This note introduces the concept of “binding rhythms” in premodern Japanese books. Beginning in the eighth century, and flourishing in the twelfth, was a book culture that prized elaborately ornamented papers for inscription. Such papers, when bound according to certain methods, resulted in repeating patterns of ornamentation that conspicuously punctuated one’s reading of a book. Given that so few Japanese codices bound according to these methods survive, such binding rhythms are a lost aspect of the phenomenology of Japanese premodern books. By attending to the binding rhythms, one becomes more aware of the agency of the unsung book designers, whose sophisticated manipulation of ornament had a large impact on the final manuscript. This note thus points to the potential for several new avenues of research concerning the agency of ornament, the history of design, and the phenomenology of reading in Japan.
Kristopher W. Kersey (Sun,) studied this question.