difficult to decipher precisely what form is being referred to unless further qualifiers are employed. The terms by which many of these forms are known today are largely twentieth-century inventions, created by early Japanese collector/researchers such as Nishizawa Tekiho (1889-1965) and Kubota Beisai (1874-1937), who attempted to draw public attention to this beautiful aspect of Japanese culture. This focus of this book is restricted to five specific categories of ningyō which were both popular and played a particularly important cultural role during the Edo period, namely gosho-ningyō (palace dolls), hina-ningyō (Girls Day dolls), musha-ningyō (warrior dolls for the Boy's Day display), ishō-ningyō (fashion dolls), and harakuri-ningyō (mechanical dolls). This last category is expanded in recognition of the role that ningyō have long played in public performance forms to include iki-ningyō (living dolls which were popular exhibition pieces), bunraku-ningyō (theater puppets), Takeda-ningyō (dolls depicting figures largely drawn from Edo Kabuki performances), and uizan-ningyō which functioned as gift dolls for young Noh and kyōgen (comic theater) performers. A final chapter deals with some of the many ways ningyō tied into Edo health belief systems and practices, including hōsō-ningyō used as smallpox talismans, do-ningyō used in the study of acupuncture, and shunga-ningyō, erotic figures designed largely for onanistic purposes.
Ishō-ningyō:Fukurokuju
Edo period, 19th century
Height 13 1/2 inches
Ayervais Collection
ANATOMY OF A JAPANESE DOLL
From a distance, the elaborate textiles and gleaming white face of the traditional Japanese doll present an imposing façade—they encourage admiration rather than intimacy. Compared to a Raggedy Ann or teddy bear, Japanese dolls appear hard, stiff, and formal. Although most of this book is devoted to placing ningyō within a specific cultural context, piercing the veil of time that separates the contemporary viewer from ningyō produced during Edo-period Japan, it is helpful to approach the Japanese doll initially from a structural standpoint, to break it down into its essential elements. While construction techniques varied from category to category, for example, a solid wood gosho-ningyō compared with a fabric-clad straw-framed hina with only a wood head and hands, many of the most distinguishing aspects of the Japanese doll, regardless of category, remain consistent. The three prime elements are wood, silk textiles, and an elusive material known as gofun, which gives ningyō their brilliant white faces with their porcelaneous sheen.
MATERIALS
Wood
Japan has a long and rich tradition of carving in wood. While classical Western sculptors defined their medium in marble, the Japanese sculptor, and for all intents and purposes this refers to the Buddhist sculptors known as busshi, wood was the standard material. Though examples of dry lacquer, bronze, clay, paper, and the occasional small-scale stone piece exist, it was wood, primarily cypress (hinoki), that was dominant. Other woods used included camphor (kusu), nutmeg (kayo), sandalwood (byakudan), and cryptomeria (sugi). The heavily forested Japanese archipelago made wood a natural choice, as it was readily available and cost effective. The wood for the myriad sculptural representations of the Buddhist deities, though beautifully and sensitively carved, was not left un-adorned but was richly ornamented with metal appliqué, lacquer, pigment, and gold leaf. Inset rock crystal eyes added to the effect.
Wood also served as the principal medium for ningyō. Early records make specific mention of peach wood as particularly desirable. Peach wood had certain mytho-talismanic properties and is mentioned in early literature from the Heian period regarding puppetry. However, no examples survive from this early date to allow us to determine how widespread the practice was. For the ningyō artist of the Edo period, the lightweight, easily carved, and temperature-adaptive kiri (paulownia, Latin. Paulownia tomentosa) was the wood of choice. For gosho-ningyō and some ishō forms, kiri wood was used to carve the entire piece. Other forms tended to reserve wood for the head, hands, lower legs, and feet, resorting to more minimalist elements for the interiors. Rudimental wood framing and straw-like shavings were the most common of these interior materials. Within the hina tradition, the heads were carved into oval shapes with long tapering necks that were inserted into the stuffed cavity of the body. Within musha and some ishō forms, the heads were similarly fashioned except that the necks were typically cut square and attached to the bodies via a metal pin or wire that extended into a shoulder armature. The hands were traditionally carved separately, receiving greater or lesser sophisticated treatment. Takeda-ningyō, for example, tend to have very simple hands fashioned into rough fists when holding an object, or extended fingers which are only lightly differentiated. Kyōho-bina, an exuberant hina style dating to the eighteenth century, in contrast, are noted for their highly refined hands with long tapering pneumatic fingers bending slightly back upon themselves, reminiscent of certain Buddhist sculptures. The importance placed on the head, particularly the facial features, combined with the overall composite nature of ningyō construction, led to a division of labor in which the most skilled craftsmen or artist would be reserved for the head, while assistants crafted other elements. This is particularly true for the hina and musha categories, which witnessed such large output during the Edo period that the supply networks and manufacturing process became quite sophisticated.
(Detail) Textile dyers in Kyoto, from Rakuchu rakugai emaki (Scenes In and Around the Capital), Sumiyoshi Gukei (1631-1705),
hand scroll, color on silk,
14 inches x 12 feet.
Kombu-in, Nara
Textiles
Luxurious. Sumptuous. Rich. These are a few of the adjectives frequently encountered in the descriptions of the textiles adorning Japanese dolls. Employing the latest textile technology of their day, the best ningyō artisans clothed their creations in alternatively spectacular (another adjective) silken brocades with bold patterns and design elements or simple and understated compound woven and figured silks that reflected not only the shifting tastes of the period but also frequently aided in the identification of the dolls themselves. In addition to greatly enhancing the beauty and the appeal of ningyō, textiles were also used in structural ways. Stiff brocades frequently served as a shell holding together loosely assembled elements in certain hina, musha, and ishō forms. White silk was used both to wrap the bamboo and the wood dowels used in the construction of amagatsu-ningyō and to shape the cotton or silk wadding-stuffed figure of the hōko. Textiles were also used to hide the joints and working mechanisms of certain types of mechanical gosho forms. Padded fabrics, typically silk crepe, were used to protect the upper arm portions of certain ningyō that used wires to attach the arms to the body. Small round fabric patches were used to secure and mask dowel hinges used in a number of mitsuore (triple-jointed) ningyō.
Although cotton and ramie were commonly used in day-to-day textiles, silk was the fabric of choice for those who could afford it. Sumptuary laws, however, greatly restricted the use of silk and its various forms, limiting the use of more sophisticated weaves and decorating techniques in clothing to the upper classes. Although ningyō were frequently subjected to sumptuary regulations as well, examples from the period sport clothing featuring a wide variety of woven silk textiles, including pongee, satin, gauze, crepe, velvet, brocades of various descriptions, and twill, along with a wide variety of decorative techniques, including gold and silk thread embroidery and various dyeing techniques. Silk was very much the defining fabric for ningyō and, although some examples are clothed with asa (ramie) or feature cotton velvet details, all the textiles featured in this volume are silk. Japanese textile history is an immensely rich and entirely too broad a topic to cover here. It is also a tradition heavily steeped in technical vocabulary referring to not only the base thread material, but to the weaving structures and decorative
