著者

秋山 光和

雑誌

美術研究 = The bijutsu kenkiu : the journal of art studies

巻号頁・発行日

no.227, pp.1-18, 1964-03-09

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Genji Monogatari (Tale of Genji) written by a court lady, Murasaki Shikibu, at the beginning of the eleventh century has been a source of imagination for literature, theatrical art and fine art through the ages. Especially in the field of painting, pictures which illustrated interesting scenes of the tale were called "genji-e" and have been a popular subject until this modern age. Among existing examples, the beautifully coloured picture scroll made in the early twelfth century (owned by the Reimeikai Foundation and Gotō Museum) is the oldest, and the next is the Hakubyō-e-iri Genji Monogatari (Tale of Genji with Black and White Illustrations) introduced in this volume. For this medieval manuscript, we have at present the large part of the text of 'Ukifune', the 51 st of the 54 chapters (with 6 illustrations, 5 scenes) and a few detached pieces of the text of 'Kagerō', the next chapter, both being important chapters of the final portions of the story. 60 pages of the latter half of Ukifune retains its original bound book from and this is preserved in the Museum Yamato Bunka-kan. In this binding sheets of paper were pasted together for text and illustration pages. The reverse side of every painted page is blank. The size of the book measured to the purple cover is 23.7 by 18.9 cm. But because of the use of thread for rebinding in a later period, the text and illustration pages are now 18.6 cm. in width. On the other hand the copy preserved by the Reimeikai Foundation (Tokugawa Museum) were broken up and the separate pieces of paper were split into two sheets, that is to say, into a front and a back by a special technique applicable to Chinese and Japanese paper, and were laid out decoratively on a pair of gold-ground screens. It consists of 23 pieces of text of the first half on the chapter of Ukifune (of which three intervening parts are missing), 4 illustrations (3 scenes) from the same chapter and 7 text fragments from the chapter of Kagerō. The illustrations of 5 scenes we have in both the Reimeikai Foundation Text and Yamato Bunka-kan Text are given bellow. The maintheme of this portion of the story deals with the love struggle to win the hand of beautiful Ukifune after the death of Hikaru Genji, between the two court nobles, that is Genji's son, Kaoru, and his grandson, Niō-no-miya. (1) Niō-no-miya, who had anticipated that Kaoru had hidden Ukifune in a mansion along the side of the Uji River in the outskirt of Kyoto, calls on Ukifune guided by his subject, Tokikata, under the shield of night. The illustration depicts Tokikata and the horse, both waiting for their master who had sneaked into Ukifune's house. The stylized expression on the face of Tokikata and the accentuated strokes seen in the vivid rendering of the horse and groom make an interesting contrast, providing an important characteristic of the picture. (2) Illustration B and C, which are now separately pasted on the right and left screens, are thought to have formed originally one composition covering two pages. Inside the house of Ukifune on this wintry night, ladies-in-waiting are occupied in chit-chat as they sew, and the hostess reclines on her bed. The one who peeps in on this scene from the veranda in the lower right of the illustration is Niō-no-miya, who later crawls in by taking advantage of the pitch darkness and thereby reaches the bed by imitating the voice of Kaoru. In this illustration the traditional method of oblique bird's-eye view is adopted and the figures are proportionally large. It is a compositionally well constructed scene. (3) The whimsical Niō-no-miya on his return to his residence in Kyoto, tries to allay the dissutisfaction of Naka-no-kimi, his wife, by embracing her in the bedchamber. Though this illustration has been hardly damaged and the ink tones are now faint, by means of infra-red photography we are able to make the pattern clearer. (4) This is the scene of the day following Niō-no-miya's later visit to Uji, when he forced Ukifune to board a boat and took her to the house of his acquaintance on the other side of the river where they stayed overnight. Looking at the snow-covered mountains in the distance,SCIO. the deep hue beautiful in the evening glow, the two, each in his or her own heart, contemplate the composing of poems. The landscape viewed from the villa garden across the Uji River creates a perfect harmony with the silouhette of the spell-bound lovers near the veranda. The text explanation for this scene, which is the first part of the Yamato Bunka-kan Text, is inscribed in an decorative oblique arrangement of letters. (Pl. VIII-a) (5) Lovely Ukifune who has received a letter from Kaoru suspecting her change of heart, is bewildered by the attentions of the two suitors, and has difficulty in replying. This piece is done in clear-cut lines and the composition is hard and stiff. It is supposed that originally several other illustrations now missing were inserted in this Ukifune chapter. In reference to Genji Monogatari Ekotoba, a directory of the sixteenth century which contains suggestions for visualization of the scenes customarily selected from each chapter of the Genji Monogatari, one can reconstruct roughly the lost pictures. From the viewpoint of the history of painting, this black and white illustration is of the most excellent artististic quality. Some classi· cistic features seen is its methods of composition may have been taken from older works. However, the brush lines have a delicate accent at their starting point, and this creates a pleasing rhythm together with the movement of the lacquer-black hair of the ladies. Being different from the richness and elegance of the twelfth century Painting Scroll of the Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari Emaki), it has an intellectual and a more or less detached feeling which is often seen in court art of the end of the thirteenth century. The calligraphic styles of the text are characteristic of this period in which the tradition of the Heian Culture tended to become degenerate as time passed. The calligraphic styles of Ukifune and Kagerō, while being very much alike do show a difference, the latter being the work of another hand which is believed to copy the style of the former.