"Kogō" and "The Imperial Procession to Ōhara", from The Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

These screens depict two iconic scenes from The Tale of the Heike, a fourteenth-century account of late twelfth-century clashes between the rival Taira and Minamoto clans. The right screen represents the story’s “Kogō” chapter, which centers on Lady Kogō, a renowned beauty and accomplished koto player who finds herself banished after being caught in a love triangle involving Emperor Takakura and the leader of the Taira clan. Here, Minamoto no Nakakuni—the repeated figure wearing a red robe—searches for Lady Kogō on a moonlit night at the behest of the emperor. Following the sound of her koto, a type of zither, he tracks her to a dwellingin the Saga Plain of western Kyoto, pictured at far right. The left screen depicts the elaborate procession of Emperor Go-Shirakawa to Ōhara, in the hills north of Kyoto, in order to visit the former empress Kenreimon’in. Now living in a convent, Kenreimon’in is shown in the third panel from the left, seated on a veranda wearing a white robe.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art