Japan · Paper craft; Surface design; Ink marbling
墨流し (Suminagashi)
Suminagashi ("floating ink") is a Japanese paper-marbling technique in which sumi ink and a surfactant are alternately touched to the surface of plain, unsized water to form concentric rings, which are gently manipulated by breath or fan before a sheet of paper is laid on the surface to lift the floating pattern. Documented from Japan's Heian period (794-1185 CE), it is considered the earliest ink/paper marbling technique and may have influenced the water-based marbling traditions that later developed via Persia and Turkey (ebru) into Europe. It differs from Western marbling in using unsized water (no thickening size) and relying on natural, largely unmanipulated flow rather than combs or styluses.
Risk level: Endangered · Not UNESCO-inscribed. Distinct from, and should not be confused with, Japan's UNESCO-inscribed washi papermaking traditions (Sekishu-Banshi, Shimane; Hon-Minoshi, Gifu; Hosokawa-shi, Saitama; inscribed 2014) -- those are papermaking techniques, not suminagashi marbling, and cover different regions entirely. One source describes Echizen-region suminagashi as UNESCO-listed; CRAFT could not corroborate this against UNESCO's own listing and treats it as a likely conflation with the actual (different) washi inscription.
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