Minneapolis Institute of Art

Red and White Tale of Genji, vol. 4: Festival of the Cherry Blossoms

Okumura Masanobu

Date: 1709
Medium: Woodblock printed book, ink on paper
Department: Asian Art
Institution: Minneapolis Institute of Art

By the early 1700s, when this printed version of The Tale of Genji was published, very few people could understand the complex written language in which the original tale had been written 700 years earlier. For this illustrated and modernized version of the tale, Okumura Masanobu wrote in a manner that reflected Japanese as it was spoken in the early 1700s. The text was rendered freely, placing emphasis on conveying the meaning rather than offering a verbatim presentation of the original tale. Asia

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