Water art is believed to have originated in Japan around the 12th century, when it was accidentally discovered that ink floats on the surface of water. An image made up of different colors could be drawn from the surface of the water onto paper. In Japan, this technique was called suminagashi – “floating ink”. In Turkey, however, a similar style was called the ebru technique. Flowing images were drawn in the ink floating on the surface of the water, which made the technique particularly exciting and the resulting images incredibly beautiful. When it reached Europe, the technique was called marbling, because the so-called water prints resembled the marble surfaces that were widely used in architecture at the time.