Okimono
Japanese carving typically displayed in a tokonoma alcove or butsudan altar
In Japanese art, okimono (置物) is a Japanese term meaning "ornament for display; objet d'art; decorative object", for small objects typically displayed in a tokonoma alcove or butsudan altar. The nearest equivalent term in Western art is probably objet d'art.
During the Meiji period and thereafter, many okimono were made for export to the West.
An okimono may be a small Japanese carving, similar to, but larger than netsuke. Unlike netsuke, which have a specific purpose, okimono are purely decorative and are displayed in the tokonoma. This view has however sometimes been questioned, with some suggesting that okimono often had both utilitarian and decorative purposes, especially before Western influence. An okimono can be made out of wood, ivory, ceramic or metal.
One subcategory of okimono is the jizai okimono, an articulated figure, typically of an animal, made out of bronze or iron. Okimono are normally not larger than a few centimetres. They depict all sorts of animals, mythological beasts, humans, gods, fruit, vegetables and objects, sometimes combined with each other, in all sorts of positions.
The public source identifies “Okimono” as japanese carving typically displayed in a tokonoma alcove or butsudan altar. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Okimono, Japanese and carving.
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This entry incorporates text from “Okimono” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.