The is a mid-13th century (Japanese picture scroll) inspired by the private diary () of Murasaki Shikibu, lady-in-waiting at the 10th–11th century Heian court and author of The Tale of Genji. This belongs to the classical style of Japanese painting known as , and revives the iconography of the Heian period.
Today there remain four paper scrolls of the in varying condition, and stored in different collections: Hachisuka, Matsudaira, Hinohara scrolls (Tokyo), and Fujita scroll (Fujita Art Museum, Osaka). Of the extant scrolls, the first relates the celebrations on occasion of the birth of prince Atsunari (Atsuhira, later Emperor Go-Ichijō) in 1008 and the last those of the birth of Prince Atsunaga (later Emperor Go-Suzaku) in 1009. This difference in time indicates that the original most likely consisted of more scrolls than exist today.
Description records the daily life of the Heian era lady-in-waiting and writer, Lady Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji. Most likely written between 1008 and 1010, the largest portion consists of descriptive passages of the birth of Empress Shōshi's (Akiko) children (future Emperors Go-Ichijō and Go-Suzaku) and related festivities, with smaller vignettes describing life at the Imperial court and relations between other ladies-in-waiting and court writers such as Izumi Shikibu, Akazome Emon and Sei Shōnagon. It also gives a lively account of the regency of the powerful Fujiwara no Michinaga. Like the romantic novel Genji, the diary deals with emotions and human relationships, particularly with Murasaki Shikibu's constraints at the court of Akiko, and her loneliness and feelings of futility after her husband's death (in 1001). The author is critical of her contemporaries, the men for their discourteous ways (including Fujiwara no Michinaga) and the women for their inexperience and lack of education and will. The diary is considered a masterpiece of .
, which are long paper scrolls telling a story through texts and paintings, came to Japan through exchange with the Chinese Empire around the 6th century and spread widely among the Heian aristocracy. The subsequent Kamakura period was marked by internal strife and civil wars that fostered the rise of the warrior class. If the warriors of the preferred "quick-moving narrative scrolls" such as war tales or legends, the production of at the Heian court subsisted. Pictures illustrating The Tale of Genji continued to be popular into the early Kamakura period and revived interest in the author, Murasaki Shikibu. Towards the end of the 13th century, a renewed interest in the refined culture of the Heian period led some artists to return to painting styles of the Imperial Court; many were produced during this period.
The belongs to this golden age of the and according to Penelope Mason "may be regarded as one of the finest extant examples of prose-poetry narrative illustration from the Kamakura period". It was created about 200 years after the diary was written, in the mid-13th century.Suzuki Keizō, a scholar of the history of costume, dated it to around 1250. It transcribes the solitude and the observations of palace life from the diary but adds to the text a certain nostalgia for the glorious past of the Heian court which is typical for the 13th century, giving an overall feeling of "lost golden age", according to Mason, even during happy events such as parties. The explanatory notes (or captions), i.e. the non-painting part, show little textual deviations from the diary.
An emaki of Murasaki Shikibu's diary is mentioned in the , the diary of the poet and scholar Fujiwara no Teika. According to this document, in 1233 several aristocrats close to cloistered Emperor Go-Horikawa planned to create a new of The Tale of Genji (after the 12th century , the best known of these works), accompanied by another of Murasaki's diary. However, there is no conclusive evidence that the extant scrolls correspond to those mentioned by Fujiwara no Teika, even though the consistency of manufacturing dates suggests that this is the case. The paintings of the have been attributed to the painter Fujiwara Nobuzane and the captions to the excellent calligrapher , despite definitive evidence.
Style and composition Two elements are found in the illustrations of the : people indoors engaging in activities typical of the aristocracy of the period, such as writing letters, playing instruments, exchanging poems or talking to each other; and the gardens outside their buildings. For this reason, Mason calls the people in the "house bound". The leftward direction of scroll reading is reflected in the composition of paintings and pictures which may build to a climax from right to left; or a main event presented on the right may be followed by its after-effects to the left. Stylistically the follows the principles of the genre of and is in this respect similar to the Tale of Genji Scrolls (1120–1140) but differs from them in many other aspects. Typical for , the paintings depict life at the palace with a sense of nostalgia, timeless and very retained, but purely decorative elements such as landscapes and contemplative scenes are added. Illustrations are relatively shortIn the case of the Genji Monogatari Emaki, on average. compared to of war or folktales,Where a single scene could be more than long which according to Mason, "heightens the symbolic quality of non-figural motifs".
The painting technique of , used mainly in of the court in the 12th century, is also used here. It is done in three stages: a first sketch of the scene is made with Indian ink (probably by a master of the workshop), then the color is applied on the entire surface of the paper in a specific order, from large areas in the background to fine details. Finally, the contours are enhanced or revived in ink to emphasize the depth. However, a visible change in style may again be noted, because the pigments are here less opaque than usual, and the more subtle shades are highlighted by fine outlines in ink; and in addition, the decorative aspect emerges strongly through extensive use of gold dust, and sometimes of silver. According to Mason, the technique seems to be less careful than in the past, as can be seen in elements of the architectural interior (such as sliding doors and screens) which lack detail or in the silver powder which is used much less often in general compared to gold.
The cultural changes after the Heian period resulted in a more realistic depiction of figures including movements and gestures. Abandoning the Heian period style,A technique of representing the faces with four lines on a white background, similar to Noh masks to mark the extreme reclusiveness of the aristocrats figures were painted individual features and facial expressions that conveyed emotions and moods. More generally, M. Murase notes that the expression of feelings subtly changed compared to the scrolls of the 12th century; here the rooms (or the inner space, because it depends on the ) in the palace are larger and less intimate or private, and nobles come and go naturally and determined. Unlike earlier scrolls such as the , in which architecture and landscape were used as metaphors for people's emotions, interpersonal or societal pressures, in these scrolls the people's feelings are painted directly on the faces or shown through gestures, in addition to being expressed by the placement of characters within the scene. Architectural elements such as pillars, beams or platforms continued to be used to convey moods. Landscapes stand on their own as they are detached from the characters' emotions and gain a new function as a place to escape from the constraints of court life.
Like most , the composition is based on the technique, which consists of a perspective of looking down from above into the inner spaces resulting in a plunging view. Furthermore, diagonals are used to mark depth. Compared to earlier scrolls, in these scrolls, the interior spaces are depicted from a more normal perspective such as through rolled up bamboo blinds ()) or spaces in the walls where sliding panels () had been removed. The pace that is intentionally slow in , here seems slightly faster with illustrations depicting a single occurrence in time and temporally related events positioned close to each other in the .
This new decorative approach to paintings of the court () inspired by the themes of literature is evident in several other works of the Kamakura period, such as (e.g. The Tales of Ise ), (e.g. ) and romances (e.g. ).
Historiography The illustrations provide insight into life and festivities at the Heian Palace, which sometimes consisted of something as simple as games on the lake, although those might have been perceived differently at the time of manufacture. Like other picture scrolls on court life such as the or the they provide valuable information on the architectural style (particularly on interiors) which is characterized by a mixture of Tang and traditional Japanese influences.
Extant scrolls It is thought that the originally consisted of 10–12 scrolls. The ancestral heritage of the before the Edo period (1603–1867) is not known, and an investigation conducted during the Meiji period (1868–1911) found that only four scrolls had survived, each high and about long. The owners and state of preservation of all four scrolls has since changed. The extant parts correspond to about 15 percent of the original diary and are not in sequence. They consist of 24 scenes of varying widths distributed among three scrolls, six single sheets and two hanging scrolls in six different locations: Fujita Art Museum, Gotoh Museum, Tokyo National Museum and three private collections. Each scroll begins with a text section and generally alternates scene descriptions with illustrations, ending with a painting. In two instances a long text section is split in two parts3rd text of Hachisuka and 4th text of Hinohara scroll. and the Hachisuka scroll has an accumulation of three illustrationsPaintings 3, 4 and 5. unseparated by text, and an accumulation of two unseparated independent text sections.Texts 6 and 7.
Hachisuka scroll Chronologically the oldest scenes of the , combined with some of the later anecdotes in the diary, are contained in the Hachisuka scroll. Named after its former owner, the Hachisuka clan, rulers of the Tokushima Domain in Awa Province, this scroll is privately owned. It consists of eight illustrations and seven text sections on 16 paper sheets. The long third text section is split in two parts and followed by three illustrations. The seventh text section immediately follows the sixth without a painting between the two. The full scroll is long and has been designated as Important Cultural Property. Scenes 1–5 correspond to a continuous part of the diary and are the oldest diary entries represented by any of the four extant scrolls. Scenes 6 and 7 correspond to later diary entries and appear in the diary after several of the scenes described in the other three extant scrolls.
Third day of birth celebration of Atsuhira-shinnō
The Hachisuka scroll starts with a description of a banquet given by the queen's majordomo and managed by the governor of Ōmi Province on Kankō 5, 9th month, 13th day (14 October 1008), the third night of the birth of Atsuhira-shinnō, the later Emperor Go-Ichijō. On that occasion, the mother, Empress Shōshi received presents such as baby clothes and furniture. The illustration associated with this scene shows court nobles on the balconies outside of the principal building in which the queen is located.
Fifth day of birth celebration of Atsuhira-shinnō