Yoshizawa: A Retrospective

by Marcus

 

Happy Pi Day, everyone! March 14^th is well known as the only national holiday celebrating a mathematical constant (tau isn’t mainstream enough, and e straight up can’t be represented by a calendar date). But it’s also the birthday of Akira Yoshizawa, the famous origami master – and coincidentally, the day he died as well. Thus, I’d like to present eight micro-essays on and around Yoshizawa, examining his models, his folding philosophy, and his legacy today. There’s a lot to get through (both praise and critique–you’ve been warned), so let’s start!

 

 

The Great Man of Origami

Akira Yoshizawa is widely hailed as the founder of modern origami. Through his technique of wet-folding, his diagramming system, and his approximately 50,000 original models, he completely revolutionized the practice of paperfolding. Other folders existed before him, but only he possessed the creative vision that made origami from a child’s toy into a true expressive form. Before Yoshizawa, origami was stagnant, reliant on a small set of the same models repeated over and over. After him – to paraphrase Janos Bolyai – out of nothing was created an entire new universe. For this reason, he is venerated by folders the world over.

 

But should he be? Origami historian David Lister argues that Yoshizawa has a predecessor in Miguel de Unamuno, a Spanish philosopher who created several of his own original models. Two decades before Yoshizawa’s designs were photographed in the Asahi Graf magazine, bringing him to national prominence, Unamuno had created birds, mammals, and household objects out of paper, and published them in several Spanish newspapers. It is true that Unamuno’s body of work was much smaller and much less radical in nature, sticking to established bases like the Bird Base and employing none of Yoshizawa’s famous shaping. Furthermore, Unamuno’s influence was mostly restricted to the Spanish-speaking world, whereas Yoshizawa had an audience in Japan, the United States, France, and beyond. But even then, the notion that Yoshizawa deserves sole credit for the birth of modern origami can be picked apart quite easily.

 

What to say of George Rhoades, discoverer of the blintzed bases, which Yoshizawa used extensively in order to create accurate animal models?  What about Gershon Legman, who arranged an exhibition of his works in Amsterdam in 1955, and thus spread his influence worldwide? What about Tadasu Iizawa, the editor of Asahi Graf, who noticed his work and published it in the first place? Or even the apprentices at the machine shop where he worked, to whom he taught geometrical concepts using origami, and thus started his great artistic journey? Without any one of these people, origami as we know it might not even exist – but they never got Google Doodles. They never got awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by Emperor Hirohito.

 

History is not made by single individuals, but by populations, and this is no less true of origami history. David Lister, even while exalting Yoshizawa, notes that the driving force behind modern origami was “the build-up of links between the world’s paperfolders at a time when communications had become far easier, both by correspondence and through air travel.” It was dialogue and exchange between individuals that allowed modern origami to come into being. This is no less true of Yoshizawa, whose success was only possible due to the community that supported him every step of the way. If we are to truly understand him, we must let go of our idea of Yoshizawa as a Great Man, and be willing to deconstruct his legacy with a critical eye.

 

Indeed, Yoshizawa’s singular reputation seems to have come in part from the refusal to share it with other folders. In Origami from Angelfish to Zen, Peter Engel recounts the story of Saburo Kase, an origami folder who had been blind since childhood, who once showed up on Yoshizawa’s doorstep and asked to be his pupil. Yoshizawa replied, “Origami is not for the blind,” and flatly rejected Kase. “If Yoshizawa stands alone,” Engel writes, “the reason is clear: No one else can approach him.”

 

Today is simultaneously the day of Yoshizawa’s birth and his passing; I will honor him accordingly. On the other 364 days of the year, I hope to honor everyone else.

 

Animal Logic

I wondered for a long time why the animal subject was so popular in origami. Quentin Trollip’s favorite subjects are mammals. Robert Lang has an abundance of insect models. Satoshi Kamiya rarely ever designs models from an artificial motif. Nowadays, the answer seems clear: Akira Yoshizawa. His models were overwhelmingly depictions of birds, mammals, fish, and even a few insects. With the influence he has had, it’s not surprising that much of origami has gone down this path.

 

What was so appealing to him about animals? One possibility is that it was a reaction to the folding that existed before him. The main use of folding at the time was as a children’s toy, thanks to the influence of Friedrich Froebel and the Japanese kindergarten system (discussed previously in Origami and Orientalism). Froebelian folding was largely geometric, based around various properties of the square, and Yoshizawa broke away from this paradigm. To use some classical music terminology, Froebelian folding was “absolute origami,” whereas Yoshizawa would become associated with “programmatic origami.” He has attained a status similar to that of Beethoven, breaking out of the Classical tradition and paving the way for an entirely new era of origami expression.

 

Of course, animals also allowed him to exploit his famous technique of wet-folding, shaping animal forms in a way that you couldn’t with simple Froebelian designs. (I mean, you could, but it would be pointless.) But that raises a question of its own. Did an affinity for the animal subject drive Yoshizawa’s invention of wet-folding? Or did the discovery of wet-folding drive the invention of new animal models? We may never know the answer.

 

Line Dancing

According to Robert J. Lang, Yoshizawa’s greatest contribution to origami wasn’t an origami model. Rather, it was the modern diagramming system. Individual models may be destroyed. Folding techniques may fall out of favor. But a language, especially one so simple and precise, is hard to kill. Like Lego instructions, Yoshizawa’s diagrams eschew words, depicting everything through pictures alone. Different line patterns and arrows denote mountain folds and valley folds, various fold movements, and actions like inflating. The work of Sam Randlett and Robert Harbin, two early Western folders who adopted the system, has firmly cemented its place in origami.

 

Two caveats, however. First, Yoshizawa didn’t actually invent the diagramming system. The symbols themselves are borrowed from draftsman’s notation (like so many folders, Yoshizawa also pursued a technical profession, in this case engineering). They were first applied to origami by the folder Izumo Misaki, whose 1932 book Origami Kirigami to Shuko is the earliest known use of dashes and dot-dot-dashes to denote valley and mountain folds. Misaki later used a rudimentary arrow system similar to the modern one. Over the following years, different folders have added a whole host of new ideas to the system, like rotations or arrows for sink folds. Obviously Yoshizawa – and later Randlett and Harbin – did much to popularize the system, but there’s no reason their names should be attached to it at the expense of their predecessors.

 

Second, we should recognize the limits of the so-called “universal language” of diagramming. While standardization efforts have been made (see Lang’s wonderful article on the subject), there will always inevitably be differences in how models are diagrammed, and a set of symbols used by one folder may be alien to another. Furthermore, as origami increases in complexity over time, the notation popularized by Yoshizawa will necessarily become less useful for new models. In an ideal world, diagrams would be able to explain everything without words, but these factors prevent this from being so.

 

Our diagramming system alone does not make origami truly international; what is critical instead is the translation of origami books, the re-diagramming of old ones, and a continued effort at dialogue between folders worldwide. I think of the recently translated volumes by Fukui Hisao, or the even older Genuine Origami series by Jun Maekawa. These were both valiant efforts to bring folders of different countries closer to each other. But the literal diagramming system had little to do with it.

 

Moist

On the other hand, if you asked Michael LaFosse what Yoshizawa’s greatest contribution to origami was, he’d probably tell you it was wet-folding. (As far as we know, he really was the first person to use it.) Wet-folding is Yoshizawa’s other claim to fame in origami, a method of exploiting paper sizing to create curved folds that hold their shape. It was his way of bringing origami to life, communicating meaning in origami beyond mere geometry. And… I don’t like it all that much.

 

I’ve already stated my feelings about wet-folding in A Billion Molecular Scissors. These days I would write it a bit more professionally, but I still hold to the basic premise: changing the texture of a piece of paper at will is “cheating,” in a sense, and shouldn’t be considered pure origami. And that premise stuck. Since writing the essay almost two years ago, I’ve only wet-folded five models (only one of which, the Lyrebird, I’ve posted on my blog). Especially in comparison with all the models that I haven’t wet-folded, it’s way less than before the essay.

 

I’m still adjusting to life without wet-folding (I have relapses; those five models are proof). But while it is hard, I’ve found something strange has resulted. It’s opened me up to different kinds of paper that I would never wet-fold but offer new possibilities all their own. The Council of the Dragon Kings would be impossible without washi foil. The Robert Lang insect showcase would be impossible without Hikaritori tissue paper. These are two small developments; over time, as I expand my knowledge of different kinds of paper, the possibilities will only ever increase.

 

The fundamental principle of origami purism is to use only those tools that are absolutely necessary. Why not use scissors? Because thanks to mathematical design, we can give our models as many points as we want without them. By this logic: why not use wet-folding? We can shape our models with foil-backed paper. We can make models that don’t even use shaping in the traditional sense. I’m reminded of a sentiment once expressed by Robert Lang: “As we add constraints [to origami], we focus the art. By taking things away, we can, perhaps, ensure that there is more to what’s left.” Why not extend this one step further and cut out wet-folding?

 

Let There Be Light

I came across the book Tomoko Fuse’s Origami Art at the end of last year, and it quickly became one of my favorite origami books. The book is divided into five sections, the last of which concerns an unusual topic: lighting. Many of Fuse’s works explore the interplay of paper and light, evoking traditional Japanese lanterns or shoji doors. Often, faint patterns on the paper are revealed when lit properly, and monotone colors become smooth gradients as the light shines through different parts of the sheet.

 

I say this because this part of Fuse’s work does, in fact, have a precedent in Akira Yoshizawa! Sort of. Yoshizawa gave a great amount of importance to the way people saw his origami exhibitions. Some models were suited to large, expansive halls. Others were more appropriate in intimate spaces, lit by softer lights. The soft, handmade paper he used reflected the way he wanted people to see his models in showcases. The styles of these two folders are different in pretty much every other way (Tomoko Fuse wholeheartedly embraces the aesthetic of pure geometry). It’s still interesting, however, to see how they both end up confronting the same problem in their work, a problem that’s too often overlooked by folders.

 

Spirited Away

Peter Engel once asked Yoshizawa if there was anything he had tried to fold but never succeeded. He responded with the example of a meditating Zen Buddhist priest. He could capture the physical form of a priest without great trouble, but mere form was not enough for him. He expressed a need to capture the inner state of the priest, to imbue the model with a metaphysical quality. For Yoshizawa, origami was a sacred act.

 

It is tempting to associate origami itself with Japanese spirituality. (The oft-repeated chestnut that “paper” and “god” are synonyms in Japanese comes to mind.) But I’d argue that this falls into the trap of Orientalism. Much of Japanese origami originated from Western kindergartens, where it certainly would not have been considered a sacred act. And I myself, while not well versed in Buddhism or Shintoism, still feel there is something special, maybe even transcendent, about the act of folding paper.

 

In a lot of the visual arts, I feel there’s a distance between the artist and the art throughout the creation process. This is mostly due to the tools required to make most kinds of art. Between the painter and the painting, there is the brush. Between the director and the movie, there is the camera. Between the sculptor and the sculpture, there is the chisel. But in origami, that distance vanishes, for the paper is its own tool. The folder is fully immersed in their artwork from the moment they start to the moment they finish. Yoshizawa understood that relationship, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he interpreted it as a connection to the divine. I know the feeling of being lost in folding: it grabs you by the hands and plunges you into a thousand different universes, refusing to let go. I don’t share Yoshizawa’s spirituality, but when I fold, I think I understand it a little bit better.

 

Don’t Be a Square

It may surprise a lot of people that many of Yoshizawa’s designs weren’t folded from single squares. He used two squares for many designs. He used triangles, rhombuses, and even hexagons when they fit his needs. To some, it may seem like a violation. How could the founder of modern origami not adhere to modern origami’s most famous rule? But I’d argue there isn’t anything wrong with this at all. In fact, it reveals a simple, yet powerful, truth about the nature of origami art.

 

I wrote earlier about my rejection of wet-folding, and how I had decided to define origami purism differently from Yoshizawa. This is not a new idea; many folders treat the medium differently. Some people, like Eric Joisel, make extensive use of foil paper; others, like Robert Lang, shun it entirely. Some, like the aforementioned Tomoko Fuse, use many pieces of paper, whether squares or thin rectangles. Some, like Jun Maekawa, fold models from the silver rectangle, with proportions 1 x √2. Yoshizawa’s usage of non-standard shapes is no more sacrilegious than any of these. Who is to say that any one folder holds the “correct” definition of purity? All of these people are respected origami artists; to hold some over all the others would be folly.

 

It seems that there is an entire multiverse of origami purism, with different folders setting and relaxing restrictions as they wish. Do they contradict each other? Yes. But by and large, they do not seem to conflict with each other (except perhaps foil usage – that’s a topic for another essay). There is no authority dictating what is and is not allowed to be pure origami, and I see no reason to create one. In his own lifetime, there were many developments in origami that Yoshizawa did not approve of. There are undoubtedly even more today. But just as he broke out of the paradigms that previous folders created, we are entirely capable of breaking out of his. In a way, we already have.

 

Behind Every Great Man

I’m going to close off this essay collection with someone you probably haven’t heard of: Kiyo Yoshizawa, Akira Yoshizawa’s wife. She appears in some works about origami, albeit infrequently. David Lister mentions her in a few brief paragraphs. Nick Robinson has a small recollection about meeting her on his website. Robert Lang contacted her to make his Yoshizawa Google Doodle. Every source I find about her mentions the same few things: her devotion to her husband, her care for his legacy after he died, her work teaching his models. Even her obituary in The Paper hardly mentions more than that. Is this what the world of origami has done with the legacy of Akira Yoshizawa? Have we reduced one more woman to a footnote in another Great Man’s history?

 

But Mrs. Yoshizawa was clearly not content to let herself be reduced to a footnote. In the book “Akira Yoshizawa: Japan’s Greatest Origami Master,” Mrs. Yoshizawa writes the introduction, prefacing her late husband’s work. She makes one other appearance in the book: the images of Yoshizawa’s Puppy are folded by her. It is certainly curious that she ended up creating this model, and precisely this model. It seems to me that the Puppy deserves a closer analysis to find out what makes it so special.

 

On the surface, the Puppy is an extremely simple model, consisting of as few as three steps. I say “as few as” because the model is also an extended improvisational sequence. One can add ears, a nose, a tail, or any combination of those three. Varying the size and proportion of all these folds (there are practically no fixed reference points) opens up a wide range of expressive positions. The puppy might be playing, resting, or making any number of poses. A young puppy can have large features on a small face, while those same features on its mother might be proportionally smaller. The instructions never tell the reader when the model is finished, for “every figure can be considered a model in itself, a possible variant.”

 

Search up Kiyo Yoshizawa’s name on YouTube and the first video you’ll find is of her folding two models: Yoshizawa’s Butterfly and the Puppy. The Butterfly is famous as Mr. Yoshizawa’s signature model. I think the Puppy, on the other hand, is her signature model. That she found an affinity for this one in particular suggests to me her true gift: a master improviser, never content to fold the same model twice, crafting countless variations on a single theme. I don’t know a ton of folders that improvise regularly (perhaps Jeremy Shafer comes to mind). Kiyo Yoshizawa, then, stands alone here, pursuing her own unique folding style. Out of nothing, she is the one that creates a strange new universe.

 

I’ve folded this model here as a tribute to Yoshizawa. Not that one – the other one, who wasn’t recognized by the Emperor of Japan, whom folders the world over didn’t glorify as sensei, whose name isn’t attached to every origami diagram we read. She will be remembered not in monuments or symbols, but in the hearts and minds of people who cared about her. Let this essay encourage people to want to learn more about her life, as defined not by her husband but by herself. Let us truly see past the Great Man and see instead the human being. Let it be known that here, in this moment, in this essay and this artwork, someone is telling her story.

 

 

Sources

(annotations where appropriate)

 

Lister, David. “The Art of Akira Yoshizawa.” The Lister List, British Origami, https://www.britishorigami.org/cp-lister-list/the-art-of-akira-yoshizawa/.

The Lister List returns! I told you I’d return to it in future essays.

 

Lister, David. “The 1955 Exhibition by Akira Yoshizawa.” The Lister List, British Origami, https://www.britishorigami.org/cp-lister-list/the-1955-exhibition-by-akira-yoshizawa/.

 

Engel, Peter. “Folding the Universe: Origami from Angelfish to Zen.” Dover Publications, 31 East 2^nd Street, Mineola, NY, 1994.

This text was actually the inspiration for my very first essay, Origami: An Art, A Science, or Both? The extensive interview with Yoshizawa in the introduction is what I consider the definitive source for anyone trying to understand him. I did actually write a little about Yoshizawa in An Art, A Science, Or Both, but my thinking has evolved considerably in the intervening years; please consider this retrospective my more definitive opinion.

 

Lang, Robert. “Origami Diagramming Conventions.” Robert J. Lang Origami, August 10, 2011.

Robert Lang’s excellent treatise on origami diagramming, synthesizing the many developments of diagrams past and laying out some standards for future folders to follow. The original articles were published between 1981 and 1991 and later compiled into one essay on his website; it is remarkable how consistent they remain to this day.

 

Rozenberg, Laura. “On the Evolution of the Notation System.” The Fold, issue 50, January 2019, https://origamiusa.org/thefold/article/evolution-notation-system.

An exploration of the origin of the modern origami diagramming system, popularized by Yoshizawa but in fact borrowed from other folders. I left out a lot of details in the interest of brevity, and I highly recommend reading the full article.

 

Ho, Marcus. “A Billion Molecular Scissors.” Origami by Marcus II (blog), 2021, https://foldbetweenthelines.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-billion-molecular-scissors-essay-on.html.

 

Montroll, John, and Robert Lang. “Sea Creatures in Origami.” Dover Publications, 31 East 2^nd Street, Mineola, NY, 2011.

 

Fuse, Tomoko, et al. “Tomoko Fuse’s Origami Art.” Tuttle Publishing, 364 Innovation Drive, North Clarendon, VT, 2020.

As a sidenote, I’d like to point out that the interaction of light and paper is itself a deeply mathematical one. Light follows the rules of optics and passes through partially opaque paper in predictable ways. For any physicists out there interested in origami, I feel like that’s a topic you could do some research into.

 

Lang, Robert. “Google’s Doodle: Akira Yoshizawa.” Robert J. Lang Origami, March 15, 2011, https://langorigami.com/article/googles-doodle-akira-yoshizawa/.

The text here is largely adapted from Lang’s introduction to “Akira Yoshizawa: Japan’s Greatest Origami Master,” with the added details on the creation of the Google Doodle.

 

Robinson, Nick. “Kiyo Yoshizawa.” NickOrigami, https://nickorigami.com/kiyo-yoshizawa/.

 

Sakamoto, June. “Obituary: Kiyo Yoshizawa.” The Paper, issue 132, 2020.

 

“Origami Instruction by Mrs. Kiyo Yoshizawa.” YouTube, Japanmuseum SieboldHuis, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHIEZpw3Z_8.

Perhaps the only video footage of Kiyo Yoshizawa on the internet? If anyone can find another video, I’d love to be proven wrong.

 

Yoshizawa, Akira, preface by Kiyo Yoshizawa. “Akira Yoshizawa: Japan’s Greatest Origami Master.” Tuttle Publishing, 364 Innovation Drive, North Clarendon, VT, 2016.

A well-presented text, featuring many of Yoshizawa’s simpler models. The models are beautifully folded and photographed, with notes by the author and an impressive number of hand-drawn diagrams. A good introduction to Yoshizawa’s work.