Fifty-Four Scenes from The Tale of Genji

Fifty-Four Scenes from The Tale of Genji

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The eleventh-century literary masterpiece The Tale of Genji is set almost entirely in the capital city of Kyoto and its environs. Here, scenes from all fifty-four chapters appear in sequence across two screens—from right to left and top to bottom—in a composition that transcends shifts in time, season, and setting. The convention of “blown-off roofs” (fukinuki yatai) permits views into interiors, most of them aristocratic mansions. Famous sites such as the iconic bridge over the Uji River (at top left of the left-hand screen), south of Kyoto, are easily recognizable. Viewers familiar with the narrative can enjoy the challenge of identifying characters, episodes, and plot points. The screens were evidently created by a Kano-school painter and at least one assistant; miniature screens seen within the interiors, mostly ink landscapes, betray a hand from around the time of Kano Yasunobu (1613–1685).

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Fifty-Four Scenes from The Tale of GenjiFifty-Four Scenes from The Tale of GenjiFifty-Four Scenes from The Tale of GenjiFifty-Four Scenes from The Tale of GenjiFifty-Four Scenes from The Tale of Genji

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.