Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/233

THE HEIAN EPOCH women, and the lattice-work panels and hinged doors surrounding the "parent chamber" were replaced by sliding doors which, being mere skeletons of interlacing ribs covered with thin white silk, acted like windows for admitting light. Then, also, the partitioning of wide interior spaces into several rooms began to be practised, and the partitioning was effected by means of sliding doors similar to those mentioned above, or covered with thicker paper which now began to offer a field for the brush of decorative artists. As years passed and as the scale of living grew more and more luxurious in Kyoto, the dimensions of great noblemen's mansions became extravagant, and at the beginning of the eleventh century an imperial edict limited the size of a house to two hundred and forty yards square, at the same time imposing other restrictions as to the materials of roofs and walls. These vetoes proved quite ineffective.

House-furniture was then, and always remained, a comparatively insignificant affair. The Japanese never had to trouble themselves much about such things as curtains, carpets, chairs, sofas, or tables. When an aristocrat wanted to read, for example, a small cushion was placed on the floor for his seat, having on the left an arm-rest, in front a lectern, on the right a bookcase. All these objects were made of rich lacquer. A screen also stood close at hand; not the six-leaved 205