Page 8 - My FlipBook

This 1770 painting shows a woman
creating a paper-folding artwork.
In front of her is a pair of scissors
and sheets of paper. Paper folding
that allows the use of scissors to
assist in making the artworks is
called kirigami.

practice. In 1797 the first very simple paper‑folding instructions were
published in the book Orikata Tehon Chushingura by publisher Yoshinoya
Tamehachi of Kyoto, Japan. More people of all ages learned traditional
folding patterns, including the crane, the water bomb, and different
kinds of boxes. They practiced the traditional patterns they learned from
their teachers or family and passed them on from one generation to the
next. As a result, paper folding remained relatively the same, preserved in
its traditional patterns, and few people outside of Japan knew about it.
Then, in the 1950s, origami master Akira Yoshizawa started
gaining worldwide recognition for his uniquely exquisite and original
origami designs. His work was exhibited in Europe and published in
the Japanese magazine Asahi Graph. Soon the world knew of Yoshizawa
and origami. His animal models of dogs, squirrels, wolves, horses,
and more seemed imbued with life. He had mastered the basics of
origami and then taken it to a new level. Known as the father of
modern origami, Yoshizawa not only created new origami designs but
also developed a system of dashed and dotted lines and arrows that

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