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- Title
From Byōbu to Biombo: The Transformation of the Japanese Folding Screen in Colonial Mexico.
- Authors
Sanabrais, Sofía
- Abstract
This essay considers the introduction of the Japanese folding screen (byōbu) to Mexico in the seventeenth century and its translation into a local artistic idiom. The byōbu and its Mexican counterpart known as the biombo were indispensable in both interior and exterior spaces. Folding screens were quintessential examples of Japanese art and thus were often included among the diplomatic gifts from Japanese emperors to foreign rulers, moving across vast geographical spaces. In the service of the samurai or the New Spanish elite, painted, movable screens were used as political signifiers to demonstrate the wealth and good taste of their owners. Many of the biombos made in Mexico City were transported back to Spain as visual reminders of the New World. The translation of the byōbu to the biombo and the cross-cultural references of the folding screen are examined in this essay.
- Subjects
MEXICO; SCREENS (Furniture); BYOBU (Japanese screens); CULTURAL fusion; MEXICAN art; JAPANESE influences on art; WESTERN influences on Japanese art; ART history; HISTORY
- Publication
Art History, 2015, Vol 38, Issue 4, p778
- ISSN
0141-6790
- Publication type
Essay
- DOI
10.1111/1467-8365.12181