![]() Under that he has on an ebi dyed shita-gasane, which normally went under the formal cloak (hō) for a solemn court occasion. His dress cloak (nōshi) is of a cherry blossom (sakura) layering, suitable for a young man in spring. The translator Royall Tyler’s footnote to this passage intimates how much shared knowledge-not only aesthetic but political-was necessary to interpret the meaning of a courtier’s dress: ![]() Among the formal cloaks worn by everyone else, his costume displayed the extravagant elegance of a Prince, and his grand entry was a sensation. He wore a grape-colored train-robe under a cherry blossom dress cloak of sheer figured silk. What would later become a world-famous novel, The Tale of Genji, written by that same Murasaki Shikibu in fifty-four chapters and that her compatriots at court eagerly read, features repeated passages such as this: We also know that the dyes for fabric were extracted from vegetable matter with great effort and expense. Since writing was such a production, we can gather that the colors of the clothing men and women wore mattered immensely to members of this closed social circle. These women did not publish their writings in our sense they wrote with a brush and ink on paper, from which others copied by hand. 1 She took food for granted even while noting the tint of each hair ribbon. Instead, descriptions of what clothing the celebrants wore occupied a substantial proportion of her words. She did not mention the food itself, though, possibly because everyone who read her journal knew what would be offered on such an occasion. 973–ca.1014) recorded how food was served at celebrations when her employer became a grandfather (an important political event for Fujiwara no Michinaga, a powerful aristocrat whose grandson would eventually become emperor). The women who wrote about these colors were members of a tiny elite, perhaps 1 percent of the then-capital city of Kyoto’s population, whose interests did not extend to such mundane subjects as daily meals, or even feasts. This process constructed a Japanese sensibility involving colors, clothing, and cuisine that now appears in products of both high culture, such as banquet food, and low, including Hello Kitty garb. What follows is the story of how these colors came off the page, where they mostly described clothes, and into shops and restaurants everywhere. Would it surprise you to learn that the ultimate inspiration for this morsel was literature written largely by women a millennium ago? Readers of Japanese works from around the year 1000 in the Heian Period found appreciation there for many things, including a sense of color combinations that has attained special meaning in the culture. It imitates the shape of a camella blossom and (not shown here due to the black and white print of the journal) is rendered in delicate colors. Source: Photo courtesy of the author.įigure 1 shows one of the most delicious treats you can imagine, a Japanese sweet to accompany a bowl of whipped green tea. Re-envisioning Asia: Contestations and Struggles in the Visual Artsĭownload PDF Figure 1.Distinguished Service to the Association for Asian Studies Award.Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies Award.Striving for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Asian Studies: Humanities Grants for Asian Studies Scholars. ![]()
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