Genji Monogatari Emaki

The painted images in the scroll show a tradition and distinctive conventions that are already well developed, and may well have been several centuries in the making.

There is no exact date to the scroll, but it is estimated to being sometime between 1120 and 1140,[2] in which case it was created just a little over a century after Murasaki Shikibu wrote The Tale of Genji.

Until relatively recently, the scroll was believed to be the work of Fujiwara no Takayoshi, a well known Court painter of the twelfth century.

The characteristic pictorial technique of the scroll is known as "tsukuri-e" meaning "manufactured painting",[4] which is an extension of yamato-e.

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.

In the last step, the original black lines, which are now covered by paint, were drawn back in with ink in order to make the picture stand out more.

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 towards The Tale of Genji.

The Genji Monogatari Emaki is characterized by two pictorial techniques: fukinuki yatai and hikime kagibana.

The artists were very realistic with the architectural details of the scroll.Hikime kagibana style described the illustration of people with faces drawn with essentially identical features:[8] slit eyes and hook nose.

Therefore, the artist chose to use the unrealistic technique of hikime kagibana so that the readers individual image of the figures could be preserved.

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.

[3] For example, they used marker styles that consisted of delicate flowing lines and others with definite brush strokes.

The textual fragments found in the scrolls are notable in that they preserve the oldest known form of the text of the Genji.