Let's Enjoy Amazing Traditional Japanese Craftworks And Share The Photos!

While traveling Japan, one of the disappointing things might be most museums are prohibiting taking photos of their exhibits. 

So I'd like to introduce an interesting special exhibition of traditional Japanese craft-works. "Amazing Japanese Traditional Art During Meiji Period" is being held at the Art Museum of Tokyo University Of Art. Taking photos of the exhibits is allowed in this exhibition although there are few exceptions. The museum is even encouraging people to share the photos through social networking systems.

This exhibition shows various traditional Japanese crafts during Meiji period (1868-1912). Meiji period is considered as the earliest modern times of Japan. It started right after Tokugawa shogunate government collapsed and Samurai time ended. In the exhibition, We can see many kinds of unique and original craft-works in those days.

One of the interesting crafts are "Jizai-okimono" which means "decorative objects with freely movable joints". I'm showing an example of it on the middle row in the photos above. The snake was made of metal but many of small metal rings like shard are assembled to make the shape, then the snake can wriggle as if it is a real snake. Craftsmen of this art pursued realism and they made various animal objects such as crows, eagles, dragons, and even shrimps with movable joints just like real creatures.

There is a Youtube movie introducing how smooth it can move (It is a frame by frame recording movie).


Actually there is a reason why this kind of art were made a lot at that time. The skill were originally for making Samurai armor. During Samurai era, the skill to make metal joint that can move smoothly like a living creature was very important to make good armor. After Shogunate government was ended and Japan got the first modern government, metal craftsmen still had kept the great skill, then they started to create these objects as decorations. Nowadays I'm not sure if there is any craftsmen who are still making this craft.

You can see more different types of crafts in the exhibition as shown in the photos on the bottom row. It seems like these craftsmen were trying to see how much their work can be elaborate. Each pieces were made by amazing skills. It would be worth to see and very interesting. 

The exhibition continues until October 31st. The museum is located in right outside of Ueno Park, Tokyo. 

How Does Noguchi Studio in Hachioji-city Tokyo Perform Nagaita-Chukei Indigo Dyeing?

I have introduced a traditional craft-work studio of Indigo dyeing in my previous posts on July 18th and 20th. Their products are called "Edo-style Nagaita-Chukei" and used for summer Kimono/Yukata. The studio is carrying on old-fashioned techniques which are rare today. Then, how do they actually make the beautiful fabrics? What are the old-fashioned techniques of Indigo dyeing? I'm going to explain briefly here. 

Roughly their work can be divided into two parts. The first process is putting designs on white cotton fabrics with masking paste. The second process is dyeing the masked fabric with Indigo dye. 

Let's look at the steps in more detail. The upper row of the photos above is showing the first process. A craftsman is putting the design of chrysanthemum flowers and a little stream on a very thin plastic stencil. Actually their stencils were made of Washi (Japanese traditional papers) in old times, but due to the declining number of the craftsmen of Washi and increasing cost of custom-made Washi, they had no choice but to switch to plastic stencils. 

The paste he is painting on the stencil is made from rice. As it is an organic paste, it is easily taken off and eco-friendly. However, disadvantage of the rice paste is that it does not keep very long, and can get moldy easily even after it is applied on fabrics, and therefore humidity must be carefully monitored. 

After putting design on the cloth with the paste, the fabric are dried the sun and stored with long boards on the ceiling shelf in the studio. The same process is repeated to make enough quality of one design. The next step is putting the masking paste on the backside of the fabrics which will make a perfect contrast of white color and Indigo color in the fabrics. This concludes the first process. The masked fabrics are removed from the long boards, and hooked to bamboo sticks. The bamboo sticks works as hangers when the fabrics are dipped into Indigo dye colors. 

In Noguchi Studio, there are more than 10 big pots buried on the ground under a roof. The Indigo dye liquid inside of the pots is extracted from a plants. Temperature of the pots and the thickness of the liquid are carefully controlled throughout a year to keep good condition for dyeing since these are all organic and have to be kept fermenting well. You can see some fermenting foam floating on the pots in the photos above.

The second process, their dyeing work, seems very simple. They just grab a bamboo hanger, hook masked cloth on it and dip it into the pot. However, depending on how long and how many times they dip the cloth, the strength of indigo color would be different as you can see the small piece of fabrics in the middle photo on the lower row. Moreover, to make a deep indigo blue with clear white design is not so easy. If the more you dip the cloth the more masking paste is going to dissolve in the dye since the paste is not so tough in liquid. If they dip the cloth too long, or too many times, the design would be faded. Now you can see their work is very delicate and requires many years of experience. Because of their skilled work the fabrics are so beautifully done.

By the way, dyed fabrics are actually yellowish color when they were pulled out from the dye. After they are exposed into air, they gradually turn into indigo color by chemical reaction. The phenomenon looks very mysterious. After the reaction was done, the fabrics are washed to take off the masking paste completely and dried under the sun. I wonder how ancient people invented the whole process!

A Short Video Of Traditional Japanese Indigo-Dyeing Work Of 'Nagaita-Chukei' Fabrics

This video was taken at the studio in Hachioji city which I introduced in my previous post. They are carrying on a rare and traditional technique of Indigo-Dyeing called Edo-style "Nagaita-Chukei" (Edo is the old name of Tokyo).  Their products are used for summer Kimono/Yukata. Also take a look at their beautiful fabrics shown below!

Introducing A Traditional Craftwork Studio For Kimono/Yukata (Cotton Summer Kimono) In Tokyo

In connection to my previous post regarding the difference between Japanese traditional clothes "Kimono" and "Yukata", I'd like to introduce a traditional work studio for the fabrics today.

The left hand side photo is showing a studio for “Nagaita-Chukei (Long board-Middle size)”. Can you guess what it means? Actually this is the name of one type of traditional Japanese indigo dyeing. The products from this type of dyeing is used for making the highest grade of summer cotton Kimono (Yukata). “Long board” came from the tool（16.5～19.7 feet long) used in this dying and “Middle size” indicates the size of the design patterns (Kimonos are classified by the size of the design patterns). 

Nagaita-Chukei is very traditional and requires many years of training, so only the Noguchi Dyeing Studio in Hachioji continues to use this technique with organic ingredients as used in the day of yore. What is unique about their technique is that they mask both sides of the cloth before dyeing. The contrast of the indigo blue and the white becomes perfectly clear as you can see in the upper right hand side photo. This is very difficult since the design on the top and the bottom of the cloth have to be matched perfectly.

Now there are only two craftsmen, Mr. Noguchi and his son (in the left hand side photo), remaining who practice Edo (old name of Tokyo area) style Nagaita-Chukei dyeing throughout Japan. It is sad to say but in fact the numbers of craftsmen are rapidly decreasing for many Japanese traditional craftworks. It might be an inevitable consequence of the quick changes happening in modern days.

Mr. Noguchi seemed to take the fact calmly and said “Nowadays, not everybody is buying Kimonos since they are not everyday clothes anymore. Moreover, I don’t think our old-fashioned method is fitting in the current market system since it takes too much time and work. Today everything has to be done fast using high-tech tools like the internet. Even if there was a person who wanted to learn this technique, I can’t guarantee that he could make a living. So I can’t recommend it as a job to anybody…” However I really hope these beautiful fabrics and their fantastic techniques are handed down to generations to come.  

The fabrics are actually available at the studio. People can buy them directly from Mr. Noguchi although they have to buy at least a whole role of it (about 39 feet, which is enough length to make a Kimono/Yukata) .