Illustrated Japanese Culture
扇子・扇
A sensu is a folding hand fan. Its ribs spread from a pivot and close into a narrow bundle, making it easy to carry. Japanese folding fans range from everyday cooling tools to painted objects and implements for ceremony and performance.
01
The kaname is the pivot at the base. Two thicker outer ribs, oyabone, protect the finer middle ribs, nakabone. On a paper fan, the pleated leaf opens with them. A sensu closes for carrying; an uchiwa keeps its fixed shape.
Paper and silk fans have a leaf supported by ribs. A hiōgi is different: thin cypress slats themselves form the fan. Sandalwood fans use scented wood. These material choices accompany different uses, from cooling to ceremony.
02
In the Kyoto process described by Hakuchikudo, craftspeople cut and thin bamboo ribs, finish the outer guards and join the frame at the pivot. Rib making, paper preparation, decoration and final assembly are divided among specialists.
Three layers of paper are combined, cut to a fan shape and decorated. Folding templates establish the pleats. Channels are prepared inside the paper for the middle ribs: the finished leaf is not simply one sheet pasted onto the outside of the frame.
Glue-coated middle ribs enter those channels. The maker heats and bends the outer guards inward, then shapes and finishes the fan. These steps belong to Hakuchikudo’s present-day Kyoto workshop process.
03
The hiōgi belongs to early Japanese court culture. One proposed origin connects its slats with wooden writing tablets, but this is an account of development rather than a known inventor’s record. The painted surviving fan shown here dates to the Muromachi period, much later than the form’s beginnings.
Paper-covered kawahori fans appeared by the middle Heian period. Early examples had paper on one face and exposed ribs on the other. Fans accompanied court dress, ritual, gifts and poems as well as cooling; wooden and paper fans also had winter and summer associations within court practice.
04
Japanese folding fans travelled to China and Korea. Chinese refinements later returned to Japan as tōsen, influencing two-sided paper construction in the Muromachi period. The history is therefore an exchange of techniques, not a single unchanged design moving outward.
An ordinary shizume fan closes its tips together. A chūkei remains flared at the upper end even when closed. Specialised fans developed for different ceremonial and performing traditions; their forms and handling should not be treated as interchangeable.
By later Edo times, fans were widespread everyday objects. Artists and writers supplied paintings and calligraphy for their leaves, sometimes through dealers taking commissions. Yamamoto Baiitsu’s 1832 fan with peaches, a pomegranate and fingered citron is one surviving example of painting designed for this folding surface.
Folding fans reached Europe, and Chinese workshops developed a substantial export trade. The nineteenth-century Chinese fan shown here was made for the European market. European styles in turn influenced Japanese trade fans in the Meiji period. Nagoya developed export production then, followed by gift fans in the Taishō period.
05
Tea and other ceremonial fans have formal roles beyond cooling. Their dimensions and handling differ by school and occasion, so their use follows the particular ceremony.
Noh and Japanese dance use specialised fans. In rakugo, a closed fan can stand for chopsticks or a pipe through the performer’s movements. Tōsenkyō takes the fan into a throwing game associated with Kyoto banquet entertainment.
Kyoto and Tokyo continue to make fans for cooling, display and specialised uses. Kyoto production commonly divides work among specialists, while an Edo fan maker generally handles the full process. In Tokyo’s Edogawa ward, Matsui Hiroshi learned from his father, became a full-time fan maker at thirty and was recognised as a holder of the ward’s intangible cultural craft in 2004.
Military fans could serve for signalling, indicating rank, cooling and pointing. A late-Edo example in the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum has thirteen black-lacquered wooden ribs. Its sturdy folding construction differs from the fixed paddle shape of a gunbai.
The sensu folds around a pivot; the uchiwa has a fixed shape.
The pivot that holds the ribs together at the base.
No. Its thin cypress slats form the fan.
Into prepared channels between the paper layers.
No. This object dates to the Muromachi period, later than the form’s beginnings.
No. Chinese refinements returned to Japan and influenced two-sided paper fans.
Its upper end remains flared.
Because that surviving object was made in China for Europe; it cannot serve as a Japanese-made example.
No. Fans also have ceremonial, artistic, theatrical and game uses.