A set of illuminated manuscripts, they describe the life of Ippen (1234–1289), a Buddhist monk who founded the Ji-shū (時宗, "Time sect") branch of Pure Land Buddhism.

[1] A second version, made in a more accessible style in the 14th century, and named Yugyō Shonin Engi-e (遊行上人縁起絵, "The Pictorial Origin Story of the Itinerant Saint"), also recounts the biography of the monk.

This politically and socially unstable period provided fertile ground for Buddhism to proselytize, whether through the depiction of the sutras, or by illustrated accounts of the lives of illustrious monks.

Under the impetus of the new warrior class in power and the new Buddhist sects, artistic production was very sustained and the themes and techniques were even more varied than before,[4] signalling the "golden age" of emakimono (the 12th and 13th centuries).

[9] He entered religious orders at the age of fifteen and studied the teachings of Pure Land Buddhism (known in Japan as Jōdo) in Dazaifu with Shōtatsu (聖達), himself a disciple of Shōkū (証空), before devoting himself to hermit meditation in the mountains.

[16] The exhaustive list of temples or institutions with a copy today (excluding private collections and fragments) is:[17] Biographies probably occasionally mix Ippen's life with those of other monks such as Hōnen, especially in relation to his apprenticeship at Tendai.

[24] Four main styles have been identified for the calligraphy, the work of several aristocrats of the Imperial Court led by Sesonji Tsunetada, and carried out separately on silk coupons of various colours.

The quality and richness of the work, carried out on silk, a luxury material and support of only one other emakimono known today (the Kasuga Gongen Genki E), strongly suggest an order from a wealthy patron of the court, probably a Ji-shū convert, to make an offering to Kankikō-ji.

Unlike later versions or other biographies of patriarchs, there is no intention in the paintings of this work to give a mystical or divine dimension to Ippen, who is often relegated to the background in favor of landscape illustrations.

[39] By comparison, other illustrated biographies of monks (such as the Hōnen Shōnin Eden [fr]) emphasise the characters and the dynamism of the narrative, or fall into stereotyping and repetition.

"If the work is sensitive to the influence of Southern Song wash painting, it nevertheless participates, while taking up yamato-e processes, in the new realistic trends of the Kamakura period [...] and explores thus a new pictorial space.

"Beginning with yamato-e, the scrolls exploit the classical composition techniques of emakimono: the whole is based on long parallel vanishing lines that accompany the eye movement and suggest depth, as well as distant elevated viewpoints (so-called "bird's-eye" perspective) and the intensive use of mists (suyari).

Ippen having dedicated his life to roaming, the travel scenes dominate the work, but despite the importance of the landscapes, the subjective and non-realistic Japanese perspective remains tangible, the main elements of each section being enlarged in relation to the proportions of the sets.

[42] In particular, Ippen and his group always appear unusually tall compared with other characters and buildings, as they are central to the story (the religious emakimono had mainly a didactic interest).

[22] Several details reveal that the artists were inspired by the style of the Southern Song: the framing of the compositions, the depth of the landscapes rendered by a succession of images, or the use of the side of the brush rather than the tip for the contours of the mountains.

[40][44] Thus, in spite of the unrealistic sizes of the characters and improbable points of view in height, the landscapes are most often deep and rigorously proportioned, reinforced by pictorial techniques such as painting the trees in a detailed way in the foreground and blurred in the background, or even flocks of birds that gradually disappear towards the horizon.

[47] There is in fact a correspondence between certain landscapes and feelings conveyed by the story, for example the cherry trees of Iyo painted just after flowering when Ippen leaves his home, to evoke the separation.

[16] Presumably, the artist was seeking to transmit the Amidist teaching through images, which required stylistic and narrative changes - the characters are, for example, represented taller than in real life to be better identifiable during sermons or e-toki (public sessions of explanation of religious paintings).

The first scroll deals with Ippen's revelation to Kumano and his early conversations about faith in Amida; the second depicts the first nenbutsu he danced, and his sermons to the people during his travels until his expulsion from Kamakura; the third continues with Ippen's voyages accompanied by his numerous disciples; the fourth concerns the end of life and the death of the patriarch; the fifth shows Taa's first sermon to a small local lord and the new hope it arouses among the faithful of the school; scrolls six to nine represent Taa's pilgrimages, sermons and nenbutsu dances, as well as the many miracles (in particular the apparitions of gods and bodhisattvas) punctuating their course; and the tenth scroll features the New Year's ceremony held by Taa in 1303, during which he identifies with Bodhisattva Kannon (Avalokiteśvara, related to Amida) and introduces himself as the co-founder of the Ji-shū school with Ippen.

[51][52] Testifying to a new Buddhist art under the Kamakura period, the work provides information on the architecture of many temples, and the religious practices of the time, in particular pilgrimages and nenbutsu, are well illustrated.

[55] An everyday art, Shōkai's original version of the emakimono also provides a detailed testimony to the daily life of medieval Japan, as well as to the landscapes of the time (notably offering one of the first pictorial views of Mount Fuji).

"The theme of this work combines the biography with a framework imbued with popular life and landscapes, and both aspects are rendered with the realism characteristic of the Kamakura period.