an adolescent, I did very little origami. As an adult, sometimes I’d buy an origami book in an airport book store or a gift shop. I’d try folding a model or two from it. While I had neglected it, origami was growing at a tremendous pace! Perhaps, because I began folding at such an early age, I had never considered the creative aspects of origami. Each model I had casually folded was the result of someone else’s experimentation, decisions, and careful documentation.
I joined a folding group. We meet periodically at coffee shops in New York to talk origami, and fold. We fold everything; modulars, tessellations, animals, objects, furniture, etc.—often until the place closes. Some of my origami friends began folding from diagrams as children, just as I did, except they never stopped. They travel around the world attending origami conventions, inventing, and contributing models to publications. My newfound awareness of this expansive world of origami gives me an even greater appreciation for some of the traditional Japanese models, which undeniably inform and inspire their beautiful work.
Occasionally, I am invited to teach origami to groups of people. Whether they are graduate students at elite universities, or young children in a community center, they all seem to progress through similar degrees of frustration, determination, satisfaction, and delight. Some of the traditional models still popular around the world today were only transmitted through oral traditions for hundreds of years. Perhaps, origami holds the key to some sort of universal creative potential.
I am asked at times if making pop-up books, my occupation, is related to origami. My answer is yes. While on the surface, they both involve folding paper; on a deeper level, I believe origami holds relevance to all artists. Perhaps my experience of learning traditional models as a young child helped me take to paper engineering early in my career. As pop-up books have become more and more sophisticated, there is always the temptation to try forcing paper to my will. More often than not, I find the paper will rebel, and produce results that are cluttered, frivolous, or not properly functional. Traditional origami serves as a reminder of efficiency and elegance, using the properties of the paper to express the model. I’ve heard that Michelangelo described sculpting as a process of freeing the model from a block of marble. Similarly, Yoshizawa spoke of the process of folding origami as an embryo developing, maturing, and emerging. I still find that folding paper relaxes the mind, and nurtures the soul.
This book contains a great deal of information, and some of the most important Japanese traditional models. Whether it is your introduction to origami, or you are already well along on your journey, I hope you will be inspired by its contents. Happy folding.
Sam Ita
A Brief History of Origami
The history of origami is as old as the history of paper. Origami’s long journey began on that day, or perhaps a bit later; its expansion, which began long ago and continues to this day, is tightly bound to that of paper itself. The history of paper, as far as we know, has its origins in China, but it is in Japan that origami developed and came to play an integral role in society, marking and accompanying the various phases of the country’s historical and cultural evolution.
According to tradition, the invention of paper took place in the early second century CE, under the reign of the Emperor Hedi (和帝, who reigned from 88–105) of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220); in 105 CE, the Eunuch Cai Lun (蔡倫, ?–121) presented the sovereign with the first type of paper, probably composed of hemp fibers, various kinds of bark, such as that of the mulberry tree, and other raw and recycled material. Recent archaeological finds in the provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu however, have revealed that though paper was certainly invented in China, its origins must date several centuries earlier. The fact that tradition has linked the Cai Lun’s name to the invention of this material is probably due to his important contribution to this field; based on earlier experiments, the eunuch improved the quality of the final product and the methods of its production, expanded the range of raw materials used in its manufacture, and gave unprecedented impetus to this technology, which from that point on spread across China and grew increasingly popular. Paper was fairly strong and lent itself to the dyeing process, but above all it served as an ideal medium for writing with ink. It thus ended up replacing the strips of wood and bamboo that had been used for that purpose until that time. Furthermore, paper was thin enough to be folded and to retain folds, which could then be opened and refolded countless times—a feature extremely important to the subsequent development of origami. Although the earliest Chinese paper was probably quite coarse because it was made from tree bark and other raw materials, it was nonetheless a revolutionary invention, to say the least—truly sensational for that period.
Eunuch Cai Lun 蔡倫
Emperor Hedi 和帝
Thus when Cai Lun presented the result of his research to Emperor Hedi, he and his second consort, the Empress Deng Sui (鄧綏, 81–121), were greatly pleased. In 114, under the reign of Emperor Andi (安帝, who reigned from 106–125) and in order to reward Cai Lun for his services, Deng—by this point the Empress dowager— named him the “Marquis of Longting,” a city in the county of Yang (Shaanxi), where today, not far from his grave, stands a museum named after him and dedicated to the culture of paper. It was from the title conferred on Cai Lun that there soon arose a custom to call the early material perfected by the eunuch “Marquis Cai paper.” In addition to receiving honors, Cai Lun was absolutely forbidden to export the secret of manufacturing paper outside of China. This prohibition naturally extended to his heirs and anyone who was to have anything to do with this line of production in the future.
Empress Deng Sui 鄧綏
Things went on in this way for five hundred years. In 610, however, the technique of making paper reached Japan, probably via a Buddhist monk, only to spread from there to Korea and other Asian countries between the seventh and eighth centuries. According to legend, this monk was forced to reveal the secret of producing paper in order to save his life after the ship he was traveling in was attacked by Japanese pirates. Methods of making paper softer and more flexible were soon developed in Japan— techniques that remain unsurpassed to this day.
Favored by the culture of this people, paper soon acquired great significance—even sacred properties. The word “origami” (折り紙) evokes a myriad of implications, some of which pertain to the religious sphere. It is composed of two terms: ori (折), meaning “fold,” and kami (紙), meaning “paper,” from which derives the meaning “folded paper” or “to fold paper.” Following the rules of Japanese phonetics, the sound of the consonant “k” changes to that of a “g” resulting in the pronunciation, “origami.” But kami is also something superior, something that exists above, that floats, that rests on high. The word alluding to divinities (神), those who, by definition, “stand on high,” is pronounced in exactly the same way: “kami.” Moreover, to manufacture paper, they used—and still use to this day—various vegetal fibers reduced to an extremely fine paste, mixed with cotton and other fibers, which when placed in water, tend naturally to float. Perhaps it was for this reason that an idea arose that paper is a means that enables human beings to commune with the gods themselves.
Emperor Andi 安帝
Friedrich
