Genji Monogatari Emaki

The Genji Monogatari Emaki (源氏物語絵巻), also called The Tale of Genji Scroll, is a pictorial hand scroll of the Japanese literature piece The Tale of Genji. In the title, Genji Monogatari Emaki the word emaki came from the word emakimono meaning picture scrolls.

History
The emakimono picture scrolls consisted of two designs. These two designs were either pictures that were painted on a scroll with text added to the same scroll or a number of paintings that accompanied passages of text and were joined together in a scroll. The first known picture scroll was produced in Japan during either the late ninth or tenth century. The Genji Monogatari picture scroll, however, was constructed at the beginning of the twelfth century. It is said to be the oldest surviving picture scroll depicting the novel The Tale of Genji. Not only is the Genji Monogatari Emaki the oldest surviving monogatari scroll but it is also the oldest surviving non-Buddhist scroll in Japan. There is no exact date to when the scroll was constructed but it is estimated to being sometime between 1120 and 1130. It was constructed just a little over one hundred years after Lady Murasaki Shikibu wrote The Tale of Genji. Some believe that the Genji Monogatari Emaki is an example of narrative art from the Heian period and came directly from a Chinese source, despite the fact that the scroll uses strictly Japanese techniques. Those who believe this say that it came from T'ang figure and landscape painting which was imported into Japan during the early Heian period. But, in the history of Chinese art there has never been a set of paintings and calligraphy in the form of a scroll found. Also, in almost all ways The Genji Monogatari Emaki scroll differs from the values and art styles of the Chinese. Therefore, it is true that the Genji Monogatari Emaki comes strictly from Japanese art forms. The purpose for the construction of the scroll was to provide a visual depiction and further explanation of the novel The Tale of Genji.

Dimensions
The original scroll was about 450 feet long. It consisted of twenty rolls, contained over 100 paintings, and had over 300 sheets of calligraphy. The surviving scrolls of The Genji Monogatari Emaki, however, are not a complete depiction of The Tale of Genji. It consists of only 19 paintings, 65 sheets of text, and 9 pages of fragments housed in the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya and the Gotoh Museum in Tokyo. The surviving scroll amounts to about 15 percent of the original scroll.

Design
In the past it was believed that the scroll was a work of Fujiwara no Takayoshi, a well known Court painter of the twelfth century. With great research, this belief has somewhat changed. Although there has been evidence found, it is still unknown to who the exact illustrator was and how the scroll was constructed. Because of the techniques used in The Genji Monogatari Emaki, it is obvious that various calligraphers and artists with connection to Takayoshi produced the scroll. The characteristic pictorial technique of the scroll is known as tsukurie meaning manufactured painting. The tsukurie style was hardly ever used in men’s paintings but was always used in women’s paintings. This style is referred to in the actual novel The Tale of Genji as the process of applying paint to a black and white drawing. It also referred to the painter himself as opposed to the artist who the did the basic drawing. In present day, it is a form of painting in which all the empty space of the paper is covered with heavy pigment. There are four steps to this process. The first step is where a series of scenes with noteworthy visual effects were chosen from the respective monogatari. The second step is where the piece is executed in black and white drawing. The third step is where pigments were added to the basic drawing and the details are colored. The last step is where the original black lines, which are now covered up by paint, were drawn back in with ink in order to make the picture stand out more. When deciding to represent the novel The Tale of Genji as a picture scroll people in charge wanted to use a style that would not jar with people’s image of the novel. The decided to make all the scenes peaceful, elegant, and static, which reflected the dominant aesthetic attitude of the artists and the early twelfth century court aristocracy with regard to The Tale of Genji.

Pictorial technique
The Genji Monogatari Emaki is characterized by two pictorial techniques, funkinuki yatai and hikime kagibana. The first technique, Fukinuki yatai, relates to the architecture of the painting. fukinuki yatai means “blown away roof”. It is a form of composition that gives the person viewing a bird’s eye view of the interior of a building. It is seen from an upper diagonal with the roof, ceiling and sometimes inner partitions removed. The artists were very realistic when it came to details of the architecture of the scroll. The second technique used in The Genji Monogatari Emaki was hikime kagibana or line for an eye, hook for a nose. This technique relates to the illustration of the people. Hikime kagibana takes place when all the faces are drawn with essentially identical features. This technique takes place in all but one of the nineteen pictures in the scroll. Another characteristic of hikime Kagibana is that throughout the entire scroll, there is not a single full front view of a face. There are only two different viewpoints used to show the faces. These viewpoints consist of an oblique angle of 30 degrees from the front and a right angle giving a straight profile. With the right angle, the eyebrows and corners of the eyes are seen but the nose is invisible. This is a fictional depiction of a person because in actuality it is impossible to see the corner of someone’s eye but not see their nose. Although the illustration of architecture throughout the scroll is very realistic, the images of the figures faces were very unrealistic. This is said to be because the dominate figures in the novel The Tale of Genji were not a part of everyday life and were unfamiliar to the readers. They were instead figures of one’s imagination from the past or a make believe world. It was intended for the readers to portray their own image of the figures while reading the novel. If the artists would have created realistic portraits of the figures it would have interfered with the images that the readers had portrayed. Therefore, the artist chose to use the unrealistic technique of hikime kagibana so the readers individual image of the figures could still be revealed.

Emotional aspects of the characters
Although, the technique of hikime kagibana was used for the drawing of the figure’s faces there was still a great amount of emotion that could be detected from the faces. One way that the artists showed individual emotions in the figure’s faces is through the placement and size of their facial features. Such as the thickness of the eyebrows or lips, the angle of the eyebrows or eyes, and the space between the eyes and brows. For example in chapters 37 and 39 the depiction of Lady Kumoi is of a strong-willed young woman who has become prey to overwhelming jealousy. This depiction is done by making her eyebrows a bit stronger, tiny pupils that are a little lower, eyes slightly cast down, and her upper lip being just a little thicker. Another way that the artists showed emotion in the characters was by the tilt of their faces. This was done by making the characters faces looking away, or placed in their hands almost completely covering their faces and other ways of covering their faces or looking away. The artists also portrayed individual expressions and emotions to the characters by using inanimate elements. Some examples that were used throughout the scroll were autumn grasses and raindrops. The autumn grasses were used as a symbol of human emotion.

Calligraphy
The Genji Monogatari Emaki is known to be much more extensive than any other hand scrolls due to the extent and beauty of its calligraphy. The artists of The Tale of Genji scroll did not use just one style of calligraphy but many different styles. For example, they used styles that consisted of delicate flowing lines and others with definite brush strokes. The purpose of this style of calligraphy was more for aesthetic enjoyment of the design instead of for reading the text. Because of this style of calligraphy The Genji Monogatari Emaki is almost impossible to decipher. Even of today’s most educated Japanese people only a few can successfully decipher it. Even though It is unknown how well the Japanese people of the time the scroll was made could read it many still believe that they too would have had a very difficult time. It is believed that the reason for the difficulty of the calligraphy in The Genji Monogatari Emaki was because if it was made easy to read like any other text it would have taken away from the appreciation of its visual art.