The Europeans are accustomed that a picture should be framed and hung on a wall. In the East it's different. Nowadays, of course, baguette has penetrated there, and you can see there paintings on walls, but the traditional way of presenting a painting in the form of a scroll is still used in Japan, Korea and China, where it came from.
Let's understand what it is and why it is needed. The story of the scroll, as of many other Chinese inventions, goes back a millennium. It all started in the 6th century BC, when texts were written, in the absence of other suitable carriers, on the inner surface of connected bamboo sticks, and then the sticks were rolled.

Gradually instead of bamboo they began to use silk, and later paper, for writing and then painting, but the familiar roll format preserved. Rice paper and silk are delicate, they require delicate handling, so a calligraphy or a picture were glued on a more consistent basis, framed with silk brims and rolled or rather scrolled.

It is unusual for us, but in fact, the practicality and convenience of this method are very impressive. First, the silk creates a field around the picture, so if the fields tear, wrinkle, and get dirty, the work itself is clean. Second, the scroll is tight at the edges, because silk has a little extra thickness compared with paper, and inside the scrolls are more free. This means that, on the one hand, dust doesn't get inside, and on the other hand, thanks to air circulation the work does not suffer from mould or rot. It seems to me that ancient examples of paintings preserved thanks to their scroll design.

And finally imagine what is easier and more convenient to carry and store: heavy, bulky frames or light compact scrolls. And it is not difficult to find a particular scroll: on the outside of each scroll there is information about its contents, and a plate with the same information is attached to the end. It's a bit like book roots — it is not necessary to take a book from a shelf to understand what work is in front of you.
The most interesting thing is that the scroll design of paintings and calligraphy has a huge impact on how the viewer interacts with a painting. You say: what impact could be here, you just look at it, be it a Chinese scroll or a European oil painting. But it is not so simple! The length of the horizontal scroll can be a few meters, sometimes few tens of meters. You can neither hang this painting on a wall nor expand it to the entire length. So the picture is taken only on special occasions. You take a wooden box, where works are usually stored. You take a scroll wrapped in a piece of silk, untie a silk cord, put the scroll on a table. By the way, Chinese tables with upturned edges are designed for these scrolls: they do not let them unroll and fall on the floor.

At each end of the scroll there is usually a cylinder, with which you can gradually unfold the work to the width of a few tens of centimeters, then gradually wind the viewed part to the right cylinder and expand the work further. If this is your first experience with a scroll, you have no idea what awaits you next, you go on a real journey from the right edge of the painting to its left edge. It's like reading a book or watching a movie, but unlike in an ordinary painting, there is a beginning and an end. But you do divide a picture in areas as if cropping it, you look in detail at some parts, scroll faster other parts, meaning you essentially become a co-creator of the artist! Then you do the opposite way, from left to right, noticing new details, and after such a walk, the scroll goes to the shelf until the next session. In this format it is impossible to look at the picture with a big company; it is an intimate communication with a work of art for a maximum of two people at close range, in direct contact with a painting.

Today in the museums and exhibitions there are unrolled scrolls, although for museum workers it is always a difficult task. If you find such a piece, don't forget to look at it from right to left, not like this pair, from left to right!

As for horizontal scrolls, there is another trick: on the left side of antique works there is often a so-called colophon, one or more texts with various inscriptions. The first entry is usually left by the author of the painting, and the following are added by its numerous owners, and even more numerous spectators. Someone wrote about their impressions from the picture, someone agreed with the commenter and added his vision, someone made a bet, here are quotes from other people's poems and their own poems inspired by the painting. There's something very modern in it, don't you think? Authors of each inscription put their own seal. New sheets were added to this part of scrolls and sometimes it became much longer than the work itself. Scrolls with a colophon are highly valued by collectors because they are more than a beautiful piece and an interesting historical document; they are a lively dialogue between the author and the audience, often separated by many generations.

Only a true artisan can make a scroll. Imagine that you need to draw a picture of a few meters. You can't see the whole picture, you consistently work on individual pieces, but they all have to be part of the whole, bear a single idea. Chinese painting, unlike oil painting, does not allow fixing anything. Every stroke, every line must go into place, there must be no mistakes. In addition, there are no pencil sketches in Chinese painting, everything is done at once, on a white sheet. In addition, viewers themselves will crop your work, so it is necessary to think about the composition so that there are no seams, for example, a landscape must slowly unfold before eyes, by the way it is the most common genre of horizontal scrolls.

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From the 3rd century BC the Chinese began to make works in vertical scrolls, and this tradition is still alive in our days and maintains the same principles and techniques that used to be two thousand years ago. The way of reading these paintings is closer to the European method, but it is not exactly the same. Such works, as we have, are hung on walls for admiring. But the Chinese believe that painting should be admired and not a part of the everyday landscape, familiar and a part of the interior which doesn't cause an emotional response. So a picture is hung just for some time, often for a season or on some special occasion. So most of the time a scroll is stored in a rolled form, and its contemplation becomes a joyous event.

The format of four scrolls is quite popular: seasons, four noble plants (plum, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum), four beauties.

I will share with you interesting features of the design of scrolls. The top field is usually larger than the bottom field, it's called the sky and the bottom field is respectively called the earth. On top of the sky there is a rod with a silk cord that secures the scroll in a rolled form and on which an unrolled work is hung. At the bottom there is a cylindrical weighting detail, a scroll is wound on it, and it does not let the work curl, when it's hanging on the wall. It is interesting that horizontal scrolls also have the heaven and the earth, only the sky is on the right and the earth is on the left. There are different styles — one, two, or three colors. Scrolls allow interesting composing of painting and calligraphy.

Making scrolls is a separate exciting art. First of all it is necessary to calculate the size of the finished scroll, depending on the size of the image (there are pillars that define the width of the heaven, the earth, and side fields). Rice paper is very thin, besides after the painting or the hieroglyphs are drawn it becomes warped. To smoothen it, to make the colours brighter and to strengthen the work should be glued on thick and flexible paper base. Then we need to decide what silk to choose, how many colors to choose, if you need to make a thin edging of ribbon and choose its color. Finally you glue on a silk frame, and the picture immediately comes to life! Then you fix the upper rod with a silk ribbon and the weighting at the bottom, put wood caps in the weighting and the scroll is ready.

I'm always very happy if someone of the buyers wants to get a scroll because the picture immediately becomes finished, it still retains the lightness in the literal and figurative sense, because the image is not closed with glass. Well, convenience is also important: a small nail is enough to put a work on a wall!