A Beautiful, Big, Boro Hemp Noren
Written on January 19, 2013
I really love this piece. It’s a five panel, hand plied hemp, boro noren. It’s wonderfully mended and the patches are beautifully placed. I love the oversized kanji, too.
A noren is a kind of curtain or doorway cover. Noren can be long, as this one is, or very short, as some of you may have seen. Noren don’t always cover doorways, often they are used to demarcate space and address a psychological transition between spaces, interior or exterior.
Noren can also be shop signs, as this one is. Noren are hung outside businesses when the business is open, and they often have the name of the business written on it or they show some kind of image that is associated with the business.
I believe this one dates to the Meiji era (1868- 1912). It measures 60″ x 59″ or 152.5 cm x 149.75 cm.
And both sides are equally interesting.
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i’m thinking that a noren is so appropriate, and much, much more interesting than the nylon robin-on-a-twig-with-a-label-“spring”!- banners that seem to grace establishments and homes these days. (or worse, a sports team instead of the robin)
January 20, 2013 @ 7:10 pm
So beautiful. Visiting Sri Threads is like nourishment for the soul. I love this noren. Thnak you for sharing it
February 2, 2013 @ 4:35 pm
what do you mean by ‘hand plied': does it mean mechanical spun singles and then plied with a spinningwheel ? how can you see that?
wonderfull noren, wonderfull blog,
February 2, 2013 @ 4:50 pm
Thank you for the kind words, Jan.
February 2, 2013 @ 5:22 pm
Mieke, you can see if the fibers are hand plied using magnification. Hand plied means that individual fibers are twisted together by hand in order to create one, long filament.
February 2, 2013 @ 5:24 pm