奈良一刀彫 （Nara Ittobori)
“Itto” means one-knife and “bori” means craving in Japanese, that is, “Ittobori” is a traditional method to create Japanese doll made by wood. Japanese dolls generated by “Ittobori” have straight surface shape angle.
The origin of “Nara Ittobori” was born about 870 years ago. It had been used as ornament for religious services for a long time period. However, around Edo Period (D.C.1600-), it was recognized as art objects due to high quality of artistry. One of the features of “Nara Ittobiti” is coloring. Each Japanese doll is painted by using special pigment suitable for wood. It creates various color such as brilliant, graceful, gentle or any other upon each scene.
Some small patterns are made by pigment to show its plastic impression without prejudice elegance of “Ittobori”. For example, gold plastic impression in above photo is created by sanding special pigments.
Every Japanese doll is made by hands of craftsman. Therefore, the doll is one and only and unrivaled art in the world. Each doll is shown with the name of the craftsman. Technique of “Ittobori” has been passed down generation by generation and it is rigid. For example, it takes at least 3 years only for obtaining the technique of knife grinding.
You can imagine how much difficult to obtain craving and painting technique. Each dolls are completely created by hand of skilled craftsmen and more than one month time of such skilled craftsman is spend for creating one doll.
May 5th is Children’s day in Japan and Japanese dolls for boy will be one of the treasures of each family. There were traditional custom that grandparents gives their grandchild of the doll in celebration of Children’s day.
In Japan, the Girl’s festival celebrated on March 3rd. In Girls festival, the dolls are displayed on the stand. You can understand how Japanese value the dolls for their children.
“Nara Ittobi” is also good for present to important people and it come to famous among foreign people because it never purchase in the foreign countries who do not have “Ittobori” craftsman.
There is some “Nara Ittobori” who have few paintings. You can see the shape of wood clearly.
Photos are taken at Seibido.http://www.hina-ningyou.com/history/index.html
