Fans upon Waves

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Wave-based imagery and designs, popular among painters of the Rinpa school, are here combined with another favorite image, the folding fan (ōgi). A screen ornamented with fans acted as a sort of miniature museum where many works of art could be viewed at once. The fans often appeared against a background of flowing water, a type of imagery that may have evolved from the medieval custom of casting fans into the water to float upon the surface. Screens painted with the fans-and-stream motif, known as “fans afloat” (senmen nagashi), were often installed in shogunal residences and may have derived from a tale about a Muromachi-period shogun who accidentally dropped a fan from a bridge.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art