hyousou　表装

KEY WORD :　art history / paintings

To mount a work of art in a hanging scroll *kakemono 掛物, handscroll *kansubon 巻子本, framed picture gaku 額, screen *byoubu 屏風, sliding door panel *fusuma 襖 or album *jou 帖 format for display or preservation. During the Nara and Heian periods, mountings were called soukou 装こう and were primarily for sutra scrolls. In the Kamakura period, the term hyouhoe ひょうほえ was used, and the work of mounting sutras was performed by professional craftsmen called *kyouji 経師. During the Muromachi period it became popular to use Chinese brocades for mounting Chinese and Zen 禅-related paintings and calligraphy. How art was mounted in ancient times is unclear, as no examples have survived and there are few written records on the subject. However, from the 13c there are numerous examples of hanging scrolls depicted within handscrolls. One such scroll, the Tale of Hungry Ghosts GAKI ZOUSHI 餓鬼草紙 (Tokyo National Museum) hung in front of a Buddhist temple in the late 12c. This scroll is mounted simply with decorated silk or paper added at the top and bottom edges of the painting. A rod is attached to the bottom of the scroll. A hanging scroll depicted in the 14c Pictorial Record of Honen Shounin handscroll Hounen Shounin eden 法然上人絵伝 (Chion-in 知恩院, Kyoto ; See *Hounen 法然), is decorated on all four sides with silk and paper. It appears from these and other examples that the earliest hanging scrolls were simpler and smaller than they are today. Before the shoin style of architecture *shoin-zukuri 書院造 was developed in the Muromachi period, hanging scrolls were hung from the *nageshi 長押 or horizontal crossbeams inside the buildings. In buildings of the shoin style, they were displayed in alcoves *tokonoma 床の間, usually in sets of three. Geiami 芸阿弥 (1431-85) established aesthetic precepts for the mounting, selection and appreciation of hanging scrolls. His personal taste in mounting later became standardized through names such as *yamato hyougu 大和表具, shin 真 gyou 行 sou 草, and *bunjin hyougu 文人表具.

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*hyougu 表具

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