Fan painting - Senmenga

A painting on a fan or a fan-shaped screen. Also called "Ogi-e". There are two types of Japanese fans: hi-ogi and kawahori (paper-covered fans). Both have been used since ancient times, with the latter becoming more widely used and more common since the Middle Ages. Usually, designs or drawings are applied to the front (and sometimes the back), but these paintings (Ogi-e), which feature unique compositions on special fan-shaped screens, form a genre in the history of painting. In addition, "Ogi-e awase" (matching fans) was also practiced among Heian aristocrats, and was one of the main areas of appreciative painting.

In the case of bats, some were used as folding fans, but some were simply fan-shaped and had no folding function, and were purely decorative. Relics from the Heian period include the "Utae Hiogi" and "Small Hiogi" from Itsukushima Shrine, and the "Fan-faced Lotus Sutra" (Fan-faced Ancient Sutra Copy, National Treasure) from Shitenno-ji Temple. Fan paintings were exported to the continent as a Japanese specialty from the end of the Heian period through the Muromachi period, but after the Muromachi period, folding fans also became important export goods, and as domestic demand increased, fan paintings also developed in a variety of ways, including dealing with a variety of Japanese and Chinese themes. From the end of the Middle Ages to the early modern period, folding screens with the designs pasted together or scattered on one another became popular; these were called mixed fan-patterned folding screens or scattered fan-patterned folding screens.

A folding screen with fans arranged in a flowing manner on a painting of flowing water is called a "flowing fan screen." The Nanzenji Temple's fan-pasted folding screens date back to the Muromachi period (16th century). In the early modern period, painters of various schools, including the Kano school, painted fan paintings, but Tawaraya Sotatsu, from the early Edo period, left behind many masterpieces of fan painting that made full use of the curved fan-shaped screen.

[Yasushi Murashige]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

扇、または扇形の画面に描いた絵。「扇絵(おうぎえ)」ともいう。日本の扇には檜(ひ)扇と蝙蝠(かわほり)（紙張りの扇）があり、ともに古くから用いられ、中世以後は後者の使用が広がり一般化される。普通それぞれの表面（または裏面にも）に意匠や描絵を施すが、特殊な扇形の画面に独特な構図を案配したこれらの画（扇絵）は、絵画史上一つのジャンルを形成している。また、平安貴族の間では「扇絵合せ」なども行われ、鑑賞画の主要な一領域をなしていた。

　蝙蝠の場合は、扇子として実用に供するものもあるが、単に扇形をかたどった折り畳みのない装飾本位のものも存する。平安時代の遺品には、厳島(いつくしま)神社の『歌絵檜扇』や『小形檜扇』、また四天王(してんのう)寺伝来の『扇面法華経(ほけきょう)』（扇面古写経、国宝）などがある。扇面画は平安末期から室町時代にかけ、日本の特産として大陸へ輸出されたが、室町以降、扇子も輸出商品として重要となり、また国内の需要も増大するにつれ、扇面画も和漢の各種の画題を扱うなど、多彩な発展を遂げる。中世末から近世にかけては屏風(びょうぶ)に並べて貼(は)り合わせ、あるいは散らして貼付(てんぷ)したものが流行し、これらを扇面貼交(はりまぜ)屏風、扇面散(ちらし)屏風などとよぶ。

　また流水の図に扇が流れるように配されたものを扇面流(せんめんながし)図屏風という。南禅寺の扇面貼交屏風は室町時代（16世紀）にさかのぼる。近世には狩野(かのう)派をはじめ各派の画家が扇面画を描いているが、なかでも江戸初期の俵屋宗達(たわらやそうたつ)は、湾曲した扇形画面を十分に活用した扇絵の傑作を多く残している。

［村重　寧］

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