An Antique Japanese Glass Bead Curtain - and Some Comparable Chinese Examples
I’ve been interested in Chinese bead curtains for quite a while, especially those made of glass beads. In China, beaded curtains were often hung in doorways to deflect insects, demarcate space, or decorate an area.
I’ve published a couple of articles on the Chinese bead curtains. The most thorough one, which appeared in Beads: The Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers in 2013, is posted as a PDF on my page at academia.edu.
As I was researching Chinese bead curtains, I heard tell of Japanese glass bead curtains. But I’d never been able to see one.
So I wondered.
What did Japanese bead curtains look like?
At Last! A Japanese Glass Bead Curtain
This morning I received an email from Barbara Bryant of the UK, whose husband just inherited a glass bead curtain featuring two confronting dragon motifs. Barbara wanted to know how one tells whether a glass bead curtain is Japanese or Chinese.
I answered her with the truth: not enough research has been done too make the distinction. Or if it has, I haven’t come across it. Nor have I made an effort to research Japanese glass bead curtains in Japanese-language publications.
In her email, Barbara included a link to a Japanese glass bead curtain on the website of Schneible Fine Arts, a gallery located in Shelburne, VT. The curtain was found in Kyoto, Japan. I hadn’t known about it. The Schneible website dates the curtain to ca. 1910, or the end of the Meiji Period (1868-1912).
I was delighted by the photos that awaited me on the “Screens and Scrolls” section of the Schneible website: https://www.schneiblefinearts.com/shop/japanese-asian-fine-art/japanese-fine-antique-glass-beads-peace-curtain-noren-meiji-period-1910/
Here is the main photo of the Schneible Japanese curtain.
Iconography of the Japanese Bead Curtain
The lower register of the curtain is dominated by a crane-on-a-rocky-outcrop motif. The crane looks up over its shoulder, as if gazing at the sun. The vibrant blue backdrop recalls the sky.
In Japanese culture, cranes once signified high social rank. Now, it seems, cranes are more generically associated with happiness and peace.
The smaller motif just above the crane is difficult to interpret - is it a butterfly, or something else?
The curtain’s upper register features a red sun motif in the center, flanked on either side by two characters for “peace,” as noted on the Schneible website.
I do not know how the two characters would be pronounced in Japanese. However, the same characters are used in China, where they also mean “peace.”
The characters on the Schneible bead curtain are composed in a personal script style that encodes a layer of meaning beyond the referential. The script style signals that the characters were composed by a particular individual at a particular moment in time, expressing a heart-felt wish for peace - not, for example, a bureaucrat issuing an official edict.
Comparable Iconography of Chinese Glass Bead Curtains
Glass bead curtains with comparable iconography were made and used in 20th century China. This should not be surprising, since certain motifs were common across East Asian cultures. Moreover, regional trade assured that objects made in one country might end up in another.
Below, I include a few examples of comparable Chinese glass bead curtains. The more refined images were shot by Larry Sanders of Sanders Visual Images. Curtains shown in these images belong to a private collection and are not for sale.
The rougher image of the “double happiness” bead curtain was shot by me during my fieldwork in China.
Chinese Bead Curtain #1
The first example features a crane-gazing-up-at-the-sun motif. In this case, the sun is partially obscured by clouds and framed by the branches of a flowering tree.
The upper register of the curtain above features two “panchang” or “endless knot” motifs which are associated with notions of longevity. Appearing here, the two motifs may carry a wish for the viewer’s longevity.
The black-on-yellow “huiwen” or “meander” motifs that flank the lower register are also associated with longevity.
Chinese Bead Curtain #2
Here is a second example, also found in China, probably dating to the first quarter of the 20th century.
In the lower register of the curtain above, a crane looks up over its shoulder towards the branches of a nearby tree. The crane’s beak appears to be open, suggesting that the bird is calling out. No sun is shown in this curtain. Three red “shou” or “longevity” motifs fill the upper register.
Chinese Bead Curtain #3
Below, a third Chinese glass bead curtain featuring a crane motif.
In the curtain above, the crane gazes through the branches of a flowering pine tree, away from the cloud-dappled sun above its head.
Small plants at either side of the crane’s feet look to be bearing peaches, which are symbols of immortality in China.
The upper register features a flowering prunus or plum blossom branch. In China, plum blossoms represent perseverance.
The color scheme of this curtain is unusual. Few surviving curtains emphasize pink.
Chinese Bead Curtain #4
Below, a fourth Chinese bead curtain.
No crane appears in the lower register of the curtain above. Instead, we see a “shuangxi” or “double happiness” motif, one often associated with weddings or marital bliss.
The right and left borders of the lower register feature stylized meander motifs, typically associated, as we noted earlier, with notions of longevity.
The upper register contains a red sun flanked by two characters. Reading right to left, as one did when this curtain was made, the characters read “ping” and “an.” Read together as “ping an,” they intensify the message of peace. The script style, while personal, is not as refined as the style that appears in the Japanese curtain.
In Chinese culture, sun motifs are associated with heat and “yang” or male energy. The appearance of a sun motif in a curtain of this nature might convey a wish for male offspring - a very common wish in the China of old, when studious sons could one day support their family after passing multiple levels of imperial exams.
Chinese Bead Curtain #5
A final example of a Chinese glass bead curtain, below
I include the example above to show that not all bead curtains featured meander motifs in the lower register. On many bead curtains, the lower register is edged in simple vertical stripes of color, as on the Schneible bead curtain.
Pink flowers occupy the lower register of the curtain above. It’s hard to determine which kind of flower, because the strands have loosened, causing the motifs to warp. In any case, without the flowers, the overall color scheme would be rather somber.
The upper register features 3 simplified Chinese characters that spell out “dong fang hong,” or “The East is Red.”
The Chinese government mandated the use of simplified characters in the 1950s and 1960s. While such a fact may help us date this bead curtain, further research might be advised, because certain characters might have been simplified years earlier.
“The East is Red” has multiple associations. It is the name of a revolutionary song whose modern lyrics were apparently composed as early as the 1930s or 1940s while the Communists under Mao Zedong occupied their stronghold in Yan’an. In the 1950s and 1960s, Mao promoted the song as China’s de facto national anthem, celebrating China’s rise under his leadership. “The East is Red” was also the name of China’s first successful satellite, launched in 1970.
Chinese Bead Curtain #6
Below, a final Chinese bead curtain, which features a flying crane motif, above a spray of flowers. I include this curtain here because the location of the crane - in the upper center of the lower register - recalls the location of the mystery motif in the lower register of the Schneible curtain, directly above the crane.
Conclusions - and the Need for a Larger Database
My initial question - what do Japanese glass bead curtains look like? - has been answered, thanks to the Schneible bead curtain. But a database of one example is far from conclusive. Additional examples are needed.
In the meantime, I’ll summarize the commonalities noted above between the Schneible glass bead curtain and glass bead curtains made in 20th century China. It seems that in Japan and China as well, certain glass bead curtains might:
Be divided into upper and lower registers
Be inscribed with characters bearing auspicious messages
Feature crane and sun motifs
Favor blue as the background color of the lower register.
If anyone knows where more Japanese glass beads curtains are published, please let me know.
In the meantime, I thank Barbara Bryant for emailing me on this topic.
