"Byōbu are composite works of art," says Yoshihiro Takishita.
"They require not only the skills of a painter, but of a whole range of artisans: papermakers to produce the washi paper that covers the panels, lacquer painters and gold decorators, joiners who build the lattices of the frame and mounters who cover them, sericulturists in the case of silk byōbu, and woodblock artists, carvers and printers for byōbu that feature woodblock prints."
Birds of a feather: This frolicking chicken is one panel from what was originally a single pair of folding screens. Today, for varying reasons, many byōbu folding screns have been split up; the question is how to make the best of this. The pictures on the individual panels of many screens are complete compositions in themselves, so one option is to display them as separate paintings. Something Takishita does himself, and also recommends to many clients, is to frame such panels, which easily lend themselves to rotation. A unique virtue of byōbu as interior decoration is that they permit the owner the luxury of switching scenes depending on the season — or one's mood on any given day.
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