The legend says anyone who creates one thousand paper cranes will have their biggest wish come true. One of the most touching origami stories is the one of Sadako, a young girl from Hiroshima. And finally, the types are many – from kinetic origami, to modular, wet-folded, to kirigami – art of paper cutting. A lot of tools is used – bone folders, tweezers, rulers, even glue and scissors. Known origami techniques are usually based on several basic shapes or models, such as valley or mountain, pleat, reverse fold, squash fold, sing, square base, fish base, waterbomb and the frog base. It serves multiple purposes, always bringing the folder a lot of satisfaction. Today origami permeates the area of hobby, design, art and even mathematical calculation. He passed away in 2005 at the age of 94, after having developed a special folding system back in the 1930s, helping global origami standardization. One of the fathers of modern origami was Akira Yoshizawa. While modern origami praises the skill of folding paper without the use of cuts or glue, traditional origami, especially that kind bound to other countries than Japan, does not exclude these aids.

A lot of origami models we find today are under somebody’s copyright, but this doesn’t go for the oldest forms, such as the aforementioned crane. While traditional origami was passed down through generations orally, modern origami is generally recorded in books, often developed and reinvented by contemporary designers.

Still, Japanese style origami maintained its special form, meaning and charm.

When the Moors entered Spain, they brought this skill with them, it spread across the Pyrenean peninsula and then across the whole of Western Europe, becoming common in the 19th century. Paper folding art was not indigenous to Japan alone, but it had appeared in Europe as well. The end of the 19th century was marked with the appearance of the name for this noble art as we know it today, switching from “orikata” to origami. In the mid eighteen-hundreds, Adachi Kazuyuki teamed up with Kaya Ragusa and issues a more elaborate textbook in origami. The first written instructions for making items out of paper date back to the late seventeen-hundreds, tracing to the famous “secret to folding one thousand cranes” book, or Senbazuru Orikata, by Akisato Rito. The progress of paper production made origami widespread and affordable, while skills and forms of paper folding developed, making it a very special form of art. Origami was developing greatly over centuries and when Edo period began with the sixteen hundreds, it has already become a leisure activity, although it kept the ceremonial purpose it originally had. Therefore, origami was intended to be used during religious ceremonies only at first. Handmade and rare, paper was a luxurious commodity, available only to the richest. Having been invented in China at the very beginning of the second century AD, paper entered Japan four centuries later, brought to the country by monks. The name of origami is derived from Japanese terms oru, which means “to fold”, and kami, meaning “paper”. Therefore, origami flowers bring us back to the bountiful history spreading across the Japanese culture, social system and all islands. But what is it that can make origami so magical, so engaging and so deeply touching? Origami is the art of paper folding similar to napkin folding from Japan. Everybody knows about origami, the Japanese art of paper folding.

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