Echizen Washi

Paper for artists

Echizen Washi has a warm, elegant texture and a quiet dignity and strength. It is used for woodblock prints, fusuma sliding doors, certificates, calligraphy, Japanese-style painting, shikishi boards and letter paper. Painters such as Yokoyama Taikan strongly supported it. For Hirayama Ikuo's great mural at Yakushiji temple in Nara, a single sheet 2.7 m by 3.75 m was made by hand by six people. It is made in Echizen city in Fukui, home also to Echizen's forged blades.

A dance of water

• Kozo, mitsumata, gampi and hemp are used as fibres, mixed with a slippery mucilage from the tororo-aoi plant.
• Sheets are made by both nagashi-zuki and tame-zuki.
• The maker moves the sukigeta screen frame subtly in the vat, and the water sways across the screen so the fibres interlock.
• Each sheet is pressed and dried.

A princess by the river

Legend says that about 1,500 years ago a beautiful princess appeared by the Okamoto river and taught the villagers papermaking. In the Nara period Echizen paper was valued for copying sutras. As samurai came to use paper in large amounts, quality rose, fine papers such as Echizen hosho were made, and the area grew under the protection of the shogunate and local lords.