Sakai, when Mitsunori was in residence there, was a busy port city, one that often set the latest fashion trends. It has been suggested that Mitsunori used a magnifying glass to execute his work lenses had become quite popular in Japan soon after they were introduced from the West, in the mid-sixteenth century. He drew even the smallest objects in minute detail, rendering them barely visible to the naked eye. He embellished the garments of both male and female figures with minuscule designs, softening the effect of the stark, black elements against the spidery ink lines. Mitsunori-whose career took him from Sakai to Kyoto, the old capital city-may have been attempting to revive the classical hakubyō style in these album leaves, though his drawings are less dramatic than the Kamakura-period works. Set against the pale delicacy of the background and figures, these solid black shapes form abstract patterns of unexpected beauty. The effect of fragile delicacy is dramatically interrupted by isolated areas of heavy black ink, used for tall court hats or for the undulating cascades of jet black hair. The monochromatic presentation is highlighted by tiny, barely perceptible dots in red, on such details as lips or flames. Hakubyō is characterized by thread-thin, unmodulated ink lines that outline figures as well as architectural and landscape elements. From the second half of the thirteenth century, the technique was often chosen to illustrate romantic novels of the Late Heian period, such as the Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise) and the Genji monogatari. No Heian examples of hakubyō have survived the earliest extant works of this type date to the Kamakura period. When hakubyō was first developed, in the Late Heian period, it was admired for possessing a subtlety not possible in polychrome yamato-e. ![]() Both the Burke and the Freer albums are executed in the exquisite ink-painting style known as hakubyō (white drawing), which distinguishes it from the dynamic, Chinese-inspired ink brushwork that had flourished in Japan since the Muromachi period. Another set of Genji drawings by Mitsunori is in the collection of the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The compositions in the Burke albums are even smaller than Mitsuyoshi's, reflecting a trend among illustrators of courtly tales after the late Muromachi period. Mitsunori's fine, detailed drawing style clearly derives from the manner of Mitsuyoshi. It is likely that the same seal is impressed on the back of each leaf, as was the custom of the artist who was either Mitsunori's father or his teacher, Tosa Mitsuyoshi (cat. ![]() A large seal in black ink reading "Tosa Mitsunori" was recently exposed when a flap was cut in the backing paper of the last leaf. Moreover, because the images often deviate from the standard Genji formula, identification must often rely on minor motifs, such as flowers or birds that relate to a specific season or to an incident in the narrative. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that a recent remounting disturbed the original sequence in which the leaves were pasted into the albums. ![]() There is no text, and as the usual practice of representing each chapter with one illustration has been ignored in several instances, identification of individual scenes is sometimes problematic. Sixty leaves illustrating all fifty-four chapters of the Genji monogatari are evenly distributed between the albums. The five paintings shown here are selected from two small albums by Tosa Mitsunori (1583–1638) dating from the early seventeenth century. It became a source not only for poets but also for artists, who illustrated scenes from the story in many mediums-including books, handscrolls, and screens-from the twelfth century into modern times (cat. Written in the eleventh century by Murasaki Shikibu, an aristocratic lady of the late Heian court, the Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji) is considered one of the world's great literary works.
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