An Overview of the History of Matting

Circa 1830  Utagawa Kunisada   A Dressing Room  Nishiki-e,  printed in Japan  Japanese woodblock prints from approximately 1688 until the Meiji restoration in 1868 are called Ukiyo-e, “floating world pictures”.  Nishiki-e, “brocade pictures”,  were the first true polychrome prints and appeared in 1765.  Ukiyo-e were not framed but rather kept in folios to be brought out, enjoyed, and then replaced like a book.  Traditional Japanese architecture did not include solid walls and very few images, usually scrolls, were suspended from cords attached to hooks over the ceiling joist. Ukiyo-e became the rage in England after the International Exhibition of 1862.  The Philadelphia Exposition of 1876 brought European Arts & Crafts and Aesthetic movements to America, along with the “Cult of Japan” or Japonisme, whose strongest proponents were James McNeill Whistler and Edward W. Godwin.  Ukiyo-e were collected and framed in Western style both in Europe and America at this time, but not in Japan.  Framing evolved slowly, as western influences set in and architectural traditions changed.  Western-style framing emerged during the early twentieth century,  but the major influence occurred after the Second World War.             The mat, with the “floating” marbled paper ( no ink lines ) is reminiscent of the brocade borders applied to the scroll mountings for traditional Japanese paintings ( see PFM, August 1993 ).  The frame is an extremely simple contemporary profile,  gilded only on the narrow face, in keeping with traditional Japanese esthetics. back    next