Okimono[ Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, Kenkyusha Limited, ] is a Japanese term meaning "ornament for display; objet d'art; decorative object", typically displayed in a alcove or altar.
Etymology
The Japanese word compounds and .. The
Oxford English Dictionary defines the
loanword as "A standing ornament or figure, esp. one put in a guest room of a house", and records the first usage in 1886 by William Anderson.
[ Oxford English Dictionary (2009), CD-ROM edition (v. 4.0).]
Description
An may be a small
carving, similar to, but larger than . Unlike , which have a specific purpose, are purely decorative and are displayed in the . This view has however sometimes been questioned, with some suggesting that often had both utilitarian and decorative purposes, especially before Western influence.
An can be made out of wood, ivory, ceramic or metal.
One subcategory of is the , an articulated figure often made out of bronze or iron.
are normally not larger than a few centimetres. They depict all sorts of animals, mythological beasts, humans, gods, fruit, vegetables and objects, sometimes combined with each other, in all sorts of positions. Sometimes a scene is portrayed as well, either a daily scene or from a story.
Anything that could be carved or made into a small object can be used in an . Some were inspired by a group of objects and were supposed to be shown together as an ensemble.
History
During the
Meiji period, many were made for export to
Western world.
One of the most renowned artists in the area of metalwork was Yamada Sōbi (1871-1916), who made pieces out of a single sheet of metal.
External links
