Culture of Carpeting: Heian Japan

Japanese Carpeting

Tatami Matting 

Constructed out of rice straw core warp and a woven softer outer rush weft with a bordering brocade or plain fabric edge

Typically come in standard 2:1 rectangular dimensions, but half square mats were used as well

Auspicious practices required specific alignment of the mats and later that influence the shape and size of rooms.The four corners could never touch.

Heian Period(794-1185)

Capital centered in Kyoto

This is the period when Japan finally severs its ties with Chinese, and start to develop there own aesthetic ideas and visual culture

Avery prosperous time of unification when the royal family intermixed in with the stronger Fujiwara clan which would later take over during the age of the Shogunate.

The visual and literary arts flourished and even religious practice adopted a very complex and specific set of ideals in relation to the quest for beauty

Tale of Genji in illustrated manuscript was written during this time by Lady Murasaki Shikibu sometime in the 11^th century and is widely considered the first novel

From these depictions we get a sense of court life and the use of tatami mats as elements of the furnishing program within the  Shinden zukuri architectural style. It required balanced asymmetry and this was achieved by the palace complex of buildings being oriented on a principal axises either east west or north south. The shinden was the main area in the center that acted as the connector to other areas within the palace. It held the large rooms primarily furnished with tatami mats ,which had views out to the pleasure pond and garden in alignment with Buddhist tenets.

Originally,Tatami mats were intended to be extremely movable and used for sitting on and sleeping by the nobility and royalty

The cultural idea at the time of the "floating world" and all of the pleasure it holds sexual, religious, and mundane typify the partially escapist mentality of the aristocracy due to boredom