Background
One of the playful themes in Edo fiction and printmaking were "analogue pictures" (mitate-e 見立絵) about the life of Genji (源氏), taking the form of updated tales for contemporary audiences. One very popular example was Nise murasaki inaka Genji (Impostor Murasaki and Rustic Genji 偽紫田舎源氏), the most successful novel by the samurai-born Ryûtei Tanehiko 柳亭種彦 (1783-1842). Issued serially starting in 1829 (with 2 chapters annually in 1830-32 and 3 per year in 1833-42). it was the first book to sell over 10,000 copies in Japan. The classical tale was reworked into a modernized Genji spoof in the floating-world pleasure quarters in which the hero (renamed Mitsuuji) searches for a family heirloom sword by pretending to be a tsujin (connoisseur 通人). The underlying story for all the Genji portrayals in ukiyo-e was the Genji monogatari (Tale of Genji 源氏物語), Japan’s first great novel and arguably its greatest literary work, written in the early eleventh century by Murasaki Shikibu (紫式部). It consists of 54 extant chapters involving a wide range of characters centered around the prince Hikaru Genji (Radiant Genji). The subject was very popular with artists of the Utagawa school. Kunisada himself designed many prints about the "Shining Prince,", including numerous triptychs, one of which we offer here.
Design
The Genji-mon (crests 源氏紋) on the robe of the mature woman on the right sheet and the young beauty (bijin 美人) on the left sheet corresponds to Chapter 10 (Sakaki, sacred tree or sacred evergreen 賢木). In that chapter, Genji offers a sakaki branch to his former lover Lady Rokujô. He wishes to make amends for neglecting her and to pacify her vengeful wandering spirit, which he suspects caused the death of his wife, Aoi (Heartvine 葵). Genji pushes the branch under the blinds hiding Rokujô, saying "With heart unchanging as this evergreen / This sacred tree, I enter the sacred gate." Rokujô, however, does not encourage further familiarity.*
How Kunisada's triptych relates specifically to this chapter is not clear. Indeed, when print designs do not explicitly depict scenes from the novel, what we are left with are oblique allusions to the Genji romance in ukiyo-e.
Our impression of Kunisada's charming triptych, which is not often found for acquisition, is in very good condition.
References
- See our Kunisada I Biography.
- Also see https://viewingjapaneseprints.net/texts/ukiyoe/kunisada.html.
- A web page illustrating all 36 designs from the series can be found at http://www.kunisada.de/Kunisada-series60ths/series105/series105-1.htm
- * Miyeko Murase: Iconography of the Tale of Genji. New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1983, pp. 88-89.
There are many publications on the works of Kunisada. A good introduction in English is by Sebastian Izzard (with essays by J. Thomas Rimer and John Carpenter): Kunisada's World. New York: Japan Society in collaboration with Ukiyo-e Society of America, 1993.
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