Colorful screens that were painted with scenes of the 'other', that beyond the everyday realm, gained great currency in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Subjects included not only depictions of foreigners (namban screens), but also good and bad deeds of past Chinese rulers, tales of the supernatural, and depictions of pleasure mansions full of foreign delights. The first type of screens discussed are namban or 'Southern Barbarian' screens. The composition, style and decoration in which the foreigners and the Japanese are depicted provide a working model of how the 'oher' and the 'self' was envisioned during this type of screen's period of production. The artist set up a clear dualism structurally reflected in the composition. This compositional device became standardized, and thus helped the viewer identify the scene as a vision of the 'other'. Five elements can be discerned in this type of composition depicting foreigners, and indeed in most compositions that represent that beyond the realm of everyday life. These five elements and their implications are discussed in detail using various examples including teinai yurakuzu screens (scenes of merrymaking in a mansion) of the Kan'ei period (1624-1643).