Paper marbling

[1] The patterns are the result of color floated on either plain water or a viscous solution known as size, and then carefully transferred to an absorbent surface, such as paper or fabric.

In the 19th century, the Kyoto-based Japanese suminagashi master Tokutaro Yagi developed an alternative method that employed a split piece of bamboo to gently stir the colors, resulting in concentric spiral designs.

Historic forms of marbling used both organic and inorganic pigments mixed with water for colors, and sizes were traditionally made from gum tragacanth (Astragalus spp.

The text mentions a kind of decorative paper called liúshā jiān (流沙箋) meaning 'drifting-sand' or 'flowing-sand notepaper' that was made in what is now the region of Sichuan (Su 4: 7a–8a).

The finished designs, which were thought to resemble human figures, clouds, or flying birds, were then transferred to the surface of a sheet of paper.

Not only is it necessary to identify the original source to attribute a firm date for the information, but also the account remains uncorroborated due to a lack of any surviving physical evidence of marbling in Chinese manuscripts.

In contrast, suminagashi (墨流し), which means 'floating ink' in Japanese, appears to be the earliest form of marbling during the 12th-century Sanjuurokuninshuu (三十六人集), located in Nishihonganji (西本願寺), Kyoto.

[3] Author Einen Miura states that the oldest reference to suminagashi papers are in the waka poems of Shigeharu, (825–880 CE), a son of the famed Heian-era poet Narihira (Muira 14) in the Kokin Wakashū, but the verse has not been identified and even if found, it may be spurious.

It is said that he felt divinely inspired to make suminagashi paper after he offered spiritual devotions at the Kasuga Shrine in Nara Prefecture.

The method of floating colors on the surface of mucilaginous sizing is thought to have emerged in the regions of Greater Iran and Central Asia by the late 15th century.

While Sami Frashëri claimed in his Kamus-ı Türki, that the term was "more properly derived from the Chagatai word ebre" (ابره); however, he did not reference any source to support this assertion.

In Iran, many now employ a variant term, abr-o-bâd (ابرو باد), meaning 'cloud and wind' for a modern method made with oil colors.

[6] The art first emerged and evolved during the long 16th century in Persia and Transoxiana then spread to the Ottoman Turkey, as well as Mughal and the Deccan Sultanates in India.

One of the sheets bears an accession notation on the reverse stating "These abris are rare" (یاد داشت این ابریهای نادره است) and adds that it was "among the gifts from Iran" to the royal library of Ghiyath Shah, the ruler of the Malwa Sultanate, dated Hijri year 1 Dhu al-Hijjah 901/11 August 1496 of the Common Era.

[9] Approximately a century later, a technically advanced approach using finely prepared mineral and organic pigments and combs to manipulate the floating colors resulted in comparatively elaborate, intricate, and mesmerizing overall designs.

The current Turkish tradition of ebru dates to the mid-19th century, with a series of masters associated with a branch of the Naqshbandi Sufi order based at what is known as the Özbekler Tekkesi (Lodge of the Uzbeks), located in Sultantepe, near Üsküdar.

[12] The founder of this line, Sadık Effendi (died 1846) allegedly first learned the art in Bukhara and brought it to Istanbul, then taught it to his sons Edhem and Salıh.

He famously innovated elaborate floral designs, in addition to yazılı ebru, a method of writing traditional calligraphy using a gum arabic resist masking applied before marbling the sheet.

Athanasius Kircher published a Latin account in Ars Magna Lucis et Umbræ in Rome in 1646, widely disseminated knowledge of the art throughout Europe.

Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert published a thorough overview of the art with illustrations of marblers at work together with images of the tools of the trade in their Encyclopédie.

[14][15][16] In 1695, the Bank of England employed partially marbled papers banknotes for several weeks until it discovered that William Chaloner had successfully forged similar notes (Benson, "Curious Colors", 289–294).

(Wolfe, 79) Josef Halfer, a bookbinder of German origin, who lived in Budakeszi, Hungary conducted extensive experiments and devised further innovations, chiefly by adapting Chondrus crispus for sizing,[17] which superseded Woolnough's methods in Europe and the US.

[citation needed] Another adaptation called body marbling has emerged at public events and festivals, applied with non-toxic, water-based neon or ultraviolet reactive paints.