Japanese War Fans, Gumbai Uchiwa.
Mr L.C.R.Messel. Mr. W Harding Smith. Mr W.L.Behrens.
A fan leaf owned by the Temple of Saikyôji, Sakamoto, Omi, is illustrated in Selected Relics of Japanese Art, S. Tajima. A hi-ogi, with figures and pine-tree, in the Shinto Temple, Itsukushima-Jinsha Aki, is illustrated in the same work: this latter, doubtless, is a production of the Taira era, possibly a dedication to the temple from a scion of the Taira family, and painted by a daughter of Taira Kiyomori, the premier, 1167-1180, the writer of the ‘Lotus of the True Law.’
A similar combination of painting and writing obtained later, and was practised by Kôyetsu Hon-Ami, the predecessor of Kôrin Ogata, the reputed founder of the Korin school. This artist was a skilful writer of Chinese ideographs, in which art he was one of the ‘Three Pens’ of his time, being the founder of the Kôyetsu school of caligraphy.[53]
A fine example of Kôyetsu in the possession of Baron Ryûichi Kuki is reproduced in Mr. Tajima’s work. This is painted on a gold ground, and represents a rabbit in a flowered field. The fan is divided in two parts, the writing, which is by the artist, being on the gilt portion. Kôyetsu died at Kyoto in 1637, aged eighty-two.
The Ukiyoyé school included most of the makers of colour prints; two of the more famous of them, Masanobu Kiato, and Hokusai Katsushika, born in the same year, 1760, also painted fans. The former opened a shop at Ginza for the sale of smokers’ implements and medicine, and sold besides folding-fans and long panels upon which poems were written; both of these he ornamented with sketches; they became renowned far and wide, and from their sale he derived large profit.
A fan leaf by Hokusai, a masterly sketch of the head and shoulders of a ‘Beauty,’ is illustrated in Tajima’s work, as also several fans painted with courtesans, by an almost equally celebrated maker of colour prints, Kunisada.
Battle- or war-fans are of two kinds—the flat, rigid screen (uchiwa) which is the earliest, and the folding (ogi). In both, iron is the material of which it is mainly composed. The first named is sometimes formed completely of metal (iron and brass), is of considerable weight, and is used by officers both for direction, offence and defence, i.e. as baton, weapon, and shield.