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
sectorA circular sector or circle sector, is the portion of a circle enclosed by two radii and an arc, where the smaller area is known as the minor sector and the larger being the major sector. Its area can be calculated as described below....
of a circle and 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
evaporationEvaporation is a type of vaporization of a liquid, that occurs only on the surface of a liquid. The other type of vaporization is boiling, that instead occurs on the entire mass of the liquid. Evaporation is also part of the water cycle....
rate of
sweatPerspiration 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 heatThe expression latent heat refers to the amount of energy released or absorbed by a chemical substance during a change of state that occurs without changing its temperature, meaning a phase transition such as the melting of ice or the boiling of water. The term was introduced around 1750 by Joseph...
of evaporation of water.
Fans are convenient to carry around, and the folding kind in particular are compact to carry.
East Asia
In
ChinaChina is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity.China is one of the world's oldest civilizations and is regarded as the oldest continuous civilization...
, screen fans were used throughout the country. The earliest known Chinese fans are a pair of woven
bambooBamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....
side-mounted fans from the 2nd century BC. The
Chinese characterA Chinese character, also known as a Han character , is a logogram used in writing Chinese , Japanese , less frequently Korean , and formerly Vietnamese , and other languages. Chinese characters are also known as sinographs, and the Chinese writing system as sinography...
for "fan" (扇) 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 DynastyThe Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
, famous artists would often be commissioned to paint picture on the surface of a fan.
The folding fan was invented in
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, 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; 衵扇; Hiōgi) originated in the 6th century. These were fans held by aristocrats of the
Heian periodThe is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. The period is named after the capital city of Heian-kyō, or modern Kyōto. It is the period in Japanese history when Buddhism, Taoism and other Chinese influences 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
Shintoor kami-no-michi is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is best conceived of as a set of practices, carried out diligently to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...
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 dynastyThe Ming Dynasty , or Empire of the Great Ming , was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
between the years of 1368 and 1644, and
Hangzhou' is a sub-provincial city located in the Yangtze River Delta in the People's Republic of China, and the capital of Zhejiang province. Located southwest of Shanghai, as of 2004 the entire Hangzhou Region or Prefecture-level city had a registered population of 6.4 million people...
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
ivoryIvory is formed from dentine and constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals such as the elephant, hippopotamus, walrus, mammoth and narwhal....
,
boneBones are rigid organs that form part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They function to move, support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue...
,
micaThe 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 pearlA pearl is a hard object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is made up of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other...
,
sandalwoodSandalwood is the name of different fragrant woods. These woods are yielded by trees in the genus Santalum, which are often used for the essential oil it contains. The wood is heavy and yellow in color as well as fine-grained, and unlike many other aromatic woods it retains its fragrance for...
, or
tortoise shellTortoiseshell 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
paperPaper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon or for 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
fabricA 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...
. 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
tiě shān 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 (扇子 Japanese "sensu", Chinese: "shànzi";) continue to be important cultural symbols and popular tourist souvenirs in East Asia.
Geisha, Geiko or Geigi are traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.-Terms:...
of all types (but maiko most often) use folding fans in their fan dances as well.
See also:
Chinese paper artChinese 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. The art form later spread to other parts of the world with different regions adopting their own cultural styles...
;
gunbaithumb|right|A sumo gyoji wielding a gunbaiThe 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....
Japanese fans are made of paper on a bamboo frame, usually with a design painted on them. The fan is primarily used for fanning oneself in hot weather.
The fan symbolizes friendship, respect and good wishes. They are given on special occasions, and they are also an important stage prop in Japanese dance.
It was also used in the military as a way of sending signals on the field of battle, however fans were mainly used for social and court activities. They were used by warriors as a form of weapon, actors and dancers for performances, and children as a toy.
The fan stands for many things, the Japanese believe that the handle of the fan symbolizes the beginning of life and the ribs are for the roads of life going out in all directions.
Europe
Archaeological ruins show that fans was used in
ancient GreeceAncient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth...
. In
EuropeEurope is, by convention, 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 River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus region and the Black Sea to the southeast...
, during the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classical, Medieval, and Modern...
, the fan was absent. Christian Europe's earliest fan was the
flabellumA 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. The ceremonial use of such fans dates back to ancient Egypt, and an...
(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 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 the 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 fansA brisé fan is made of sticks with no fan leaf. This green silk brisé 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...
. 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 NantesThe Edict of Nantes, issued on April 13, 1598, by Henry IV of France, granted the Calvinist Protestants of France substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholic...
was revoked in
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a state in Western Europe with several of its overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea,...
. 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
laceLace 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. Lace-making is an ancient craft. True lace was...
,
silkSilk is a natural protein fibre, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
, or
parchmentParchment is a thin material made from calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin, often split. Its most common use was as a material for writing on, for documents, notes, or the pages of a book, codex or manuscript. It is distinct from leather in that parchment is limed but not tanned, therefore it is very...
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
WestThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term that can have multiple meanings depending on its context...
, 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 secret, unspoken code of messages 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".
See also
- Japanese war fan
A war fan is a fan designed for use in warfare. A number of war fans were used in the feudal Japan, of varying size and material, for different purposes.One of the most significant, and perhaps most interesting, uses was as a signalling device...
- a weapon made to look like a fan
- Musée de l'Éventail
The Musée de l'Éventail , or more formally L'Atelier Hoguet Musée de l'Éventail, is a private museum of fans and fan-making located in the 10th arrondissement at 2, boulevard de Strasbourg, Paris, France. It is open several afternoons per week; an admission fee is charged...
(ParisParis is the capital and largest city of France. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
)
- The Fan Museum in Greenwich (Greenwich, London)
- The Hand Fan Museum in Healdsburg, California
The Hand Fan Museum is based in Healdsburg, California, USA. It opened in 2002 and has a permanent collection of over 2,500 fans spanning the centuries and the myriad styles of fans...
Books
- Checcoli, Anna. " Il ventaglio e i suoi segreti ", Tassinari, 2009
- Checcoli, Anna. " Ventagli Cinesi Giapponesi ed Orientali ", Tassinari, 2009
- 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
The New Orleans Museum of Art in New Orleans, Louisiana, was established in 1911 as the Delgado Museum of Art with a bequest from Isaac Delgado...
(1985). ISBN 0-89494-021-X
External links
Antique Fans