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<\/p>\nKumano-cho sits in a small basin in Aki District, surrounded on all sides by hills rising to around 500 meters and stretching narrowly from north to south between Hiroshima, Kure, and Higashi-Hiroshima. It is a modest town, with a population of roughly 23,500. Yet more than 80 percent of the writing brushes, painting brushes, and cosmetic brushes made in Japan come from this narrow valley. Around 2,000 residents work in the brush trade in one form or another, and 13 hold the government-recognized title of Traditional Craftsman. Kumano is, in effect, Japan’s brush capital.<\/p>\n
What makes this remarkable is that Kumano produces none of the raw materials its industry depends on. The animal hair \u2014 goat, horse, weasel, deer, raccoon dog \u2014 comes largely from China and North America. Wood and bamboo for the handles are sourced from Okayama Prefecture, while imports from Taiwan and Korea have also increased in recent years. A town without the raw materials needed for brushmaking nevertheless became the heart of Japan’s brush industry. The story of Kumano-fude, then, is not really a story of materials. It is a story of people.<\/p>\n
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The connection began almost by accident. In the closing decades of the Edo period, farmers in this small basin had too little flat land to support themselves through agriculture alone. During quieter periods in the agricultural calendar, and making use of labor available between farming tasks, many traveled to the Nara region for seasonal work. On their way home, some began buying brushes and ink to sell in towns and villages along the route. What began as a practical way to supplement farming income gradually connected Kumano with the brush trade.<\/p>\n
The turn from trading to making came in the 1830s and 1840s, when the Hiroshima domain began actively promoting local industries and opening new markets. A handful of young villagers left home to learn the craft properly. Sasaki Tameji traveled to Arima in present-day Hy\u014dgo Prefecture in 1834 and returned four years later with the skills he had learned there. Inoue Jihei received instruction in 1846 from a brush maker employed by the Asano domain. Otomaru Tsunetar\u014d likewise trained in Arima around the same period.<\/p>\n
All three returned to Kumano and taught their neighbors. The knowledge brought home by a handful of craftsmen spread through the village within a generation. Later, as calligraphy became part of the school curriculum following educational reforms in the Meiji era, demand grew further.<\/p>\n
The 20th century was not a straight line upward. Brush production fell after the Second World War when calligraphy instruction in schools was curtailed. But from around 1955, Kumano’s craftsmen began applying the same hand skills to painting brushes and cosmetic brushes. In 1975, Kumano-fude became the first traditional craft in Hiroshima Prefecture to receive official designation from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.<\/p>\n
Today, Kumano’s cosmetic brushes are recognized well beyond the world of traditional calligraphy. They were even selected as part of the commemorative gifts associated with the People’s Honor Award presented to Nadeshiko Japan, the Japanese women’s national football team. A craft that began as supplementary work for farmers had traveled remarkably far.<\/p>\n
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Bunk\u014dd\u014d is one of the family workshops carrying this history forward. Founded in 1907 \u2014 the fortieth year of the Meiji era \u2014 it has continued making brushes in Kumano for more than a century. Today, the workshop is led by fourth-generation president Yasuko Mimura. Like so much of Kumano’s brushmaking knowledge, the work has been passed from parent to child.<\/p>\n
Bunk\u014dd\u014d’s range reflects the breadth of Kumano brushmaking. There are calligraphy brushes made from materials such as goat and weasel hair, highly delicate cosmetic brushes for applications such as eyeshadow and lip color, and *taim\u014d-fude* \u2014 brushes made from a baby’s first haircut.<\/p>\n
The custom of *taim\u014d-fude* is said to have originated among Kumano’s brush craftsmen. Rather than allowing the hair from a child’s first haircut simply to disappear, it is gathered, shaped, and preserved as a brush: a small object created from a fleeting moment so that the memory can remain for years to come.<\/p>\n
Behind every brush is a process that cannot easily be simplified. Traditional Kumano brushmaking is said to involve more than seventy steps. Hair is selected and sorted according to type and quality, carefully combined in precise proportions, and repeatedly worked by hand. Each stage contributes to the final balance, firmness, flexibility, and shape of the brush.<\/p>\n
Much of this work is invisible to someone looking only at the finished product on a shelf. Yet it is precisely in these unseen stages \u2014 the careful selection of hair, the judgment of proportion, the shaping of the bundle and the finishing of the tip \u2014 that decades of accumulated skill become visible.<\/p>\n
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Kumano-fude is widely known throughout Japan, yet the people and processes behind the name are far less familiar. A brush bought in a department store rarely tells the story of the more than seventy steps behind it, the craftsmen who traveled to Arima nearly two centuries ago to learn their trade, or the small basin town that became Japan’s brush capital despite producing none of the raw materials required to make a brush.<\/p>\n
In recent years, efforts have been made to close that gap between being known and being understood.<\/p>\n
In Kumano, visitors can enter working workshops, observe processes that are normally difficult to see from the outside, and experience part of the work themselves. Under the guidance of craftsmen, they can try stages such as *norizuke*, the finishing process that shapes and sets the brush tip, and then sit in a tatami room and write with a brush whose making they have just encountered firsthand.<\/p>\n
It is one thing to know that eight out of every ten brushes made in Japan come from Kumano. It is another to understand what lies behind that number: hair separated by hand, quantities judged by experienced eyes, and dozens of careful processes carried out without haste before a brush is finally ready to write.<\/p>\n
In October 2026, BUNKODO will bring this experience from Kumano to Paris with Brush Meditation, its first presentation of the project in Europe.<\/p>\n
Held from October 8 to 10 at SEPTIEME Gallery in Paris, the exhibition will introduce visitors not only to finished Kumano brushes, but also to the craftsmanship behind them. BUNKODO artisans will give daily demonstrations of traditional brush-making techniques, while visitors will be invited to take a brush in hand and experience Brush Meditation for themselves \u2014 preparing the ink, breathing, and simply drawing a line.<\/p>\n
The exhibition will also introduce BUNKODO’s new Japanese Calligraphy & Brush Art Set, created to make Japanese brush culture accessible even to those with no previous experience of calligraphy.<\/p>\n
More than a century after BUNKODO began making brushes in Kumano, the workshop is taking another step outward \u2014 bringing the materials, techniques, and experience of the Japanese brush from Hiroshima to Paris.<\/p>\n