[ Animals ] [ Planes ] [ People ] [ Plants ] [ Shape ] [ Household ]

Special thanks to Origami Garden for this info.

In the East

The art of paper folding is thought to have had its beginnings in China during the first or second century A.D. By the sixth century, it was being practiced in Japan. In this small island country, paper was a scarce and treasured material. Because of this, the practice of paper folding was originally confined to the wealthy nobility. Origami appealed to the same aesthetic which created the tea ceremony, which one scholar has described as "essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life...it is moral geometry, inasmuch as it defines our sense of proportion to the universe." (Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea) 

Increasing trade eventually led to the widespread availability of affordable paper, and origami grew into a popular pastime among rich and poor alike. Because of their culture which emphasizes respect for the economy of nature, however, Asian practitioners of this art have never lost the impulse to save even the tiniest scraps of paper to fold into miniature origami models. Hiden Senbazuru Orikata ("How to Fold One Thousand Cranes") was published in 1797, and is the oldest origami publication which survives. Kan no modo ("Window on Midwinter"), the first published collection of origami models, appeared in 1845. 

In the West

The Moors, who were Muslims from West Africa, brought paper folding with them to Spain when they invaded in the eighth century. Although Islam proscribed the making of representational figures, Islamic mathematicians and astronomers were fascinated with pattern, symmetry, and space. Their explorations included studies on the geometry of tessellation and on the folding patterns hidden within the square. These investigations of pattern were often given form in architecture. 

Even after the Moors were expelled in 1492, the tradition of paper folding survived in Spain, to be revived and rejuvenated by the poet and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936). He created a number of original models, including a gorilla, a teapot, and a vulture. In 1902 he wrote a humorous essay, Amor y pedagogia ("Love and Pedagogy"), which included an appendix about paper folding. Through his followers, the art spread to South America, and by the 1930s, origami was enjoying a vogue in both Spain and South America. 

As global trade introduced Japanese aesthetics to the rest of the world during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, origami enjoyed a steady gain in popularity. The influential educator Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) included ornamental paper folding in his kindergarten movement which he introduced in Germany around 1835. He believed that the purpose of education was to demonstrate the unity of the universe through a set of symbolic activities promoting cooperation rather than competition, the study of nature, manual work to unite brain and hand, and the use of play in developing self expression. 

Paper folding had become a popular children's pastime in Victorian England, and John Tenniel's famous illustrations for Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll feature two simple paper hats -- a sort of pillbox worn by the Carpenter and a three-cornered hat (folded like the traditional boat) worn by the man dressed in white paper in the railway carriage. These hats are typical examples of the type of origami popular in the West, where, until recent years, it has been practiced mostly by children and has not been revered as an art, as in Japan.

How to make:

[ Animals ] [ Planes ] [ People ] [ Plants ] [ Shape ] [ Household ]

Home | About us | Make money with the Internet | Kim Anderson Arts | Asian DVD | Asian Posters