Fan (implement)

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A hand-held fan is an implement used to induce an airflow for the purpose of cooling or refreshing oneself. Any broad, flat surface waved back-and-forth will create a small airflow and therefore can be considered a rudimentary fan. But generally, purpose-made hand-held fans are shaped like a circle segment made of a thin material (such as paper or feathers) mounted to slats which revolve around a pivot so that it can be closed when not in use.

The movement of a hand-held fan provides cooling by increasing the airflow over the skin which in turn increases the evaporation

Evaporation

Evaporation is the slow vaporization of a liquid and the reverse of condensation. A type of phase transition, it is the process by which molecules in a liquid State of matter spontaneously become gaseous ....
rate of sweat

Sweating

Perspiration is the production of a fluid, consisting primarily of water as well as various dissolved solids , that is excreted by the sweat glands in the skin of mammals....
droplets on the skin. This evaporation has a cooling effect due to the latent heat

Latent heat

In thermochemistry, latent heat is the amount of energy in the form of heat released or absorbed by a chemical substance during a change of state of matter , or a phase transition....
of evaporation of water.

History

Japanese fans played a great role in Japanese history. The fans are made of paper on a bamboo frame, usually with a design painted on them. It is used for fanning oneself in hot weather. At the same time, it symbolizes friendship, respect and good wishes. It is given to people during special occasions and is also an important stage prop for the Japanese dance performances. It was also used in the military as a way of sending signals on the field of battle, but the fans were mainly used for social and court activities. They were used differently for different people. They were used by warriors as a form of weapon, actors and dancers for performances, and children as a toy. Fans are easy to carry around because they can be folded to make it more compact to carry. The fan stands for many things, the Japanese believe that the top of the fan symbolizes the beginning of life and the ribs are for the roads of life going out in all directions. On my fan I have drawn many flowers and birds, which symbolize nature and beauty.

East Asia

In China

China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, screen fans were used throughout the country. The earliest known Chinese fans are a pair of woven bamboo

Bamboo

The bamboos are a group of woody perennial plant evergreen plants in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae....
side-mounted fans from the 2nd century BC. The Chinese character

Chinese character

A Chinese character, also known as a Han character , is a logogram used in writing Chinese language ,'' Japanese language ,'' less frequently Korean language ,'' and formerly Vietnamese language .''...
for "fan" is etymologically derived from a picture of feathers under a roof. The Chinese fixed fan, pien-mien, means 'to agitate the air'.

Fans were part of the social status for the Chinese people. A particular status and gender would accord a specific type of fan to an individual. During the Song Dynasty

Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling Chinese dynasty in China between 960–1279 AD; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty....
, famous artists would often be commissioned to paint picture on the surface of a fan.

The folding fan was invented in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
in the 8th century and taken to China in the 9th century. The Akomeogi (or Japanese folding fan; ??; Hiogi) originated in the 6th century. These were fans held by aristocrats of the Heian period

Heian period

The is the last division of classical History of Japan, running from 794 to 1185. It is the period in Japanese history when Confucianism and other Chinese culture were at their height....
when formally dressed. They were made by tying thin stripes of hinoki (or Japanese cypress) together with thread. The number of strips of wood differed according to the person's rank. They are used today by Shinto

Shinto

is the former state religion of Japan and remains the most common name for the nation's non-Buddhist ethnic religion practices. It was formed from disparate local mythologies, beginning with the Kojiki of 712, into an imperial cult called State Shinto that solidified in the Meiji period....
priests in formal costume and in the formal costume of the Japanese court (they can be seen used by the Emperor and Empress during coronation and marriage) and are brightly painted with long tassels. The Chinese dancing fan was developed in the 7th century. The Chinese form of the hand fan was a row of feathers mounted in the end of a handle.

In China, the folding fan came into fashion during the Ming dynasty

Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty , or Empire of the Great Ming , was the ruling Dynasties in Chinese history of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty....
between the years of 1368 and 1644, and Hangzhou

Hangzhou

is a sub-provincial city located in the Yangtze River Delta in the People's Republic of China, and the capital of Zhejiang Provinces of China....
was a center of folding fan production. The Mai Ogi (or Chinese dancing fan) has ten sticks and a thick paper mount showing the family crest. Chinese painters crafted many fan decoration designs. The slats, of ivory

Ivory

File:Ivory decoration.jpgIvory is formed from dentine and constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals such as the elephant, hippopotamus, walrus, mammoth and narwhal....
, bone

Bone

Bones are rigid organ that form part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They function to move, support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red blood cell and white blood cells and store minerals....
, mica

Mica

The mica group of sheet silicate minerals includes several closely related materials having highly perfect basal cleavage. All are monoclinic with a tendency towards pseudo-hexagonal crystals and are similar in chemical composition....
, mother of pearl

Pearl

A pearl is a hard, roundish object produced within the soft tissue of a living animal shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of mollusks, a pearl is made up of of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers....
, sandalwood

Sandalwood

Sandalwood is the name for several Fragrance woods. From the Sanskrit candanam the name is borrowed as the Greek sandanon. The local name in Indonesia and Malaysia is "Cendana" ....
, or tortoise shell

Tortoiseshell material

Tortoiseshell or tortoise shell is a material produced mainly from the shell of the hawksbill turtle, an endangered species. It was widely used in the 1960s and 1970s in the manufacture of items such as combs, sunglasses, guitar picks and knitting needles....
, were carved and covered with paper

Paper

Paper is thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon or packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
or fabric

Textile

A textile is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by Spinning raw wool fibres, linen, cotton, or other material on a spinning wheel to produce long strands known as yarn....
. Folding fans have "montures" which are the sticks and guards. The leaves are usually painted by craftsman. Social significance was attached to the fan in the Far East. The management of the fan became a highly regarded feminine art. The function and employment of the fan reached its high point of social significance (fans were even used as a weapon - called the iron fan, or tie shan in Chinese, tessen in Japanese). Simple Japanese paper fans are sometimes known as "harisen". In Japanese current pop culture, Harisen are featured frequently in animation and graphic novels as weapons.

Printed fan leaves and painted fans are done on a paper ground. The paper was originally hand made and displayed the characteristic watermarks. Machine made paper fans, introduced in the 19th century, are smoother with an even texture.

Folding fans (?? Japanese "sensu", Chinese: "shànzi";) continue to be important cultural symbols and popular tourist souvenirs in East Asia. Geisha

Geisha

, or are traditional, female Japanese entertainers, whose skills include performing various Japanese arts, such as classical music and dance....
of all types (but maiko most often) use folding fans in their fan dances as well.

See also: Chinese paper art

Chinese paper art

Chinese Paper Cutting or Jianzhi is the first type of papercutting design, since paper was invented by Cai Lun in the Eastern Han Dynasty in China....
; gunbai

Gunbai

.The gunbai is a type of Japanese war fan which is solid, not folding, and usually made of wood. Gunbai were used by samurai officers in Japan to communicate commands to their troops....

Europe

In Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
, during the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
, the fan was absent. Christian Europe's earliest fan was the flabellum

Flabellum

A flabellum , in Catholic liturgical use, is a Fan made of metal, leather, silk, parchment or feathers, intended to keep away insects from the consecrated Body and Blood of Christ and from the priest, as well as to show honour....
(or ceremonial fan), which dates to the 6th century. These were used during services to drive insects away from the consecrated bread and wine. Their use died out in western Europe during the Middle Ages, but continues in the Eastern Orthodox and Ethiopian Churches. Hand fans were reintroduced to Europe in the 13th century and 14th century. Fans from the Middle East were brought back by Crusaders. In the 15th century, Portuguese traders brought fans to Europe from China and Japan. Fans became generally popular.

In the 1600s the folding fan, introduced from China, became popular in Europe. These fans are particularly well displayed in the portraits of the high-born women of the era. Queen Elizabeth 1st of England can be seen to carry both folding fans decorated with pom poms on their guardsticks as well as the older style rigid fan, usually decorated with feathers and jewels. These rigid style fans often hung from the skirts of ladies, but of the fans of this era it is only the more exotic folding ones which have survived. Those folding fans of the 15th century to found in museums today have either leather leaves with cut out designs forming a lace-like design or a more rigid leaf with inlays of more exotic materials like mica. One of the characteristics of these fans is the rather crude bone or ivory sticks and they way the leather leaves are often slotted onto the sticks rather than glued as with later folding fans. Fans made entirely of decorated sticks without a fan 'leaf' were known as brisé fans

Brisé fans

This green silk bris? fan is Italian and, dating from about 1620-40, is the earliest example in the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection. Fans were made in Japan and China from the tenth century AD, but did not reach Europe until the second half of the sixteenth century....
. However, despite the relative crude methods of construction folding fans were at this era high status, exotic items on par with elaborate gloves as gifts to royalty.

In the 17th century the rigid fan which was seen in portraits of the previous century had fallen out of favour as folding fans gained dominance in Europe. Fans started to display well painted leaves, often with a religious or classical subject. The reverse side of these early fans also started to display elaborate flower designs. The sticks are often plain ivory or tortoiseshell, sometimes inlaid with gold or silver pique work. The way the sticks sit close to each other, often with little or no space between them is one of the distinguishing characteristics of fans of this era.

In 1685 the Edict of Nantes

Edict of Nantes

The Edict of Nantes was issued on 13 April 1598 by Henry IV of France to grant the Calvinism Protestants of France substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholicism....
was revoked in France

France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
. This caused large scale immigration from France to the surrounding Protestant countries (such as England) of many fan craftsman. This dispersion in skill is reflected in the growing quality of many fans from these non-French countries after this date. In the 18th century, fans reached a high degree of artistry and were being made throughout Europe often by specialized craftsmen, either in leaves or sticks. Folded fans of lace

Lace

Lace is an openwork fabric, patterned with open holes in the work, made by machine or by hand. The holes can be formed via removal of threads or cloth from a previously woven fabric, but more often open spaces are created as part of the lace fabric....
, silk

Silk

Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from Pupa#Cocoons made by the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity ....
, or parchment

Parchment

Parchment is a thin material made from calfskin, sheepskin or Goatskin . Its most common use is as the pages of a book, codex or manuscript. It is distinct from leather in that parchment is not tanned, but stretched, scraped, and dried under tension, creating a stiff white, yellowish or translucent animal skin....
were decorated and painted by artists. Fans were also imported from China by the East India Companies at this time. Around the middle 1700s, inventors started designing mechanical fans. Wind-up fans (similar to wind-up clocks) were popular in the 1700s. In the 19th century in the West

Western world

The term Western world, the West or the Occident can have multiple meanings dependent on its context . Accordingly, the basic definition of what constitutes "the West" varies, expanding and contracting over time, in relation to various historical circumstances....
, European fashion caused fan decoration and size to vary.

It has been said that in the courts of England, Spain and elsewhere fans were used in a more or less . These fan languages were a way to cope with the restricting social etiquette. However, modern research has proved that this was a marketing ploy developed in the 18th century - one that has kept its appeal remarkably over the succeeding centuries. This is now used for marketing by fan makers like Duvelleroy in London who produced a series of advertisements in the 1960s showing "the language of the fan" with models displaying antique fans with this "language".

Books

Rhead, G. Wooliscroft. The History of the Fan, Kegan Paul, 1910
Irons, Neville John. Fans of Imperial China. Kaiserreich Kunst Ltd, 1982 ISBN 0-9079-1800-X
Armstrong, Nancy. Book of Fans. Smithmark Publishing, 1984. ISBN 0-8317-0952-9
Armstrong, Nancy. Fans, Souvenir Press, 1984 ISBN 0-2856-2591-8
Fendel, Cynthia. Novelty Hand Fans, Fashionable Functional Fun Accessories of the Past. Hand Fan Productions, 2006 ISBN 978-0-9708852-1-0
Fendel, Cynthia. Celluloid Hand Fans. Hand Fan Productions, 2001. ISBN 0-9708852-0-2
Mayor, Susan. A Collectors Guide to Fans, Charles Letts, 1990
Mayor, Susan. The Letts Guide to Collecting Fans. Charles Letts, 1991 ISBN 1-8523-8128-0
Alexander, Helene. The Fan Museum, Third Millennium Publishing, 2001 ISBN 0-954031-91-1
Alexander, Helene & Hovinga-Van Eijsden, Fransje. A Touch of Dutch - Fans from the Royal House of Orange-Nassau, The Fan Museum, February 2008, ISBN 0-9540319-5-4
Cowen, Pamela. A Fanfare for the Sun King: Unfolding Fans for Louis XIV, Third Millennium Publishing (September, 2003) ISBN 1-903942-20-9
Hutt, Julia & Alexander, Helene. Ogi: A History of the Japanese Fan. Art Media Resources; Bilingual edition (February 1, 1992) ISBN 1-872357-08-3
Qian, Gonglin. Chinese Fans: Artistry and Aesthetics (Arts of China, #2). Long River Press (August 31, 2004) ISBN 1-59265-020-1
North, Audrey. Australia's fan heritage. Boolarong Publications (1985). ISBN 0-86439-001-7
Hart, Avril & Taylor, Emma. Fans (V & A Fashion Accessories Series). Publisher- V & A Publications. ISBN 1-85177-213-8
Bennett, Anna G. Unfolding beauty: The art of the fan : the collection of Esther Oldham and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Thames and Hudson (1988). ISBN 0-87846-279-1
Roberts, Jane. Unfolding Pictures: Fans in the Royal Collection. Publisher -Royal Collection (January 30, 2006. ISBN 1-902163-16-8
Gitter, Kurt A. Japanese fan paintings from western collections. Publisher- New Orleans Museum of Art (1985). ISBN 0-89494-021-X

External links

Antique Fans