The Story of Origami

- March 13, 2019

ENTERTAINMENT

AND

LIFESTYLE

Origami

折り紙

Have you ever heard of Origami? I'm sure most people will already know this Japanese paper folding art. When I was a little, I often made origami to be used as a toys. Because making origami doesn't require a lot of costs and origami also able to increase creativity.
Do you know about its history?
In my article this time, I will explain about history of Origami.

Origami (折り紙)
From Ori meaning "folding", and Kami meaning "paper" (kami changes to gami due to Rendaku).
So Origami is "The Art Of Paper Folding". Which is often associated with Japanese culture.
(Rendaku literally is a phenomenon in Japanese morphophonology that governs the voicing of the initial consonant of the non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word).

折り紙
Traditional Japanese origami has evolved over many hundreds of years from very basic, ritual objects to the myriad of contemporary designs.
The goal origami is to transform a flat square sheet of paper into a finished sculpture through folding and sculpting techniques. Modern origami practitioners generally discourage the use of cuts, glue, or markings on the paper. The small number of basic origami folds can be combined in a variety of ways to make intricate designs. The best-known origami model is the Japanese paper crane.

Japanese Paper Crane

How To Make

HISTORY OF ORIGAMI

Classical and Traditional Origami

Paper was first invented in China around 105 A.D. and was brought to Japan by monks in the sixth century. Handmade paper was a luxury item only available to a few and paper folding in ancient Japan was strictly for ceremonial purposes, often religious in nature.
By the Edo period (1603–1868) :
Paper folding in Japan had become recreational as well as ceremonial, often featuring multiple cuts and folds. It came to be regarded as a new form of art that was enabled by the advent of paper both mass-produced and more affordable. Written instructions for paper folding first appeared in 1797 with Akisato Rito’s Senbazuru Orikata or “Thousand Crane Folding”.
In 1845, Adachi Kazuyuki published a more comprehensive compilation of paper folding with Kayaragusa. By the late 1800s, the term for paper folding had morphed from orikata (“folded shapes”) to origami.

Senbazuru Orikata

(Thousand Crane Folding)

Europe also has a tradition of paper folding that dates back to the twelfth century or before, when the Moors brought a tradition of mathematically based folding to Spain. The Spanish further developed paper folding into an artistic practice called papiroflexia or pajarita. By the 1800s, kindergarten-aged children in Europe and Japan were learning paper folding.

Modern Origami

Traditional origami is characterized by open-access folding patterns and sequences passed down orally or anonymously from generation to generation. Modern origami often features models created by designers. Many of these models are considered copyrightable material or intellectual property.

Modern origami often prioritizes a puzzle aspect to the folding and the challenge of folding a single square of paper without using cuts or glue. A sculpture made of blue paper that appears to be shaped into a series of interlocking triangles, giving the effect of a spherical model.

“Five Intersecting Tetrahedra” by Tom Hull Akira Yoshizawa, who died in 2005 at age 94. Is considered one of the progenitors of modern origami. In the 1930s, he developed a system of folding patterns employing a set of symbols, arrows and diagrams. By the 1950s, these patterns were published and widely available, contributing to origami’s global reach and standardization. Yoshizawa and other origami masters formed local and international organizations publicizing the art.

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