in their apparently naked rooms the ingenuity and art-taste of the cabinet-maker can be expended. Naturally, the variety of design and finish of the tokonoma and chigai-dana is unlimited save by the size of their areas; for with the sills and upright posts, the shelves and little closets, sliding-doors with their surfaces for the artists' brush, and the variety of woods employed, the artisan has a wide field in which to display his peculiar skill. The ceiling, though showing less variety in its structure, nevertheless presents a good field for decorative work, though any exploits in this direction outside the conventional form become very costly, on account of the large surface to deal with and the expensive cabinet-work required. Next to the chigai-dana in decorative importance (excepting of course the ceiling, which, as we have already seen, rarely departs from the almost universal character of thin boards and transverse strips), I am inclined to believe that the ramma receives the most attention from the designer, and requires more delicate work from the cabinet-maker. It is true that the areas to cover are small, yet the designs which may be carved or latticed,—geometric designs in fret-work, or perforated designs in panel,—must have a strength and prominence not shown in the other interior finishings of the room.

The kamoi, or lintel, as we have seen, is a beam that runs entirely across the side of the room at the height of nearly [pg 169] six feet from the floor ([fig. 103]). On its under surface are the grooves in which the fusuma run; between this beam and the ceiling is a space of two feet or more depending, of course, upon the height of the room. The height of the beam itself from the floor, a nearly constant factor, is always lower than are our doorways, because the average height of the Japanese people is less than ours; and aggravatingly low to many foreigners is this beam, as can be attested by those who have cracked their heads against it in passing from one room to another. The space between the kamoi and the ceiling is called the ramma, and offers another field for the exercise of that decorative faculty which comes so naturally to the Japanese. This space may be occupied simply by a closed plastered partition, just as in our houses we invariably fill up a similar space which comes over wide folding doors between a suite of rooms. In the Japanese room, however, it is customary to divide this space into two or more panels,—usually two; and in this area the designer and wood-worker have ample room to carry out those charming surprises which are to be seen in Japanese interiors.

Fig. 144.—Ramma in Hakòne Village.

The designs are of course innumerable, and may consist of diaper-work and geometric designs; or each panel may consist of a single plank of wood with the design wrought out, while the remaining wood is cut away, leaving the dark shadows of the room beyond as a back-ground to the design; or the design may be in the form of a thin panel of cedar, in which patterns [pg 170] of birds, flowers, waves, dragons, or other objects are cut out in perforated work. Fret-work panels are very often used in the decoration of the ramma, of designs similar to the panels now imported from Japan; but the figures are worked out larger patterns.