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New Discoveries for the Mysterious and Beautiful "Bamboo Room"
New Discoveries for the Mysterious and Beautiful "Bamboo Room"
A couple of days ago, it became obvious that this is not the "bamboo room" which it has been called for 50 years, but rather the "bamboo forest room."
A pair of bright LED lights made it obvious that this a room covered with many paintings of bamboo forests.
There are birds flying in front of and behind the bamboo culms giving a sense of 3 dimensions. The bamboo leaves and flowers are in front of and behind the culms, too.
And because the paintings cover all four walls of the room, one can imagine that one is inside a bamboo forest, not just looking at a picture of some bamboo.
That's just me.
A fun walk over to the 1890s bamboo mini-forest at our sister park confirmed this sense of being inside a bamboo forest.
At the California Nursery Company, now the California Nursery Historical Park, a bamboo stand planted in the late 1890s. Nurseryman John Rock was one of the owners of the California Nursery Company. He was the across-the-creek neighbor to the Shinn Ranch. He can be seen here in the "forest" of "Phyllostachys quilioi (?)" in the 1903 publication, Introduction of bamboo into America by David Fairchild (search for Niles).
According to the PlantList Phyllostachys quilioi var. castillonii (Marliac ex Carrie`re) J.Houz. is a synonym of Phyllostachys bambusoides var. castillonii.
This tiny gem of a room usually causes gasps when visitors see it for the first time.
Our first clue of its date of origin came when Dr. Elissa Rodkey, a historian of psychology, came to visit.
She exclaimed "Bluebirds!" when she saw the bright blue birds painted among the flowers on the bamboo panels.
Dr. Rodkey remembered that Milicent Shinn noted these bluebirds in her baby observation notebook for Ruth Shinn - in 1892! The house was built in 1876, so some time between 1876 and 1892, the wall covering appeared.
During this time, there was a craze for Japanese decor and decorations.
The bamboo panels are falling apart after so many years and we have started to find out more about them in order to preserve them.
Are they Japanese? Chinese? Californian?
What are the paint pigments? Are they toxic - lead, arsenic, cadmium, or?
How can the bamboo sticks be re-sewn?
The panels were taken down to clean them in 1975. Were they put back up in the right order? Did they lose some paint? Did the clearners take precautions? We know that there was old wall paper above the panels with scenes of birds in marshes.
We've made many more connections with experts this year, from Long Beach to Japan, to try to find out more about this unique wall-covering.
Sudare screens are made to roll up and the wood is horizontal. The wall covering wood runs vertical.
Referred to as "Joe's Room" in 1892 in Milicent Shinn's notes
Referred to as "Joe's Room" in 1892 in Milicent Shinn's notes
The house was built in 1876, so most likely the screens were purchased after 1876 and before 1892.
Milicent Shinn's notes about the birds on the "Japanese wall-covering" in "Joe's Room."
Toddler Ruth called the blue birds "Boo bĩby." This note is from May 18, 1892.
Are the birds and flowers Japanese? Chinese? Californian?
Are the birds and flowers Japanese? Chinese? Californian?
We've found some to look like Japanese birds. But if it was painted in China, perhaps there is some overlap.
California birds? One looks like a Wilson's Warbler.
What is this wall covering - bamboo? reed? a combination of materials?
What is this wall covering - bamboo? reed? a combination of materials?
Professor Shibata of Japan thought that the bamboo was not necessarily Japanese. He suggested a tropical clumpting bamboo so not from Japan?
In between the whole and split bamboo is a more reedy kind of material. He did not suggest what that was.
He said that he may have seen something like this in Fiji!
For repairs, is the technology to make this wall covering the same as a horizontal bamboo screen made in Japan?
For repairs, is the technology to make this wall covering the same as a horizontal bamboo screen made in Japan?
Do the knots differ according to the country where it was made? right handed or left?
Do the knots differ according to the country where it was made? right handed or left?
Found on the internet examples of bamboo paintings
Found on the internet examples of bamboo paintings
The background "reed" in the Bamboo Room has been set so that the nodes create patterns that look like distant mountains.
If it came from the SF Bay Area where would they have gotten it? The organized portion of this page, thus ends here until I get back.
If it came from the SF Bay Area where would they have gotten it? The organized portion of this page, thus ends here until I get back.
The Mid_Winter Festival was in San Francisco in 1894. So not there! Unless the preparations for the Festival went back to 1892.
Milicent Shinn stepped down as editor in March of 1894. The next issue was edited by Rounsevelle Wildman (is that really his real name?). It's all about the Mid-Winter Festival. One might guess that the articles were written under Milicent's editorship and rounded up for April. Charles Howard Shinn wrote about "Agriculture and Horticulture at the Midwinter Fair,"
A Japanese House from the SF Chronicle 07 Aug 1892 San Francisco Chronicle. (Newspapers.com)
Who was George T. Marsh?
A Japanese House from the SF Chronicle 07 Aug 1892 San Francisco Chronicle. (Newspapers.com)
Japanese Garden at Golden Gate Park - Steven Pitsenbarger on Sutori "George Turner Marsh lived in Japan as a teenager, owned a Japanese art store in San Francisco, and went on to build Japanese gardens along the West Coast including Mill Valley, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Pasadena, and Coronado" [Question, what was hist SF Store? Would the cousin whose name escapes me now have known of this art store? Or Lue Tichenor?]
Huntington recording (visited this on NAJGA tour before pandemic. look for photos)
An Impossible Haven: The Japanese Tea Garden, part 1- Susan Freinkel
What could you buy in SF area?
Ken Brown suggested that Japanese decor was very popular. Checking ads in the newspapers and Overland Monthly...
1882 ads on Newspapers.com
Ideas for decorating 1882
Beauty in the household by Dewing, M. O. (Maria Oakey) Publication date 1882 "But because we cannot satisfy our ideal there is no reason why with simpler means we should not attain comfort and beauty. There are inexpensive Japanese wall decorations that are made of paper, or, better still, of thin strips of rattan, that look like straw, painted in gorgeous and beautiful designs of birds, butterflies, and flowers. These make a beautiful ornament for the bath-room used laterally as a frieze, or hung perpendicularly on the wall. A reed or bamboo, either plain or decorated, tied to two brass or plated hooks set in the wall, makes a most..."
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