Cleveland Museum of Art

Autumn Excursion from Album of Illustrations for the Tale of Genji

Date

1600s

Medium

painting in an accordion-style album; ink, light color, and gold on paper

Culture

Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This album contains illustrations for the classic literary work the Tale of Genji, authored in the 1000s by Murasaki Shikibu, an aristocrat of the Heian period (794–1185) court. The scenes are painted in the “white drawing” ( hakubyō ) mode, in which a fine ink line is used to depict figures and spaces with great subtlety, punctuated only occasionally by traces of red pigment for a character’s lips, a detail of a garment, or a decorative element. These two scenes illustrate episodes from the chapters “Thin Veil of Cloud” (Usugumo) and “Barrier Gate” (Sekiya). The illustrations are identified by chapter title in cartouches to the upper right of the paintings.

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.