Please find hereafter more specific terms related to the category tansu
The Japanese are known for
their floor level lifestyle, referred to as "shitsurai". All furniture and
furnishings are of course designed to fit in such an environment. Hence Japanese chests
(tansu) do not have legs. From early times, the Japanese make use of modular or quick
removable furniture / equipment. Architecture is often based on standard sized rooms
(windows, doors…). This explains the many types of room dividers such as byobu,
noren, fusuma, shoji, tsuitate… It also explains why tatami have standard sizes.
Another feature resulting from this modular lifestyle is the straight shape of Japanese
chests. From an historical point of view, we can state that the Japanese style chest first
appeared somewhere during the second part of the 17th century. The need for tansu came
from the rich merchant class. Because "maki-e" lacquer art was reserved for the
samurai class, the wealthy merchants ordered top quality chests revealing the splendor of
natural wood grain. Tansu-art probably reached its golden age during the latter Edo and
the early Meiji era. After the Meiji period we see a decline of what is called
"kagu" (generic term for Japanese style furniture and furnishings) due to the
upcoming western lifestyle furniture and furnishings (seiyo-kagu).
