From mysterious Japan the art of reproducing reality in delicate forms of paper, origami, has spread.
The imaginative creations of origami know no bounds, which is all the more surprising since, according to tradition, the models can only be made by folding the paper without ever cutting it.
In 1970 the huge number of people who, in Yokohama, went to visit the land of fairy tales of Yoshizawa were surprised by the number of paper characters inspired by the best known Eastern and Western fairy tales. The origins of this art can be traced back to the Japanese Middle Ages, when origami had only a ritual function and the virgins of the sanctuaries attended to the construction of symbolic paper figures to be used as votive offerings.
The art known to us dates back to a later period, during the Muromachi period (1336-1568), but the credit for the recent fortune of origami all over the world belongs to the ability of Akira Yoshizawa, recognized as the most talented artist of this art. He kept his creations, tens of thousands, in special cardboard or wooden boxes because he said "No one would sell their children".
His work "The cicada" took 23 years of work to achieve, until in 1959 the cicada of his dreams was formed, and to see it today, it is rather difficult to distinguish it from a real fossilized cicada.
Several artists have been inspired and experimented with this art, including Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994) present at the auction Thinking Italian last October 2017 in London at Christie's with the work Origami (Airplane) sold for 35 thousand pounds.
But the concept of origami has also fascinated several artists who have interpreted this art in their own way, some with painting, design and some with sculpture, like the Brazilian artist Clark Lygia, whose bent metal works can reach considerable estimates such as Relógio de sol (Sundial), circa 1960–63, Estimated $700,000 to $900,000.
And there are those who see in the futurist painting of Severini and Balla the painted folds of skilfully folded sheets. Who knows if they too were inspired by origami?
