senmen byōbu 扇面屏風

Keywords
Art History
Painting

Screens decorated with fan paintings. There are two basic types of senmen byōbu: fan painting taken from used or new fans and pasted onto the screens, called senmen harimaze byōbu 扇面貼交屏風 or senmen haritsuke byōbu 扇面貼付屏風; and fan shapes painted directly onto the screens, called senmen-zu byōbu 扇面図屏風. Screens with fan paintings are also categorized according to the arrangement of the motifs on the surface. In senmen chirashi byōbu 扇面散らし屏風, also ōgi chirashi byōbu 扇散らし屏風 (scattered fan screens), fully open, half open and closed fan shapes with paintings of narrative tales, such as Genji monogatari 源氏物語 (The Tale of Genji), figures, landscapes or birds-and-flowers are scattered randomly over the surface of the screen. In senmen nagashi byōbu 扇面流し屏風 (fans afloat on a stream), fan shapes painted with various motifs are combined with a background stream. Both the senmen chirashi and senmen nagashi motifs are said to have developed from lacquerware *maki-e 蒔絵 designs popular during the Kamakura period and are known to have been employed on screens in the manner described above during the Muromachi period. Senmen byōbu reached their peak of popularity in the Momoyama and early Edo periods.