Japanese Fans
Kishor Gordhandas
3 April 2008, 08:18The word ‘FAN’ comes from the Latin “vannus” meaning an instrument for winnowing grain. The use of the fan dates from very early times and by the most primitive peoples. Not only have they served as cooling devices, but they were used of winnowing and for activating fires. They are mentioned in the Mahabharata and also in Bible. To-day in spite of the availability of air-conditioners, fans are still being made and used in hot countries. In India, the “Hindi” Generic Term for a Fan is “Pankha”, from Pankh meaning a feather of a bird’s wing. In China, the symbol for a fan looks like, and means a bird’s wing. The same basically applies to Japan.
All the ancient civilization of the world have recorded the use of ceremonial fans, but Chinese and Japanese peoples have the longest continuous history of the use of the personal fans. Ancient types before the sixth century A.D. were of every shape and variation of the Moon, the Pear and the Heart.
There are three main types of the Fans: the Fixed Fan, the Brise Fan and the Folding Fan.
The Fixed Fan: This is rigid in shape and generally has a handle to hold. It can measure between 15 cms and 60 cms across but not larger than that. It can be shaped like a leaf, circular, like a spade or a flag. There were also fixed feather fans with fine handles fashioned from a great variety of costly materials such as ivory etc.
The Brise Fan: These Brise fans were made from various materials, mainly wood or ivory. In order to keep the Japanese ‘hiogi’, this is made up of a number of sticks which usually taper to a base held by a rivet and at the top are held by a thread or a ribbon.
Amongst the earliest surviving hiogi are a number preserved in shrines at Itsukushima near Hiroshima which date from the second half of the 12th century. The Japanese hiogi in its fully developed form was the Official Court Fan used for ceremonial purpose rather than for cooling oneself. Originally, only the emperor was permitted to use the hiogi.
Whatever the origins of the folding fan, it is certain that this particular type of the folding fan, the brise or hiogi fan had no counterpart in China – until the 18th century and was then almost exclusively confined to fans made for the Western Market. The hiogi derives its name from the fact that it was most frequently made from hinoki (‘cypress wood’), thus ‘hi’ refers to cypress and ‘ogi’ to fan.
The Fan to Japanese is emblamatic of life itself. The rivet end is regarded as the starting point and the sticks of the fan expand the leaf, so it shows the road of life widening out towards future. The Japanese differentiate through decoration and use between a closing fan and folding fan, the closing one being Brise.
The Folding Fan: The folding fan may have originated in either China or Japan. It seems generally agreed that the folding fan is oriental in origin and it emulates a bird’s wing (Bat’s Wing), which opens out fully and yet folds flat. A certain Toyomaru from Tamba province conceived of a fan which could be opened and folded up by means of sticks that moved about a fixed point. In Japan, as in China, the invention of the folding fan, was credited with some fanciful and imaginative origins.
It is claimed that the Chinese were probably the first to apply a painted design, or certain forms of calligraphic decoration, on to a fan, but it was the Japanese who invented the folding fan and devised convenient uses for the object. Developing alongside the hiogi, the folding fan with a paper leaf was extremely popular in Japan form at least the 12th century onwards. Early paper folding fans consisted of a small number of wooden sticks, averaging between five and nine, which were held together with a single folded paper leaf. The oldest forms of the Japanese folding fan used to be called Komori which is also the word for “Bat”. Certainly Japanese are a people totally in tune with every aspect of nature around them.
There are Military Fans, Theatre Fans, Ukiyo-e Figures Fans, Airline Fans and such other fans with Fixed handles, and Folding types: a few pictures of such Fans are attached and also those of a few playing cards with Fan Prints on them. These playing cards with dolls and fans in their hands are made in Japan. There are many Ukiyo-e Playing Cards made in Japan, which have on many cards the females seen holding Fans in their hands. The Fixed Japanese Fans also make a very nice and unique item for gifting special persons especially when these are neatly framed.
In many countries of the world where it was widely used as a means of keeping oneself cool and as an object of high fashion, the fan has all but disappeared from use. In Japan, however, the fan has remained an item of every day use down to the present day. The fact that the fan has a long history in Japan ensured that over the course of time, it became an integral part of many facets of civil and ceremonial life. The manufacture of the fan is still very much alive to-day, as both expensive, one – off items and as mass produced wares.
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