Kakejiku
A kakejiku, a hung scroll, also called a kakemono, a hanging thing, is a Japanese scroll made to display a painting or a piece of calligraphy. The work is mounted, usually with silk borders, on a flexible backing, so that it can be hung for a season and rolled away for storage. Its origin is said to date to the Nara period, from 710 to 794.
Definition
A kakejiku has two parts that a collector reads separately: the main work, called the honshi, and the mount around it. The mount is not a frame in the Western sense. It is a sewn and pasted assembly of silk and paper, with a wooden rod at the top for hanging and a heavier rod at the bottom that gives the scroll its weight and becomes the axis when it is rolled.
Buddhist scrolls showing buddhas, bodhisattvas and founders such as Bodhidharma are a large family of their own. When a scroll is the main object of worship on an altar, it is called a honzon.
Origin
The hanging scroll came to Japan with Buddhist painting and is said to date to the Nara period. As the tokonoma, the raised alcove of the Japanese reception room, became the place for one chosen object, the hanging scroll became the object most often chosen, changed with the seasons and the occasion. In our reading, that habit of rotation explains why so many scrolls survive in good order: they spent most of their lives rolled in a box.
The format travelled too. When scrolls reached the Spanish colonies in the Philippines and the Americas, local artists copied the format as a portable way to carry art.
Key facts
| Meaning | Hung scroll; also kakemono, hanging thing |
|---|---|
| Origin | Said to date to the Nara period, 710 to 794 |
| Main work | Honshi, painting or calligraphy |
| Mount sections | Ten (heaven) above, chi (earth) below, hashira (pillars) at the sides, ichimonji strips in gold-thread brocade |
| Rods | Hasso at the top with metal loops; jikugi at the bottom with end knobs, jikusaki |
| Hanging cord | Kakehimo |
How to identify it
- Read the mount. In the maruhyoso style the heaven section is longer than the earth, a proportion set for viewers kneeling on the floor. A mount that ignores it has usually been remounted outside the tradition.
- Look at the end knobs. Jikusaki range from plain plastic to ceramic or lacquered wood. In our handling, they tell you something about the care spent on the mounting, not the age of the work.
- Weights and tassels. Decorative weights called fuchin, with tassels, steady the scroll in a draught; their presence suggests a scroll that was hung with care.
- Printed or painted. Many scrolls are printed reproductions. Under a lens, brush ink sits unevenly in the fibres; a print shows a regular dot or an even flatness.
- The box. An inscribed box can carry the title and the artist's name. The house reads a box inscription as evidence to weigh, not as proof.
Where it appears in the collection
Scrolls sit on the scrolls and byobu shelf, among them a Jizo Bosatsu seated on a lotus pedestal, a Zen calligraphy reading nirvana is stillness and a pair of red-crowned cranes under pine and sun. Mounting is covered in our page on kakejiku and makimono mounting, and handling in our care notes for hanging scrolls.
Related entries
- Byobu: the folding screen, the other great painted surface of the Japanese room.
- Okimono: the placed carving that can share the tokonoma with a scroll.
- Ukiyo-e: the print tradition, sometimes mounted as scrolls.
Sources
- Kakemono, encyclopaedia entry, sections on terms, mount sections and parts. wikipedia.org
Last reviewed 15 November 2026. The Japonista Curation and Concierge Team, Tokyo, Japan.