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context: painting > early painting > court painting
Genji scrolls
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Ladies of the Court from a 12th Century Tale of Genji handscroll |
There is nothing more central to the Heian period than The Tale of Genji, one of the first novels in Japan, and still revered. It was the subject of many handscrolls, possibly the first secular story to be so treated. We see a few new artistic things in the rather worn image on show here, from the 12th Century.
Firstly, we see an early case of fukinuki yatai, the 'blown-away roof' device - there are countless works ever after shown from this kind of angle, with missing roof and sometimes walls too.
It's also an early instance of an approach to faces known as hikime kagihana, 'line-eye hook-nose', where there is no attempt to individuate faces. The pictures would be viewed in conjunction with the text, so clothes and actions would make it completely clear who was who in the pictures. It was a time of great subtlety and complexity in dress and manner, and there are strong signs of these things being the subject of the pictures far more than the faces, which would be controlled to show little sign of feeling.