
For my show and tell assignment, I decided to create an art piece from the week’s readings. This is my depiction of how the story of Aoi and Lady Rokujō’s Spirit in the Tale of Genji looks like in my head. I incorporated clouds like how most traditional Japanese art pieces look of the Tale of Genji, where they would separate scenes or stories with the clouds. I chose to separate the three different figures from this story: Aoi, Genji, and Lady Rokujō’s spirit. The spirit is in the top left of my drawing, Genji is looking in through the curtain at the bottom, and Aoi (as i interpreted) is being possessed by the spirit. In this story, there are themes of jealousy and its destructive power, as a lover of Genji becomes so in love with him, that it manifested into a spirit full of wrath. The chapter introduces Lady Rokujō, Genji’s mistress, who becomes increasingly jealous of his wife Aoi, particularly after discovering that she is pregnant with Genji’s child. Lady Rokujō’s jealousy turns into an obsession, and she begins to experience supernatural phenomena, such as strange illnesses and ghostly apparitions. Lady Rokujō’s was jealous and becomes fixated on Aoi and sees her as a rival for Genji’s love and attention. The ‘supernatural’ events that occur throughout the chapter serve to heighten the drama and create an eerie and unsettling atmosphere, which i wanted to portray in this drawing. I chose to draw the clouds, referencing the japanese art style of clouds, or ‘Kumo’. The Japanese were influenced by China and their way of portraying the color and shape of the clouds. In ancient China, it was believed that clouds correlated with gods or spirits and a source of all universal things. Japan started to create various designs of clouds, which was directed by how the Chinese drew them. Clouds affect weather with movement, so I wanted to show this type of particular movement, like in traditional japanese art pieces. I reflected the japanese “yamato-e” style, like used in the Take of Genji, with outlines and think opaque colors: the pink (which is a shade of red that represents luck, like clouds). I have detailed line work with this drawing, like during the Heian period and used the clouds as a transition for the different characters I drew; the clouds I lined in yellow, as most japanese art pieces have clouds painted in a shade of yellow. I wanted to emphasize my art piece with bright color choices and having the spirit and Aoi with a shade of purple to draw the viewers attention to them, as they are the overall feature of the story, along with the white line work, truly representing the depiction of the spirit and possession.
Helen Craig McCullough, translator. Genji & Heike: Selections from The Tale of Genji and The Tale of Heike, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.
For the design of the I referenced these art pieces: Heartvine ‘Aoi’ and The Tale of Genji and Murasaki Shikibu .
Anon, Kumo (Clouds) Project Japan 2014, https://project-japan.jp/kumo-clouds/
Jaanus yamato-e やまと絵, www.aisf.or.jp, https://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/y/yamatoe.htm