Genji-e (Genji pictures)

The oldest surviving Genji pictures are the national-treasure Tale of Genji Scrolls of the 12th century, divided today between the Tokugawa Art Museum and the Gotoh Museum. Scenes were chosen from each chapter, and passages of the text (kotobagaki) alternate with the pictures. Faces are drawn in the hikime kagibana manner, eyes a single fine line and the nose a small hook, and buildings in fukinuki yatai, “blown-off roof,” showing rooms from above at a slant with roof and ceiling removed. Later, Genji scenes became subjects for square album leaves, fans, folding screens, and sliding doors, and the choice of scenes and their compositions gradually settled into set types. In the Edo period illustrated printed editions appeared, and Genji became a subject of ukiyo-e. When Utagawa Kunisada illustrated Ryūtei Tanehiko's parody Nise Murasaki Inaka Genji, prints based on it were also called Genji-e, and they became hugely popular in the last years of the shogunate.

In a scroll scene, notice that the roof and ceiling are missing. In a room seen from above at a slant, which way does each figure face, and where do the curtains of state stand between them?

What is happening in the story just before and just after this scene?

• Ukiyo-e 浮世絵→Prints based on Inaka Genji were also called Genji-e.